This happens quite a bit with underage drinking. Cop catches some kids who are not quite 21 with beer and instead of fining every kid up to $1,000 and suspending their license (which is now on their record), he makes them ditch the beer and move on. Rethinking the law means we’d decide it’s ok for all teens to drink. Sometimes the laws are solid, but there are shades of gray in terms of how to apply them.
> Cop catches some kids who are not quite 21 with beer and instead of fining every kid up to $1,000 and suspending their license (which is now on their record), he makes them ditch the beer and move on.
...unless they're black?
There's no reason to give cops this discretion, it just leads to unfair policing practices. Better to have police enforce all laws and think hard about what we want those laws to be.
Discretion can certainly be abused, but systems of rigid rules can only realistically approximate justice. Human discretion will always be important to avoid injustice.
I agree, but I'd rather see this discretion at the judicial level where there is a framework under which it operates and judges with presumably more moral, legal, and ethical training.
If a prosecution is legally justified, a court can’t do anything about it. At best, you could hope for jury nullification (but the rules of evidence might keep the jury from ever learning the morally-exculpatory evidence), or failing that, lenient sentencing.
This is what I was alluding to. Historically judges have had a lot of leeway when it comes to sentencing, and, having heard all the details of the case, they are in the best position to decide the defendant's fate. (For what it's worth, I disagree with mandatory minimum sentencing laws.)
I’d much rather a police officer be able to make the call to not pursue something than regularly have people stand trial for trifles. If you don’t give the discretion to cops or prosecutors, that is the alternative.
If they did, it would lead to the political will to change the law. Because they don't, we are stuck with the non-uniform application of the law which causes tension in communities. Justice is not dispensed by police, it is frankly not their job. Pointing out that we'd have a lot more people getting ticketed just shows how broken the system actually is in its current form.
> Cop catches some kids who are not quite 21 with beer and instead of fining every kid up to $1,000 and suspending their license (which is now on their record), he makes them ditch the beer and move on. Rethinking the law means we’d decide it’s ok for all teens to drink.
Doesn't overlooking the beer also mean we've decided it's ok for teens to drink? What is the difference you see?
I'm quite sympathetic to your argument, although having been a teenager (age 19) that got caught with beer and had a cop let me off (he could clearly see that we were trying to be responsible, and were not causing trouble) I think there is value in not being a total hard ass while still not blanket condoning stuff. That said, in this case I absolutely agree that alcohol should not be restricted to anybody 18 and over. If we have a point where you are "an adult" then you should be a free person at that point.
So it really comes down to philosophically purity vs. pragmatism. I'm naturally drawn toward the former, but as I've gotten older I see more value in the latter, even tho intellectual it bothers me.
I think the difference is in assessing a situation - is it always ok for all teens to drink? Or is it more about assessing whether to sometimes scare them a little by giving them a talking to and reminding them it’s not legal - and other times (if they endanger lives or get caught multiple times) enforcing the penalties as appropriate. Much like speeding or running a stop sign - sometime just getting pulled over is enough to remind you to slow down.
If they endanger lives, etc, we already have laws against that. If people regularly speed on a road the local government should consider raising the limit or installing speed bumps. If we have a problem with a law we should fix it rather than avoid enforcement.
