Yeah so.. this isn't a hoax. Someone is actually going to serve 18 months for peeing on a building. And I posted this because, well, no pun intended, but I'm kinda pissed.
There is not an ounce of morality in sentencing someone to over a year in prison for a 20 second urination. I don't care if you pee on Hillary Clinton. This is just downright corrupt. And I'm aware that harsh sentences happen daily, but this one was hard to believe.
I'm usually the diehard patriotic, but this is just downright pathetic.
After looking a bit more into it, it's quite a ridiculous sentence to me as well. Even if this was a historical landmark that signifies soldiers' sacrifices, the boy was caught rather quickly, and the urination could be cleaned up without causing erosion. There are people who have done much more heinous crimes and got lesser sentencing, and comparing the two just isn't right.
A criminal mischief charge (depends on the damage assessment, not sure how the law folks do it) usually gets the same sentence, there's nothing special about it. Seems a standard criminal mischief case, until it just so happens that it was a historical monument, so it blew up disproportionately in the news.
Criminal mischief is defined as a crime committed when the defendant knowingly, willfully, and maliciously causes damage to any property belonging to someone else. (Generally). Just wondering if one can judge him to have willfully done it, being ''tipsy'' at the time.
I found a site on Texan law regarding criminal mischief, should be useful.
Didnt ozzy osbourne pee on the Alamo about 30 years ago? some sites say thats an urban legend while others are more convinced that it really did happen.
Legally, he can only be sentenced to a maximum of one year in prison. However, we are talking about Texas, a state that has executed 512 people in 40 years.
The sentence in bold is your circumstantial ad hominem fallacy, where this has insignificant bearing on our current topic. The rest of your post was great, but this part here made me cough.
Only because they deserved it. In my opinion, murder should always be met with the death sentence. It would be even better if the killer was executed the same way they killed their victims. But that's beside the point.
We can open another thread for this (or revive the death penalty thread) and when that happens, you get to answer the question "how do you know all indictments were legitimate and conclusive?" But not here though, that would bend this thread into another tangent.
Had this happened elsewhere, the normal punishment for two Class C offenses would have been invoked. Texas bumped one of them up to a Class A and added another six months. The high number of executions in comparison to other states helps explain why the man got such a grim sentence: don't mess with Texas.
I don't think that's for us to generalize or assume.
For the record, the limestone is 250 years old and can be easily damaged. Urine doesn't just evaporate off surfaces. With all due respect, why the heck did you decide to do that?
Oh, don't get me wrong. I think it's extremely disrespectful to do anything like that, regardless of the building's age. We were young, stupid and drunk. I think the seriousness of security is what pushed us to be jerks. Sergeant Walker wasn't very happy with us. He was on horseback, too.
No it isn't. Whilst Texas might be one of the undeniable champions of executions in the US, and has one of the highest incarceration rates, it does not mean that by virtue of the fact that the act of mischief was committed in Texas, would his punishment be ''bumped'' up. I have a problem with sentences of absolutes; There are so many factors to consider, that generalizing does not do it justice. For one, we would not know whether that particular judge in a particular non-Texan state would actually not consider his act worthy of a more serious punishment.
Furthermore, since the punishments for cases of criminal mischief stem largely from damage assessment, I do not think that there will be a way for a Texan judge to bend the rules and issue a harsher sentence.
I guess that sentence does seem a bit harsh. However, he should have some sort of sentence and/or fine, as that was just plain disrespectful. It's a national historical site, and it and the men who died there should be given the highest form of respect. It also just plain stupid.
Phew....rant for the day over. Let's hope I don't catch flak for this. Hardly ever post in WEPR.
The battle was part of the Texas Revolution, a war between the Mexican government and Texian colonists. This basically explains why they fought and died.
