Wide variations in sentencing for crimes in the U.S....

[man with no head]

Teacher gets 200 years with no possibility of probation or parole for having 20 images of child porn on his computer:

If the 52-year-old had been tried in a federal court or lived elsewhere he would have received a lighter sentence.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US 200-year porn sentence stands

Sgt. Paul E. Cortez gets 100 years with the possibility of parole in 10 years for a rape and murder spree in Iraq:

Cortez, of Barstow, California, pleaded guilty this week to four counts of felony murder, rape and conspiracy to rape in a case considered among the worst atrocities by U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

U.S. soldier gets 100 years for Iraq rape, killings - CNN.com

Question is: would the good Sgt. have gotten a harsher sentence if the child was an American child and it happened in the U.S.? If the teacher were a soldier in Iraq and was caught with the same 20 images would he have gotten a lighter sentence?

The fact that two Americans committed crimes of different proportions and received completely backwards sentences highlights what is wrong with the overall system of justice in the U.S.

[stroller]

Isn't there a huge difference between the different state laws, federal jurisdiction and military tribunals?

[man with no head]

One would expect in a federal system that state violations would carry a lower penalty than federal violations for the same crime (especially since enforcement of violations of child porn is generally a federal offense). The argument for the teacher is that if he were convicted in a federal court or other state court the sentence would have not been so severe.

Violent crimes ought to be punished most severely regardless of which body of justice has jurisdiction.

[stroller]

I would have thought crimes with a level of seriousness which carries a life sentence and more would be dealt with by federal courts - apparently not. Seems the states have a high degree of independence in this respect.

[blackgang]

Yes, they do, and thats the way that the constitution is set up and states are supposed to do their thing and the govt is supposed to leave em alone, but with the govt getting bigger they do take a lot of libertys that the shouldn't.

[Boon Mee]

Yep...and Clinton got off scot-free after being convicted of lying to Congress etc...

[stroller]

And Jane Fonda was never tried for treason...

[blackgang]

Nor was John Kerry ever brought up on treason either..

[stroller]

Rummy hasn't been tried for warcrimes..., either.

[man with no head]

The variations in laws in this nation are why these problems exist. It is a hopeless hodgepodge of local, state, and national laws to contend with and it's no wonder we have so many lawyers per capita.

Murder, by definition, is a state crime unless certain conditions are met (crossing state lines, kidnapping, committing a crime against a Federal agent, etc).

It would seem unconstitutional, to me, that a state penalty for a crime would be more severe than the Federal penalty for the same crime.

I think all felonies should be considered Federal crimes while misdemeanors should be left for the states to decide. Good luck being a foreign tourist (or even out of state) and going into a state and trying to understand the nightmare of traffic laws, for example.

I just shake my head in disbelief that the perp of a violent crime receives less of a penalty than the perp of a moral crime.