How do you feel about two-tier justice?

Question

With the justice system allowing Mark Bell to serve his sentence after the hockey season is over, do you think this is fair?
To a lesser extent, Rick Tocchet got 2 years probabtion while his co-defendant got 5 years and the other co-defendant is yet to be sentenced. (Not sure if maybe the co-defendant faced more charges though) If it was the same charges, it seems to be quite a wide margin in the sentences although I did hear that it was because he was a cop and therefore abused his authority.
Nonetheless, I am more interested in your thoughts on the Mark Bell issue. I recently heard a debate on this and I have my own opinion on whether or not it is fair that he can serve his 6 months at his convenience but I want your take.

Answer 1

Actually in the case of Mark Bell, it isn't really a 2 tier system. People convicted of a crime that is not considered serious can usually negotiate to have their sentence delayed temporarily if they can prove it will have long term detrimental effects on their career if they can also prove they are not a risk to the general public in the meantime and also that they not a risk to repeat the offence during this period.
I'm more interested in the immigration issues, but that's not your question.

I'm sure we all know somebody who was allowed to serve time for a minor offence on weekends. This is similar.

Answer 2

I agree with CME, and was comming to post some of the same points. Then saw them in his post.

Mark Bell is a guy that made some bad choices. It does no good to kill his carear in a $2,000,000 job and leave him comming out lucky if he could get a $20,000 a year job. SOME of you may call it 2 tier, but reality is that could be a million dollars in various taxes the courts would be penalizing governments. Then we are all suffering. I do know that people work 5 days a week and head to the jailhouse friday night for weekend lock up. And unless they pull a Paris Hilton, what is wrong with that? Convenience? If someone else is convicted of the same crime and is unemployed, I'd say sending them straight to prison now is a convenient time for them to go, as a year from now they might be onto making their millions. What I read, if Mark wasn't now in Toronto, he would have had even more conveinient type programs he could have accessed.

As for Tocchet, I always thought they were getting the shaft. The cops would call a press conference and protect details about "one of their own" just like cops always do, and talk all about this nasty guy Tocchet who likes to place bets on football. I always felt the cop was more involved than the others, AND is at a higher standard being a cop. Just look at the possible consequences with the ref situations. A ref gets into gambling debts, ends up paying them off working favours with the mob. So now change that to a cop - ends up owing the mob, the favours he owes aint just going to be fixing games....

Answer 3

Well no one can tell if it was because hes famous and stuff, but you can think of it this way, people work seasonal jobs right? people sometimes only work for like 6 months at a time.. which is like mark bell, it might be different if someone works an all year job and then they have to go sometime right? so wether it be that hes famous so they want him to finish his season or that they were just being fair to the fact that hes gotta make money and it will only be six months hes still going but i completly see your point, they also lowered the charges, from "Intoxicated Driving Hit and Run" To something lower, that part could just be cause hes famous lol but i think that either way hes gunna learn his lesson, its a sad thing when this happens, at least no one died.. and at least all his teammates are still alive (yes im stabbing at dany heatly :]) but its a great debate.

Answer 4

It's not exactly a "two-tier" justice system in his case. From what I can gather, he plead guilty in exchange to serve his 6 months after this season. I'm pretty sure his lawyer even tried to get that sentence reduced some more, as well. The system does deals like this all the time to keep it unclogged. If everybody went through due process, then his trial would've been five years from now and there goes the whole "speedy trial" portion of a democratic society.

Answer 5

At, first I was going to say; Ah, it's no big deal. He will still be serving time and that's what counts.

However, the more I thought about it, the more unfair it seems. Your average Joe on the street would have to serve his time when established by the courts. We know there's a double standard for people in the public eye. If he were an accountant I don't think they'd suspend his sentence until after April 08', if he were a doctor they wouldn't let him preform just one more surgery, if he were some dude whose wife was having a baby in two months, they wouldn't let him wait until the baby was born.

Answer 6

The justice system didn't stop to ask me when it would be convenient to pay my fines, to stay in jail, or to have my driving privileges revoked back in 1996.

Whether Mark Bell is a professional player or not, a member of the Leafs or not, he is a citizen that has to pay the consequences of breaking the law where ever he did it.

It's obvious to me that folks with money can influence - to some degree - the outcome of the penalty phase.

Answer 7

Bell should be in jail for robbery after making that much $$$ with such little production.

Interesting that he and Tocchett don't face quite the same punishment as does Michael Vick...now if Bell would have run over a dog before he hit that telephone pole...

Answer 8

He surely have been given off alot extra convenient than the cop (5 years) yet i don't understand in the event that they have been up on the the superb option comparable expenses and that i understand the decide referred to the police officer's abuse of means in his sentencing. As for Bell, my question replaced into form of a trick question with the aid of fact IMO, Bell wasn't fairly 2-tier with the aid of fact I liken it to somebody doing week-ends to maintain their employment. needless to say, week-ends at the instant are not an determination for Bell. I additionally think of the stronger objective for the justice device is rehabilitation and in case you get rid of somebody's livlihood, you run the possibility of turning them right into a worse criminal rather of them serving their punishment with an excellent gamble to grow to be a extra effective member of society. i'm not too specific if Tocchet's punishment extra healthful the crime, i could could desire to work out what others below the comparable expenses have been sentenced to, earlier i could pass judgement.

Answer 9

I think it would be a much greater public service to make him serve the sentence during the season. That would be a public statement that the authorities were serious about enforcing the laws.

Answer 10

I'm a Leafs fan and I'm still going to have to say this isn't fair. All sports want to make a hardline on gambling and that's understandable, but morally I think most people would agree that driving and drinking is far worse. Have him serve his sentence now or he really didn't learn from his mistake.