DES MOINES – The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that judges cannot impose stiffer sentences on defendants for invoking the constitutional right against self- incrimination.
According to the ruling in a marijuana case where a man appealed his sentence, the court concluded that when a district court asks the defendant a question at sentencing and then imposes an adverse sentencing consequence unrelated to any legitimate penological purpose of the inquiry because the defendant invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, the defendant has been improperly penalized.
The defendant in the marijuana case will be re-sentenced.
@Carl Grover-sorry about the typo on your name. I really need to start reading my post before posting. As a after thought. I think the supreme court made the right decision. If the courts were allowed to take it into consideration that they didn’t squeal that liberal idiot at the I.R.S. would be in jail where she belongs right now. Can’t have that can we as Obama would have been right there with her.
Flip flop, your brain is shot!
This also happens when there is a referral made to juvenile court services. My son was caught with a tenth of a gram pot at age 16. The jco, Scott Jensen (Floyd County) said he had to sign a confession otherwise it would be transferred to adult court. He had to do a probation. Scott Jensen asked him where he got the pot, and he wouldn’t tell him, he said, “because you won’t tell me where you got it, I am putting you on house arrest” which continued for the next six months until they ended up transferring it to adult court anyway. Since there was a signed confession, he had to plea guilty. I was present as parent when this took place.
@juvenile-Your son broke the law and you want to blame the judge. What is wrong with you. If you were a better parent maybe he wouldn’t have had the pot and then he wouldn’t have gotten in trouble with the law. You [people make me sick. You want to blame the law when you are the problem.
The supreme court ruled the judge unconstitutional short bus. Beep Beep, here comes the short bus!
LVS,You can’t always blame bad parenting for the trouble children get in to. It simply isn’t always the case. The Iowa Supreme Court made a good ruling here. We should not be punished for using our right to remain silent. There have been too many cases such as ‘juvenile’ spoke of when police officers and even judges become too heavy handed in coercing someone facing a minor offense in to a much more dangerous aspect of a deeper investigation. And the truth is, sometimes the law IS wrong.
@Cral Grover-did you even read my post before you decided to make your comment. Juvenile was complaining about the judge because her brat got caught with drugs. That makes her the problem not the kid. Most parents would be mad at the kid but not her. She is making excuses for her kid breaking the law. It has nothing to do with other parents as they don’t want their kids breaking the law ‘even though some do” they don’t enable them. Permissive parenting is most of what is wrong with society today. Now, you whiners go ahead and get started but you can’t change the truth. If you stayed at home once in awhile and didn’t expect the schools to raise your kids they would be better and so would society.
LVS, peer pressure is stronger than parental guidance way too often during the teens. I remember being a teenager way too well. My parents were squares. I NEVER used drugs or even drank until I was 20, but my parents were way too controlling and they are lucky I didn’t go off the reservation completely due to that.
If my child got caught with pot, I would make him tell me and the attorney where he bought it. If he bought it from some dangerous drug dealer, I’m not sure I would want him snitching in court. I would be afraid for his life and my family’s safety. If he was just protecting a friend or a low-level dealer, different situation. Somehow they need to make these minors who snitch on dangerous dealers anonymous to protect them. Once they have enough evidence to arrest the dealers and put them away, then their testimony can come out. It just isn’t safe to snitch publicly on some of these people and then have the cops come right down on them and they get out on bail.
THIS CAME ABOUT because one of our local judges insisting on doing just that! He’d ask these kids how much pot they used and where they got it like some perverted nutcase. When one young man plead the 5th our local judge then proceeded to pull the crap that led to this decision. This judge is a real creep.
That judge retired and is not on the bench. The Supreme Court overruled the sentence and sent the case back to district court for re-sentencing.
@fascists-It was probably you that was the perverted nutcase that was in court. You bring this kind of stuff on yourself. Why don’t you try obeying the law instead of being a drug using nutcase that cost the rest of us taxpayers a lot of money because you think you are above the law. I hope they throw you so far back in the worse jail they can find and have to feed you with a slingshot.