1. "The claim and exercise of a constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime. Miller v. U.S. 230 F 486 at 489"

2. "Where rights as secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which will abrogate them. Miranda v. Ariz., 384 U.S. 436 at 491 (1966)."

3. "Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection and justifies no acts performed under it. No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. 16 Am Jur 2nd Section 177

4. "All laws, rules and practices which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void. Marbury v. Madiso

5. "The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution." Reid v Covert 354 US l (1957)

6 "The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it... No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it." - Sixteenth American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Section 256

7. "When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all." - Justice William O. Douglas

Favorite Quotes We The People Coalition

As Chief Justice John Marshall explained in Marbury v. Madison (1803),

'all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.'

Also see....

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Now, back to topic.......

I did not read the entire thread, so I apologize if this was already posted.


2006 U.S. prison study by the bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, reports than on any given day more than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and that over the course of a year, 13.5 million spend time in prison or jail. African Americans are imprisoned at a rate roughly seven times higher than whites, and Hispanics at a rate three times higher than whites. Within three years of their release, 67% of former prisoners are rearrested and 52% are re-incarcerated, a recidivism rate that calls into question the effectiveness of America's corrections system, which costs taxpayers $60 billion a year. Violence, overcrowding, poor medical and mental health care, and numerous other failings plague America's 5,000 prisons and jails. The study indicates that even small improvements in medical care could significantly reduce recidivism. “What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons,” the commission concludes, since 95% of inmates are eventually released back into society, ill-equipped to lead productive lives. Given the dramatic rise in incarceration over the past decade, public safety is threatened unless the corrections system does in fact “correct” rather than simply punish. For a copy of the complete report and the commission's recommendations for reform, see Commission on Safety and Abuse | Report and Recommendations.

U.S. Prisons Overcrowded and Violent, Recidivism High — Infoplease.com

Prisons do make criminals. There are numerous factors involved. Treating a human being like an animal often times will make a person bitter and hardened. After release, it is very difficult for most convicts to get a decent job, so what exactly are their options? The system gives little to no help to get convicts back on their feet, so their return to crime is fairly likely.

From WIKI.......

A 2002 study survey showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners released in 1994, 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years, and 51.8% were back in prison.[32] However, the study found no evidence that spending more time in prison raises the recidivism rate, and found that those serving the longest time, 61 months or more, had a significantly lower re-arrest rate (54.2%) than every other category of prisoner. This is most likely explained by the older average age of those released with the longest sentences, and the study shows a strong negative correlation between recidivism and age upon release.

Incarceration in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The scam people like to call the "War on Drugs" has done more harm to this country than any foreign enemy has ever done since WWII.

The alleged war on drugs has done more to trample individual liberty than any other policy in the history of the US. The war on drugs has caused more pain and suffering than all the illegal drugs combined could ever cause by themselves.

Alcohol causes more pain and suffering than all illegal drugs combined, yet it is legal. When will the American sheeple wake up and smell the hypocrisy?

Currently, considering local jails as well, almost one million of those incarcerated are in prison for non-violent crime.-WIKI

I have talked with many police officers and the seasoned veterans almost all agree......... the war on drugs is a total failure. It has caused more problems than the drugs themselves could ever cause.

Yet the American people can only say one thing about the war on drugs.............

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

The war on drugs is the single largest reason for the increase in our prison population. The 2nd largest reason is our immigration policies.

If you fixed both these problems, the US would be on the right track. Of course, our government doesn't want to be on the right track. They want to control the US population and using evil drugs is a great excuse to pass legislation which chips away at individual liberty and allows the government MORE CONTROL.

It's not always about money, like many people think. It is sometimes about CONTROL.

I challenge anyone to research no-knock drug raids and the many innocent people who have been killed, or harmed by botched raids.

I ask you, is this what America is supposed to be about?

Masked policemen smashing in doors in the middle of the night and shooting anything that moves?

Here is just one example.

I challenge anyone to read this piece and tell me they love America.

I challenge anyone to research "DRUG WAR VICTIMS" and tell me this is what America stands for.

Hit & Run > Tracy Ingle: Another Drug War Outrage - Reason Magazine

Drug War Victims

Well as I tried to point out earlier in this thread before spad decided to tell everyone prisons are wonderful places of excess luxury and pleasure; it is my opinion that even IF you have HBO in your 10x10 cell, you ARE still watching it in a 10x10 cell.

Prison is a bad idea from start to finish. Maybe you guys think I'm a flaming liberal. I think you guys are. I think locking criminals away TOGETHER, then trying to rehabilitate them is lunatic. In my opinion if somebody is so bad they need to be locked away from society, they should be killed. See what I mean? I'm not the liberal here.

I think it is complete lunacy to think that the way to rehabilitate those we think can be is to lock them into cells with OTHER sick individuals. What SICK people need is to be surrounded NOT by other sick people, but by a whole bunch of WELL people.

Take a thief; throw him into a prison full of other thiefs then talk to him alot as you hold threat of pain over him? Not going to work. Throw him into college. That has a chance of working. Surround this guy with a bunch of other people that are taking positive steps towards improving their finances.

So if I don't think a law is Constitutional I don't have to obey it???

Even if that is nothing more than my opinion

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

That is correct. However, until the law has been adjudicated unconstitutional, you need to be prepared to spend some time behind bars.

There was a judge who was always violating laws he deemed unconstitutional and going to jail. I can't think whick one it was. The only one that comes to mind is Learned Hand because he was such a rights advocate, but I'm not sure it was him.

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40% of the people in prisons have learning disabilities. (No link, I learned this in my studies several years back.) A learning disability necessitates that those who have one become street smart and street hardened. If you want to reduce incarcerations 40% then get on top of the learning disabled and teach them some way to live other than just socially promoting them through schools and giving them a 'special ed' diploma.

Most don't make it through school, and the ones who do are illiterate and can only survive by committing crimes. THEN after 2 or 3 years in the slammer they are institutionalized and know they will never HAVE to function in society so long as they can keep getting put away for minor crimes. Some go to great lengths to commit a crime that will keep them in prison for life.

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You'd have to remove the drug users and those in prison for said drug use, though. Drug use arrests are a matter of circumstance.

Drug use starts long before prison. What I'm talking about is recognizing the problem that a learning disability causes a person across the life span and intervening early, like grade school, so they can have a means of living other than street crimes.

Why would anyone who can't learn to read or write, think they could ever make it in a world that demands those skills? Few get through school, most dropping out in sheer frustration of knowing they can't develop the skills. The ones who do make it through have a worthless piece of paper that qualifies them for nothing.

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That's what I'm talking about. You're discussing people who turn to crime because they're stupid, but many people are in prison just because they used drugs. It doesn't mean they're stupid and can't live in the free world.

A learning disability does not equate with stupidity. Many learning disabled people have very high IQs.

Doing drugs, however, IS stupid. And many with at least average intelligence become stupid after they start using.

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Thats messed up.

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Stimulas Package? Means you get a paycheck you have to repay with interest!

Even worse...you have to repay your paycheck with interest to the guy in China who now has your old job!

Much worse...He uses the money he makes from your job, and the interest you pay him, to buy your foreclosed home and property!

Having a three strikes law, especially in an economy with unemployment as bad as it is...pretty much insures an increased number of shoot-outs and car chases.

Would YOU surrender peacefully if you got caught, and KNEW you were facing life in prison?

What are convicts going to do for jobs, when they get out?

If they cannot find jobs, how are they going to support themselves and their families?

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Stimulas Package? Means you get a paycheck you have to repay with interest!

Even worse...you have to repay your paycheck with interest to the guy in China who now has your old job!

Much worse...He uses the money he makes from your job, and the interest you pay him, to buy your foreclosed home and property!

Why is this so difficult to understand for some people? What she just said here (I assume female, I saw breasts) is that if you institutionalize somebody they BECOME I N S T I T U T I O N A L I Z E D. OF COURSE THEY DO. What about that is hard to understand?

Throw a DOG accused of having bit a human heel into a kennel full of flesh eating man-killing dogs and what DO you expect to emerge from that kennel a year later?

Just because once a week for an hour you had a dog lover come treat the dog nice, it is going to choose NICE?

No people, the dog is going to become what any sentient being would expect it to, a flesh eating killer.

I guess what I think is that prison should be a LAST resort and death penalty a resort that comes some time before that.

I haven't seen the evidence that imprisoning people works no matter how good or bad we make the prisons.

The recidivism figures of ALL prisons are not good. the recidivism rates of dead criminals by my figuring is still 0.