For Offenders Who Can’t Pay, It’s a Pint of Blood or Jail Time

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Obviously some people are for separate protection under the law instead of equal protection.

originally posted by: IslandOfMisfitToys
a reply to: Annee

So when it comes to marriage we have to be equal but when it comes to punishment you are fine with "separate and not equal"?

BTW......have you ever not paid attention and went 5 mph over the speed limit? If so, you are as much a criminal as these people.

Seriously? Really?

Yes, everyone has Equal Oppportunity to break rules.

If I get a ticket for going 5 miles over the speed limit it is MY FAULT.

You must be one of those that believe rules are there to be broken.

perhaps the amount of blood "donated" drawn should be connected to the severity of the crime.

Speeding=1 pint

DWI= 1 qt.

Domestic violence= 1 gallon

Yup, sounds like something that would happen down there in the south-land.

It's colder up here in the winter, but in order to deal with the cold, people have to have some measure of intelligence to keep from freezing to death......

a reply to: Annee

Oh. So your beef is with them breaking the law?

Yes.....some laws are ment to be broken. Tracking down and killing runaway slaves was law at one point. .........

Equal "protection" under the law is what you missed. It works both for marriage AND for citizens rights to be prosecuted equally. Giving someone the opportunity to do something else while denying it to others is........well, you should know as I've read your stance on gay marriage (as a gay man I thank you for your persistence BTW).

Why are you a proponent of one but not the other? Prejudice against those who went 5 miles over the speed limit?

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: hillbilly4rent

Then take your body to jail I guess.

If that's the case so be it, It's my body.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

You know what this story reminds me of? A few months ago an anti ISIS story came out about how ISIS would send blood collecting vans around towns forcing people to give blood to keep their fighters alive.

I'm trying real hard but I don't see any difference between what they were doing, and what just happened in this story.

originally posted by: thesaneone
a reply to: IslandOfMisfitToys


Give blood or pay fine. Hmmm sound like everyone had a choice.

Not everyone had a choice. The next time people were in court for minor fines that choice might not be given. If there is an alternative to paying a fine, then that alternative needs to exist each and every time that fine is brought up in court. It can't be a 1 day thing for a small group of people.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

I honestly hate to say this but;
From reading many of the responses to this post, it would seem a lot of people are convinced life is not about choices and responsibility after all.
Many seem to think it is far better to have someone else make the decisions and tell them what they are to do.

Folks I hate to tell you but that is simply taking the easy way out, but alteast then you can continue to sit around and bitch about how life has given you such a raw deal.

(just jumping in without reading all the comments)

I think that this assertion from your source:

But legal and health experts said they could not think of another modern example of a court all but ordering offenders to give blood in lieu of payment, or face jail time. They all agreed that it was improper.

is absolutely inflammatory at best, and misleading at worst. It appears that this judge offered a third option that usually doesn't exist in this type of situation, and there's nothing wrong with an additional option (it wasn't an order, not even remotely, and not even "all but").

Yes, there are some people incapable of donating blood for myriad reasons, but that doesn't mean that this option is improper. Without it, the options would be the usual two: Pay the fine due or go to jail. For those who could take advantage of giving blood, great. For those who couldn't, nothing changed.

And I'm certain that there are people in there who probably owed fines for reasons that most of us would consider to be asinine infractions or money grabs by the city, but that's not the point.

Making a third option available for those who could take advantage of it--and could save peoples' lives, to boot, is a good thing. Not everything has to be fair for everyone.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
Not everything has to be fair for everyone.

In the US according to the Constitution it does.......

Equal protection under the law states EQUAL for a damn reason.

I wonder if people would feel differently if it was stated that all white people could get out of paying the fine if they donate blood but black people need to either pay or go to jail?

I wonder.........

According to the The New York Times, the Florida-based nonprofit organization that ran the blood drive, LifeSouth Community Blood Centers, has since denounced the decision by their staffer to allow Wiggins to send the defendants to them, and after a complaint was made, actually threw out most of the donations made that day.

“We appreciate the judge’s attempt to support the community’s blood needs,” Jill Evans, a vice president of LifeSouth, told The Times. “However, LifeSouth prohibits blood donations from being considered as community service because it is potentially an unacceptable incentive for a volunteer donor.”

crooksandliars.com...

So now that the blood has been tainted they had to throw out most of the donations that day.

Yeah, this judge really helped people.......

Even the blood drive company had a problem with this decision but people here on ATS are all for it because it involved the poor and "criminals".

Then they came for me.....

originally posted by: IslandOfMisfitToys

In the US according to the Constitution it does.......

Equal protection under the law states EQUAL for a damn reason.

That's a terrible citation--the 14th Amendment applies to application of the law, not application of punishments. Punishments, unless they are mandatory within the law, are at the mercy of the court to decide, not the legislative branch.

I wonder if people would feel differently if it was stated that all white people could get out of paying the fine if they donate blood but black people need to either pay or go to jail?

I wonder.........

You can wonder all you want to, but that judge didn't state that, and the judge wasn't maliciously discriminatory in any way, as it's not his job to know if someone can't give blood. It is, however, his job to determine if a debt to society has or has not been paid, and however he does that within the law is up to him. If you can show me where the law exists that enumerates "blood donation" as an impossible payment of one's debt to society, then I'll change my mind.

But with your logic, the court system should never charge a fine as part of a punishment because of the few who may not be able to afford to pay it, and of course we should never include incarceration in a small cell, because we never know who may be claustrophobic.

Would you seriously rather some who could not pay the fine only have the option of going to jail instead of giving blood, just because MAYBE some in the room would be denied by a private company the ability to do so for pre-ordained reasons?

Meh, if you made it this far into the justice system, odds are they have your DNA anyway if they want it.

I think it's a good and helpful option for people who don't have the money to pay a fine and for people who need blood too. Better than sitting in jail.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Its easy to sit on high moral horses and look down our noses at people with speeding tickets, seat belt violations, littering offenses and simple non-felony, and non-violent offenses. The fact is, someday any one of us might find ourselves on the other side of the law.

Assault isn't a non-violent crime, though. Most of the crimes mentioned in the article are not "oopsie" crimes.

a reply to: IslandOfMisfitToys

Objections to this all stem from subjective morality or business ethics--again, show me where the judge broke the law. Otherwise, you can whine and complain all that you want to, but just because you disagree with this (for whatever reason I can't really understand) doesn't mean that it can't and shouldn't have happened.

The judge did help people...helped those who would rather try to give blood to their community another way out than just filling the coffers of the city or by taking from the coffers by having to go to jail. I see nothing wrong with that, and apparently neither does the law (so far, but I'm sure there is some PC group out there with lawyers researching it as we discuss).

And if you ask me, the blood group shouldn't have thrown out that blood just because of a complaint. I regularly give blood (actually, platelets, which is a much more time-consuming process) and find it to be one of the best things that I can do for my local community. But I'd be royally pissed off if my donation was tossed because someone complained about the when and why behind my donation.

It's akin to a doctor saying that he's going to get rid of a defibrillator because he doesn't like the reason why peoples' hearts stop beating due to drug overdoses. They threw away a potentially life-saving item that someone removed from their own body, all because of a complaint.

It's asinine.

I'm all for this option provided by the judge because it gave people a choice other than unwillingly giving their money to the state or being incarcerated because they couldn't afford to. Just because you seem to despise this third option, does that mean that you are pro-incarceration or pro-legal confiscation of people's money?

Given it is normally pay the fine or go to jail, some people must not like the option that someone could donate blood instead of money. If it was not optional, that would be a big deal.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Since there is a lawsuit that will set the law we will find out if they find it legal or not.

a reply to: roadgravel

Was it optional to everyone?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

That's a good point -- my friend who's an honorable man and a world-class firefighter was brought up on felony assault charges for defending himself though a while back. There are always shades of grey between the lines...