Wednesday

More Kozlowski and Swartz

In the post below, I forgot to include a link to Ellen Podgor's argument about shame and white collar crime. In which she actually asserts that men like Kozlowski and Swartz should get short sentences because (and I kid you not) "the SHAME in the community is by far the harshest punishment felt by the white collar offender. That shame is felt irrespective of whether the sentence is 10 years or 25 years."

Arguments like this really do make me wonder if some law professors have practiced much law or dealt with real clients with any regularity. I doubt professor Podgor has, (prosecuting people doesn't count) but on the off chance I'm wrong about that, I'd wager quite a bit that the clients were white and rich. No one who actually has real experience with a broad class of criminal defendants would allege such a thing. Then again, her argument is based on rap lyrics (again I kid you not). It seems to me (as I note below) that this entire line of argument is really just a proxy for race and class.

You can find her post here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not surprising, since for you, all things are viewed in the prism of race and class, which is a convenient way for you to cloak your liberal ideology in a feel good wrapping of racial do-goodism.