Snipes: Is General Deterrence Enough of a Reason?

So Wesley Snipes got 3 years.  The predictions were all over the boards beforehand, and the recriminations are spread out just as well. 

I made no prediction, but I’m not surprised.  He’s a celeb, and celebs are used for the purpose of general deterrence.  The rest of the country should know what happened to Snipes so that they don’t do the same.  The media will make sure the news is spread far and wide because he’s a celebrity.  It’s a win- for everybody but Snipes. 

But is it right?  General deterrence is a proper purpose of sentencing.  But it’s only one purpose.  Should it be predominant?  Is it a good enough reason to take person, max them out, just to send a message to other people to keep their nose clean?

Of all the legitimate sentencing factors, I consider general deterrence to be the least important, and indeed the one with the worst justification for legitimacy.  I understand all too well from the government’s point of view that it wants to get the word out, don’t commit crime.  I don’t begrudge this to the government.  But the general impact is paid for by an individual.  After the word is spread, the individual remains in his prison cell, paying the price of the government’s warning to others.

This isn’t a commentary on the sentence, standing alone, or the sentencing guidelines, but just the obvious rationale for throwing the book at Wesley Snipes.  Being in the public eye has its down side, but then being a tax denier is just stupid.   What’s the sentence for stupidity in the first degree?

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9 thoughts on “Snipes: Is General Deterrence Enough of a Reason?”

  2. Windypundit

    I tend to think deterrence is a pretty good reason to punish criminals, but the calculation of deterrent value should apply to the sentencing policy, not to specific defendants. I.e. Snipes should get what everyone else gets, but everyone should get whatever makes an efficient deterrent.

  3. Packy Costa

    Ok, his attorney tried to pull the old–the government has no legal right to collect taxes. Correct me if im wrong, but isn’t that one of the enumerated rights granted to our law and policy makers. So willie mays hays got what was coming to him i guess. Please, if I am being to critical call me out.

  4. SHG

    Well, first there is no such thing as “enumerated rights.”  Enumerated powers, but not rights.  Second, the collection of income taxes was originally prohibited, and subsequently allowed by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.  Third, whether he “got what’s coming to him” is the question:  He was convicted indeed, but what “is” coming to him could have varied between probation and 3 years imprisonment.  

    So the question is where along the spectrum should the sentence be, and why.  As my daughter tells me, “I hate thinking, it hurts.”

  5. Andrew G

    Is there a purpose in harsher sentences for those who owe millions in taxes over those who owe pennies? Presumably the better paid can better afford good advice on what taxes are due. Snipes carried on this scheme for years, not just a single return. The ill-informed minimum wage earner only causes the government the loss of a few dollars, but those who earn millions? And because of his celebrity, had he won his case, the damage to the government would have been greater (Boring real estate developers don’t appear on Access Hollywood when they face similar charges). I don’t think the sentence was based just on deterrence, but on a clear well-informed intent to flout the law.

  6. SHG

    Your reasoning relates to the government’s purpose for prosecuting, not the judge’s purpose in sentencing.  Since sentencing doesn’t occur until after a person’s convicted, and notably imprisonment doesn’t bring any cash into the government’s coffers (and actually costs the taxpayer quite a bit), he may well have been prosecuted because of his “clear well-informed intent to flout the law” but that has no bearing on the appropriate sentence.  No one gets sentenced unless they are first found guilty, and there’s no such thing as a conviction based on an “unclear, uninformed, unintentional flouting of the law.”

  7. Andrew G

    But judges certainly seem to take that into account in sentencing, or why would “lack of remorse” factor in a sentence (you know better than I if it actually does, but that’s certainly the impression given to the public)

  8. SHG

    Lack of remorse goes to specific deterrence, that the defendant is not sorry for his crime and has learned nothing from this cases, thus arguing that a longer sentence is needed to teach the defendant not to engage in crime in the future.

    Of course, if the defendant’s position is that he didn’t do it, or that he was right to do it, then lack of remorse is an appropriate reaction to what he believes to be a wrongful conviction.  And since we know that innocent people are sometimes convicted, who can blame a defendant for not capitulating to the verdict.

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