Coming back to this case.. if the guy drank and drove, he should be in jail. But it seems the other vehicle was also driving with the kids without  their belt fastened. So, he is hardly guilty of commiting murder (and deserving sixty years in jail). Also, Going by the reactions in Chron.com,  I don't like the way Texan rednecks try to involve all foreigners in this petty crime. (To their credit, some posters tried to point out that the individual is only guilty of drink driving and running redlight, not killing kids!) It shows how backward the area is (especially when one sees overwhelming majority of the posters spewing such hatred against foreigners). To them, all foreigners are illegals! I bet half of them (or their parents) were born abroad and the rest have their ancestors from abroad. (naya jogile badhi kharani ghaschha bhane jasto) One of them even had the guts to claim that foreigners come to the states, kill and go back (as if we were talking about Vietnam of 1970s).

I think the fundamental philosophy of maintaining a jail system is different here than in Nepal or several other civilized countries. In Nepal, sure we don't have law anymore, but fundamentally, our legal system tries to reform a man so that when he is out of jail, he can be useful to the society. I don't know how we are fairing, and whether recidivism is a big problem back home. But here, people feel jails are to lock people away. People here seem to think that criminals are inherently incapable of reforming over life time. Recidivism is therefore a big problem here. There is also no evidence that all their death penalty and lengthy sentences have made their society any better. 

I am willing to learn a lot from the states. I like their universities, their highways, even their girls. But their penal system is something I hope we will never emulate. I don't like the fact that they randomly sample a bunch of natives to sit in a jury and deliver a justice.I don't like the fact that their supreme court justices are selected by president (i.e. politically appointed) and they serve the court for the life time. These justices serve as long as their limb moves, and wait for the president who is similar in their political view. These justices are so biased that everybody pretty  much know which side they vote for. This is, at best, a travesty of justice.

Finally, I don't understand the law, but I wonder if someone has paid bond, is it illegal for him to forfeit the bond and run away? I thought the idea of having set a bond is that it is so high that an individual will always find it profitable to come back and claim it, rather than choosing the other way. But I don't know much about it.

Last edited: 14-Jul-10 05:56 PM

Last edited: 14-Jul-10 06:00 PM