Felicity Huffman sentenced in 'varisty blues' sandals
Since a lot of people are doing their last blog post about something non-related to govt. I decided to do it as well.
Actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in jail on Friday for paying thousands of dollars to have one of her daughters SAT scores inflate. She is the primary parent to be sentenced in the huge school swindling embarrassment that has shaken the U.S.higher education framework.
Furthermore, U.S. Area Judge Indira Talwani said Huffman must serve a year of administered discharge, 250 hours of network administration and pay a $30,000 fine.
In an announcement issued after the condemning, Huffman stated, I accept the court's decision today without reservation. I have always been prepared to accept whatever punishment Judge Talwani imposed. I broke the law. ... There are no excuses or justifications for my actions. Period."
She additionally apologized, "to the students who work hard every day to get into college and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices supporting their children."
"I can promise you that in the months and years to come that I will try and live a more honest life," Huffman added. There are many speculations on the criminal justice system. Many people are stating that Huffman should be serving 5 years or 10 years minimum for the amount she bribed the SAT administrators for her daughter to get into an IVY league.
While Felicity Huffman just got sentenced 14 days in federal prison, 250 hr community service, a 30k fine and 1 year probation for paying thousands of dollars to bribe her daughters way into an IVY league school, this homeless woman in CT was charged with larceny and sentenced 5 years in prison for enrolling her then 5-year-old kindergarten bound son into a PUBLIC school outside of her district. People do not want to admit, but when a famous white woman gets 14 days in jail for paying to get her child into college, yet an African American gets 5 years for providing an incorrect address to get her child into a better school, this is called #whiteprivilege. We have homeless, low-income women in one arena and an extremely wealthy high profile celebrity who can afford amazing lawyers, in another. This becomes racial and financial disparity. I know someone is gonna argue that Mcdowell's sentence also included drug charges, however, the initial 5 years is because she changed her address so her son can go to a decent school. Siutuaions like this just reaffirm what we already know. The criminal justice system very rarely distinguishes people as humans but rather as a race, income or social standing?
What kind of resources is helpful for a person to have when facing the prospect of being put on trial? What kind of discriminations and social stratification tend to bar certain classes of people from getting access to legal resources?
What kind of resources is helpful for a person to have when facing the prospect of being put on trial? What kind of discriminations and social stratification tend to bar certain classes of people from getting access to legal resources?
8 comments:
It is pretty clear that there are discrepancies between the charges of more popular, famous individuals and others, especially when it involves different ethnicities. While this is suspicious and obviously favoring certain people for their famous status, it is difficult to prove that against a particular judge. If a judge's decision is called into question and proven to not result in the criminal serving an appropriate punishment for their crime, said judge's other court decisions may be called into question. This would completely disrupt the court system as well as any criminals already serving the judge's punishment. As a result, we don't see it often where a judge is removed from their position due to such a crime as establishing inappropriate punishments. I believe that the best way for a defendant to handle being put on trial would be to have an experienced, and knowledgable attorney. If the attorney has been involved in trials with the same judge or has handled proceedings with improper punishments, they can to handle the case with the best outcome for the defendant in mind. Unfortunately, it is difficult for lower-class individuals to afford sufficient attornies often because the price of such advisement is abnormally high.
I think that Ms. Huffman’s case is interesting in that she paid much less compared to other parents implicated in the scandal, as she only spent $15,000 whereas some parents spent well over half a million dollars. Cheating on the SAT is obviously wrong, but I think the punishment of 5-10 years that some people are claiming she should have gotten seems a little excessive as people have been cheating on the SAT for decades without as harsh of repercussions. In addition, I think that the homeless woman who was sentenced to prison for 5 years shouldn’t have been sentenced to any prison time for using a different address to enroll her son in a public school as no one was being harmed by her child enrolling in a different school. Like Grace said, I think that the best resource in a trial is an experienced lawyer, which can be difficult for lower income minorities to gain access to. Sadly, the discrimination of minorities and lower income people will exist no matter what. So, until dramatic changes are made to the criminal justice system, minorities will continue to be sentenced to more unfair punishments than those that more privileged people may face.
I believe Ms. Huffman should be getting more time than just 14 days in jail. Although I understand the argument that she isn't the worst of the of the parents in the amount of money she payed to have her child get into a better college, the courts need to come down on cases lie hers in order to properly punish them for committing this crime and to deter further cheating on the SAT. There are many hardworking students who don't get into the college they wish to; some of those students would have made it if not these rich parent's students who cheated the system.
However, any punishment for the crime of bribing for better scores is a step towards
a more fair education system. Despite continued unfairness, this is good news for students like us that perhaps by the time we have children, the system will have improved even more, allowing them to grow up in a more equal system.
This is honestly a very interesting topic to me because I totally thought that colleges were allowed to accept students with absolutely no regard to their education/test scores/grades/etc., as long as they got as much money as they asked for. I now realized that, if this were to be implemented, schools might receive better funding if parents (as is seen in this case) are actually this desperate to get their child into college. This would also allow for corruption to be filtered into the higher educational system, and would probably allow for an even more public group of elitists that could easily deny college education to minority groups, poorer groups of people, etc. I'm very glad that I was wrong on how this system worked :) Regarding Ms. Huffman, I am just shocked. If a person has the ability to spend so much money on getting their child into a school where they aren't going to benefit (because honestly were her grades just that terrible? Like what was the initial problem here?), why couldn't she just help her child previous to this whole scandal? Like, pay for a super expensive tutor if she really wanted to spend money on education. I just don't understand personally. Anyway, according to criminaldefenselawyer.com , it is generally seen that persons charged with the offense of bribery have to spend at least a year in prison, which is significantly longer than just 14 days. Why is her sentence so short? DID SHE BRIBE SOMEONE ELSE???? WHERE DOES IT END?!
As previous comments have stated, it is very obvious that Ms. Huffman was granted some sort of excuse from what she did. Olivia is correct because bribery is considered a huge crime in the US. Bribery can cause impeachment for government officials. The thing is rich people have the means to afford a top notch lawyer who will do anything for high amounts of money, even if it is wrong. The African American woman who was put into jail for five years was a mother to a five year old son. At that age, children are extremely dependent on their parents. The fact that the justice system took away this child's mother when he needed her the most is absolutely awful. We need to really look into the justice system and see if we are being run by the elite class or by the rights of the Constitution which calls for a fair trial.
The college scandal case has been in widespread news for some time now. However, I have never come across the incident with American American writing down a different address in order to put her child in a better in public. After reading about this incident, I totally agree with "white privilege" and how celebrities receive less serious punishment. I do not think this is right at all because to be honest, bribing for college is a much more serious issue than a public elementary school. Well deserved students who worked tremendously hard has just gotten their spot taken away from this college bribery. But on the other hand, I do understand that Ms. Huffman wants what is best for her daughter. Since society is so competitive now, parents are willing to do whatever they can to ensure that their kids are successful. Also since they were well-known people, more pressure is assumed to be added on since these people have a huge following. In some ways, I do feel bad for Ms. Huffman but it is not right to use the money to bribe. In addition, Ms. Huffman is not the only case that is like this. There are multiple other scenarios in which students do not get caught for cheating on the SAT/tests or parents getting away with bribery. With this in mind, I think the college board and the court should reevaluate this issue.
I do agree with you that this is all about white privilege. It is seen so often nowadays with white people being sentenced to minimal consequences while blacks are given lifelong sentences. For example, as many probably already know, the Brock Turner case is another instance of this. He was supposed to have at least 14 years in prison, but it was reduced down to only 6 months (and he only served 3 months!), further proving how white people are often let off the hook. Going back on track, obviously what Huffman did is not acceptable. It’s not fair that she had to money to be able to bribe someone to help her daughter get into an Ivy League school. 14 days is definitely not enough. Like Olivia said, I wonder if she bribed someone else to reduce her sentence… Or it’s just because she’s white and a celebrity and “technically” her “crime” isn’t THAT bad because people didn’t die or weren’t affected directly…
There clearly is a lot of animosity toward what Felicity Huffman has done to cheat the system and the other "elite" parents that bribed a path for their children. As high school students who are very quickly stepping into the portion of our lives that deal with colleges and admissions, it seems unfair that these people would cheat their way through a system that most students struggle through. Sure the college admissions system is nowhere near perfect and there is a bias toward some groups of people which should not exactly exist but this is a form of parenting that just seems wrong. By paying their way into getting cheated SAT scores and donating absorbent funds to college officers to get their child into a top school, they subject their child to a life that they first of all did not work for and may not even appreciate the college they go to. But ranting aside, the sentence for Felicity Huffman seems a bit underwhelming but the scandal itself got a lot of publicity so there is still some retribution and justice for the whole event but the courts don't seem to have it totally together for the punishments of cheating your way through the system just like how our school just solidified the consequences for cheating. So there definitely could be some improvement made to cheating in education.
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