If you have judges partial to one group of people, why not to any group s/he favors?


Does it matter if the mother was stealing cigarettes or baby formula? Diamonds or hamburger?

What if she claims she was going to sell the cigarettes or diamonds for food?

Does it matter if the mother is stealing clothes for her kid or makeup for herself?

Does it matter if the mother was stealing from a large, prosperous store or from a mom-and-pop store struggling to stay afloat?

Does it matter how much is shoplifted?

And if the mother got a job, do we look at this week's income? annual income? last year's income? Earned income or adjusted gross income? Total income? Does level of indebtedness matter? Do we weight things by geographic location? Opportunities available to the mother? Her own choices--since we're making others bear her burden, surely they should be able to ask that kind of question (or we're saying their job in society is to work for others with no representation ...).

You get to write the law. Just don't make it so that it's all dependent on a judge's whim. Then the laws are suggestions and the real law is personal opinion, which opens the way to unheard of levels of corruption.