{"id":14379,"date":"2014-08-21T14:21:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T22:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14379"},"modified":"2014-08-21T14:21:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T22:21:57","slug":"when-the-punishment-doesnt-fit-the-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/when-the-punishment-doesnt-fit-the-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"When the punishment doesn’t fit the crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Eisenberg<\/strong> is no Jean Valjean<\/strong>. Still, that’s no excuse for levying upon him a fine that is 375 times the amount he stole ($200 in \"Rivers<\/a>chips) from Rivers Casino<\/strong>. The fault lies not with Rivers but with Pennsylvania<\/strong> laws. In 2010, theft was added to the litany of casino-related crimes for which a first offense would result in a $75,000 fine. (Others included cheating and unauthorized operation of slot machines.)\u00a0\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing here, we\u2019re protecting the rights of the casino … the Legislature has placed the casino above everybody else in Pennsylvania,\u201d Eisenberg’s lawyer argued unsuccessfully argued at trial.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

However, he managed to get his case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court<\/strong>, which unanimously found the 75K fine unconstitutional<\/a>. The justices agreed with Eisenberg that the penalty\u00a0\u201cmakes no measurable contribution to the goals of punishment and …\u00a0is irrational and unreasonable.\u201d The courted\u00a0that the 12 other crimes which could draw the fine were all casino-specific, while one of these thing was not like the others — theft, Eisenberg’s offense. The purpose of the original 12 penalties was\u00a0\u201cpunishing and deterring criminal behavior that would undermine public confidence in the gaming industry.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe original 12 offenses deemed subject to the mandatory fine all involved conduct that went directly to the integrity of the fledgling \"Castille\"<\/a>industry, an industry that naturally raises concerns about associated criminal activity.\u201d We could have done without that last clause, which reeks of anti-casino bias. In any event, the theft was deemed incidental to Eisenberg’s place of employment.\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn our view, the fine here, when measured against the conduct triggering the punishment, and the lack of discretion afforded the trial court, is constitutionally excessive,\u201d wrote Justice Ronald Castille<\/strong> (pictured<\/em>.)\u00a0\u201cThe fine at issue here, both in an absolute sense and in a comparative sense, is strikingly disproportionate to the manner in which other crimes are punished in Pennsylvania. That the fine is mandatory merely exacerbates the disproportion.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Our favorite sentence from the story reads,\u00a0At the time of the sentencing, Mr. Eisenberg was a student, was engaged to be married and was expecting a child.” Expecting a child? It’s a medical miracle!<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

* New Jersey<\/strong> used to offer the most exhaustive breakdown of gaming-revenue detail — but no longer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* By 2020, the number of Chinese visiting South Korea<\/strong> will number 15 million (up from this year’s 5.8 million) and they’ll spend $29 billion. Or so say Hana Daetoo Securities<\/strong> and the Korea Tourism Organization<\/strong>. Those numbers don’t even\u00a0account for\u00a0dining and hotel occupancy<\/a>. According to pedants, Chinese tourism is poised to make several Great Leaps Forward, starting this year at 31% and easing off to ‘only’ 18.5% by 2020. This is, of course, good news for outside operators like Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> and Genting Group<\/strong>, who are clawing their way into the market and great news for the operators who are already in business, raking in the baccarat plaques.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Eisenberg is no Jean Valjean. Still, that’s no excuse for levying upon him a fine that is 375 times the amount he stole ($200 in chips) from Rivers Casino. The fault lies not with Rivers but with Pennsylvania laws. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,120,7,22,95,25,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14381,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14379\/revisions\/14381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}