So the media made him short the prisoners, squirrel away the money and buy a beach house??
These guys have no shame, and no sense of deceny. Yes, there’s a law the allows him to skim tax dollars, but does that seem like a good idea? I guess NOW that his story has broken, the sheriff might say no.
This guy probably sits around with his buddies complaining about the fat cats in Washington ripping off the hard-working, law-abiding, God-fearing tax-payers like themselves. I wonder what his buddies are thinking about him now?
Look at that sanctimonious prick - one can only hope that one day he’ll be on the receiving end of such treatment. And you can bet he’ll squeal like a stuck hog.
Actually, even the Nazis punished corruption in their own ranks (sometimes). The commanding SS officer of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Karl Otto Koch, ended up as an inmate himself for blatant corruption. In 1945 he was executed by his fellow Nazis.
But other than that, yeah, sounds about right. What a charming guy. He gives Joe Arpaio a run for his money.
“Franklin settled with the court, returning the funds and paying a $1,000 fine. She remains in office.” … nah, there’s nothing wrong with the system, unless you have to live under it. But I suppose most folks will think “He’s right, it’s a jail, not a bed and breakfast…” SMH
The centers contend that state law does not in fact allow the sheriffs to keep any money allocated to feed inmates. They argue that such an interpretation of the law establishes perverse incentives, leads to the misuse of tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars annually, and ultimately results in sheriffs serving inmates minimal amounts of low-quality food in county jails across the state.
“Our position is that this practice is illegal now, but it’s clear that many sheriffs believe its legal for them to do this,” Aaron Littman, a staff attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights, told AL.com Thursday.
“Clearly this is a practice which is problematic because it creates an incentive for sheriffs to spend as little as possible on feeding folks … and obviously when a minimal amount of money is approved for something and less than that is spent, the quality suffers.”
They’re called Sovereign Citizens. According to their interpretation of the law the only legal authority they’re obliged to respect are the local sheriffs who, often in these rural places, are pretty much like they are.
So much for the Constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” (which includes poor prison conditions, per two separate rulings by SCOTUS), right?
I suppose to them, the 8th amendment is just another of those pesky “Lib’rul regulations”.
(Side note: in my view they’d be right about that, since I consider the Constitution and Bill of Rights to be nothing short of a “Liberal Manifesto”…)
He is an elected State official… therefore, I can only answer, “Yes.”
Second, I already brought up how this could (and ought to) run afoul of the 8th Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause (how does starving or feeling rotten food to inmates not qualify?), and now I’m thinking it could also be argued that it bumps up against the 4th’s “…secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable…seizures” clause. Aren’t ‘we the people’ (of Alabama), collectively (whether at the state or federal level), having their effects (in this case, money) seized in order to enrich this elected official at triple his normal salary?
Apologies for the awful sentence construction. I’m writing this in a hurry!
