Starvation on $1.10 per day.

It seems there's a sheriff in Alabama that's making money from providing frugal (very frugal) diets for jail residents.

When I first read about it my reaction was that the sheriff is a bad guy. That's pretty much my initial reaction to any cop – that he's a bad guy.

It seems the State of Alabama gives $1.75 per inmate per day to sheriffs to feed inmates and they allow the Sheriff to keep any money left over after the inmate meals are paid for.. That's a pretty good deal for the sheriff, not so good for the county prisoner under the care of the Sheriff.

The meals he provided were typically things like

... a few spoonfuls of grits, part of an egg and a piece of toast at breakfast, and bits of undercooked, bloody chicken at supper. … a typical inmate lunch here: “Two peanut butter sandwiches, with small amounts of peanut butter, chips, and flavored water.”

Doesn't sound very appetizing but does that sound like a starvation diet? It doesn't to me. As much as I'd like to think there's some slimy Sheriff in Alabama, the actual diets don't look all that terrible to me.

The idea of feeding inmates on $1.10 just seems on its face to be a starvation diet to most people. But, it's not.

Using 1989 price data, one recent (2001) study used a linear programming model to determine a nutritional diet that would feed an adult mail for $1.13 per day. If our Alabama Sheriff can get USDA surplus peanut butter and powdered eggs and can make bread from USDA surplus flour then he can certainly do a few cents better than the market price minimum cost diet.

Althouse thinks it was the judge who was abusive by sending the Sheriff to jail. She might be right.

Indefensible just thinks the whole thing is amazing.

Pick your relatives carefully

A guy in California is being held in a Federal lockup, without bail, on a charge of the crime of giving his brother some money. No bail.

I plead the fifth

That's what a murder suspect said during a police interrogation in California. He said it shortly after he'd told them he didn't want to talk to them anymore.

He didn't ask for a lawyer. In fact, earlier he'd explicitly told them he didn't need a lawyer. Then they interregated him for two hours. Then he decided he was finished talking to them.

The Supreme Court has made it pretty clear that police have to stop interregations when a suspect says he wants a lawyer or when a suspect no longer wants to talk to them. The not wanting to talk part is protected by the fifth amendment.

It's an important amendment, not just for protecting the rights of the accused but also for protecting justice itself. Most crime suspects aren't really very bright. The typical police interregation is two on one. Two guys of average intelligence mentally pounding on one guy of below average intelligence. Suspects get confused. Sometimes very confused. They make false confessions. They really do. Texas, Illinois, Mississippi, and New York are some of the states that have had recent released from prison in the news after people who'd confessed had been proven to have given false confessions. It happens more often than we want to beleive.


If he doesn't want to talk, you stop asking questions. That's it, that's the rule, and it's actually a good rule that protects the very concept of justice.

But, of course, the law always has exceptions. In this case one exception is that interrogators can ask clarifying questions if a suspect makes an ambigious statement about not wanting to talk any longer.

Is "I plead the fifth" ambigious.

Apprantly it is to at least two Federal Appeals Court judges. Most of the court did not find the statement ambigious and the conviction based on the coerced conviction was rightly overturned. But two of them did.

What the hell is the matter with these people? Does law school do something that causes people's brains to just be fried?

See also and this.

What does respect mean?

A judge sentences someone to holding a sign that says you should respect police.

If advocating respect is a punishment then what does respect actually mean?

It seems to me that this is just a good way to foster disrespect. I don't tend to have a lot of respect for people who hold a gun to my head and demand that I respect them.