Posted Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 by Zach Luck
Punishment > Crime
Last week the blogs buzzed with the story of a mother hit with a 10-day jail sentence and a $30,000 fine for misstating where she lived (she used her father’s address) to get her daughters into a better school. The mother, Kelley Williams-Bolar, is now unable to get an Ohio teaching license despite being only a few credit hours away from her degree due to this felony conviction.
There are so many things wrong here its hard to know where to begin. The heart-wrenching human drama of a woman severely punished for doing what she thought was right? The continuing racial divide in American’s schools more than half a century after Brown? The selective enforcement of a rule against a black family? A criminal system which places ever-higher penalties on a felony conviction and ever-lower bars on what constitutes a felony?
Its about all these things, but it’s also about prosecutorial ethics. The judge in the case spoke out on the over-zealousness of the prosecutor in the case. The judge said she repeatedly tried to convince the county prosecutor to offer Williams-Bolar plea to a misdemeanor but that in the she “can’t put a gun to anybody’s head and force the state to offer a plea bargain.”
The brief clip of the prosecutor’s closing argument in this local news piece (at 1:19) shows the prosecutor dramatically announcing: “Ask yourself why, oh why, oh why, you would believe a word she told you on the stand!”
The real question is why do we let prosecutors politicize charges and demand outrageous sentences. Why, oh, why do we let the adversarial system run amok? I understand that schools have no choice but to find ways to enforce their district lines, this post isn’t about finding a way to radically alter our public school system to let any kid go to any school. Or better yet, how to equalize funding, teacher-quality and educational opportunities across all schools for all kids.
Making the kids attend another school? OK. A fine for deterrence? Fine. Five years in prison and a felony record? Absolutely not. That’s right. The prosecutor in this case asked for a 5-year prison sentence for the crime of writing down grandpa’s address on a school enrollment form. It was only thanks to the judge’s leniency that Williams-Bolar is serving ten days in prison, two years probation and 80 hours community service instead. Why, oh, why indeed.
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I completely agree. It’s crazy that this was a felony. It was behavior that a school district might reasonably want to discourage through a fine, but not a crime punishable with prison time. Wow.
Prosecutorial NIMBYism on steroids.
I have to disagree with this post. While the prosecution may have been overzealous and there are many problems with public education, this amounts to theft. People’s property taxes in that area paid for the school, the teachers and the facility. This mother did not contribute. If she sent her kids to a private school to avoid a terrible local school, she would pay tuition. This amounts to sneaking her kids into a private school and not paying. It is theft, and we are talking about thousands of dollars. That is felonious.
Hi Brett,
Thanks for reading and for your comment. I’m inclined to say that we should just agree to disagree. But your comparison to a private school is telling. Do you really think there aren’t any aspects of public education which make it, for these purposes, at least somewhat different? Public education is provided by the state, after all, because it is in some ways a public good not an entirely private one. Assume local property taxes make up 50% percent or even 80% of the revenue for the education which Williams-Bolar “stole” for her kids. Now assume that she pays her taxes to the state of Ohio and the state of Ohio’s general revenues make up the remainder of the school’s budget. Does that mean she was only 50% or 80% stealing? She is an Ohio resident, her father lived in the district, she pays taxes. This seems different in my mind from deceiving one’s way into receiving a wholly private service.
Thanks again,
Zach
Zach,
We can agree that there exist massive problems with public education and how it is funded. However, you are trying to justify unacceptable behavior. We have a broken system, but the system is in place. There is a reason a home in Dublin or Powell or Bexley costs twice as much as the same home in Gahanna or Westerville. It’s the schools. Every parent would want his or her child to attend a great school, but that doesn’t mean you commit fraud to achieve that goal. If every parent went to lengths of this mother, than no children would be attending Columbus Public Schools. Ask yourself these questions. Would you have done it? If you had, would you have known it was wrong? I am pretty sure your answers would be “no” and “yes.”
Brett
Hi Brett,
My argument in the article, and I think I’m pretty clear on this, is in no way premised on what Williams-Bolar did being the right thing to do. The question is whether the punishment fit the crime. We disagree on that which is fine. I was just trying to spell out some of the reasons why I don’t think this is the exact same thing as stealing $30,000. The world is full of things that that are bad to do, particular if we assumed that letting one person get away with them would lead everyone vaguely similarly situated to do the same. Lots of those things, for good reason, don’t get punished with 5 years of jail time.
Thanks,
Zach
Couldn’t agree more. Thanks for making me aware of this.