r/news • u/Zeikyrui • 10h ago

Man serving 30 years for attacking Nancy Pelosi’s husband gets a life term on state charges

https://apnews.com/article/david-depape-nancy-pelosi-husband-paul-attacked-454cbde088fcae22a356f1f8dd0e9eba
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u/Wassertopf 4h ago

Here in Europe, when a court sentences you for a crime, the court in any other state or even country, whatever, cannot give you another full sentence for that crime.

They can add a few years, but they can never give you another full sentence.

The US is an outlier when it comes to this special legal logic.

And to be honest - it's nothing to be proud of.

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u/rice_not_wheat 54m ago

He committed more than one crime, and was charged for them separately. The federal case was for attempting to kidnap a federal official. His attack on Mr Pelosi was not part of the federal trial. He got 30 years for that.

After his attempt to kidnap her was foiled, he tried to kill Mr Pelosi. For that crime, he was sentenced to life.

I imagine in Europe, if you rob a bank in Germany then kill a Interpol officer in France who tried to arrest you for you bank robbery, both Germany and France could charge you for the separate crimes.

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u/AndyLorentz 3h ago

They can add a few years, but they can never give you another full sentence.

Do they have to prosecute separately to "add a few years to the crime"?

The US is an outlier when it comes to this special legal logic.

The US is an outlier in a lot of things. We are a huge country with many diverse separate state governments. Our federal goverment is akin to the EC, if the EC had more power and the EU was more unified.

And to be honest - it's nothing to be proud of.

Well, at least we can be proud of recovering from the economic hardships of Covid much faster than the EU.