American Notes: Metaphysics

Texas law sets a minimum jail term for robbery by assault, but no maximum. That legal quirk gave a Dallas jury last week an opportunity to indulge its draconian fantasies. The panel found Joseph Sills guilty of a $73.10 stickup. It was roughly his 20th conviction. Dallas has been roiled by repeated banditry, and the prosecutor touted the deterrent value of long prison terms. So the jury sentenced Sills to 1,000 years.

It was mere hyperbole, of course. The jury evidently wanted to damn Sills, who is 50, to death in jail, but an ordinary sentence of life imprisonment would have accomplished that: besides, he will probably be considered for parole in 20 years. The Dallas sentence opened up the possibilities of a whole new scale of metaphysical punishment, however. If 1.000 years for robbery by assault, why not 2,500 for rape and 3.000 for murder? Such sentences would have little meaning except as a measurement of moral outrage and as gratification for those who impose them.