PT7.S4.Q10 - famous criminals conviction

moonstars5678

I've been drilling MSS questions, and this one had me hung up for a while. I initially chose C, but then chose D during BR - would appreciate it if someone could validate my thought process in how I got to the right answer (mostly through POE). #help

Stimulus: For the same crime, it's unfair how famous vs unknown criminals are sentenced, even though the principle of equality says there shouldn't be a discrepancy in how people are sentenced due to fame, etc. (For a while, the "however" really threw me off because I thought for some reason that the principle of equality was used to counter the uneven sentences in a resentencing/retributive manner...I was very confused lol)

A) "only a few": we don't know this. Technically it could be 99% of trials that are for unknown defendants so it's actually a majority
"The number should equal" - proportionally this doesn't make sense, since there's maybe like 1 famous criminal per 1000 unknown defendants
C) "Can properly be overridden by other principles" What principles are we talking about?
D) Yes - basically what the author is saying. This sentencing is unfair and a breach of the equality principle
E) We don't know if it does or doesn't allow for leniency

yunonsie

I think this is good I looked at your reasons for eliminating ACs and mine were very similar. If (C) were correct, the stim would need to completely justify why it's okay the celebrities are getting community service when it seems like they should get jail time instead.

mesposito886

Yup - I can see why you'd choose C. The first time I read the stimulus I interpreted it as implying that the principle of equality was something that was always in effect, so that the laxer sentences of celebrities had to be due to something else. Upon a second read I realized the stimulus doesn't say nor does it imply that, so what its actually describing is a violation of that equality principle.

Additionally, I ruled out B without thinking about the real-world ratio of celebrities to unknown defendants. Even if the number of convicted celebrities = convicted unknown defendants, we don't know if that means that just as many unknown defendants should be sentenced to community service as celebrities. The stimulus only tells us that celebs are increasingly sentenced to community service; even if the principle of equality were upheld in all cases it could be that there are more unknown defendants that just deserve harsher sentences. Lastly, 7Sage turned your note for B into a little guy with sunglasses lol

pd288-1

I see why D is right, but why is E wrong? Technically it does not allow for leniency, because leniency implies some people are treated different differently than others
edit: wait nvm was in class when I wrote this and I wasn't thinking. We don't know what the law of equality says other than it does not allow for celebrities to be treated differently in sentencing.

moonstars5678

Thanks for the comments, everyone! Very helpful