REA catalog just arrived…. almost as fun as the old time Sears Christmas

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by bnorth

It really is, just probably not the way you are thinking.

It's a two-way street. You guys think I'm batshit crazy and remarkably stubborn (to say it politely) because I won't admit to being wrong about something when you think I'm debating legal matters with a legal expert.

But there's a while other side you're not seeing to this, which is that the legal experts in this thread have such tunnel vision that they cannot understand why someone would think there is merit in pointing out that someone being charged with a specific crime and found guilty of having committed that crime by a jury would have different implications than someone agreeing to a plea deal where dozens of offenses with varying degrees of seriousness were listed on it.

Here's the key difference. In one case, someone successfully argued in front of a jury that not only was someone guilty of doing the thing they are being accused of, but (and here's the kicker) also that the thing they are being accused of is in fact a crime to begin with. That's the key differentiator here. In a plea deal, you can just accuse them of something that you think is a crime and if they think the deal they're being offered is a favorable outcome, they'll just agree to it. And you never even have to successfully argue whether or not accusation #21 out of a list of 37 accusations was even a crime to begin with. And it might not matter anyhow, especially if the other 36 charges are far more serious (which in this case they certainly were).

The tunnel vision crew is stuck on the fact that Mastro was charged with trimming the Wagner and pled guilty to a list of charges in his plea deal which included the Wagner trimming/reselling. They are simply taking for granted that what he did with the Wagner was even a crime to begin with. What I am saying is that I don't believe that's a given. I'm saying it's something that would need to be argued. It's not like stealing a car or slashing someone's tires or something. This isn't a black & white issue. It would be very easy to make an argument that what he did with the Wagner wasn't even a crime to begin with. I'm saying it needs to be argued in front of a judge and jury. I'm also saying that because the Mastro case ended in a plea deal, the hobby was robbed of the opportunity to see how a jury would view the arguments for and against what he did with the Wagner as even being a crime to begin with. I think it would be very difficult to make the case today, knowing what we know, that he withheld material information about the Wagner when we know that the entire hobby is well aware that the card was trimmed but that it still didn't affect its value one bit (how can a fact be material if knowing it does not affect the value of something?). It is still to this day the single most valuable sports card in existence. There were no victims in his sale of that card. And if you think it's just a given that a jury would automatically accept your viewpoint/argument that it is in fact a crime, I'm saying perhaps you should think again.