YASID: free murder if you serve the prison sentence first

[Louann Miller]

As stated above, you spend X years on a horrible penal colony world and if
you end your sentence alive, you can go home and straight-up murder one
person without further penalty. Story begins with one such prisoner
completing his sentence, don't remember much else except that his wife was
cheating on him, business partner cheating him, etc. and they all think he
means to kill them.

[Joseph Nebus]

William Tenn's ``Time in Advance'', isn't it?

--
http://nebusresearch.wordpress.com/ Joseph Nebus
Latest: Thomas Hobbes and Doing Important Mathematics http://wp.me/p1RYhY-yw
--------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2014 22:35:31 +0000 (UTC), Joseph Nebus
<nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote in
<news:lipkvi$hbj$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> In <9_mdndarMOrP1c3O...@giganews.com> Louann
> Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> writes:

>> As stated above, you spend X years on a horrible penal
>> colony world and if you end your sentence alive, you can
>> go home and straight-up murder one person without
>> further penalty. Story begins with one such prisoner
>> completing his sentence, don't remember much else except
>> that his wife was cheating on him, business partner
>> cheating him, etc. and they all think he means to kill
>> them.

> William Tenn's ``Time in Advance'', isn't it?

Sure sounds like it. There’s a short but fairly explicit
description of the plot in Wikipedia, in case that helps:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Advance#Plot_2>

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Dan Goodman]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2014 18:42:38 -0400, Brian M. Scott wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Apr 2014 22:35:31 +0000 (UTC), Joseph Nebus
> <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote in <news:lipkvi$hbj$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> In <9_mdndarMOrP1c3O...@giganews.com> Louann Miller
>> <loua...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>> As stated above, you spend X years on a horrible penal colony world
>>> and if you end your sentence alive, you can go home and straight-up
>>> murder one person without further penalty.

More precisely, you can serve HALF your sentence in advance.

> Story begins with one such
>>> prisoner completing his sentence, don't remember much else except that
>>> his wife was cheating on him, business partner cheating him, etc. and
>>> they all think he means to kill them.
>
>> William Tenn's ``Time in Advance'', isn't it?
>
> Sure sounds like it. There’s a short but fairly explicit description of
> the plot in Wikipedia, in case that helps:
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Advance#Plot_2>
>
> Brian





--

Dan Goodman
http://dsgoodman.blogspot.com

[Louann Miller]

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in news:ejomnn5kk65d
$.11olxfx3...@40tude.net:

>> William Tenn's ``Time in Advance'', isn't it?
>
> Sure sounds like it. There’s a short but fairly explicit
> description of the plot in Wikipedia, in case that helps:
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Advance#Plot_2>

Thanks, all.

[D.F. Manno]

In article <mKSdnY49mcHcxs3O...@iphouse.net>,
Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:

[Re: William Tenn's "Time in Advance"]

> On Thu, 17 Apr 2014 18:42:38 -0400, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> >> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> >>> As stated above, you spend X years on a horrible penal colony world
> >>> and if you end your sentence alive, you can go home and straight-up
> >>> murder one person without further penalty.
>
> More precisely, you can serve HALF your sentence in advance.

Even more precisely, you get a 50-percent discount on the sentence for
serving it in advance.

--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
GOP delenda est!

[Cryptoengineer]

"D.F. Manno" <dfm...@mail.com> wrote in news:dfmanno-F2BDEF.14020219042014
@news.albasani.net:

Sort of like buying indulgences, I guess.

pt

[Jack Bohn]

Dan Goodman wrote:

> >> In <9_mdndarMOrP1c3O...@giganews.com> Louann Miller writes:
> >
> >>> As stated above, you spend X years on a horrible penal colony world
> >>> and if you end your sentence alive, you can go home and straight-up
> >>> murder one person without further penalty.
>
> More precisely, you can serve HALF your sentence in advance.

Because after you report the murder it saves them the time of investigating it?
(That seems fair, but at the same time doesn't seem fair. Probably because of the hellova premeditated part.)

--
-Jack

[Cryptoengineer]

Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote in
news:167bd165-7160-4fcb...@googlegroups.com:

I haven't read the story, but the blurb given on Wikipedia suggests that
that the discounted murder sentence is 7 years (the story was written in
1956, before the current 'throw away the key' sentencing guidelines). It
also makes the point that the vast majority of prisoners don't survive
long enough to come back, or (in the case of pre-criminals) throw in
the towel early. In fact, the story makes the two men who do come back
with a 'one pre-paid murder' ticket minor celebrities for doing so.

I think it's an crazy premise.

pt

[Dan Goodman]

H. L. Gold was a very good editor in some ways -- but he didn't require
stories to be plausible.

[D.F. Manno]

In article <167bd165-7160-4fcb...@googlegroups.com>,
Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dan Goodman wrote:
> > >> Louann Miller writes:
> > >
> > >>> As stated above, you spend X years on a horrible penal
> > >>> colony world and if you end your sentence alive, you can
> > >>> go home and straight-up murder one person without further
> > >>> penalty.
> >
> > More precisely, you can serve HALF your sentence in advance.
>
> Because after you report the murder it saves them the time of
> investigating it? (That seems fair, but at the same time doesn't
> seem fair. Probably because of the hellova premeditated part.)

The idea was that "pre-criminals" who bail out early, having gotten a
taste of what the punishment was like and knowing they couldn't hack it,
would be effectively deterred from committing a crime when they'd get
twice the sentence they already proved they couldn't serve. (There was
no credit for time served in a pre-sentence that was not completed.)

At one point in the story a criminologist says that the rarity of
successful pre-sentences is greatly outweighed by the reduction in crime
under the system.

As a bonus, the system gets cheap labor for colony worlds.

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <MLmdnd_XaMopL8vO...@iphouse.net>,
dsg...@iphouse.com "Dan Goodman" grudgingly allowed, then denied:

> Jack Bohn wrote:
>>>More precisely, you can serve HALF your sentence in advance.
>>Because after you report the murder it saves them the time of
>>investigating it? (That seems fair, but at the same time doesn't
>>seem fair. Probably because of the hellova premeditated part.)
>
>H. L. Gold was a very good editor in some ways -- but he didn't require
>stories to be plausible.

- no? - i'd've said that of the premises of stories he
was sent, but from deriving the story's set-up from the
sfnal premises, on through creating the characters aff-
ected or afflicted by the problem(s) thus caused, and
the actual story-telling, the tale must not only remain
plausible throughout - it must be rock-solid convincing.

- else you'd have to say that neither did sf&f prozine
editors boucher & mccomas, robert p. mills, edward l.
ferman, e.j. carnell, damon knight, james l. quinn, fred-
erik pohl, cele goldsmith, robert lowndes, nor even don
a. stuart, whose alter ego was an editor of some repute,
even now, require stories to be plausible.

- love, ppint.
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"The Dinner was loose again."
- _Chanur's Homecoming_, C. J. Cherryh, 1987
Phantasia, Daw & Methuen Books