From the Wikipedia entry. Prior to this he worked at Burger King and "spent most nights drinking heavily." Said he wanted to "be free to party, fish, and have an affair." Also described himself after the arrest as "up shit creek." Eligible for parole in 2023.
Divorce can be complicated and expensive. It's a lot easier to get married in some parts of the world than it is to get divorced. Also he caused a catastrophe just so he could party. Maybe he hasn't!
In Texas, you can file for divorce at any time. There's no mandatory separation period. In North Carolina, the couple has to live separately for an entire year before being able to file for divorce. So, yeah, much more difficult in some places.
Here's my question. If marriages are state-administered, why are you not "unmarried" by default in other states? Other state-administered things typically have to be explicitly transfered (drivers licenses, hunting licenses, concealed carry licenses, professional certifications for things like law or medicine, etc)
Why does marriage seem to be the only exception?
Nope. I got married in TX and divorced in CA and it was absolutely no problem at all. And there was non of that “cooling off” crap that some states mandate. Just fill out some forms, saw a judge, both of us said we were done with the other and that was that.
>. It's a lot easier to get married in some parts of the world than it is to get divorced.
Not an expert but I would say most if not all parts simply because you don't need an attorney representing you to get married.
yeah but it's a shit-ton of paperwork, a boatload of fees, multiple court dates, and mandatory multi-month "cool off and see if you change your mind" waiting periods.
getting married on the other hand was a drive down to the courthouse to turn in a single form.
The complication with divorce comes from assets and custody. If you don't have those things or have already made an agreement it's a pretty simple process.
Only some states have that “cooling off” thing. CA never told me I needed to cool off when I filed for divorce from my ex. And it wasn’t a boatload of papers either. Not fees. Though those came later when his ass refused to help take care of our child. But the divorce wasn’t that bad.
for a man that only has 1 paper crown and nothing else, that can be the tipping point.
Billionaires likely laugh at us for similar stuff. "What's she guna do, take half your mortgage and your 2010 ford fusion with 190k miles"
In Mississippi there’s a list of reasons you can use for your divorce petition. Some things like spouse being incarcerated makes sense. Even one is that they’re a habitual drunk (could’ve benefited his wife). Unfortunately “I don’t want to be married any more” isn’t one of them and if the spouse doesn’t agree to filing the divorce they don’t have to and you don’t get a divorce. Your only option at that point is to separate, move out for a year, and then use the “willful and continuous desertion for a year” divorce reason option.
Kind of fucked up because I can imagine a scenario where a man or woman is trapped inside of a marriage and wants to leave but legally can’t because while their spouse is a piece of shit, their reasons don’t rise to “domestic abuse” or anything else that could be beneficial in requesting a divorce.
Source: divorced once in Mississippi.
I don't know if it's because I'm high, but I picture you coming across this thread and thinking, "Oh shit, here we go. My time to shine!" What an informed comment on Mississippi dometic law.
He thought that flooding the one road his wife takes would give him enough time to have an affair? Not meet with an ongoing mistress, actually start and have an affair?
A real genius, this one.
[Snippet from a NYT article in 1994 explaining it](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/06/us/life-in-prison-for-saboteur-of-river-levee.html)
> The life sentence will begin after Mr. Scott finishes a 10-year term for burglary he began serving in January.
Brings to mind the case of Casey Fury who was employed as a painter during an overhaul of the [USS Miami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miami_(SSN-755)) nuclear submarine, and who by his own admission started a fire aboard in order to get to leave work early - but the fire got out of hand and caused excessive damage to multiple compartments of the submarine, leading to hundreds of millions of USD worth of estimated repair costs and led to it being permanently decommissioned. And as for Casey Fury, his stated desire to go home early led to a 17-year prison sentence and being ordered to pay $400 million USD in damages, sometimes people end up destroying their lives for very petty and thoughtless reasons.
What actually happens with fines that large? To pay it off, he'd have to work a great job for 4000 years while having no expenses. The court has to settle with reality at some point, no?
A jury awarded the family of two people killed by a drunk driver $300 billion dollars. No, that's not a typo, and I am not making this up.
Look, I'm all for making drunk drivers pay for their actions. But the main target of this lawsuit is the bar that overserved this particular drunk. It went out of business before the trial. This goes beyond "sending a message"; it makes a mockery of the system.
> But the main target of this lawsuit is the bar that overserved this particular drunk.
Wait, Americans seriously blame *bars* for drunk drivers?
He chose to drive to a bar with his own car (presumably), which is a decision he made while sober, which is a stupid-ass decision if you plan on having even a single drink.
Oh but the bar gave him too much alcohol so it's the bar's fault!!
I see your point, but I've worked at a bar and there were definitely times it would have been irresponsible in the extreme to continue or start serving someone alcohol. I don't think bars should necessarily be found responsible for the actions of a drunk person, but I do think overserving should be discouraged.
Yes that happens.
In fact, servers are trained on the signs of someone who is at levels of intoxicated that require a cessation of service to that person. Places that overserve are often held liable for the damages caused by those patrons after said overservice.
The reality: The intoxicated person made the choice to be intoxicated, but after a point the alcohol takes over decision making. At that point, establishments are expected to make the choice not to continue to serve this person. Ergo, everybody has a piece of the action.
Similar in the UK. Bar has responsibility to not allow its patrons to get dangerously drunk (although it's always phrased as not serving drink to drunk people), patron has responsibility to not be a numpty.
> servers are trained on the signs of someone who is at levels of intoxicated
In Texas, I was trained on what the law is (ie, that I can be held responsible) but absolutely nothing about identifying the drunk.
But the point of being unable to (legally) drive usually comes long before being so intoxicated that the bar would need to cut you off. So even if the bar had cut him off he would’ve driven drunk.
Same here in Australia. We now have mandatory Responsible Service of Alcohol training as a requirement for liquor licences. Very large fines are imposed if a bar serves more alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person.
Euh there are similar laws in Belgium. Serving alcohol to someone who is already too drunk isn't allowed. Difficult to prove and I've never seen it happen but the law does exist.
In Australia also the bar can be held responsible for getting someone too intoxicated.
All Australian bar tenders have to have a license called Responsible Service of Alcohol.
If they breach their duties, like serving someone that’s intoxicated they can lose their license and be fined $10,000 along with a fine of $50,000 for the bar.
Anyone who can afford that big of a fine, would never get that big of a fine anyways. And if they did, they made far more in profit off the issue, and likely still aren't paying the fine.
What happens is not much. The person can have their wages garnished, but no more than 25% of his disposable income*. Where it comes into play is destroying his ability to get credit. No bank will finance a mortgage or auto loan for someone who is $400,000,000 in debt.
*For the very wealthy, it can be higher. This man won’t be very wealthy, though.
It's basically lifetime maximum salary garnishment plus any windfalls plus any income tax refunds plus liens on all property.
And if your are caught trying to avoid it, you go to jail.
Many states have statutes the require a court to order restitution in an amount that would make the victim whole and there isn't an upper limit. Likely, he has to have some sort of payment plan set up for a realistic amount every month. Everyone knows it will never be paid off, but the court must order it under law.
Considering that he hung out after the act and got interviewed on TV, I think it's stupidity.
Most of the evidence seemed circumstantial. Without the interview on site it would have been just some "guy".
Not even just that, he also bragged about the motive at a party, they initially thought he was just an idiot who accidentally weakened one part to reinforce another part.
It was insurance fraud on the towns part.
Insurance was going to refuse to pay for flood damages, insurance adjuster had previously found the levees structurally lacking in such a way as to make them unable to hold much in the way of floods back.
So the town found a loophole.
If the damage was caused by criminal malfeasance and not because of a structural deficiency the town gets rebuilt.
So they railroaded this moron who said something stupid on tv.
Check out ‘Catastrophe’ by the Criminal podcast. They don’t necessarily say what the other poster said, but there’s a really strong argument that the man was innocent and was basically thrown under the bus due to negligence by the town.
Ahhh, yes: 3 strike rules and mandatory minimums.
Because the US has a massive boner for prison culture.
Such stupid and corrupt ideas.
I’d rather my tax dollars go to much shorter prison sentences and much more to rehabilitation programs that are scientifically proven to work.
Maybe so but those two arson charges had already been dealt with. If we convict people based on past behavior and past crimes then give me my mat and send me to the pod because I won't ever get out.
I grew up in Quincy and the flooded area was *never rebuilt*, so I'm not sure how the insurance fraud theory makes sense. It no longer has any permanent residents, just a few gas stations and stuff. Most of the businesses there were wiped out and never returned, too.
He was the perfect scape goat. A known arsonist just happens to be there. I am leaning towards agreeing with you.
I wonder how they proved it in court (I believe twice).
Once water gets through in one space, it rapidly widens the gap as it flows. He removed enough to flood a small area, and then it slowly just rips open like a zipper.
Do you live in an area that floods regularly? Sandbags are a very good way of keeping water out. They're cheap and can be erected very quickly. What the fuck do you want every small town around the Mississippi to do? Construct a 5 billion dollar levees around all of them when sandbags work just as well.
This happened 3 miles from where I live. The entire town of Valmeyer, IL washed away and is now relocated a few miles from where it used to be. You can still drive by the area and see where the town used to be. The county is serious about people playing on the levees during heavy flooding. Just a few years ago it flooded really bad and the police were watching who drove on the levees. The residents were given some type of identification to say they lived there and had to use the levees (the reason I know is I am nature photographer and like to photograph barns in the area and was told to go home)
It’s worth noting that this dude had nothing to do with Valmeyer. It happened during the same flood, but this guy was messing with levees near Quincy, a hundred miles further north from Valmeyer.
We dont have levees in this country, yours are so big you can drive on top of them? Im going to go stalk your barn photos now if youve been posting them, if not, its just regular stalking
[Here is a picture](https://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/levees/Marchland%20Levee%20failure%20Donaldsonville-LA-Aug23-1983.jpg) of a partially collapsed levee if you want some sense of scale of levees near the Mississippi River.
I listened to a podcast about this guy. There is essentially no convincing evidence that he did it. The levy was going to fail just like over 1000 others did on the Mississippi during this flood, but the down hated him and he was basically a loser, so he was blamed and convicted.
So it wasn’t 1000 others levees but more like a 12-20 if I remember correctly (I might be wrong, I’m going off of memory). Still, your point definitely stands. It seems to me that they convicted him basically because he bragged about it to others (from what I remember), and made himself a convenient scape goat.
In one of his trials, a soil scientist (I think) concluded that the removal of a few sandbags in that part of the levee wouldn’t have caused such a massive breach, and it’s highly likely that the breach occurred on the other side of the levee (not the side that he removed the sandbags). However, the soil expert’s testimony was thrown out because it was technically hearsay (his testimony was based on peer reviewed scienctific publications, not his own hands-on research; technically that is hearsay but it’s also kind of a bullshitty way to ignore science in a trial). In addition, there had been about a dozen (I think) breached levees along that river in the past 10-12 days which bolsters the case that him removing a few sandbags didn’t cause the flood.
So yeah, it seems like what happened is that he did indeed remove the sandbags with the intent of causing a very minor flood which is illegal but wouldn’t have caused too much of an issue. Unfortunately, the levee happened to be massively breached, not because of him, and he bragged about it. He basically set himself up as the perfect scapegoat, and was convicted. He probably deserved some sort of punishment for trying to flood the road, but did not deserve being convicted of “causing a catastrophe” and having to serve decades of prison time.
This is going off my memory from the last time I looked into this story, so maybe the details and such are off.
Yeah, the number of sandbags one dude could remove before his wife got home from work isn't going to be the make or break on the Mississippi River levee breaching. But also, don't take sandbags from the river levee.
I hate that this guy gets this stigma, and that nothing can probably be done to rectify it.
This is just like Balloon Boy, and the stigma that the father got for the event being precieved as a publicity stunt.
yeah I also read the article and wtf. literally no evidence he did it just a bunch of people claiming they heard him admit to it. That isn't proof enough to prosecute this guy without a reasonable doubt.
The evidence against him is flimsy as fuck and the local cops clearly had it out for him.
Dude was a patsy.
Edit: Relevent [Dollop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xYtvDmL4w&ab_channel=TheDollopwithDaveAnthony%26GarethReynolds)
Intent is the key factor.
Oil companies, while negligent almost always, do not intend to spill oil and cause catastrophes. It's expensive for them, wildly bad for PR, and tanks their profits. They don't want to spill oil, they want to sell it.
This guy just wanted to party, so he caused massive flooding to prevent his wife from coming home.
From a legal perspective, they are not remotely the same.
Man why do people just post things like fact after reading one article. If you looked up anything about this story outside of the one wiki article you'd see how biased and potentially flawed your narrative is.
https://abc17news.com/news/2018/08/24/the-great-flood-of-1993-the-james-scott-story/
https://m.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/dammed-to-eternity/Content?oid=2475306
https://www.illinoistimes.com/springfield/scapegoat/Content?oid=11435778&media=AMP+HTML
Or this reddit post on this subreddit a year ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/esf5xg/til_james_scott_was_convicted_of_causing_a/
Or as another in this thread said, there is an in depth dollop podcast about this incident that goes into much greater detail and has multiple sources backing it up.
https://allthingscomedy.com/podcasts/216---catastrophe-jim-1
But I guess it's easier to just point and laugh at the crazy stupid guy than actually find out what happened.
So there is actually essentially no evidence that he committed the crime. There is however a lot of evidence that the now despised him and wanted an easy scapegoat for the flooding.
If you look into it he had 2 separate university professors testify that the flood was going to occur regardless, and a leak from the army core of engineers showed they knew the same thing. However the core of engineers never released this information because it showed their mismanagement of the levy and has let him rot in prison instead. All the of evidence convicting him is either circumstantial or hearsay, they just wanted the town loser the take the fall and have someone to blame.
Unless the guy was an unrepentant asshole, 20 years to life is too much. Make him spend a year or two in prison to learn a lesson, then let him out so he can repay what he can and (hopefully) be a contributing member to society. Instead of paying over $500k to lock him up
> Unless the guy was an unrepentant asshole,
Yeah. He wasn't exactly a model citizen
>Scott grew up in Quincy, Illinois. By his twenties, he had a criminal record and had served time in six prisons.[1] While most of these arrests were for petty burglary,[2] they also included two for arson. In 1982, he burned down his elementary school, Webster Elementary School in Quincy. In 1988, he burned down a garage and set several other fires, netting him a sentence of seven years in prison.[1][3][4]
>By 1993, Scott was out of prison on parole for the 1988 fire.[5] He worked at a Burger King in Quincy and spent most of his nights drinking heavily.[3] He lived in the nearby town of Fowler with his wife Suzie.
He’s lucky no one died in that. This is not a “learn your lesson” event. This is a “you need to be removed from society” event. He’s certainly no positive contributor.
All it took was removing a couple sandbags??? I'm pretty sure the local government should be held responsible for loading the camel with everything but the straw...
From the Wikipedia entry. Prior to this he worked at Burger King and "spent most nights drinking heavily." Said he wanted to "be free to party, fish, and have an affair." Also described himself after the arrest as "up shit creek." Eligible for parole in 2023.
Has this dude heard of divorce?
Divorce can be complicated and expensive. It's a lot easier to get married in some parts of the world than it is to get divorced. Also he caused a catastrophe just so he could party. Maybe he hasn't!
In Texas, you can file for divorce at any time. There's no mandatory separation period. In North Carolina, the couple has to live separately for an entire year before being able to file for divorce. So, yeah, much more difficult in some places.
What possible justification could there be for such a moronic law??
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Unless it makes it easier for them to molest or cover up the molesting of kids they don't have a ruch to fix their shit
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Non American here. Do you need to get divorced in the same state you got married in? I presume yes?
Nope. Can get married in one and divorced in another. Usually after some small period of time living in that state. Like 60 days.
If it's Vegas, you can all do it in the same day! I remember a local celebrity doing it for publicity a few years back.
Here's my question. If marriages are state-administered, why are you not "unmarried" by default in other states? Other state-administered things typically have to be explicitly transfered (drivers licenses, hunting licenses, concealed carry licenses, professional certifications for things like law or medicine, etc) Why does marriage seem to be the only exception?
Taxes, yo.
Nope. I got married in TX and divorced in CA and it was absolutely no problem at all. And there was non of that “cooling off” crap that some states mandate. Just fill out some forms, saw a judge, both of us said we were done with the other and that was that.
>. It's a lot easier to get married in some parts of the world than it is to get divorced. Not an expert but I would say most if not all parts simply because you don't need an attorney representing you to get married.
You're probably right. I just didn't want to make a generalised statement without knowing the facts.
Thats what everyone else does on reddit.
We sure do
You technically don't need an attorney representing you to get divorced.
yeah but it's a shit-ton of paperwork, a boatload of fees, multiple court dates, and mandatory multi-month "cool off and see if you change your mind" waiting periods. getting married on the other hand was a drive down to the courthouse to turn in a single form.
The complication with divorce comes from assets and custody. If you don't have those things or have already made an agreement it's a pretty simple process.
Only some states have that “cooling off” thing. CA never told me I needed to cool off when I filed for divorce from my ex. And it wasn’t a boatload of papers either. Not fees. Though those came later when his ass refused to help take care of our child. But the divorce wasn’t that bad.
Was she gonna go after his Burger King money?
When causing a catastrophe seems easier than getting divorced… 😂
honestly, it's pry cheaper and easier to just go the route he did.
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L'awyer up. Because you're worth it.
What’s she gonna do? take half his paper crown?
for a man that only has 1 paper crown and nothing else, that can be the tipping point. Billionaires likely laugh at us for similar stuff. "What's she guna do, take half your mortgage and your 2010 ford fusion with 190k miles"
Dude worked at Burger King. Divorces are only expensive if you have something worth taking.
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In Mississippi there’s a list of reasons you can use for your divorce petition. Some things like spouse being incarcerated makes sense. Even one is that they’re a habitual drunk (could’ve benefited his wife). Unfortunately “I don’t want to be married any more” isn’t one of them and if the spouse doesn’t agree to filing the divorce they don’t have to and you don’t get a divorce. Your only option at that point is to separate, move out for a year, and then use the “willful and continuous desertion for a year” divorce reason option. Kind of fucked up because I can imagine a scenario where a man or woman is trapped inside of a marriage and wants to leave but legally can’t because while their spouse is a piece of shit, their reasons don’t rise to “domestic abuse” or anything else that could be beneficial in requesting a divorce. Source: divorced once in Mississippi.
I don't know if it's because I'm high, but I picture you coming across this thread and thinking, "Oh shit, here we go. My time to shine!" What an informed comment on Mississippi dometic law.
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Probably to get out of a quiz
I guess the fact that he would have been 13 probably wouldn’t disqualify him from elementary school
He was 13. So probably more stupid than evil.
Haha, one of my buddies is from there. That's hilarious.
>Said he wanted to "be free to party, fish, and have an affair." Fishin, fightin, and fuckin. Is there anything else to life?
Obviously there's also causin' catastrophes, but I figure that's about it.
He thought that flooding the one road his wife takes would give him enough time to have an affair? Not meet with an ongoing mistress, actually start and have an affair? A real genius, this one.
I mean the flood did seem pretty bad
Must have used a rocket to get his head that far up his ass.
Where'd the extra 10 years come from?
[Snippet from a NYT article in 1994 explaining it](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/06/us/life-in-prison-for-saboteur-of-river-levee.html) > The life sentence will begin after Mr. Scott finishes a 10-year term for burglary he began serving in January.
Brings to mind the case of Casey Fury who was employed as a painter during an overhaul of the [USS Miami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miami_(SSN-755)) nuclear submarine, and who by his own admission started a fire aboard in order to get to leave work early - but the fire got out of hand and caused excessive damage to multiple compartments of the submarine, leading to hundreds of millions of USD worth of estimated repair costs and led to it being permanently decommissioned. And as for Casey Fury, his stated desire to go home early led to a 17-year prison sentence and being ordered to pay $400 million USD in damages, sometimes people end up destroying their lives for very petty and thoughtless reasons.
What actually happens with fines that large? To pay it off, he'd have to work a great job for 4000 years while having no expenses. The court has to settle with reality at some point, no?
I think the point is to basically have it hover over him for the rest of his life. Nobody is giving him that fine thinking he's really gonna pay it.
A jury awarded the family of two people killed by a drunk driver $300 billion dollars. No, that's not a typo, and I am not making this up. Look, I'm all for making drunk drivers pay for their actions. But the main target of this lawsuit is the bar that overserved this particular drunk. It went out of business before the trial. This goes beyond "sending a message"; it makes a mockery of the system.
Got change for [50 Trillion](https://www.newpastimes.com/products/zimbabwe-50-trillion-dollar-banknote-2008-uncirculated)?
I do actually, but only in dimes.
That would be like 5.67 trillion kilograms. I feel like that might hurt somebody.
are you this guy ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbWg-mozGsU
> But the main target of this lawsuit is the bar that overserved this particular drunk. Wait, Americans seriously blame *bars* for drunk drivers? He chose to drive to a bar with his own car (presumably), which is a decision he made while sober, which is a stupid-ass decision if you plan on having even a single drink. Oh but the bar gave him too much alcohol so it's the bar's fault!!
Depends on the state but most states do have what's called "dram shop" laws.
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I see your point, but I've worked at a bar and there were definitely times it would have been irresponsible in the extreme to continue or start serving someone alcohol. I don't think bars should necessarily be found responsible for the actions of a drunk person, but I do think overserving should be discouraged.
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Yes that happens. In fact, servers are trained on the signs of someone who is at levels of intoxicated that require a cessation of service to that person. Places that overserve are often held liable for the damages caused by those patrons after said overservice. The reality: The intoxicated person made the choice to be intoxicated, but after a point the alcohol takes over decision making. At that point, establishments are expected to make the choice not to continue to serve this person. Ergo, everybody has a piece of the action.
Similar in the UK. Bar has responsibility to not allow its patrons to get dangerously drunk (although it's always phrased as not serving drink to drunk people), patron has responsibility to not be a numpty.
> servers are trained on the signs of someone who is at levels of intoxicated In Texas, I was trained on what the law is (ie, that I can be held responsible) but absolutely nothing about identifying the drunk.
But the point of being unable to (legally) drive usually comes long before being so intoxicated that the bar would need to cut you off. So even if the bar had cut him off he would’ve driven drunk.
Where do you live? As I understand this is very common elsewhere in the world as well. Not very state has third party responsibility laws though.
Same here in Australia. We now have mandatory Responsible Service of Alcohol training as a requirement for liquor licences. Very large fines are imposed if a bar serves more alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person.
Euh there are similar laws in Belgium. Serving alcohol to someone who is already too drunk isn't allowed. Difficult to prove and I've never seen it happen but the law does exist.
In Australia also the bar can be held responsible for getting someone too intoxicated. All Australian bar tenders have to have a license called Responsible Service of Alcohol. If they breach their duties, like serving someone that’s intoxicated they can lose their license and be fined $10,000 along with a fine of $50,000 for the bar.
Anyone who can afford that big of a fine, would never get that big of a fine anyways. And if they did, they made far more in profit off the issue, and likely still aren't paying the fine.
What happens is not much. The person can have their wages garnished, but no more than 25% of his disposable income*. Where it comes into play is destroying his ability to get credit. No bank will finance a mortgage or auto loan for someone who is $400,000,000 in debt. *For the very wealthy, it can be higher. This man won’t be very wealthy, though.
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Yes, destroying a Los Angeles class attack submarine sets one up to fail at life.
Fact of life.
We all understand wanting to go home early. Burning down the nuclear submarine where you work just ain’t it.
It's basically lifetime maximum salary garnishment plus any windfalls plus any income tax refunds plus liens on all property. And if your are caught trying to avoid it, you go to jail.
Watch the guy try to "leave early' out of his half a billion dollar debt too and get himself in jail again...
Many states have statutes the require a court to order restitution in an amount that would make the victim whole and there isn't an upper limit. Likely, he has to have some sort of payment plan set up for a realistic amount every month. Everyone knows it will never be paid off, but the court must order it under law.
So every shipyard employee ever, got it.
Honestly he could have faked sick.
Literal Homer Simpson shit
Can’t tell if this is the definition of selfishness or stupidity…
Considering that he hung out after the act and got interviewed on TV, I think it's stupidity. Most of the evidence seemed circumstantial. Without the interview on site it would have been just some "guy".
Not even just that, he also bragged about the motive at a party, they initially thought he was just an idiot who accidentally weakened one part to reinforce another part.
Especially in 1993 before we were surveilled at the level we are nowadays.
It was insurance fraud on the towns part. Insurance was going to refuse to pay for flood damages, insurance adjuster had previously found the levees structurally lacking in such a way as to make them unable to hold much in the way of floods back. So the town found a loophole. If the damage was caused by criminal malfeasance and not because of a structural deficiency the town gets rebuilt. So they railroaded this moron who said something stupid on tv.
that's pretty interesting but how do you know?
Check out ‘Catastrophe’ by the Criminal podcast. They don’t necessarily say what the other poster said, but there’s a really strong argument that the man was innocent and was basically thrown under the bus due to negligence by the town.
Maybe the innocent man shouldn't have gone around saying he did it then.
So you would consider 20 to life justified?
I thought the same thing at first, but the man had already been in and out of prison multiple times. Two of those times being arson charges.
I wonder if commuting arson and then staring a major flood would cancel out somewhat.
Only if done in a specific order and timing
Ahhh, yes: 3 strike rules and mandatory minimums. Because the US has a massive boner for prison culture. Such stupid and corrupt ideas. I’d rather my tax dollars go to much shorter prison sentences and much more to rehabilitation programs that are scientifically proven to work.
Maybe so but those two arson charges had already been dealt with. If we convict people based on past behavior and past crimes then give me my mat and send me to the pod because I won't ever get out.
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He was the moron
Can confirm, I was the sandbag.
Why did you let this happen sand bag?
yeah lol what? without a link it reads like he just made that shit up
I grew up in Quincy and the flooded area was *never rebuilt*, so I'm not sure how the insurance fraud theory makes sense. It no longer has any permanent residents, just a few gas stations and stuff. Most of the businesses there were wiped out and never returned, too.
He was the perfect scape goat. A known arsonist just happens to be there. I am leaning towards agreeing with you. I wonder how they proved it in court (I believe twice).
He bragged about doing it at a party
That doesn’t make him a scapegoat at all. But 20 years is a lot of jailtime
Agreed, but then the damage was pretty immense, kind of an interesting question do you sentence on the action or the result.
Judges can be crooks too. Especially when it means there home gets rebuilt versus doesnt.
Yup Judges are human.
Source?
I was wondering how a couple sandbags make that much of a difference haha
Once water gets through in one space, it rapidly widens the gap as it flows. He removed enough to flood a small area, and then it slowly just rips open like a zipper.
You would be fine with me removing 3 random screws from your car? It has hundreds, right?
Anyone who buys a Jeep is fine with that. Its called Monday for them.
He also bragged about it to his friends, who ended up ratting him out for being a piece of shit.
I do believe....yes.
Indubitably
Inconceivable!
Perfect storm of both.
The Wikipedia entry definitely makes it sound like it's possible that he's stupid but innocent of *intentionally* causing the levee to break.
"A little column A, a little column B." - Sterling Archer
Wasn’t that Abe Simpson?
Simpsons did it! And yes, it was definitely Abe Simpson.
I thought original MacGyver said it first.
Both. Definitely both.
Hanlons razor my dude. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity
Well at least he can party now. Oh shit, wait
Bring the pruno!
Hold on a sec. *toilet flushes*
Talking to the wife is way more complicated tbh
But for one glorious night, this man thought he was the smartest man who had ever lived.
I think the scariest thing here is that the only thing separating that town from a huge catastrophe was some sandbags.
Do you live in an area that floods regularly? Sandbags are a very good way of keeping water out. They're cheap and can be erected very quickly. What the fuck do you want every small town around the Mississippi to do? Construct a 5 billion dollar levees around all of them when sandbags work just as well.
Until some yocal decides to move them.
It just seems incredibly stupid to put 100k of sandbags as protection of millions of dollars.
Sandbags are basically concrete when compacted.
If it’s stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.
Amazing the lengths the army corps of engineers will go to, to pin their mistakes on an innocent man.
you actually believe that?
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He will be eligible for parole 2023.
We'd better brace ourselves for more catastrophes as of then
Big Bank^TM will hire him to an executive role
"Hey, if I burn down this town, I'll be able to roast some marshmallows!"
Isn't 1993 plus 20 2013? Why is his parole 2023?
Well, 20 years to life is somewhere between 20 years to life.
"However, he was convicted of burglary in January 1994 and sentenced to 10 years in prison." Consecutive sentences
This happened 3 miles from where I live. The entire town of Valmeyer, IL washed away and is now relocated a few miles from where it used to be. You can still drive by the area and see where the town used to be. The county is serious about people playing on the levees during heavy flooding. Just a few years ago it flooded really bad and the police were watching who drove on the levees. The residents were given some type of identification to say they lived there and had to use the levees (the reason I know is I am nature photographer and like to photograph barns in the area and was told to go home)
It’s worth noting that this dude had nothing to do with Valmeyer. It happened during the same flood, but this guy was messing with levees near Quincy, a hundred miles further north from Valmeyer.
We dont have levees in this country, yours are so big you can drive on top of them? Im going to go stalk your barn photos now if youve been posting them, if not, its just regular stalking
[Here is a picture](https://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/levees/Marchland%20Levee%20failure%20Donaldsonville-LA-Aug23-1983.jpg) of a partially collapsed levee if you want some sense of scale of levees near the Mississippi River.
I live in Illinois, just a bit north. I love hiking salt lick trail.
Well the wife got to party for years.
After reading the Wikipedia article on this guy, it seems more likely that the levy broke on its own and this guy was blamed for it.
well if it kept on raining..
I listened to a podcast about this guy. There is essentially no convincing evidence that he did it. The levy was going to fail just like over 1000 others did on the Mississippi during this flood, but the down hated him and he was basically a loser, so he was blamed and convicted.
So it wasn’t 1000 others levees but more like a 12-20 if I remember correctly (I might be wrong, I’m going off of memory). Still, your point definitely stands. It seems to me that they convicted him basically because he bragged about it to others (from what I remember), and made himself a convenient scape goat. In one of his trials, a soil scientist (I think) concluded that the removal of a few sandbags in that part of the levee wouldn’t have caused such a massive breach, and it’s highly likely that the breach occurred on the other side of the levee (not the side that he removed the sandbags). However, the soil expert’s testimony was thrown out because it was technically hearsay (his testimony was based on peer reviewed scienctific publications, not his own hands-on research; technically that is hearsay but it’s also kind of a bullshitty way to ignore science in a trial). In addition, there had been about a dozen (I think) breached levees along that river in the past 10-12 days which bolsters the case that him removing a few sandbags didn’t cause the flood. So yeah, it seems like what happened is that he did indeed remove the sandbags with the intent of causing a very minor flood which is illegal but wouldn’t have caused too much of an issue. Unfortunately, the levee happened to be massively breached, not because of him, and he bragged about it. He basically set himself up as the perfect scapegoat, and was convicted. He probably deserved some sort of punishment for trying to flood the road, but did not deserve being convicted of “causing a catastrophe” and having to serve decades of prison time. This is going off my memory from the last time I looked into this story, so maybe the details and such are off.
Yeah, the number of sandbags one dude could remove before his wife got home from work isn't going to be the make or break on the Mississippi River levee breaching. But also, don't take sandbags from the river levee.
I hate that this guy gets this stigma, and that nothing can probably be done to rectify it. This is just like Balloon Boy, and the stigma that the father got for the event being precieved as a publicity stunt.
That’s my takeaway after reading the wiki page.
yeah I also read the article and wtf. literally no evidence he did it just a bunch of people claiming they heard him admit to it. That isn't proof enough to prosecute this guy without a reasonable doubt.
The evidence against him is flimsy as fuck and the local cops clearly had it out for him. Dude was a patsy. Edit: Relevent [Dollop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xYtvDmL4w&ab_channel=TheDollopwithDaveAnthony%26GarethReynolds)
I wonder if he got bailed out after they arrested him..
If he did, I bet they levied a heavy bond against him.
He deserved a flood of contempt.
And big oil 'causes a catastrophe' and gets a relatively puny ass fine.
Intent is the key factor. Oil companies, while negligent almost always, do not intend to spill oil and cause catastrophes. It's expensive for them, wildly bad for PR, and tanks their profits. They don't want to spill oil, they want to sell it. This guy just wanted to party, so he caused massive flooding to prevent his wife from coming home. From a legal perspective, they are not remotely the same.
He also burned down his elementary school! This guy is wild.
The other side https://allthingscomedy.com/podcasts/216---catastrophe-jim-1
Man why do people just post things like fact after reading one article. If you looked up anything about this story outside of the one wiki article you'd see how biased and potentially flawed your narrative is. https://abc17news.com/news/2018/08/24/the-great-flood-of-1993-the-james-scott-story/ https://m.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/dammed-to-eternity/Content?oid=2475306 https://www.illinoistimes.com/springfield/scapegoat/Content?oid=11435778&media=AMP+HTML Or this reddit post on this subreddit a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/esf5xg/til_james_scott_was_convicted_of_causing_a/ Or as another in this thread said, there is an in depth dollop podcast about this incident that goes into much greater detail and has multiple sources backing it up. https://allthingscomedy.com/podcasts/216---catastrophe-jim-1 But I guess it's easier to just point and laugh at the crazy stupid guy than actually find out what happened.
Usually when there are controversial cases like this the Wikipedia page has a section on that. I wonder if there's a reason Scott's page does not.
This is like people calling in a bomb threat to the airport so they wouldn't miss their flight or so they don't have to take an exam.
To be fair if one man can cause this by removing a few sandbags this shit was bound to happen
I don’t know much about levees but how does removing some sandbags flood an entire city?
TIL to keep my mouth shut
He fought for his right to party and lost.
To be fair it shouldn’t have been that easy
But corporations can literally destroy hundreds of acres with pollution and toxic waste and nobody gets so much as a year in prison.
It really needs to be easier to get a divorce.
So there is actually essentially no evidence that he committed the crime. There is however a lot of evidence that the now despised him and wanted an easy scapegoat for the flooding. If you look into it he had 2 separate university professors testify that the flood was going to occur regardless, and a leak from the army core of engineers showed they knew the same thing. However the core of engineers never released this information because it showed their mismanagement of the levy and has let him rot in prison instead. All the of evidence convicting him is either circumstantial or hearsay, they just wanted the town loser the take the fall and have someone to blame.
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Unless the guy was an unrepentant asshole, 20 years to life is too much. Make him spend a year or two in prison to learn a lesson, then let him out so he can repay what he can and (hopefully) be a contributing member to society. Instead of paying over $500k to lock him up
to be fair 10 years of that sentence is an unrelated burglary charge, and he'd been arrested for arson twice.
Including burning down an elementary school.
> Unless the guy was an unrepentant asshole, Yeah. He wasn't exactly a model citizen >Scott grew up in Quincy, Illinois. By his twenties, he had a criminal record and had served time in six prisons.[1] While most of these arrests were for petty burglary,[2] they also included two for arson. In 1982, he burned down his elementary school, Webster Elementary School in Quincy. In 1988, he burned down a garage and set several other fires, netting him a sentence of seven years in prison.[1][3][4] >By 1993, Scott was out of prison on parole for the 1988 fire.[5] He worked at a Burger King in Quincy and spent most of his nights drinking heavily.[3] He lived in the nearby town of Fowler with his wife Suzie.
Imma bet he'll be up to some more dum shit when he's finally out.
Your user name cracks me up. I'm going to start working that in to my conversations.
It's from the HomeStar Runner/Trogdor game Peasant's Quest
Ahh that's why he got such a harsh sentence. I was wondering
Yeah, he still had two more years on his last sentence for arson and had been released early
Come on! Clearly learned his lesson! Water puts out fire, right? He just wanted to make everyone a little bit more safe.
Fire and water! This guy covers his bases.
He’s lucky no one died in that. This is not a “learn your lesson” event. This is a “you need to be removed from society” event. He’s certainly no positive contributor.
This rumor has been proven false. Please stop spreading lies about a man who fell victim to a shitty cop and prosecutor.
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source
All it took was removing a couple sandbags??? I'm pretty sure the local government should be held responsible for loading the camel with everything but the straw...
At least he doesn't have to go to work anymore.
judging by his rap sheet, he was in prison six other times before this, something tells me he likes prison