Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 June 3

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June 3

Wanted... dead or alive

When did actual lawful law enforcement agencies last advertise bounties for wanted persons "dead or alive"? DuncanHill (talk) 00:49, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

George W. Bush said on September 17, 2001 that Osama bin Laden was "wanted dead or alive". Here is a source. The Justice Department reported directly to him. I am not aware of more recent usage. Cullen328 (talk) 02:29, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

But Bush wasn't "advertising a bounty", so that example isn't relevant.

Wikipedia's coverage of this is at Wanted poster#Dead or alive, but it's pretty minimal, it only cites two references, and both of them are dead. (One is archived at the Wayback Machine, so I'll update that link). --142.112.220.184 (talk) 05:48, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the Bush admistration advertised a $25 million dollar bounty for Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. Read this. Cullen328 (talk) 08:12, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks for the correction. A pity your first cite didn't mention the point; I suppose it happened later. --142.112.220.184 (talk) 08:35, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

More recently, US authorities advertised a $25 million bounty on Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in a drone strike on July 31. 2022, about ten months ago. Read this. Cullen328 (talk) 09:15, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd think that extrajudicial executions – not counting the intentional killing of an enemy combattant in actual combat, or the use of deadly force to counter a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm – are unlawful, and that inciting to commit such executions is a crime under US law.  --Lambiam 11:02, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

An actual example from 1899, surprisingly not from the Wild West:

£25 (Twenty-five Pounds stg.) is offered by the Sub-Commission of the fifth division , on behalf of the Special Constable of the said division , to anyone who brings the escaped prisioner of war CHURCHILL dead or alive to this office, For the Sub-Commission of the Fifth Division, (Signed) LODK de HAAS, Sec. [1]

Alansplodge (talk) 11:40, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

An earlier US example, an advertisemet in the Wilmington (North Carolina) Advertiser seeking a runaway slave in 1838:

Ran away, my negro man Richard. A reward of twenty-five dollars will be paid for his apprehension, DEAD OR ALIVE. Satisfactory proof only required of him being killed. He has with him, in all probability, his wife Eliza. Durant H. Rhodes.

Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade in the United States of America (1841), Page 39.

Alansplodge (talk) 11:59, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

According to this in contrasting rewards during the Malayan Emergency and U.S. terrorism rewards: both the DoD and DOS rewards programs are limited by statute to “nonlethal” assistance. Lambian Not as illegal as might seem[2], but based on a long tradition of common law. Here's a conviction for solicitation of murder, but Offering money for killing rather than capturing a lawbreaker, regardless of the immediate threat posed, is clearly a violation of present Montana laws against solicitation, but in 1927 apparently no one challenged the right of the Montana Bankers Association to offer such blood money[3] There may have been a $2,500 "Dead or Alive" poster for Clyde Barrow[4], and the original suggestion was "Wanted Dead", but can't find if a law enforcement agency offered the reward or printed the poster (if any). fiveby(zero) 14:20, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

"Dead or alive" could be read "produce them alive, or produce proof that they have died". Either outcome would terminate the search, and if someone has proof of death but does not bother to produce it the unattainable search for a live person may continue, therefore it is worth rewarding proof of death. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 21:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

That's true; in countries without a desert such notion is certainly a command to disbelief in regard with their own conditions. If reports of morbid findings there can be at the initiative of local authorities those reports obviously will not be crossing borders unless attire and belongings of the deceased explicitly appeal for it, and diplomatic ties of course allows accordingly. --Askedonty (talk) 22:41, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I'd think that, too. But in the US, prosecutors have a lot of leeway, and presumably no-one has the balls or the will to stand up to the administration. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:22, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Fribault, Saxony

All the old references give Richard Schomburgk's (1811) birthplace as Fribault, Saxony, which ADB translates as Freyburg, Germany, and we have followed suit. This seemed dubious, as Freyburg is an old name, but I can't find a better. Can anyone help? Doug butler (talk) 01:51, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Googling "Fribault Saxony" only gives results connected to Schomburgk; other than that "Fribault" only appears as a surname and there are no hints that Fribault is an actual place or even an alternative name for Freyburg. Given that the town of Freyburg claims Schomburgk as their own, as evidenced by this commemorative plaque, I don't see any good reason to doubt that Freyburg is his actual birthplace. It seems just about imaginable that "Fribault" could be a mishearing of "Freyburg" and there may be a fun story behind that, but that is probably difficult to reconstruct. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:52, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

There are many old references to a Schomburgk family in Freyburg.^[5][6][7]  --Lambiam 10:51, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

Most helpful. Thanks once again. Doug butler (talk) 12:16, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

QAnon Shaman prison sentence

[8] The QAnon Shaman was sentenced in November 2021 to 41 months in prison and he is apparently out now, 18 months later. I'm not claiming anything about the politics or whether he did or didn't deserve such a sentence, but I thought all federal prison sentences had to be served at least 80% of the way? So I am wondering how he got out that early. The article about him doesn't say. 2601:644:8501:CF70:0:0:0:7260 (talk) 11:52, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

The Bureau of Prisons has not commented on the reason for his early release, but noted that recent changes to the First Step Act allows inmates to earn “up to 54 days of good conduct time for each year of the sentence imposed by the court.” Federal and state prison inmates often earn sentence reductions over the course of their time behind bars... Albert Watkins, the attorney who handled Chansley’s plea and sentencing... notes that the plea agreement and sentencing imposed by the court permitted reduced time if Chansley undertook certain programs and behaved well while confined. The early release, he says, is most likely “based on a host of factors routinely taken into consideration by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.”

The Real Reason the Jan. 6 'QAnon Shaman' Was Released From Prison Early

Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't know specifics about the USA, but in most of the world, the time spent incarcerated awaiting the outcome of the trial is also counted as prison time. He was arrested in 9 January 2021, so that's 866 days (or one more, if you count both the start date and the end date), 28 months 14 days or 69.4% of the sentence. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:30, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Definitely the case in the US as well. I'm lazy to dig up a source but you can see various sources like [9] and probably the Time link above (some Time source does but I didn't check it's the above) note he served 27 months not the 18 the OP said. Not sure why it's different from your 28 but one guess is you counted the time he spent on a halfway house at the time if his release. Or perhaps it's more complicated e.g. If he had day release leading up to his full release maybe only part of the day is counted. Nil Einne (talk) 19:19, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Actually I was mistaken about Time, I simply looked a the Google snippet but the 27 months thing related to the time since the riots to the story, not how long he spent.

But reading the Politico careful, I do think they were referring only to the time he spent in prison or jail and not including the time he would spend in the "residential reentry management" although as I understand it the 25 May date he was released from this is correctly counted as the day he is released from custody since the halfway house is still considered part of federal custody.

And having looked into this a bit more, I don't think there are any complications about any day release etc programmes (if he was in them, I have no idea) although calculating time served can get very complicated [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]. But most of this seems to arise from issues like time spent in in non federal detention as well as when there are multiple charges and sentences, especially if a person is charged for one thing then later charged for something else. Other than that, there are only obvious exclusions e.g. for someone who is released or escapes, and also anyone held for civil contempt.

(There is also the complication of credit for good conduct etc. This existed before the above mentioned First Step Act but has been improved by it [15] since 54 days is now usually 54 days, although irrelevant since he was well after First Step. But in any case, this will relate to why he only spent those 27+ months but not why it was 27+ instead of 28+.)

Nil Einne (talk) 09:39, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Banned user
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I recently read a newspaper report that a judge sentenced a defendant convicted of serious crime to so many years and an arbitrary number of days (whatever it was). I pondered over this for a few minutes before concluding that he had probably decided on a sentence of a round number of years and subtracted from it the time spent in custody, so that he actually would serve that number of years, but wouldn't that in fact reduce the term because time spent in custody is automatically deducted? Many years ago a newspaper reported that a magistrate had sentenced a defendant to a certain number of days before adding "and as this is the number of days you have been in custody you are free to go." In this country, given prison overcrowding, it is routine to release prisoners after they have served half their sentence. 2A02:C7C:38C1:3600:ACCF:3F82:63F1:1958 (talk) 10:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC) "In this country" – and where might that be? Sorry to pick you up on that but this wiki in particular has a global readership. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:41, 5 June 2023 (UTC) Geolocates to London (England, that is). Does the IP's characterization sound correct for England? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:56, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

what were Louis VIII of France's heraldic arms?

Several non-English, non-French Wikipedias use File:Azure semé-de-lys or.svg as the coat of arms of Mr. VIII. That file is named "semé-de-lys", but it is not semé-de-lys, it depicts just two fleurs-de-lis in pale at the bottom of a big blank blue shield. So, what were his arms? Did he bear just two lis flowers at the bottom of an empty blue field, like in the image, in which case I'll request the file be renamed on Commons? Or were his arms semé-de-lys, like the title of the image and like the arms of the Kings of France Ancien, in which case the wikis using the two-lis image need to be updated? -sche (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

The poor boy would have felt too miserable by sunney weather under the gaze à les gentes dames [16]! No, there seems there is some sort of problem instead with software handling the picture svg organization sheme, or/and in its conversion to png. The png preview from the depiction page leads to a very reasonable "semis-de-lys" but at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Azure_sem%C3%A9-de-lys_or.svg --Askedonty (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

• Reasonable this means that the browser/navigator is reading the svg properly. So; etc. --Askedonty (talk) 20:10, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I see! Thank you. I'll ask on Commons if someome can fix it. -sche (talk) 20:40, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

* Case swiftly solved by user:Ilzolende at Common's Graphic Lab (before day, closed 5 June 2023) --Askedonty (talk) 16:23, 5 June 2023 (UTC)