Wednesday, September 06, 2006

What a Loaded Question

From Sentencing Law & Policy comes a post about a recent 2nd Circuit decision that deals with a Guideline enhancement where the victims of a crime are particularly vulnerable. In concluding that the enhancement did not apply, the court said (emphasis mine):

While we recognize that a fraud grounded in religious themes may pose an especially effective threat, membership in religious groups cannot, standing alone, make victims 'vulnerable' for purposes of the enhancement, even where a fraud involves reliance on religious themes or imagery....

We have no reason to believe that evangelical Christians as a class are 'unusually susceptible' to fraud.
The snark-meister in my would argue that status as an evangelical is enough reason to believe those people are unusually susceptible to fraud. But that would be wrong. :)

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