California Judge Routes Campaign Robocalls Through Colorado 191
Thomas Hawk writes "Victoria Kolakowski, a current sitting law judge at the California PUC, is running for Alameda Superior Court judge in California. As part of her campaign she is robodialing people in California with a pre-recorded message. The only problem is that in Califorina robodials are actually illegal unless first introduced by a non-recorded natural person who gains consent to play the call. Ironically, the agency set up to protect our privacy and enforce this law, the California PUC, is the very agency where Kolakowski works today. Kolakowski originally apologized for the calls but then later deleted messages on her Facebook account from people objecting to her use of these calls. Now Kolakowski is trying to argue that because 'technically' she is routing her calls through Colorado from outside the state that her robodials are actually legal."
go figure. (Score:5, Insightful)
Politician thinks the rules only apply to other people. News at 11.
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And when that is reached, you get a revolution, which usually ends up putting even nastier people in power, since a revolution temporarily suspends the rule of law, giving the advantage to ruthless people since there's no longer anyone capable of reining them in.
You can't win, you can't break even, you can't stop playing. The game is stacked against you from the very laws of thermodynamics to the notion of "corporate personhood".
Re:go figure. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=85394713794+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve [ca.gov]
2872(d) lists exemptions.. I don't see anything regarding political messages
Re:go figure. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:go figure. (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting.
Isn't the stance of the Libertarian party that such laws are a violation of people's freedom of speech and "robocalls" should be legal?
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I'm guessing (based upon general libertarian principles, not knowledge of the Libertarian party's stance) that they would be opposed to a blanket ban on robocalls on the grounds you state. I would also guess that they would very much support the do-not-call list applying to all unsolicited calls (correct me if I'm wrong, but right now political calling is exempt), as people should have the right to be free of harassment if they choose.
So I would guess that technically you're right that they think such calls
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No, this is where the bastard's right to swing their fists (or spew spam) meets your face. Robocalls do infringe on your freedom as they force you to do something you don't want (listen to drivel). Free speech is good only as long as no one is forced to listen to you.
Any person should be able to make a public speech. No one should be able to make a speech ON YOUR PROPERTY without your consent.
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You think the robocaller will get offend if we revoke its freedom of speech?
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But even if she can find some wiggle room or some minor technicality to skate by the intent of this law,
Like acquiting herself? Having not redacted herself from the case, obviously.
Re:go figure. (Score:5, Insightful)
She is breaking the law and she should admit it, apologize and pledge not to use robodialers in the state of California in the future.
No, she shoud be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't get out of a traffic ticket by apologizing and promising not to do it again. And the people of your state should vote this person out of office. Judges and police officers should be held to a stricter standard than civilians.
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Politics may be "business" for politicians, but constituents will likely disagree with that position as would nearly any court of law... unless, of course, she gets elected and that particular court of law would likely agree with that perspective.
In the end, she is charged not with interpreting the law, but enforcing it. She broke the very law she was charged with enforcing. She should be removed from her current position by firing and not allowed to step down or resign. As to whether or not she should b
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...or other person having an established relationship with the person...
The established relationship is voter, candidate.
The biggest problem is that she couldn't figure this out, and made up some BS about it being out of state having something to do with anything.
So, the call was a) unethical, b) legal, c) the judge is an idiot that doesn't know the law so should not be returned to the bench.
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The established relationship is voter, candidate.
That would be like saying that a spammer/customer relationship is satisfied by the fact that the spammer was selling toilet paper and the recipient was a user of toilet paper.
As a vendor of toilet paper, I may be free to spam my existing customer base, but I'm not free to spam yours (or any other potential customers that aren't already engaging me an existing and ongoing relationship).
With that in mind, even if we could assume that just by the fact that a voter voting for her automatically satisfies the req
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The established relationship is voter, candidate.
That would be like saying that a spammer/customer relationship is satisfied by the fact that the spammer was selling toilet paper and the recipient was a user of toilet paper.
As a vendor of toilet paper, I may be free to spam my existing customer base, but I'm not free to spam yours (or any other potential customers that aren't already engaging me an existing and ongoing relationship).
With that in mind, even if we could assume that just by the fact that a voter voting for her automatically satisfies the requisite relationship criteria, there is still no way for her to know who voted for her and who voted for another candidate.
The judge is going to be hired or not hired based in part on Thomas Hawks vote.
If someone has the ability to fire you, you have a relationship with them.
Unfortunately for the judge, this was like someone calling when the application page says do not call about this job.
You can do it, you are not going to get hired.
Re:go figure. (Score:5, Interesting)
Call centers are our main customers at my current job. You wouldn't believe how creative people get, trying to bypass the laws that restrict use of certain dialing technologies (robo-dialers, predictive dialers, progressive dialers, etc.) As a software provider we have to implement options that support those legal restrictions, but a huge number of clients want to know how to disable those features because they've come up with a creative reason why the law doesn't apply to them. We advise them not to do it, but in the end, it's the call center that's in control.
And in the other direction... (Score:5, Insightful)
When will organizations get a clue - if people don't want to be called, you're only going to piss them off by calling them, and the results will be counter-productive. If you piss me off by making me spend my valuable time going though some poorly designed menu system, only to run into a dead end/disconnect, you can bet that when I do get in touch with a human, I'm going to make sure they get to spend lots of their paid time handling my call.
Re:And in the other direction... (Score:5, Funny)
I guess they will get the hint when people stop automatically hanging up on them and start burning resources by keeping the person on line for hours then declaring they aren't interested.
For instance, I received a third call from an organization soliciting charitable donation. I have already told this organization to take me off the calling list and any other lists they have with my name or number on it two times (I don't do phone donations). After telling this third guy about being order to remove me from the lists, he promptly explained that he wasn't subject to the do not call registry because they were a charity. Of course the the laws concerning removal from calling lists upon request supersede the DNC registry and are a combination of state an federal laws. Well, after this authoritative answer detailing how the laws don't apply to him, I said "Oh, I didn't know that, then asked him to explain what he was representing. I then asked a crap load of stupid questions to drag out his time on the phone. I think I tied him up for about 20 minutes before he started getting anxious about a large donation. I asked if a manager was available to sit in on the call as I wanted to make sure they understood why I was making the donation. Sure enough, after another 10 minutes or so, I got someone on the phone claiming to be a supervisor. I then explained that because I requested to be taken off the list and all lists they were associated with, their call allowed me to file a formal complain with the public utilities commission of the state and I would be entitled to a $500 award for each of their violations of state law. This happened twice so it would be $1000 total and in lieu of collecting, I am donating this $1000 in spirit by not filing the complaint at that time under the provision that I never be contacted by them or their call center again. The manager attempted to asset they weren't subject to the DNC registry again and I explained that the provisions I am speaking of is under state law and existed long before the Do Not Call registry ever has and referred them to the Ohio public utilities commission and the Ohio office of consumer counsil for further explanation. Little was I aware of at the time that Ohio law allows for $2000 fines to be awarded to the person now.
I never received a call from them again. All in all, I took up about 40 minutes of their time in order to tell them not to call me again or I would take legal action. If everyone, or even 10% of the people did this, it would become economically unfeasible to continue calling people who do not want to be called. And that's without resorting to court or legal actions.
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I'd have been more satisfied if you'd taken the legal action. Also, the laws need to be set up to ding the call center *and* the groups that hire them. It's not enough to just punish the companies using call centers: those specific companies will stop, but the call centers themselves will find someone else to scam into thinking it's a good idea.
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do the world a favor and skip a couple hours of TV and make a telemarketing firm's life hell.
You know what would be awesome? If somebody were to set up a phone bank to which we could forward telemarketing calls to tie up the agents' time without having to actually stay on the phone feigning interest. It wouldn't have to be too fancy - just a basic IVR that did something like this:
Joe Blow: Hello?
Telemarketer: Hello! My name is Jim and I'm...
Joe Blow: Oh, hi Jim. Can you hold on a sec? I want to forward you to my other phone because I don't like to keep this line tied up. It'll just t
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good for you.
now if only we had super-smooth AI agents to adopt your technique for us!
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My dad listens for ten seconds, the quietly lays the phone down. As I don't have a landline, I never get robocalls at home; at work I just hang up.
Re: The ultimate solution (Score:2)
No amount of creativity can defeat my choice to ignore the call.
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My phone has a nice patch available - a whitelist. If you aren't on my contacts list, it automatically goes to voicemail. This can be temporarily disabled.
I have a similar patch installed, and that's simply a blocker-contact (add a number, and it never rings or notifies about calls from that number) as too many unknown contacts legitimately call me.
FTFY (Score:4, Insightful)
Person thinks the rules only apply to other people. News at 11.
Hypocrisy isn't restricted to politics. It's just easier to see in people other than yourself.
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, but seeing a politician break the law is like seeing a doctor smoke, a priest rape a kid, my parents doing it, a cop assaulting someone... it just hurts more.
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Insightful)
Something is not right with our society's morals... This line should be part of a psychological test, 'which of these does not belong'.
Did your parents truly commit a crime in conceiving you? I can understand that you do not relish the prospect of observing them in the act but to compare it to the actions of the pope's minions or police violence is a bit overboard.
Re:go figure. (Score:5, Insightful)
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cali pays $18 billion dollars more in fed taxes than the state receives in federal funds
Nope; Let me fix that for you:
State governments don't pay a penny in federal income taxes. Citizens within the states pay federal income taxes and then the federal government gives kickbacks to the state governments at non-uniform per-capita rates. California's local politicians just aren't as good at demanding per-capita kickback rates as some of the other states.
That whole system is a giant s
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Politician thinks the rules only apply to other people. News at 11.
Where I live, they're right. All telemarketing and Robo-calling laws in Canada have specific exceptions for political campaigns...
Of course as soon as I get one from a candidate I immediately remove them from my list of parties to vote for in that election...
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You're too generous. I remove them from my list of parties to vote for ever again.... Mr. Harper and his cronies have been the only ones stupid enough to try it, though....
here's a clue, politicos: if my vote is worth courting, then it's worth having a human do it. it's patently insulting that you think it's ok to have a computer dial my phone number. more than that: it's illegal. I only have one phone number, and it's a cellular phone. exemptions for political and charity organizations don't include cellul
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Just make sure the call is from the candidate they're advocating and not their opponent. I don't know about Canadian law but US political campaign calls are required to state who sponsored it. Unfortunately that notice is at the very end meaning you have to listen to the whole thing.
Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, now we know who not to vote for...
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
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Oh well <flips coun>
Poor coun. :(
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Hey, there's lots of reasonable, honest candidates out there, and you could be among the 927 people voting for one in the next election!
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However, the people left have basically no chance of getting elected, and you'd waste your vote.
Geez, will everybody stop saying that already? How are you NOT throwing away your vote by voting for a scumbag? Vote for the person you believe will do the job best. We're never going to break the two party duopoly unless we stop throwing our hands up and saying "well what can we do?"
VOTE FOR A THIRD PARTY.
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"Well, now we know who not to vote for..."
And whose story to forward throughout teh intarwebs so this becomes the only thing the bitch is known for.
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We know her election would benefit those who can afford lawyers to parse the law to the point it is meaningless.
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Like she's worried about the surely less than 0.1% of people who are actually informed about this.
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It would seem to me that this would be a good use of the Internet. To start: if California voters form a Facebook group calling attention to this, that would start the word spreading. Groups are formed for all sorts of nonsensical things (like the perpetual hoax that Facebook will soon start charging a monthly fee), this robo-calling is something that is real.
A YouTube video clip calling attention to it wo
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Who not to vote for: Meg Whitman: also robocalling (Score:2)
Why!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, It's not so much about the legality of it. It's the negative publicity. These things are illegal because people find them really really irritating. If you're trying to hawk holidays or something then you probably haven't heard of the company in the first place, so even if you go with someone else they haven't lost anything but for a candidate in an election, a vote for the another party is another vote they have to make up for elsewhere.
Re:Why!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Another example of who NOT to vote for. Hello I'm running for office and support using loopholes to get around the intended restrictions our current laws are trying to enforce. Oh and I'm running to be a judge too.
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Another example of who NOT to vote for. Hello I'm running for office and support using loopholes to get around the intended restrictions our current laws are trying to enforce. Oh and I'm running to be a judge too.
It's really no surprise.
Finding loopholes to circumvent the intent of the law is practically the definition of a lawyer.
Most judges are former lawyers.
Re:Why!? (Score:4, Funny)
I thought judges were rehabilitated lawyers?
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I got this call from this fuckwit trying to sell a mayor for the local city.
"I'm calling to tell you what is running for Mayor for
"Well, thanks to this call I know I certainly will not vote for . And you can go fuck yourself for wasting my time."
Yes, I'm an ass. These fuckers wake me up and I have absolutely no respect for them.
If I'm a good mood they get to "Hi, I'm calling from xxxx..." before I say "go fuck youself" and hang up.
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Imagine if you sounded just like that. That would be hell.
Hi, I'm calling from... the hospital, your mother is sick. Shit.
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She is unethical and a bit of a hypocrite at the very least. Clearly the law needs to be amended to eliminate the loophole, but she is violating the intent of the law in spades. For a judge, that is unconscionable.
I guess (Score:4, Insightful)
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You forgot the governors, CEOs, religious leaders, military, and people from countries we like (not our own).
Let the Kolakowski campaign know how you feel (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're not in California, start your robodialers!
Contact: [kolakowskiforjudge.com]
Kolakowski for Judge 2010 (FPPC No. 1324175)
285 Hanover Avenue, #1
Oakland, California 94606-1260
(510) 465-2988
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The logic would be:
And just let it run.
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I believe we had those things called 'wardialers' back in the AOL kiddie days when progs were coming out left and right to do stupid mischievous behavior , I probably got them sitting on a floppy somewhere deep in a drawer and they probably are still compatible today.
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I'll just leave this here: http://public.ifbyphone.com/services/voice-broadcasting [ifbyphone.com]
Elected judges = bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
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Yes and no.
Elected judges do run into these sorts of problems, because they're elected officials with all the baggage that carries. On the other hand, appointed judges for life are accountable to practically nobody, and in areas that have them tend to be the appointer's law partner (or other associate).
In short, they both suck, and for different reasons. And no one's figured out a good alternative to one of the two methods.
Not really true that... (Score:2)
And no one's figured out a good alternative to one of the two methods.
A good alternative was figured out long ago. Genetically engineered and cloned judges.
It's the only way to be sure. [youtube.com]
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I'd vote to have Marilyn Monroe cloned.
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That's a false dichotomy. It is perfectly possible to have unelected judges who can still get fired.
You're also making the assumption that being appointed for life inevitably leads to corruption. You provide no evidence to support this. Indeed, there are plenty of counterexamples, such as the Supreme Court, where justices are appointed for life precisely to reduce the risk of corruption -- and it appears to work pretty well.
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They can get fired, it's called impeachment.
Problem is they can only be fired by the same corporate shills we supposedly DO elect.
if you ever want to be a politician (Score:3, Insightful)
you first need the character attribute of massively blind hypocrisy
this applies to the right, and the left
"do as i say, not as i do" must be your highest credo
then you are a guaranteed success
AZ judicial nominating commissions (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in AZ, one thing they got right was to appoint judges, which cuts out most of this type of campaigning crap. The list of appointees from which the governor chooses is drawn up by the judicial nominating commission, a bipartisan body that consists of lawyers AND nonlawyers. This allows a consensus to be reached as to who is at least _competent_ enough to be appointed. After 2 years of serving on the bench, judges face a retention election, and every 6 years thereafter they are up for another retention election. Usually, the only time the retention elections receive much public attention is when a judge has gone off the deep end in some respect and faces being dumped by the voters. IANAL, but many law professionals around the country hold the AZ judicial appointment process in very high regard, as it produces quality appointments without most of the partisan garbage present in judicial elections.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in California (Score:5, Informative)
Why annoy those who you want to vote for you? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I think there are multiple reasons:
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4. The only people with (plugged-in) landline phones are elderly, lonely people. They appreciate someone "to talk to," even if they are just a tape recorder.
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Wipe em off the fucking ballot already (Score:2, Interesting)
If they can't even obey the rules of the campaigns, then revoke their right to even run!
Oath breakers SUCK
Politicians (Score:2)
You can't live with them ... ... what do we do with them?
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Chain them up in parks so the pigeons don't soil the statues...
Elected judged (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges and law enforcement officials in Canada aren't elected. They're appointed by our elected officials, and I'm more than happy they're focused on their actual jobs and not wasting months every few years shilling for votes based on overblown high profile cases.
Judges cannot be counted on to do there jobs properly if they're worried a controversial decision which upholds the current laws, but is hugely unpopular with the voting public, will cost them their job.
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Do you guys not have issues with judges/sheriffs/etc being the buddies of the elected officials? The supposed advantage of having these officials elected is that you can boot them if they're not doing their job.
John "Heckuva job" Brown was appointed by Bush, and that didn't work out great.
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One way of dealing with such problems in smaller towns is to let the Federal police do the work; that is, RCMP officers, when they get the job, are shipped off across country to another province where they serve a term. This way, they don't know anybody and are able to do their job without bias.
It's not an ideal solution, but it certainly serves to cut down on small town corruption. I've had my share of encounters with RCMP officers, and I always come away really impressed by their behavior. I knew a gir
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I believe you mean Michael Brown, and he was removed from his post far faster than if he had been elected to it.
While appointments can be abused (there is a debate over our unelected senate, which is a room full of patronage appointments from whichever party's in power when a position is filled), my take is that those positions should not be elected posts because they do not represent you, they (judges, attourney generals, etc) represent the state. In Canada, this means the only positions up for election ar
Not the only one == Meg Whitman also doing this. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just this judge (Score:2)
The most annoying feature of these political calls is that there is no way to opt out. The DMA/FTC lists are exempted from political calls and these calls do
bad publicity .. not (Score:2)
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If you were talking about some obscure tax law, or privacy law, or election regulation, you'd probably be right. However I think you underestimate how much people hate cold calling and robodialers in particular.
The news media will be perfectly happy to call the judge on this since they know it'll get ratings.
Hmm... (Score:2)
Now Kolakowski is trying to argue that because 'technically' she is routing her calls through Colorado from outside the state that her robodials are actually legal.
I guess she skipped the day in law school when they covered "the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law."
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She might be on decent legal footing. If robodials are legal in Colorado and illegal in California, whose law is controlling? I'm willing to bet federal law is controlling here.
Now she's got a tougher case because she is commissioning the calls, and she's a California citizen, but if she wasn't this could be a more interesting case.
Oh Really? (Score:2)
Re:Hooray for rationalizations! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hooray for rationalizations! (Score:5, Funny)
They'd get you on Interstate commerce laws. You were part of a conspiracy to transport the bullet across state lines.
Re:I thought this was legal for political messages (Score:2)
I never knew this was illegal. My phone has been ringing non-stop for three weeks in the evenings.. And I'm in California.
Same here--I'm also a Californian and I get a boatload (bot-load?) of robocalls from candidates and advocates on all sides of every issue before each election. I had no idea that they were illegal here.
I'm not defending Kolakwski by any means, I hate robocalls and hang up immediately whenever I get one, but she's not really doing anything that a lot of other people are doing.
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Can we get a lawyer in here?
Hi, my name is Victoria Kolakowski, I used to be an attorney but am now a Judge in the state of CA. After thoroughly reviewing your claims I am confident in saying this person has broken no crimes.
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Though this is for a State Commission, and subject to Ca. rule of law, wouldn't campaigning across Federal Districts be, a no-no? Much less an ethics violation.
Can we get a lawyer in here?
IIANAL but the CA elections code only bans taking the voter roles out of the country, a wobbler carrying a three year sentence.