Famous personalities found guilty of

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong (only a few)1% picked this

   The principle of equality before the law is rigorously applied in only a few types

   This is close to what we wanted, but we just know of this one way in which the principle of equality before the law is seemingly violated. We don't know if it's applied rigorously in only a few types of trials. We just know there are increasingly many examples of it not being applied.

   1%
2. B

   Trap6% picked this

   The number of convicted celebrities sentenced to community service should equal the number of convicted unknown defendants

   Too Strong (equal) Out of Scope (should) The word "should" is pretty out of scope. We can say, "according to the principle of equality under the law, the proportion of convicted famous people assigned community service should be similar to the proportion of convicted non-famous people". But no one said we should follow that principle. More importantly, the principle wouldn't demand equal numbers, just equal proportions (after all there are way fewer famous criminals than non-famous criminals, so we would only ask their proportions of community service vs. prison to be the same).

   6%
3. C

   Out of Scope (overridden)16% picked this

   The principle of equality before the law can properly be overridden by other principles

   There's nothing in the paragraph saying we have to follow the principle, nor is there anything saying that sometimes we don't have to follow the principle, so we have no support for the idea that in some cases it can be "properly overridden". It looks like we currently aren't following the principle in lots of cases, but that doesn't mean the principle was properly overridden.

   16%
4. D

   Correct71% picked this

   The sentencing of celebrities to community service instead of prison constitutes a violation of the principle of equality before

   Why this is right

   This is the safely worded version of what we were looking for: in these cases we just discussed where the famous get community service and the non-famous get prison, we are violating the principle.

   Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   71%
5. E

   Too Strong (does not allow)7% picked this

   The principle of equality before the law does not allow for

   What we know about this principle doesn't rule out the possibility of leniency. We could be lenient to everyone (famous and non-famous) and that wouldn't violate the principle. The principle is just saying "be harsh to all and send them all to prison or be lenient to all and given them community service, but don't allow famous vs. not-famous to get different sentencing."

   7%