Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 December 3

= December 3 =

Sony's hack moments
Through some news articles about Sony being hacked while they didn't have access to the internet, the hackers distributed movies online and then they caused other damage to the box office. I'm guessing the article of Sony needs some information about such hacks they've made.--HappyLogolover2011 (talk) 07:51, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You would need proper sourcing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:17, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm quite spectical this belongs in the Sony article. Sony is a massive company with involvement in many different areas and in the end it's not clear that this is any more significant to Sony the massive company than the PlayStation Network outage which also isn't mention in our Sony article, and probably shouldn't be. The recent hack is mentioned in Sony Pictures Entertainment just as the PSN one is mentioned in Sony Online Entertainment which is probably right since these hacks do seem significant enough for the respective subsidiaries. Nil Einne (talk) 12:46, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

the sentencing month
Prison sentences in These United States are often (I gather) stated in months. Is that a common calendar month, so that the length in days depends on when the sentence begins, or a constant month defined for the context? —Tamfang (talk) 21:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You know, I never would have guessed at how complex a question this is. Even assuming we're exclusively talking about federal law (this certainly varies between states), I would have expected to have found a definition for the word "month" either in the federal sentencing guidelines, in the US Code, or in the Bureau of Prisons regulations: I found nothing like that. The impression I get from the treatises (such as Federal Procedure, Lawyer's Edition) is that the date of release would probably be set on the earlier of two conflicting dates if there was ambiguity as to what a month means. As an example, Federal Procedure, Lawyer's Edition states that if the date of release would otherwise fall on a weekend or federal holiday, the date of release is usually bumped back to the weekday before. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 02:18, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Let me understand. Are you asking, Tamfang, whether prisoners get released on the 29th of whatember in leap=years, and on the 28th of leapless years?  And does your question apply to common-law countries, Napoleonic code countries, those governed by Sharia, or elsewhere? μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Read the actual question before moaning, it clearly states it's about the US. (Kudos to the questioner, most people don't bother with that.) 131.251.254.81 (talk) 08:23, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, googling "calendar month unless otherwise" + "sentencing" appears to show a number of states that define "month" as  calendar month (unless otherwise expressed). Googling it without "sentencing" indicates that "month" is defined this way in other legal areas as well. I also found older texts where "month" is defined as "lunar month" in legal context, but as calendar month in commercial context. The Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases Judicially Interpreted, 1890 (Stroud's Judicial Dictionary). ---Sluzzelin talk  02:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * In googling, I found some estimated release date calculations published by the state of Nevada that unambiguously used month = 30 days. That said, I don't know whether that was an official standard for jail terms in Nevada or just an approximation used for the estimation.  Dragons flight (talk) 18:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd guess that there's a separate law (or different laws for federal and state purposes) with a definition of weeks and months for legal purposes. Since time frames are important in all kinds of legal situations it makes sense to have one common definition. I know that's how it is in Sweden where there is a short law defining what weeks, months, or years mean, and what happens if the last day in a period falls on a holiday . Sjö (talk) 13:06, 5 December 2014 (UTC)