4 ms·

1) And for every wrong that is brought to light there are thousands more than go unnoticed because they effect poor people, or disadvantaged, or because someone

by wfo 11y ago

1) And for every wrong that is brought to light there are thousands more than go unnoticed because they effect poor people, or disadvantaged, or because someone doesn't decide to be a hero and potentially sacrifice their career and working relationship with prosecutors and judges to be a whistleblower. 2) This is the very definition of the job of the government. Why should we not expect this. You are simply telling us to stop trying to make things better; not acceptable. 3) No, we don't need to wait to be outraged until we are the targets of the justice system. This is truly terrible advice. We should be outraged when anyone is wronged because it could just as well be us next, not wait until it's too late. 4) A bar complaint and banning the person from ever practicing law again sounds like a good start (honestly how many prosecutors are disbarred in circumstances of abuse? The article discusses remedies and bar complaints are not the methods professional rights advocates are choosing to use. You need to tell us why before recommending them) but realistically these people should be in prison.

will_brown 11y ago
>And for every wrong that is brought to light there are thousands more than go unnoticed This is the type of outrage without fact I am speaking of, please give me a citation. You are essentially alleging a nationwide conspiracy between prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges. You can take all the victim-less criminal defendants (i.e. drug charges) and the generally accepted % of false convictions out of prison and an overwhelming majority remain in prison. US crime statistics are obscene, a sexual assualt every 2 minute (>200k/year), 2 murders every hour (less than 65% ever solved). No doubt there instances of good-faith errors and worse corruption (violation of rights, withheld/destroyed evidence), but outrage and made up statistics don't make for change, understanding of the problems and ideas/plans do. Lets say you come up with a scientific/technological way to minimize potential false convictions (e.g. DNA), the system is already set up to allow such things. >because someone doesn't decide to be a hero and potentially sacrifice their career and working relationship with prosecutors and judges to be a whistleblower. I'm a lawyer and regularly conclude officers are "lying" with that exact word in court and I have filed a Motion for Fraud Upon the Court against a Supervising Assistant State Attorney in a County I regularly practice. Believe it or not, most lawyers probably got into law to help people, and recognize their career would be more jeopardized not doing a good job for their client rather than ruffling the feathers of a judge or some prosecutor. >This is the very definition of the job of the government. Why should we not expect this. You are simply telling us to stop trying to make things better; not acceptable. Government pays for the justice system but it does not regulate the practice of law. Think Bill Clinton lying under oath, that is perjury a criminal offense. Yet no charges filed/no impeachment...but you better believe the sitting President got disbarred even though his lie had nothing to do with the practice of law and he was likely never going to practice again anyway. Bars are the equivalent of internet mob justice, they will take your ass down, they protect the profession not the lawyers. >We should be outraged when anyone is wronged Not what I said, rather before being outraged on should have knowledge a wrong actually occurred. Tell me when is it ok to be outraged over something that actually did not happen? That is basically what the article is saying Judge Gordon did. Again n=1, and while Judge Gordon did/does not appoint counsel pre-indictment, is that a wrong? My point is even if the defendant was appointed counsel pre-indictment, it is certainly conceivable the Judge would have properly denied bond, and done so properly...I only suggest people discover the facts before being outraged and believing if a lawyer was appoint bond was guaranteed or even more likely. I would be willing to bet that in ~30 years on the bench the Judge has permitted bond to many defendants who subsequently commit new crimes while out on bond...and guess what there will be equal outrage from victims of those crimes against the Judge too, but again the numbers would show overall the courts get it right a majority of the time. >but realistically these people should be in prison. I think that is a fair suggestion; however, that is the premises of the article, that despite the public's general understanding of immunity, judges/prosecutors can and have been criminally/civilly liable.
- wfo 11y ago
  This is not the first article like this. Or the second, or the third, or the hundredth. There is plenty of evidence of the widespread disenfranchisement of citizens who are pushed through the criminal justice system; long form journalism from major newspapers, video records, books written after years of research, if you're having trouble finding evidence at this point it's because you're willfully ignorant. People don't know if evidence is suppressed by the prosecution until much later, a journalist digs deep and finds out. We have evidence that journalists are able to do this in many cases. It is not a logical leap to assume there are many more undiscovered cases, it is a logical fallacy to assume otherwise. We are allowed to be outraged about (in fact should be outraged about), yes, even one case. This judge as quoted is completely disgusting. Publicly stating anyone accused of a crime has no rights as a judge and then proceeding to take them away is not even close to comparable to following the law and letting people free on bond and having them commit crimes. One is an unfortunate aftereffect of having a justice system that does not simply execute everyone, one is the wholesale destruction of the rule of law and every protection citizens have. It's worrying to me that you would even draw that equivalence for the purpose of argument. Not long ago there was a story about a head prosecutor in Louisiana who was a member of the KKK and was quoted as saying something to the effect of 'God wants me to punish black people, my only regrets are that the black people I executed didn't suffer more' who unsurprisingly fabricates evidence constantly. What is troubling and telling is that you as a lawyer are not horrified by this and instead say "well, n=1 so who cares, show me another, at which point I'll say n=2, and we can play this game until we get to n=10000, and then I'll say 'it's just some bad apples'".

by wfo 11y ago

will_brown 11y ago

>And for every wrong that is brought to light there are thousands more than go unnoticed This is the type of outrage without fact I am speaking of, please give me a citation. You are essentially alleging a nationwide conspiracy between prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges. You can take all the victim-less criminal defendants (i.e. drug charges) and the generally accepted % of false convictions out of prison and an overwhelming majority remain in prison. US crime statistics are obscene, a sexual assualt every 2 minute (>200k/year), 2 murders every hour (less than 65% ever solved). No doubt there instances of good-faith errors and worse corruption (violation of rights, withheld/destroyed evidence), but outrage and made up statistics don't make for change, understanding of the problems and ideas/plans do. Lets say you come up with a scientific/technological way to minimize potential false convictions (e.g. DNA), the system is already set up to allow such things. >because someone doesn't decide to be a hero and potentially sacrifice their career and working relationship with prosecutors and judges to be a whistleblower. I'm a lawyer and regularly conclude officers are "lying" with that exact word in court and I have filed a Motion for Fraud Upon the Court against a Supervising Assistant State Attorney in a County I regularly practice. Believe it or not, most lawyers probably got into law to help people, and recognize their career would be more jeopardized not doing a good job for their client rather than ruffling the feathers of a judge or some prosecutor. >This is the very definition of the job of the government. Why should we not expect this. You are simply telling us to stop trying to make things better; not acceptable. Government pays for the justice system but it does not regulate the practice of law. Think Bill Clinton lying under oath, that is perjury a criminal offense. Yet no charges filed/no impeachment...but you better believe the sitting President got disbarred even though his lie had nothing to do with the practice of law and he was likely never going to practice again anyway. Bars are the equivalent of internet mob justice, they will take your ass down, they protect the profession not the lawyers. >We should be outraged when anyone is wronged Not what I said, rather before being outraged on should have knowledge a wrong actually occurred. Tell me when is it ok to be outraged over something that actually did not happen? That is basically what the article is saying Judge Gordon did. Again n=1, and while Judge Gordon did/does not appoint counsel pre-indictment, is that a wrong? My point is even if the defendant was appointed counsel pre-indictment, it is certainly conceivable the Judge would have properly denied bond, and done so properly...I only suggest people discover the facts before being outraged and believing if a lawyer was appoint bond was guaranteed or even more likely. I would be willing to bet that in ~30 years on the bench the Judge has permitted bond to many defendants who subsequently commit new crimes while out on bond...and guess what there will be equal outrage from victims of those crimes against the Judge too, but again the numbers would show overall the courts get it right a majority of the time. >but realistically these people should be in prison. I think that is a fair suggestion; however, that is the premises of the article, that despite the public's general understanding of immunity, judges/prosecutors can and have been criminally/civilly liable.

wfo 11y ago
This is not the first article like this. Or the second, or the third, or the hundredth. There is plenty of evidence of the widespread disenfranchisement of citizens who are pushed through the criminal justice system; long form journalism from major newspapers, video records, books written after years of research, if you're having trouble finding evidence at this point it's because you're willfully ignorant. People don't know if evidence is suppressed by the prosecution until much later, a journalist digs deep and finds out. We have evidence that journalists are able to do this in many cases. It is not a logical leap to assume there are many more undiscovered cases, it is a logical fallacy to assume otherwise. We are allowed to be outraged about (in fact should be outraged about), yes, even one case. This judge as quoted is completely disgusting. Publicly stating anyone accused of a crime has no rights as a judge and then proceeding to take them away is not even close to comparable to following the law and letting people free on bond and having them commit crimes. One is an unfortunate aftereffect of having a justice system that does not simply execute everyone, one is the wholesale destruction of the rule of law and every protection citizens have. It's worrying to me that you would even draw that equivalence for the purpose of argument. Not long ago there was a story about a head prosecutor in Louisiana who was a member of the KKK and was quoted as saying something to the effect of 'God wants me to punish black people, my only regrets are that the black people I executed didn't suffer more' who unsurprisingly fabricates evidence constantly. What is troubling and telling is that you as a lawyer are not horrified by this and instead say "well, n=1 so who cares, show me another, at which point I'll say n=2, and we can play this game until we get to n=10000, and then I'll say 'it's just some bad apples'".