21 ms·

I'm a Judge and I Think Criminal Court Is Horrifying

440 points by juanplusjuan 10y ago

tbihl 10y ago
I have some family friends, and their son recently got arrested for a felony drug dealing charge at the end of his spring semester at college. From what I understand, the police built this whole sting to catch the guy at his school mailbox when he got his shipment from whatever Silk Road's current successor is. Anyway, he confessed everything and now he's just waiting around, unable to get a job because interviewers invariably ask why he stopped school. Apparently having a job really helps in these cases. Anyway, they remarked one day on the phone, "we've never dealt with criminal Court, and we don't know anything about it, except the lawyer doesn't sound very optimistic. The only hope we have is because the system is so racist that being middle class and white might actually save us." They also said something about how the police were pushing some angle about using Tor. I'm very concerned about that: I can just picture the ghost story that the prosecutors are going to tell some septuagenarian judge about this special internet for terrorists and arms dealers.
foepys 10y ago
I never understood the concept of "plea bargain" in the USA that comes up in the article. Either somebody is guilty and should be convicted by a judge or they are not guilty and should have the chance for a fair trial. I can see that there are situations where they can be useful but they seem to be the norm instead of being used in certain, limited situations. Scaring somebody into pleading guilty for a lesser sentence is simply unfair and in my eyes undemocratic.
- jcadam 10y ago
  Classic paper comparing the whole "plea bargaining" system to medieval torture: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/543/ http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/543/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- colejohnson66 10y ago
  What I never got isn't how plea bargains are treated differently than bribing a witness. You're paying the witness (defendant) in the form of a lesser punishment to possibly commit PERJURY by admitting to doing something they didn't in a court of law. Just because the bribe isn't with currency doesn't mean it's not a bribe. And even ignoring that fact, it's still perjury. How is that legal? And before someone says it's similar to pleading not guilty when you are guilty, AFAIK, a plea bargain is different; It's an admission of guilt, not a declaration of guilt. Declaration != admission.
  - spdustin 10y ago
    In my younger days, I was offered a plea bargain to plead nolo contendre (no contest, as in "I do not contest the charge nor do I admit guilt") to a lesser charge in exchange for: probation, adjudication withheld (no conviction on my record) and, once probation was served, record expungement. I got the impression it was because the state's attorney felt I would best learn my lesson with that outcome than the otherwise mandatory sentence for the crime with which I was originally charged — non-violent, mind you; it was a bounced check. Yes, really. So in some cases, plea bargaining is a "way out" of otherwise too-harsh sentencing. Yes, the sentencing guidelines should be overhauled, but in today's legislative climate, the path of least resistance is simply to allow the prosecution the flexibility to charge a defendant with a lesser crime.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      The path of least resistance is a crappy rubric.
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      The prosecution already has the flexibility to decline to prosecute. They shouldn't prosecute anyone who doesn't deserve to be punished. In theory, it's an important check on the legal system, but in practice, it turns out attorneys like being employed, so they make work for themselves.
      - ptaipale 10y ago
- SilasX 10y ago
  So you don't understand the concept of a bird in the hand vs two in the bush? Risk aversion? Preferring a guaranteed loss of X to a ten percent chance of a loss of 10X? Decisions under uncertainty?
- gozur88 10y ago
  Plea bargains should be illegal. The state cannot only afford to take a small percentage of cases to trial, so there's an institutional imperative to force people to take pleas, which they do by overcharging. Just from a purely game theory perspective, as a defendant you can easily find yourself in a position where it's stupid to reject the bargain even if you're innocent.
bleachedsleet 10y ago
Several years ago, I was arrested on a hacking charge and got to see first hand the appalling nature of our legal system in criminal courts. Normally, after your arrest, you have to have a hearing within 24-48 hours, but if they arrest you on a Friday as they did me, they are allowed to detain you for an extra day because it's the weekend. I'm sure this is a tactic used often to frighten and goad people. My hearing was exactly as the judge in this article describes. There were lots of minor, non violent offenders in the court room with me, most minorities, and many couldn't speak English well at all. The judge would openly mock them and condescend. One man obviously had no idea what he was even pleading to because his English was so poor. Once I got to higher court for my actual sentencing, it was no different. The judge didn't even read my case and the clerk forgot to have it presented and available for the judge to review. My lawyer had to give him her own copy which he briefly skimmed without adjournment. I later discovered that the prosecuting attorney was good friends with the plaintiff and the investigating FBI officer assigned to my case. The courts in America are a joke, the legal system is in bad need of an overhaul. I couldn't believe the level of incompetence, racism, bias and prejudice existed there.
- c3534l 10y ago
  I went to court in New Jersey in a wealthiest white suburb and what I saw seemed perfectly fine. There was a man there who, a rather sad case really, was in an accident that gave him brain damage and caused him to behave strangely. His wife had a restraining order against him and apparently he had broken into the house in the middle of the night to give his son a birthday present, then gone to sleep on the couch. It took around half an hour for the judge to patiently explain to him what was going on ascertain bail and all that jazz. He was very patient. I think the key thing about the article was that this is a courthouse in the Bronx. The way we treat the poor in this country is absolutely atrocious. We give them substandard educational facilities, poor infrastructure, treat them like garbage in the justice system, then perpetuate the myth that successful people in America deserve to be successful and that if you're poor it's because there's something wrong with you and must not have tried hard enough or been smart enough.
  - chillwaves 10y ago
kafkaesq 10y ago
I was shocked at the casual racism emanating from the bench. The judge explained a “stay away” order to a Hispanic defendant by saying that if the complainant calls and invites you over for “rice and beans,” you cannot go. She lectured some defendants that most young men “with names like yours” have lengthy criminal records by the time they reach a certain age. Thereby instantly disqualifying herself from the privilege of serving on the bench. Ample grounds for impeachment, by any reasonable standard.
- billh 10y ago
  Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is to actually impeach a judge, only fifteen(15) Federal judges have been successfully impeached in the entire history of the United States.[1] 1. http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/judges_impeachments.html http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/judges_impeachments...
  - alkonaut 10y ago
    Shouldn't have to be so drastic as impeachment; it would be enough that judges and other staff are watched and their performance reviewed. This judge clearly should get a stern warning that racism will not be tolerated. Repeat offenders should simply be fired. They are employees that have superiors after all.
    - jrochkind1 10y ago
      Nope, federal judges are not "employees that have superiors" they are civil officers of the united states whose appointments are approved by the Senate. Impeachment is the only way to 'fire' a federal judge. I suppose the plus side of this is that the government can't fire them for political reasons or because they don't like their judgements. Without impeachment anyway. A federal judge does not have a 'superior'.
      - alkonaut 10y ago
        Thanks for that explanation. Sounds completely broken if only 15 were ever impeached (assuming a lot more than 15 were likely bad apples). Even a short clip of obvious racism should result in impeachment as you can't be fit to serve as a judge if you don't consider everyone equal. Judges should be hard to replace (see e.g Turkey right now) - but peer review based bonuses or some kind of measure to get rid of bad behavior seems like a reasonable compromise.
will_brown 10y ago
>Even I, as a bankruptcy judge, know that the point of bail is supposed to be simply to ensure that a person will return to court. That is the point of posting bail, but that is not the standard of granting a defendant the right to post bail/bond. The standard is more along the lines of: a) is the defendant a flight risk; and b) does the defendant present a danger to the community. As to b) it is not simply enough that the charges are non-violent, which seemed to shock this Judge. For example, DUI while not a violent crime generally one eligible for bail/bond by default, may not be granted if, say, it is the 3rd or 4th DUI. Or if say the defendant was already out on bail/bond and picked up a new charge, a Judge may revoke the bail/bond on the 1st crime. I'm not claiming this is always how it works and the decisions are always just, but I just want to give a little more perspective. As to the shock of the state of the courthouse, only a Federal Judge would find that shocking. Don't get me wrong it's a pleasure to practice in a gorgeous Federal Courthouse, complete with grand marble accents, but I'm of the opinion those types of luxuries are a waste of tax payer dollars.
- chillwaves 10y ago
  We don't need marble stairs, but treating people like animals is not the answer either. You seem to gloss over those points of the article (which is to say, the main point).
  - will_brown 10y ago
    Half my post was dedicated to one of the issue of treatment the Federal Judge took to issue, denying bail. The only reason I comment on that was because I wanted to expand upon it, because it may not necessarily be as egregious as the Judge thinks, but we don't know bc the facts of that case were omitted. Obviously I don't need to sound off as an echo chamber, racism/off color remarks have no place in the court. That said I also went to law school and read SCOTUS opinions openly referring to African-Americans in ways that would make any decent person shudder. In my own experience, practicing in South Florida, I see similar comments regularly in the Court. Then again in my time I have also filed Motions for Fraud against prosecutors and lodged formal complaints against prisons guards (one example, an immigration detention center guard called my client a "bitch" in front of me and my client suffered from a chromosome issue that mad him look like a women). There are some other things that might sound bad to lay persons, and maybe were, but are quite normal and not necessarily egregious or inhuman. For example, a judge engaging in small talk with prosecutors/PDs or bailiffs is not unusual or necessarily a bad thing either.
jostmey 10y ago
After reading this article, I have to wonder if the criminal court system is under funded and overworked. I think America's core institutions have been under decay for some time now.
chillwaves 10y ago
I had a friend who ended up with a drug related charge. When bailing them out, the bondsman, who was a conservative, ex cop, hardened and huge, told me how my friend was lucky to get the judge they got. There were three judges in that court and one was known to be particularly rough. A defendant (drug charges, heroin) was asking for bail to be set, had secured a bed in a locked down rehab facility and the judge denied his bond. The bondsman said he had never seen someone leave the courtroom so broken. Here is a case where a man acknowledges his crime, says he will do his time but wants more than anything to get clean. And securing a bed in a lock down rehab facility, besides being expensive, is not easy. Here is a case where the state had every interest in sending the man to rehab, even to save the cost of housing them in a jail, but the system doesn't care. The DA, the judge, don't care. Bail denied because the man had missed a hearing due to being in another jail after being picked up on the street with dope. The bondsman said he sees this kind of thing every day. It was the rule, not the exception. People are just cycled in and out of the system. The addict will get locked up, released and locked up again.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Great, where is the follow up with the judge in chambers? Don't judges talk to each other? Standards and mores are upheld by peers not by individuals.
- skewart 10y ago
  I was hoping to read about that at the end of the article too. Or, it would have been nice if the author suggested something actionable we average citizens can do to improve the situation.
rayiner 10y ago
The criminal justice system can be jarring, even to those of us who are lawyers. I was a clerk for a judge in Philadelphia, and saw a ton of criminal convictions - usually drug cases - come up on appeal. Two things stuck out: (1) we jail a lot of people for stupid things; (2) there are a lot of bad people in these communities.[1] I'd see someone appealing a sentence for selling some OxyContin and think, "geez, what a waste of money to put this guy in prison." But he's got a rap sheet a mile long - theft, robbery, assault, etc. The treatment of the criminally-accused in this country is deplorable. But it's also the product of a society that got fed up with skyrocketing crime a few decades ago and responded in a harsh and heartless manner. Crime is a lot lower today than it was in the 1990s, but even in the safest American cities murder rates are 5 times higher than big cities in Europe that aren't even considered that safe (like Berlin). And crime is heavily concentrated in poor places like the Bronx. And the usual canard - for profit prisons - isn't even applicable here. Private prisons are illegal in New York. This isn't lobbying at work, this is purely a product of the democratic will reacting to devilish social issues. That's what makes it so hard to fix. [1] I was also living in downtown Baltimore during the post-Freddie Gray unrest. I was disappointed to see the acquittals. At the same time, if I were in those cops' shoes, I'm not sure if have the moral strength to be any different. Society needs a certain amount of order to function. In much of Baltimore, that order doesn't exist. Gangs are in charge and the law-abiding people of those neighborhoods are the biggest victims of that.
- chillwaves 10y ago
  Just because it is a public prison doesn't mean there aren't people making money to lock people up. There is prison labor, there is money handling (it costs money to send money to prisoners), there is the commissary, there are phone calls that cost $5 for 15 minutes. At every step of the way, the system beats down and exploits the most vulnerable in society. And they do profit. There are people doing time for petty theft simply because they can't pay the fees to get out of jail. [1] [1] http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476844416/colorado-springs-agrees-to-stop-jailing-people-too-poor-to-pay-court-fines http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476844416/colorado-springs-agr...
  - downandout 10y ago
japhyr 10y ago
This is what bothers me so much about the Trump campaign. Even though he'll probably lose, he's helped legitimize the kind of speech and attitude this judge demonstrates. I'm hoping there's a strong enough backlash that this kind of speech and attitude gets called out more often. I hope the long-term effect is not to make this judge's behavior even more accepted.
- adrusi 10y ago
  What this article describes is much worse than anything Trump has done in his campaign. It's one thing to engage in "hateful" speech on a podium to get people to like you, and an entirely different thing to do so in official government capacity, directed at specific individuals, right at the moment when they are most vulnerable. Trump is distasteful, maybe even dangerous, but this judge and the officers of the court are absolutely despicable.
  - zeroer 10y ago
    That's true in a very technical sense that Trump is only spouting speech at this point. (And of course technically correct is the best kind.) But it's worth pointing out that in his speech, Trump is promising extra-judicial murder of family members of terrorists and torture of suspected terrorists if he's made commander-in-chief. Were he able to actually implement these, it would actually be worse.
    - douche 10y ago
      Is that significantly different from the current status quo? Drone strikes and Gitmo are functionally equivalent to the worst of Trump's remarks.
      - adrusi 10y ago
        No, its not different from status quo really. No, that doesn't make it even remotely ok.
      - zeroer 10y ago
twoquestions 10y ago
And I hear from family and friends about how we 'coddle' people in the system too much, and we're not 'tough' enough. A large number of our people seem to think if we're sufficiently cruel and inhuman to people accused of breaking the law, then people will magically stop getting suspected of breaking the law. It's more than a little horrifying seeing people's eyes light up when they talk about how our cops aren't afraid to kill people and how merciless our prisons are. This horrifying system is a symptom of our cruelty, and any move to make this more humane (or less of an atrocity) will face stiff resistance from people who get off on seeing people get punished. I don't know what I can do, or what anyone can do.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  I'd like to see a move away from sentencing being regarded as punishment. It should be more along the lines of a person needing to be withdrawn from society for a time because they cannot behave themselves. I.e. it should be about protecting society from them.
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    This has the public opinion problem that once you think about it that way, many things become life sentences on the basis that reform is scarcely possible. Personally I think that people should be in jail for as long as they remain dangerous, but many people are not comfortable with that logic.
    - nowarninglabel 10y ago
      There's actually a fantastic anime based on that premise, "Psycho-Pass". Shows the pros/cons of that approach.
      - bsder 10y ago
        I think you missed the point of "Psycho-Pass", at least the first season. The point of "Pscho-Pass" is "What is justice?" Who decides? What is the standard? Why is it the standard? Should it be the standard?
ryanmarsh 10y ago
I've observed the criminal justice system at work in Texas a few times. A murder case, some misdemeanors, a few felonies. I've seen it from arrest to prison life. It is a dark and deeply depressing thing. There is little compassion for victims, the accused, the convicted. I could write a thousand words but it pains me to think about it. I pray I never get falsely accused of a crime and I'm so glad I'm not black. If all the boring white folk who couldn't fathom finding themselves so much as suspected of a crime had to go through the criminal justice system as the average YBM the system would be massively overhauled yesterday. Most of the boring white folk I know think everyone in jail is a cold blooded psychopath who works out all day and dreams of stabbing people... "hardened criminal". The system is just full of unlucky humans. God knows I did shit in my youth I could still be in prison for. The extremely violent type are actually quite rare.
- nibs 10y ago
  My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. The big difference I have observed, independent of race, wealth, etc. is that people who have criminal records tend to "go off" while others do not. Otherwise it may as well be the same person.
  - kiba 10y ago
    I believe that if we can understand what make them tick, we can fix them. Though that also comes with it the horrifying possibility of dystopian societal control.
    - wott 10y ago
      "we" vs "them"... I am always surprised when I (very often though) hear/read "normal" people, generally meaning good, who think that there are two separate kinds of individuals, the "we" and the "them"; who cannot fathom that all of "us" may slide slowly or fall suddenly into the "them" category.
      - 10y ago
ak217 10y ago
We need a better accountability system for judges. Even for those judges who are elected, the public is usually not meaningfully informed about the judge's performance.
- briandear 10y ago
  It would be cool to live stream every courtroom in the US continually. Then we can visit and watch any court we wanted and actually make some meaningful comparisons that aren't based on hersay.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    I don't really know for sure, of course, but I'd guess that almost all of these live streams would be incredibly boring. A few then would be interesting. But wouldn't it require changes to laws in many places? I understand that currently you can't even take photographs in courtroom in many jurisdictions?
jondubois 10y ago
I wonder if that has something to do with the different level of 'leniency' which is accorded in bankruptcy cases versus criminal cases. My gut tells me that white-collar transgressions will always be punished less often (and less severely) than outright blue collar crime. It sounds like the bankrupcy judge who wrote the article is surprised by the fact that the justice system actually punishes people for doing bad stuff. Maybe it's not the criminal justice system which is harsh - Maybe it's her who is too lenient with her own cases... Or maybe both need some recalibration.
- angry_octet 10y ago
  Perhaps you should read the article again. It is quite clear that she is dismayed by the blatantly pro-prosecution behaviour, guilty-until-proven-innocent bail hearings and plea bargaining, and the racially coloured nature of discourse. At no point is sentencing even discussed, and no punishment is dispensed (these are first appearances), so your contention is completely unsupported.
  - jondubois 10y ago
    I agree with every fact you make here, but I don't see how that disproves my statement. I didn't mention anything about sentencing - I used the term 'leniency' in a general way; as the tendency to view defendants as innocent. Also, I'm not saying that the criminal courts are doing it right - I'm saying that maybe we have two extremes and the ideal justice system operates somewhere in the middle. I can't stand that self-righteous legal crap about 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' - In my books, if you can't prove something mathematically, it's not proof - In effect, you can never really prove anything in a legal context - In reality, everything is always judged "on the balance of probability".
    - angry_octet 10y ago
      Well, despite your view that considering those accused as innocent is lenient, the burden of proof falling on the accuser is in fact a core tenet of common law justice (and supported by the 5th, 6th and 8th amendments to the Constitution). And if someone accused you of wrongdoing you would see the value in that. Humouring your dislike of such judicial proofs, it is reasonable to view the system of justice as a series of ever more precise and expensive diagnostic tests. At all stages there is a desire to finalise the proceeding to reduce the bill for enforcing the law, with the dual goals of (A) not letting too many innocents be shafted or (B) too many guilty walk. Many would argue that the current system is broken. I doubt the fix is just fair trials, because most of the defendants are indeed guilty. It is related to lack of opportunity, a predilection for jailing people for minor offences rather than rehabilitating them, and systemic racism.
desdiv 10y ago
>Once the court officers caught their breath from laughing, they barked at him, “Where is your belt?” Of course, it was taken from him in the lockup, he said. I don't like to watch crime/legal drama and even I know this. How does someone who work in the legal system as a day job not notice this?
- nkurz 10y ago
  The writer's implication is that officers of the court knew in advance that his belt had been taken from him, and simply enjoyed humiliating people who they consider beneath them. It's akin to arresting someone for getting blood on your uniform after you beat them: http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/348010247/in-ferguson-mo-before-michael-brown-there-was-henry-davis http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/348010247/in-ferguson-mo-befor.... What background are you from that allows you to presume ignorance is more likely than malice? Are you perhaps from a more civilized country where those in power don't use petty humiliation to assert their superiority? Or were you employing some sort of subtle trolling humor that flies over the heads of us Americans?
  - desdiv 10y ago
    I completely missed the implication that it was out of malice. My naive self wasn't able to, and still can't, imagine an officer of the court deriving pleasure from humiliating someone like that. I would be so screwed if I ever end up on the wrong end of the American criminal justice system.
teddyknox 10y ago
There's a new HBO series called "The Night Of" that portrays the New York justice system this way. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556N5vojtp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556N5vojtp0
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  Yes, excellent series. Very eye-opening. Recommended. I can't speak to its accuracy, but I have no trouble believing it's a fair portrayal.
shams93 10y ago
In Los Angeles it's quite a bit more professional. When I served on a jury in a criminal case the judge was very professional.
- mikelward 10y ago
  Very few cases make it to trial. At least 90% accept a plea bargain. What you saw was not most defendants' experience.
marklyon 10y ago
An actual criminal attorney in NYC did a far better job of deconstructing this judicial tourist's article than I can: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/08/13/the-dilettante-judge/ http://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/08/13/the-dilettante-judge...
- pmcollins 10y ago
  Thank you for the link but I found this blog post to be utterly devoid of content.
- jrochkind1 10y ago
  As far as I can tell, the point of view of that 'deconstruction' is "Yeah, criminal court is totally fucked up, but we're used to it, what you think you're better than us because it's still shocking to you? fuck you elitist!" I'm sure lawyers and judges look up and down at each other with elitism, and they can take that up among themselves or whatever. But this "too cynical to be outraged at a really fucked up system" stuff helps nobody, and is just it's own kind of pretentiousness, directed at the rest of us.
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
none of you pussies are going to do anything about it. you're all cowards. you're all idiots.
epynonymous 10y ago
i must say, though i was in people's court once trying to get my security deposit back from my landlady, which is by definition the lowest level court in the land, i too have many apprehensions about the "fairness" of the judicial system in america. that's not to say that my 1 incident should be representative of the entire judicial system, as i still believe that there are lots of excellent examples of upstanding individuals, probably more so than bad ones, but the judicial system is powered by people and their interpretation of the law, and though with some checks and balances, people having unconscious biases and tend to work these around the system, just like her example of guns and butter, no one's going to penalize that judge for this and she knows it. my particular case was in quincy, mass, i remember the faces of the judge, deputy, and clerk that waited to put my case towards the very end after about 10 cases and all other people had left, behind closed doors, seemed i didnt understand much about the system back then, but this was an arbitration, under the guise of a court order to reappear for an appeal. the landlady, a chinese national, had lost the claim originally and had ninety days to appeal, she appealed after 138 days, and the court ordered me to show up with an official court summons. in looking back, i should not have showed up, i had no need to show up, this was over a measely 700-900 usd if i recall correctly. and the way the judge, clerk, and deputy nodded their heads in contempt of me as i spoke my case was so planned and orchestrated that in my mind i decided that this was useless and to go ahead and tear up the check that she was asked to pay me for my security deposit after the first decision which i hadnt even cashed because it was never about the money. if these are the shenanigans in the lowest of courts, i wonder what things are like in the upper courts. my lesson from that day was 2 fold, try your best never to go the legal route, and the american system, although perfect in many ways, still cannot provide perfect justice.
mLuby 10y ago
It's heartening to read so many thoughtful posts about our justice system. Gives me some small hope for the future. :)
Qantourisc 10y ago
A judge holding the court in contempt basically. And since the judge is part of the court, the court is holding the court in contempt. Perhaps we need judged for judges.
peter303 10y ago
Some of the modern courthouses reduce the courthouse violence problem with a "triple entrance" system, one for all the court personal, a second for defendants briefly released from county jail, and a third for public witnesses and spectators. You dont have the hallway encounters between the three parties you had in older facilities.
tomohawk 10y ago
And then you have politicians like Martin O'Malley using the system to further their careers at others expense. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on...

440 points by juanplusjuan 10y ago

tbihl 10y ago

I have some family friends, and their son recently got arrested for a felony drug dealing charge at the end of his spring semester at college. From what I understand, the police built this whole sting to catch the guy at his school mailbox when he got his shipment from whatever Silk Road's current successor is. Anyway, he confessed everything and now he's just waiting around, unable to get a job because interviewers invariably ask why he stopped school. Apparently having a job really helps in these cases. Anyway, they remarked one day on the phone, "we've never dealt with criminal Court, and we don't know anything about it, except the lawyer doesn't sound very optimistic. The only hope we have is because the system is so racist that being middle class and white might actually save us." They also said something about how the police were pushing some angle about using Tor. I'm very concerned about that: I can just picture the ghost story that the prosecutors are going to tell some septuagenarian judge about this special internet for terrorists and arms dealers.

foepys 10y ago

I never understood the concept of "plea bargain" in the USA that comes up in the article. Either somebody is guilty and should be convicted by a judge or they are not guilty and should have the chance for a fair trial. I can see that there are situations where they can be useful but they seem to be the norm instead of being used in certain, limited situations. Scaring somebody into pleading guilty for a lesser sentence is simply unfair and in my eyes undemocratic.

jcadam 10y ago
Classic paper comparing the whole "plea bargaining" system to medieval torture: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/543/ http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/543/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
colejohnson66 10y ago
What I never got isn't how plea bargains are treated differently than bribing a witness. You're paying the witness (defendant) in the form of a lesser punishment to possibly commit PERJURY by admitting to doing something they didn't in a court of law. Just because the bribe isn't with currency doesn't mean it's not a bribe. And even ignoring that fact, it's still perjury. How is that legal? And before someone says it's similar to pleading not guilty when you are guilty, AFAIK, a plea bargain is different; It's an admission of guilt, not a declaration of guilt. Declaration != admission.
- spdustin 10y ago
  In my younger days, I was offered a plea bargain to plead nolo contendre (no contest, as in "I do not contest the charge nor do I admit guilt") to a lesser charge in exchange for: probation, adjudication withheld (no conviction on my record) and, once probation was served, record expungement. I got the impression it was because the state's attorney felt I would best learn my lesson with that outcome than the otherwise mandatory sentence for the crime with which I was originally charged — non-violent, mind you; it was a bounced check. Yes, really. So in some cases, plea bargaining is a "way out" of otherwise too-harsh sentencing. Yes, the sentencing guidelines should be overhauled, but in today's legislative climate, the path of least resistance is simply to allow the prosecution the flexibility to charge a defendant with a lesser crime.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    The path of least resistance is a crappy rubric.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    The prosecution already has the flexibility to decline to prosecute. They shouldn't prosecute anyone who doesn't deserve to be punished. In theory, it's an important check on the legal system, but in practice, it turns out attorneys like being employed, so they make work for themselves.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
SilasX 10y ago
So you don't understand the concept of a bird in the hand vs two in the bush? Risk aversion? Preferring a guaranteed loss of X to a ten percent chance of a loss of 10X? Decisions under uncertainty?
gozur88 10y ago
Plea bargains should be illegal. The state cannot only afford to take a small percentage of cases to trial, so there's an institutional imperative to force people to take pleas, which they do by overcharging. Just from a purely game theory perspective, as a defendant you can easily find yourself in a position where it's stupid to reject the bargain even if you're innocent.

bleachedsleet 10y ago

Several years ago, I was arrested on a hacking charge and got to see first hand the appalling nature of our legal system in criminal courts. Normally, after your arrest, you have to have a hearing within 24-48 hours, but if they arrest you on a Friday as they did me, they are allowed to detain you for an extra day because it's the weekend. I'm sure this is a tactic used often to frighten and goad people. My hearing was exactly as the judge in this article describes. There were lots of minor, non violent offenders in the court room with me, most minorities, and many couldn't speak English well at all. The judge would openly mock them and condescend. One man obviously had no idea what he was even pleading to because his English was so poor. Once I got to higher court for my actual sentencing, it was no different. The judge didn't even read my case and the clerk forgot to have it presented and available for the judge to review. My lawyer had to give him her own copy which he briefly skimmed without adjournment. I later discovered that the prosecuting attorney was good friends with the plaintiff and the investigating FBI officer assigned to my case. The courts in America are a joke, the legal system is in bad need of an overhaul. I couldn't believe the level of incompetence, racism, bias and prejudice existed there.

c3534l 10y ago
I went to court in New Jersey in a wealthiest white suburb and what I saw seemed perfectly fine. There was a man there who, a rather sad case really, was in an accident that gave him brain damage and caused him to behave strangely. His wife had a restraining order against him and apparently he had broken into the house in the middle of the night to give his son a birthday present, then gone to sleep on the couch. It took around half an hour for the judge to patiently explain to him what was going on ascertain bail and all that jazz. He was very patient. I think the key thing about the article was that this is a courthouse in the Bronx. The way we treat the poor in this country is absolutely atrocious. We give them substandard educational facilities, poor infrastructure, treat them like garbage in the justice system, then perpetuate the myth that successful people in America deserve to be successful and that if you're poor it's because there's something wrong with you and must not have tried hard enough or been smart enough.
- chillwaves 10y ago

kafkaesq 10y ago

I was shocked at the casual racism emanating from the bench. The judge explained a “stay away” order to a Hispanic defendant by saying that if the complainant calls and invites you over for “rice and beans,” you cannot go. She lectured some defendants that most young men “with names like yours” have lengthy criminal records by the time they reach a certain age. Thereby instantly disqualifying herself from the privilege of serving on the bench. Ample grounds for impeachment, by any reasonable standard.

billh 10y ago
Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is to actually impeach a judge, only fifteen(15) Federal judges have been successfully impeached in the entire history of the United States.[1] 1. http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/judges_impeachments.html http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/judges_impeachments...
- alkonaut 10y ago
  Shouldn't have to be so drastic as impeachment; it would be enough that judges and other staff are watched and their performance reviewed. This judge clearly should get a stern warning that racism will not be tolerated. Repeat offenders should simply be fired. They are employees that have superiors after all.
  - jrochkind1 10y ago
    Nope, federal judges are not "employees that have superiors" they are civil officers of the united states whose appointments are approved by the Senate. Impeachment is the only way to 'fire' a federal judge. I suppose the plus side of this is that the government can't fire them for political reasons or because they don't like their judgements. Without impeachment anyway. A federal judge does not have a 'superior'.
    - alkonaut 10y ago
      Thanks for that explanation. Sounds completely broken if only 15 were ever impeached (assuming a lot more than 15 were likely bad apples). Even a short clip of obvious racism should result in impeachment as you can't be fit to serve as a judge if you don't consider everyone equal. Judges should be hard to replace (see e.g Turkey right now) - but peer review based bonuses or some kind of measure to get rid of bad behavior seems like a reasonable compromise.

will_brown 10y ago

>Even I, as a bankruptcy judge, know that the point of bail is supposed to be simply to ensure that a person will return to court. That is the point of posting bail, but that is not the standard of granting a defendant the right to post bail/bond. The standard is more along the lines of: a) is the defendant a flight risk; and b) does the defendant present a danger to the community. As to b) it is not simply enough that the charges are non-violent, which seemed to shock this Judge. For example, DUI while not a violent crime generally one eligible for bail/bond by default, may not be granted if, say, it is the 3rd or 4th DUI. Or if say the defendant was already out on bail/bond and picked up a new charge, a Judge may revoke the bail/bond on the 1st crime. I'm not claiming this is always how it works and the decisions are always just, but I just want to give a little more perspective. As to the shock of the state of the courthouse, only a Federal Judge would find that shocking. Don't get me wrong it's a pleasure to practice in a gorgeous Federal Courthouse, complete with grand marble accents, but I'm of the opinion those types of luxuries are a waste of tax payer dollars.

chillwaves 10y ago
We don't need marble stairs, but treating people like animals is not the answer either. You seem to gloss over those points of the article (which is to say, the main point).
- will_brown 10y ago
  Half my post was dedicated to one of the issue of treatment the Federal Judge took to issue, denying bail. The only reason I comment on that was because I wanted to expand upon it, because it may not necessarily be as egregious as the Judge thinks, but we don't know bc the facts of that case were omitted. Obviously I don't need to sound off as an echo chamber, racism/off color remarks have no place in the court. That said I also went to law school and read SCOTUS opinions openly referring to African-Americans in ways that would make any decent person shudder. In my own experience, practicing in South Florida, I see similar comments regularly in the Court. Then again in my time I have also filed Motions for Fraud against prosecutors and lodged formal complaints against prisons guards (one example, an immigration detention center guard called my client a "bitch" in front of me and my client suffered from a chromosome issue that mad him look like a women). There are some other things that might sound bad to lay persons, and maybe were, but are quite normal and not necessarily egregious or inhuman. For example, a judge engaging in small talk with prosecutors/PDs or bailiffs is not unusual or necessarily a bad thing either.

jostmey 10y ago

After reading this article, I have to wonder if the criminal court system is under funded and overworked. I think America's core institutions have been under decay for some time now.

chillwaves 10y ago

I had a friend who ended up with a drug related charge. When bailing them out, the bondsman, who was a conservative, ex cop, hardened and huge, told me how my friend was lucky to get the judge they got. There were three judges in that court and one was known to be particularly rough. A defendant (drug charges, heroin) was asking for bail to be set, had secured a bed in a locked down rehab facility and the judge denied his bond. The bondsman said he had never seen someone leave the courtroom so broken. Here is a case where a man acknowledges his crime, says he will do his time but wants more than anything to get clean. And securing a bed in a lock down rehab facility, besides being expensive, is not easy. Here is a case where the state had every interest in sending the man to rehab, even to save the cost of housing them in a jail, but the system doesn't care. The DA, the judge, don't care. Bail denied because the man had missed a hearing due to being in another jail after being picked up on the street with dope. The bondsman said he sees this kind of thing every day. It was the rule, not the exception. People are just cycled in and out of the system. The addict will get locked up, released and locked up again.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Great, where is the follow up with the judge in chambers? Don't judges talk to each other? Standards and mores are upheld by peers not by individuals.

skewart 10y ago
I was hoping to read about that at the end of the article too. Or, it would have been nice if the author suggested something actionable we average citizens can do to improve the situation.

rayiner 10y ago

The criminal justice system can be jarring, even to those of us who are lawyers. I was a clerk for a judge in Philadelphia, and saw a ton of criminal convictions - usually drug cases - come up on appeal. Two things stuck out: (1) we jail a lot of people for stupid things; (2) there are a lot of bad people in these communities.[1] I'd see someone appealing a sentence for selling some OxyContin and think, "geez, what a waste of money to put this guy in prison." But he's got a rap sheet a mile long - theft, robbery, assault, etc. The treatment of the criminally-accused in this country is deplorable. But it's also the product of a society that got fed up with skyrocketing crime a few decades ago and responded in a harsh and heartless manner. Crime is a lot lower today than it was in the 1990s, but even in the safest American cities murder rates are 5 times higher than big cities in Europe that aren't even considered that safe (like Berlin). And crime is heavily concentrated in poor places like the Bronx. And the usual canard - for profit prisons - isn't even applicable here. Private prisons are illegal in New York. This isn't lobbying at work, this is purely a product of the democratic will reacting to devilish social issues. That's what makes it so hard to fix. [1] I was also living in downtown Baltimore during the post-Freddie Gray unrest. I was disappointed to see the acquittals. At the same time, if I were in those cops' shoes, I'm not sure if have the moral strength to be any different. Society needs a certain amount of order to function. In much of Baltimore, that order doesn't exist. Gangs are in charge and the law-abiding people of those neighborhoods are the biggest victims of that.

chillwaves 10y ago
Just because it is a public prison doesn't mean there aren't people making money to lock people up. There is prison labor, there is money handling (it costs money to send money to prisoners), there is the commissary, there are phone calls that cost $5 for 15 minutes. At every step of the way, the system beats down and exploits the most vulnerable in society. And they do profit. There are people doing time for petty theft simply because they can't pay the fees to get out of jail. [1] [1] http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476844416/colorado-springs-agrees-to-stop-jailing-people-too-poor-to-pay-court-fines http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476844416/colorado-springs-agr...
- downandout 10y ago

japhyr 10y ago

This is what bothers me so much about the Trump campaign. Even though he'll probably lose, he's helped legitimize the kind of speech and attitude this judge demonstrates. I'm hoping there's a strong enough backlash that this kind of speech and attitude gets called out more often. I hope the long-term effect is not to make this judge's behavior even more accepted.

adrusi 10y ago
What this article describes is much worse than anything Trump has done in his campaign. It's one thing to engage in "hateful" speech on a podium to get people to like you, and an entirely different thing to do so in official government capacity, directed at specific individuals, right at the moment when they are most vulnerable. Trump is distasteful, maybe even dangerous, but this judge and the officers of the court are absolutely despicable.
- zeroer 10y ago
  That's true in a very technical sense that Trump is only spouting speech at this point. (And of course technically correct is the best kind.) But it's worth pointing out that in his speech, Trump is promising extra-judicial murder of family members of terrorists and torture of suspected terrorists if he's made commander-in-chief. Were he able to actually implement these, it would actually be worse.
  - douche 10y ago
    Is that significantly different from the current status quo? Drone strikes and Gitmo are functionally equivalent to the worst of Trump's remarks.
    - adrusi 10y ago
      No, its not different from status quo really. No, that doesn't make it even remotely ok.
    - zeroer 10y ago

twoquestions 10y ago

And I hear from family and friends about how we 'coddle' people in the system too much, and we're not 'tough' enough. A large number of our people seem to think if we're sufficiently cruel and inhuman to people accused of breaking the law, then people will magically stop getting suspected of breaking the law. It's more than a little horrifying seeing people's eyes light up when they talk about how our cops aren't afraid to kill people and how merciless our prisons are. This horrifying system is a symptom of our cruelty, and any move to make this more humane (or less of an atrocity) will face stiff resistance from people who get off on seeing people get punished. I don't know what I can do, or what anyone can do.

WalterBright 10y ago
I'd like to see a move away from sentencing being regarded as punishment. It should be more along the lines of a person needing to be withdrawn from society for a time because they cannot behave themselves. I.e. it should be about protecting society from them.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  This has the public opinion problem that once you think about it that way, many things become life sentences on the basis that reform is scarcely possible. Personally I think that people should be in jail for as long as they remain dangerous, but many people are not comfortable with that logic.
  - nowarninglabel 10y ago
    There's actually a fantastic anime based on that premise, "Psycho-Pass". Shows the pros/cons of that approach.
    - bsder 10y ago
      I think you missed the point of "Psycho-Pass", at least the first season. The point of "Pscho-Pass" is "What is justice?" Who decides? What is the standard? Why is it the standard? Should it be the standard?

ryanmarsh 10y ago

I've observed the criminal justice system at work in Texas a few times. A murder case, some misdemeanors, a few felonies. I've seen it from arrest to prison life. It is a dark and deeply depressing thing. There is little compassion for victims, the accused, the convicted. I could write a thousand words but it pains me to think about it. I pray I never get falsely accused of a crime and I'm so glad I'm not black. If all the boring white folk who couldn't fathom finding themselves so much as suspected of a crime had to go through the criminal justice system as the average YBM the system would be massively overhauled yesterday. Most of the boring white folk I know think everyone in jail is a cold blooded psychopath who works out all day and dreams of stabbing people... "hardened criminal". The system is just full of unlucky humans. God knows I did shit in my youth I could still be in prison for. The extremely violent type are actually quite rare.

nibs 10y ago
My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. The big difference I have observed, independent of race, wealth, etc. is that people who have criminal records tend to "go off" while others do not. Otherwise it may as well be the same person.
- kiba 10y ago
  I believe that if we can understand what make them tick, we can fix them. Though that also comes with it the horrifying possibility of dystopian societal control.
  - wott 10y ago
    "we" vs "them"... I am always surprised when I (very often though) hear/read "normal" people, generally meaning good, who think that there are two separate kinds of individuals, the "we" and the "them"; who cannot fathom that all of "us" may slide slowly or fall suddenly into the "them" category.
    - 10y ago

ak217 10y ago

We need a better accountability system for judges. Even for those judges who are elected, the public is usually not meaningfully informed about the judge's performance.

briandear 10y ago
It would be cool to live stream every courtroom in the US continually. Then we can visit and watch any court we wanted and actually make some meaningful comparisons that aren't based on hersay.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  I don't really know for sure, of course, but I'd guess that almost all of these live streams would be incredibly boring. A few then would be interesting. But wouldn't it require changes to laws in many places? I understand that currently you can't even take photographs in courtroom in many jurisdictions?

jondubois 10y ago

I wonder if that has something to do with the different level of 'leniency' which is accorded in bankruptcy cases versus criminal cases. My gut tells me that white-collar transgressions will always be punished less often (and less severely) than outright blue collar crime. It sounds like the bankrupcy judge who wrote the article is surprised by the fact that the justice system actually punishes people for doing bad stuff. Maybe it's not the criminal justice system which is harsh - Maybe it's her who is too lenient with her own cases... Or maybe both need some recalibration.

angry_octet 10y ago
Perhaps you should read the article again. It is quite clear that she is dismayed by the blatantly pro-prosecution behaviour, guilty-until-proven-innocent bail hearings and plea bargaining, and the racially coloured nature of discourse. At no point is sentencing even discussed, and no punishment is dispensed (these are first appearances), so your contention is completely unsupported.
- jondubois 10y ago
  I agree with every fact you make here, but I don't see how that disproves my statement. I didn't mention anything about sentencing - I used the term 'leniency' in a general way; as the tendency to view defendants as innocent. Also, I'm not saying that the criminal courts are doing it right - I'm saying that maybe we have two extremes and the ideal justice system operates somewhere in the middle. I can't stand that self-righteous legal crap about 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' - In my books, if you can't prove something mathematically, it's not proof - In effect, you can never really prove anything in a legal context - In reality, everything is always judged "on the balance of probability".
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    Well, despite your view that considering those accused as innocent is lenient, the burden of proof falling on the accuser is in fact a core tenet of common law justice (and supported by the 5th, 6th and 8th amendments to the Constitution). And if someone accused you of wrongdoing you would see the value in that. Humouring your dislike of such judicial proofs, it is reasonable to view the system of justice as a series of ever more precise and expensive diagnostic tests. At all stages there is a desire to finalise the proceeding to reduce the bill for enforcing the law, with the dual goals of (A) not letting too many innocents be shafted or (B) too many guilty walk. Many would argue that the current system is broken. I doubt the fix is just fair trials, because most of the defendants are indeed guilty. It is related to lack of opportunity, a predilection for jailing people for minor offences rather than rehabilitating them, and systemic racism.

desdiv 10y ago

>Once the court officers caught their breath from laughing, they barked at him, “Where is your belt?” Of course, it was taken from him in the lockup, he said. I don't like to watch crime/legal drama and even I know this. How does someone who work in the legal system as a day job not notice this?

nkurz 10y ago
The writer's implication is that officers of the court knew in advance that his belt had been taken from him, and simply enjoyed humiliating people who they consider beneath them. It's akin to arresting someone for getting blood on your uniform after you beat them: http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/348010247/in-ferguson-mo-before-michael-brown-there-was-henry-davis http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/348010247/in-ferguson-mo-befor.... What background are you from that allows you to presume ignorance is more likely than malice? Are you perhaps from a more civilized country where those in power don't use petty humiliation to assert their superiority? Or were you employing some sort of subtle trolling humor that flies over the heads of us Americans?
- desdiv 10y ago
  I completely missed the implication that it was out of malice. My naive self wasn't able to, and still can't, imagine an officer of the court deriving pleasure from humiliating someone like that. I would be so screwed if I ever end up on the wrong end of the American criminal justice system.

teddyknox 10y ago

There's a new HBO series called "The Night Of" that portrays the New York justice system this way. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556N5vojtp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556N5vojtp0

ScottBurson 10y ago
Yes, excellent series. Very eye-opening. Recommended. I can't speak to its accuracy, but I have no trouble believing it's a fair portrayal.

shams93 10y ago

In Los Angeles it's quite a bit more professional. When I served on a jury in a criminal case the judge was very professional.

mikelward 10y ago
Very few cases make it to trial. At least 90% accept a plea bargain. What you saw was not most defendants' experience.

marklyon 10y ago

An actual criminal attorney in NYC did a far better job of deconstructing this judicial tourist's article than I can: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/08/13/the-dilettante-judge/ http://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/08/13/the-dilettante-judge...

pmcollins 10y ago
Thank you for the link but I found this blog post to be utterly devoid of content.
jrochkind1 10y ago
As far as I can tell, the point of view of that 'deconstruction' is "Yeah, criminal court is totally fucked up, but we're used to it, what you think you're better than us because it's still shocking to you? fuck you elitist!" I'm sure lawyers and judges look up and down at each other with elitism, and they can take that up among themselves or whatever. But this "too cynical to be outraged at a really fucked up system" stuff helps nobody, and is just it's own kind of pretentiousness, directed at the rest of us.

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago

none of you pussies are going to do anything about it. you're all cowards. you're all idiots.

epynonymous 10y ago

i must say, though i was in people's court once trying to get my security deposit back from my landlady, which is by definition the lowest level court in the land, i too have many apprehensions about the "fairness" of the judicial system in america. that's not to say that my 1 incident should be representative of the entire judicial system, as i still believe that there are lots of excellent examples of upstanding individuals, probably more so than bad ones, but the judicial system is powered by people and their interpretation of the law, and though with some checks and balances, people having unconscious biases and tend to work these around the system, just like her example of guns and butter, no one's going to penalize that judge for this and she knows it. my particular case was in quincy, mass, i remember the faces of the judge, deputy, and clerk that waited to put my case towards the very end after about 10 cases and all other people had left, behind closed doors, seemed i didnt understand much about the system back then, but this was an arbitration, under the guise of a court order to reappear for an appeal. the landlady, a chinese national, had lost the claim originally and had ninety days to appeal, she appealed after 138 days, and the court ordered me to show up with an official court summons. in looking back, i should not have showed up, i had no need to show up, this was over a measely 700-900 usd if i recall correctly. and the way the judge, clerk, and deputy nodded their heads in contempt of me as i spoke my case was so planned and orchestrated that in my mind i decided that this was useless and to go ahead and tear up the check that she was asked to pay me for my security deposit after the first decision which i hadnt even cashed because it was never about the money. if these are the shenanigans in the lowest of courts, i wonder what things are like in the upper courts. my lesson from that day was 2 fold, try your best never to go the legal route, and the american system, although perfect in many ways, still cannot provide perfect justice.

mLuby 10y ago

It's heartening to read so many thoughtful posts about our justice system. Gives me some small hope for the future. :)

Qantourisc 10y ago

A judge holding the court in contempt basically. And since the judge is part of the court, the court is holding the court in contempt. Perhaps we need judged for judges.

peter303 10y ago

Some of the modern courthouses reduce the courthouse violence problem with a "triple entrance" system, one for all the court personal, a second for defendants briefly released from county jail, and a third for public witnesses and spectators. You dont have the hallway encounters between the three parties you had in older facilities.

tomohawk 10y ago

And then you have politicians like Martin O'Malley using the system to further their careers at others expense. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on...