5 ms·

Prosecutorial overreach is a huge issue at all levels of society, particularly when applied towards youth to an extent that it perpetuates a cycle of crime; it

• koolba 10y ago
  How about having the prosecutor put up a bond that goes to the defendant if the case is cleared?
  • btown 10y ago
    Ah, but what politician would argue for such a law that would hobble our "brave defenders of law and order"? Imagine the TV spots! (And pay no mind whether the private prison industry is funding the PAC that put them up...)
  • azernik 10y ago
    This would give too much incentive to the prosecutor to do unethical things to secure conviction once they've brought the case.
    • late2part 10y ago
      They already have tremendous pressure to secure conviction - I'm don't believe this would encourage even more unethical things.
      • azernik 10y ago
        Then you have a very naive view of just how bad things can get.
      • Spooky23 10y ago
        These guys don't get paid particularly well. Requiring something like this means that they'll decline to prosecute anything risky. You'd literally have zero rape cases litigated.
    • MaysonL 10y ago
      Or to bring prosecutions against friends who whould split the bond with them under the table. (You don't think that the prosecutors would have to put up their own money, do you?)
• jellicle 10y ago
  The solution is not to elect prosecutors (or judges, same reason). Almost no countries worldwide elect judges or prosecutors, that is to say, this is already a solved problem almost everywhere on Earth except in the USA. No need to spend a lot of time thinking about a solution when an excellent one already exists and is deployed widely.
  • obstinate 10y ago
    It's like people worried about writing a secure program but still picking C as the implementation language.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
      Which is to say, terrible if you think that's all that matters but sensible once we consider tooling, portability, productivity, and network effects.
      • obstinate 10y ago
        I don't think you can make such a universal statement. It depends on the software being constructed and the purposes to which it will be put.
        • yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
          Context probably matters, granted. That said, I was responding to a universal condemnation of C, so it seems reasonable to respond in kind.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• Spooky23 10y ago
  I disagree. The current atmosphere has more to do with having too much money in policing where prosecutors hold a leading role. Many district attorney offices are dependent on seized property to function, so a cozy relationships and keeping the vote from rocking become important. Personally, I prefer elected judges and prosecutors. Leaving things in the hands of the people will always be a better outcome than letting political hacks decide.
  • narag 10y ago
    Those are not the only possible options. In many countries judges get their positions by a technical competition. Also in my country the case is built by a judge, even if there is a DA during the trial. I think they're going to change that, unfortunately... we suspect the reason is putting political corruption cases in more friendly hands. Climbing the career ladder is managed by an entity formed by judges... in theory. In practice Constitution is ignored and politicians chose a good number of its members. Seized property seems like total madness.
  • synchronise 10y ago
    >Leaving things in the hands of the people will always be a better outcome than letting political hacks decide. In most parliamentary countries this is not the case. In Australia, specifically the state of NSW, the judges are appointed by the Governor who goes with the suggestion of the Attorney General (by convention, not requirement), and while the position of Attorney General is not directly elected each member of cabinet has to be elected by the public. To make sure allegations of corruption are independently assessed, there is an Independent Commission Against Corruption, or ICAC, that can investigate individuals for corruption in a public office. The checks and balances are pretty broad in that model, and there's no risk of appealing to fallacies which can happen in the direct election model e.g. appealing to 'common sense'.
  • scardine 10y ago
    In Brazil there is a technical competition to ingress the career (both for judges and prosecutors). Often there are 100 or more candidates for each available chair. The problem here is that judges are unaccountable: a judge can have 100% of his decisions reformed in an upper court and keep working. In a sane system he would be fired.
• phil21 10y ago
  Great article, I hadn't come across that one yet. But I also think he's part of the problem and doesn't even realize how. > Even as Americans are facing the ruination of their lives at the hands of prosecutors, even when they're innocent, even when they're being mistreated by the government, they're still skeptical of defense lawyers and trusting of prosecutors. They prefer to hire a former federal prosecutor because they don't want to think of themselves as someone who has to hire a criminal defense lawyer Uh... no? How out of touch do you have to be to believe this? You get an ex-prosecutor as your defense attorney because he understands how to work a corrupt system, and hopefully can do some wink wink nudge nudge stuff with his old drinking buddies still at the DA office. I certainly am not a lawyer, but I've been involved with enough legal cases to understand this is generally the case. No one is hiring an ex-prosecutor because they "don't want to think they need a defense attorney" - come on man! They want to get the best chance they can, and know the system is entirely corrupted from it's original intent and stacked against them. So you play as dirty as you can as well. I think this guy sort of gets it. But he's being far too lenient on his past self, as well as current prosecutors. His bank robbery story made my skin crawl - and he saw nothing wrong with it in the end (apparently).
• braveo 10y ago
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Your suggestion about the statistics would naturally start giving one group less jailtime for the same crime than other groups, and at some point the policy themselves would start affecting the statistics. It's the kind of thing that lends itself to groupthink and digs itself so deeply into people's minds that fixing the wrongs that would be created by this system becomes extremely difficult.
• autokad 10y ago
  I think the overreach has less to do with 'we fear criminals' and more towards a large body count of prosecutions leads $$$ (great paying government jobs, book royalties, etc.) take away the huge financial incentive, the overreach will diminish even in the presence of fearing criminals over criminal injustice.