4 ms·

You do realize that jails (not prisons) already house people quite long due to various dubiously legal reasons? Also that we got rid of most asylums so the ris

You do realize that jails (not prisons) already house people quite long due to various dubiously legal reasons? Also that we got rid of most asylums so the risk of being committed is quite low by the pigeonhole principle?

imperio59 6y ago
You can get thrown in jail for a long time but there is a long list of legal ways to appeal a conviction. Yes, people get convicted wrongly but that is pretty rare. 97% of people at the federal level who get indicted just take a plea deal, so the proportion of people sitting in jail unfairly (assuming they pled not guilty) must be fairly low, at least at the federal level.
- tadfisher 6y ago
  This claim disregards those who take a plea deal because they believe they cannot win a federal criminal case, which is a superset of those who are actually innocent of their accused crimes.
  - ryanwhitney 6y ago
    Yeah. Oddly enough, the aforementioned “97%” stat brought me to an Innocence Project page[1] which leads with: > In nearly 11% of the nation’s 349 DNA exoneration cases, innocent people entered guilty pleas. Obviously a small and biased sample group, but guilty plea ≠ guilty. [1] https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-plea-campaign-announcement/ https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-plea-campaign-announceme... (2017)
- giantg2 6y ago
  There are a large number of people who take a plea just because they can't afford the bail and it would take a year or two to get to trial. Or because lawyers are expensive and it's cheaper to plead guilty than to defend your innocence. I've recently had an issue with an incompetent trooper (1 successful complaint and one pending) and incompetent magistrate (complaint pending). It will cost between $100 (win) and $650 (lose) to go through the legal process and defend our innocence. It's been more than 6 months too. All this is over "leash law" violation. But it's great to see both the trooper and magistrate commit civil rights violations, and have the civil rights lawyer tell you that they are violations but that the system doesn't care unless you suffer serious financial damages. So much for a justice system.
  - imperio59 6y ago
    I once had a cop issue me a moving violation for Jay walking. So I understand that there can be pettiness from certain cops. But that's a far cry from a cop being violent against someone or killing someone wrongfully. The justice system also acknowledges it cannot right every wrong, but hopefully when there's a major wrong it should be able to right it every time.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      I don't believe there's any room for misconduct or gross incompetence. It's one thing to not be able to fix every wrong, it's another when the system itself creates those wrongs. If you have a trooper lying to a judge or continuing to hold a charge against you they know is false, they should be fired. If a magistrate doesn't know the basics of the law (like due process and dismissing with prejudice), then how can they be qualified to rule on it?
      - drcoopster 6y ago
        Some judges are elected; they could easily be grossly unqualified.
        giantg2 6y ago
        Not only are magistrates elected in my state, but they aren't required to have a law degree nor pass the bar. They take a short training course and test. In this case the original magistrate was arrested for gambling with campaign money, perjury, etc. The second magistrate was a retired cop and former police chief. Needless to say he was hostile to the defense the entire time while not questioning anything the trooper said, even stuff that was blatantly false.
    - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
      Just because it is a far cry from direct violence or murder doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taken care of. You can harass folks with "minor" civil rights violations and make life hell for someone. I'd argue that being lenient on "minor" civil rights makes the violent ones more likely because of the lenience towards other ones. If you want to be in law enforcement, don't commit civil rights violations. Period. You might not be able to right every wrong, but once a wrong comes to light, you can very well do something about it.
generalizations 6y ago
The risk is of a judicial system without checks and balances.
- vkou 6y ago
  When most people can't afford to go to trial (both financially, and because they'd be insane to not take a plea), the checks and balances of the judiciary are, in practice, only available to a privileged few. When you piss off a cop, get arrested, and are released a few days later, without any charges, you also have exactly zero recourse through those checks and balances. When you piss off a cop, and he brutalizes you, you may get some recourse (through a lawsuit, unlikely as your case may be), but it does not serve as a deterrent to subsequent police misbehaviour. (As we have seen over the past summer.)
  - imperio59 6y ago
    People sue for unlawful arrest and bad police behavior and win all the time. Check out this YouTube channel dedicated to covering just that... https://youtube.com/c/AuditTheAudit https://youtube.com/c/AuditTheAudit
    - vkou 6y ago
      The bar that needs to be met for proving that you were subjected to an 'unlawful arrest' is so incredibly high, it's farcical. Ten times out of ten, you're better off moving on with your life, and forgetting it ever happened.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      Are there a lot of minimum wage, single parent type people that do that? As an upper-middle-class office worker with flexible hours and cash to spare, even pursuing a small-claims case was a major PITA for me. Took a ton of time, effort, and money.
- addicted 6y ago
  Which existed even when cops were the ones making the arrests.

imperio59 6y ago

You can get thrown in jail for a long time but there is a long list of legal ways to appeal a conviction. Yes, people get convicted wrongly but that is pretty rare. 97% of people at the federal level who get indicted just take a plea deal, so the proportion of people sitting in jail unfairly (assuming they pled not guilty) must be fairly low, at least at the federal level.

tadfisher 6y ago
This claim disregards those who take a plea deal because they believe they cannot win a federal criminal case, which is a superset of those who are actually innocent of their accused crimes.
- ryanwhitney 6y ago
  Yeah. Oddly enough, the aforementioned “97%” stat brought me to an Innocence Project page[1] which leads with: > In nearly 11% of the nation’s 349 DNA exoneration cases, innocent people entered guilty pleas. Obviously a small and biased sample group, but guilty plea ≠ guilty. [1] https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-plea-campaign-announcement/ https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-plea-campaign-announceme... (2017)
giantg2 6y ago
There are a large number of people who take a plea just because they can't afford the bail and it would take a year or two to get to trial. Or because lawyers are expensive and it's cheaper to plead guilty than to defend your innocence. I've recently had an issue with an incompetent trooper (1 successful complaint and one pending) and incompetent magistrate (complaint pending). It will cost between $100 (win) and $650 (lose) to go through the legal process and defend our innocence. It's been more than 6 months too. All this is over "leash law" violation. But it's great to see both the trooper and magistrate commit civil rights violations, and have the civil rights lawyer tell you that they are violations but that the system doesn't care unless you suffer serious financial damages. So much for a justice system.
- imperio59 6y ago
  I once had a cop issue me a moving violation for Jay walking. So I understand that there can be pettiness from certain cops. But that's a far cry from a cop being violent against someone or killing someone wrongfully. The justice system also acknowledges it cannot right every wrong, but hopefully when there's a major wrong it should be able to right it every time.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    I don't believe there's any room for misconduct or gross incompetence. It's one thing to not be able to fix every wrong, it's another when the system itself creates those wrongs. If you have a trooper lying to a judge or continuing to hold a charge against you they know is false, they should be fired. If a magistrate doesn't know the basics of the law (like due process and dismissing with prejudice), then how can they be qualified to rule on it?
    - drcoopster 6y ago
      Some judges are elected; they could easily be grossly unqualified.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        Not only are magistrates elected in my state, but they aren't required to have a law degree nor pass the bar. They take a short training course and test. In this case the original magistrate was arrested for gambling with campaign money, perjury, etc. The second magistrate was a retired cop and former police chief. Needless to say he was hostile to the defense the entire time while not questioning anything the trooper said, even stuff that was blatantly false.
  - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
    Just because it is a far cry from direct violence or murder doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taken care of. You can harass folks with "minor" civil rights violations and make life hell for someone. I'd argue that being lenient on "minor" civil rights makes the violent ones more likely because of the lenience towards other ones. If you want to be in law enforcement, don't commit civil rights violations. Period. You might not be able to right every wrong, but once a wrong comes to light, you can very well do something about it.

generalizations 6y ago

The risk is of a judicial system without checks and balances.

vkou 6y ago
When most people can't afford to go to trial (both financially, and because they'd be insane to not take a plea), the checks and balances of the judiciary are, in practice, only available to a privileged few. When you piss off a cop, get arrested, and are released a few days later, without any charges, you also have exactly zero recourse through those checks and balances. When you piss off a cop, and he brutalizes you, you may get some recourse (through a lawsuit, unlikely as your case may be), but it does not serve as a deterrent to subsequent police misbehaviour. (As we have seen over the past summer.)
- imperio59 6y ago
  People sue for unlawful arrest and bad police behavior and win all the time. Check out this YouTube channel dedicated to covering just that... https://youtube.com/c/AuditTheAudit https://youtube.com/c/AuditTheAudit
  - vkou 6y ago
    The bar that needs to be met for proving that you were subjected to an 'unlawful arrest' is so incredibly high, it's farcical. Ten times out of ten, you're better off moving on with your life, and forgetting it ever happened.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Are there a lot of minimum wage, single parent type people that do that? As an upper-middle-class office worker with flexible hours and cash to spare, even pursuing a small-claims case was a major PITA for me. Took a ton of time, effort, and money.
addicted 6y ago
Which existed even when cops were the ones making the arrests.