4 ms·

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.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  No one would claim that the existing system is perfect, but there is a great deal of difference between the assessment of a physician or magistrate and trial by a jury of one's peers. A jury of twelve is standard; I know of no requirement that twelve physicians deem someone a threat to himself or others. Furthermore, there are stronger protections for habeas corpus than there are for people involuntarily committed. Those who are accused are guaranteed a lawyer; those who are committed have no right to an advocate, which is doubly bad considering that they are often drugged in ways that dull their mental faculties.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    The great majority of cases don't go to trial. Instead people are threatened with punishments vastly disproportionate to their purported crimes, and thereby intimidated in to pleading guilty irrespective of their guilt. Defendants without the financial/social resources to mount a solid defense don’t want to take their chances when faced with a 20 year prison term or whatever, not to mention a slow process that leaves their life in limbo for months or years even if they do eventually prevail. A NYT story a few years ago claimed 97% of federal cases and 94% of state cases end via plea bargain. For those who do go to trial, the right to a lawyer is often pretty weak support. Public defenders are grossly underfunded and overworked, and there is no guarantee that they will be competent or committed to the case.
    - Flozzin 6y ago
      Going to add to this. A jury of ones 'peers' is rarely the case either. Yes, they are citizens, but they are rarely of the same background, ethnicity, or social status. They are hand selected by lawyers to remove people that might be sympathetic to your plight. I've never heard that jurors are the best and brightest among us. Often the highly educated and analytical are removed from jury pool.
- toolz 6y ago
  I'm not sure this point is relevant unless you're implying that because the system is imperfect we should introduce more systems in place that can be just as easily imperfect in the same ways.
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imtringued 6y ago
That's exactly what a jail is. Police suspects you have committed a crime, holds you in jail until trial or until you pay bail and may never end up releasing you even if you are innocent.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  What’s the difference between a jail and a psych ward again? When I was in one it was functionally indistinguishable from a jail.

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.

da_big_ghey 6y ago
No one would claim that the existing system is perfect, but there is a great deal of difference between the assessment of a physician or magistrate and trial by a jury of one's peers. A jury of twelve is standard; I know of no requirement that twelve physicians deem someone a threat to himself or others. Furthermore, there are stronger protections for habeas corpus than there are for people involuntarily committed. Those who are accused are guaranteed a lawyer; those who are committed have no right to an advocate, which is doubly bad considering that they are often drugged in ways that dull their mental faculties.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  The great majority of cases don't go to trial. Instead people are threatened with punishments vastly disproportionate to their purported crimes, and thereby intimidated in to pleading guilty irrespective of their guilt. Defendants without the financial/social resources to mount a solid defense don’t want to take their chances when faced with a 20 year prison term or whatever, not to mention a slow process that leaves their life in limbo for months or years even if they do eventually prevail. A NYT story a few years ago claimed 97% of federal cases and 94% of state cases end via plea bargain. For those who do go to trial, the right to a lawyer is often pretty weak support. Public defenders are grossly underfunded and overworked, and there is no guarantee that they will be competent or committed to the case.
  - Flozzin 6y ago
    Going to add to this. A jury of ones 'peers' is rarely the case either. Yes, they are citizens, but they are rarely of the same background, ethnicity, or social status. They are hand selected by lawyers to remove people that might be sympathetic to your plight. I've never heard that jurors are the best and brightest among us. Often the highly educated and analytical are removed from jury pool.
toolz 6y ago
I'm not sure this point is relevant unless you're implying that because the system is imperfect we should introduce more systems in place that can be just as easily imperfect in the same ways.

deleted 6y ago

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imtringued 6y ago

That's exactly what a jail is. Police suspects you have committed a crime, holds you in jail until trial or until you pay bail and may never end up releasing you even if you are innocent.

ironmagma 6y ago
What’s the difference between a jail and a psych ward again? When I was in one it was functionally indistinguishable from a jail.