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Highlighting this part, which might otherwise go unnoticed: > Instead of birthday cake and ice cream, she got jail food and a bill for hygiene supplies To spe

Highlighting this part, which might otherwise go unnoticed: > Instead of birthday cake and ice cream, she got jail food and a bill for hygiene supplies To spell it out, although she wasn't charged in the criminal sense, she was "charged" financially—for the privilege of experiencing false arrest. There are other states with extremely messed up legal processes, such as those where not only convicted persons receive a bill for their public defender (which at least makes some sense, logically) but states where you are on hook for thousands of dollars even in the event that you are never tried or you are tried and found not guilty.

moshmosh 5y ago
Some relatives of mine got to experience a fun little hostage situation with, "either you pay [absurd figure] per month for a couple years for drug rehab at a facility we chose, for your adult kid, plus smaller amounts of money for other stuff pretty much indefinitely, or or they rot in prison rather than getting out on probation". On the one hand, the guy definitely did something bad. On the other hand, gee I wonder how generational cycles of poverty, driving future crime rates, happen. No mystery that the effects of criminality seems to afflict entire families when the justice system is actively contributing to that. And no, it's not like they only got charged that much because they're flush with cash. I'm pretty sure the courts didn't give a damn whether they could afford it (technically, yes they could, but in anything resembling a financially-responsible sense, god no, not at all, they weren't starting from a great spot and it basically ruined them—the bread-winner will now work until he dies or gets so sick he can't anymore)
- plank_time 5y ago
  I don’t have much sympathy for people that commit actual crimes. There are too many innocent people being arrested to worry about the guilty ones. They chose to spend their money to keep their son out of jail. Thats was their choice. That’s the consequence of the son committing what appears to be a major crime. Hopefully the son learns from that and he should be working to help repay that debt.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    > I don’t have much sympathy for people that commit actual crimes. Even when the "crime" doesn't hurt anybody except the "offender?" GP post strongly implies the charge was some sort of possession charge. Drug addicts do not need to be punished any more than they punish themselves.
    - plank_time 5y ago
      GP did not strongly imply it was possession. They said the guy “definitely did something bad”. So it sounds like to me it’s something more than just simple possession. That’s what I’m going with.
      - actually_a_dog 5y ago
        You know, you didn't actually answer the question I asked....
        shard 5y ago
        I don't think every person who replies to you needs to answer the exact question you asked. This is a general conversation, and people can talk about any interesting point in any part of the preceding text. Tangent conversations are just fine here.
        actually_a_dog 5y ago
        I don't think me writing a comment compels anyone to do anything about it, so, what's the problem? This is also the specific person I asked the question of originally to whom I am replying. I think when I ask a specific person a question and get a reply from that person, it's fair to expect that the reply answer the question. Wouldn't you agree?
        silly-silly 5y ago
        You'd hope, but people gotta peep.
- syshum 5y ago
  >>On the one hand, the guy definitely did something bad if the "bad thing" was voluntarily ingesting a chemical that state has no ethical authority to ban a person from ingesting into their own body then I would urge you to reformulate what you consider a "bad thing" Drug Abuse can lead to all manner of actual crime (theft, Intoxicated Driving, etc) that has a degree of probability to harm OTHERS, this is where the states power can be ethically applies, when a persons actions can directly physically harm another person against that persons will. However state power should never be considered ethical when they are attempting to "protect people from themselves" this mentality leads to all kinds of abuse by authority and create the very system that causes the issue you highlight
  - katbyte 5y ago
    not to mention so can alcohol which is very legal, very marketed, well accepted, and also more deadly and addictive than many so called "dangerous drugs".
    - Retric 5y ago
      Alcohol does a great deal of harm simply because it’s very common and often severely abused. Few drugs are harmless when heavily abuse for decades drives up tolerance levels. Lifetime ultra heavy pot smokers for example face significant lung cancer risks, though very few people are heavy daily pot smokers for 50+ years at this point. At the other end, 1 glass of wine every day for 60 years is as far as we can tell on net harmless. Where even light daily pot smoking still causes some lung issues on those timescales. So yes, alcohol in and of it’s self can be deadly but it’s not nearly as bad as these comparisons generally suggest.
      - nine_k 5y ago
        I would say that inhaling smoke, especially tar-rich smoke from burning organic matter, is bad for lungs. The presence of any psychoactive substance in it changes little. There are several other ways to consume THC, though, somehow less destructive. By the same token, drinking alcohol in shots, cold and concentrated, is about the worst way to consume it, because most of it is then spent ruining the liver, and little actually reaches the brain. Sipping a glass of wine does not compare. AFAICT a lot of health problems that even heroin addicts face do not come from overdoses, but from the unsanitary ways of intravenous administration of it, and the wear-off of the veins from constant injection. Comparing drugs by just their chemical properties, and ignoring the ways they are consumed, is not very productive, alas.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  This is how oppressors keep the bottom caste in their place while promoting a sense of justice to the unaffected.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The bottom goes in and out of prison and does just fine. You can't threaten them because they have little to lose. A year working less than ideal jobs and they're back where they were. This is how you threaten the middle. You threaten their wealth and their careers.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "You can't threaten them because they have little to lose." This also reminds me of how some drug companies are pricing gene therapy drugs (like to restore sight, fix muscular dystrophy, etc). They have admitted that they weren't pricing the drug based on what it cost to develop but based on what that person's [function] is worth to them. If your pricing model is based on desperate people being willing to pay anything, then I don't think these executives have thought this through. Desperate people may be willing to pay anything, but when they have nothing to pay, then they are also willing to do anything. I think this can be a similar situation in the "justice" system. If you have no faith in the system do to their track record of misconduct, mistakes, etc, then you have no incentive to believ in them or try the legitimate path.
      - Aerroon 5y ago
        >I think this can be a similar situation in the "justice" system. If you have no faith in the system do to their track record of misconduct, mistakes, etc, then you have no incentive to believ in them or try the legitimate path. I believe this is why high level politicians and the wealthy get out of trouble. They know the system is a sham, so there's no point in going along with it.
        ctack 5y ago
        They can afford to perceive the system as a sham. I might understand that it’s a sham, but I’d be miserable and powerless to push against it. So it’s a pointless belief to have. But after that, it becomes a bit chicken and egg: Is it a sham only because you have power to make it a sham or was it a sham all along?
- LeftTriangle 5y ago
  > No mystery that the effects of criminality seems to afflict entire families when the justice system is actively contributing to that. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence suggests that this is mostly mediated by strongly genetically heritable behavioral factors such as intelligence, aggression, and time preference. Familial criminality effects are only slightly moderated by e.g. adoption into a completely different family.
  - thret 5y ago
    This is completely incorrect. There have been several large-scale tests of this theory, notably Australia, that proved it to be false. Genetics have nothing to do with it.
    - LeftTriangle 5y ago
      What, exactly, is the “it” that you think has been proven false?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Some relatives of mine got to experience a fun little hostage situation with, "either you pay [absurd figure] per month for a couple years for drug rehab at a facility we chose, for your adult kid, plus smaller amounts of money for other stuff pretty much indefinitely, or or they rot in prison rather than getting out on probation". The entire host of companies people are forced to do business with by court order are like this. Rehab, post conviction monitoring, etc. etc. They're all scum. And they get away with it because nobody will defend criminals. Every time something like OUI comes up in passing on HN there's be a miles long comment chain where everybody is piling on about how they're terrible people. Sure, fine, they may be, but they also have rights. People like you (probably you reading this very comment) are why ignition interlocks and ankle bracelets can be made that report false positives left and right, the companies that run them can charge stupid amounts of money and get away with it all. Because your principals go out the window as soon as someone is convicted of something you don't like.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "And they get away with it because nobody will defend criminals." If only we had some mantra/idiom/whatever the correct word is like "innocent until proven guilty"...
    - m_mueller 5y ago
      Here it is more about how you treat the proven guilty. The answer I think should be measured proportionally, and geared towards rehabilitation. Plea bargains and privatization of various aspects seem to go right against that. It takes away control of the court systems and gives it to the executive branch, to people who are measured on their conviction rate and arrests. This all badly needs reform, but good luck when the Supreme Court is now just another political game.
      - giantg2 5y ago
- voodootrucker 5y ago
  > justice system is actively contributing to that Please help stop use of the phrase "justice system".
  - froh 5y ago
    naming is hard, indeed. what do you suggest?
    - epicureanideal 5y ago
      Legal system, or judicial system, or court system.
    - artificial 5y ago
      Refer to it as a legal system.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      "Carcerial state"
      - froh 5y ago
        "carcerial policing complex"
userbinator 5y ago
"Our mistake, you get to pay for it" seems like something that should be illegal.
- staplers 5y ago
  You actually pay for it twice as a taxpayer.
  - kleiba 5y ago
    I think mistakes should be paid for by the tax payer, not by the individual who was involved. Everyone makes mistakes, they're unavoidable. But the costs should not unilaterally burden the innocent person involved.
    - staplers 5y ago
      I can't tell if you are disagreeing with me. Everything you said is what was implied by what I wrote.
- unishark 5y ago
  It seems like legal bills somehow are often considered exempt from common sense like that. Perhaps it has to do with so many politicians also being lawyers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
arp242 5y ago
I read the suit[1] linked in the article and it's even more bewildering than you might think; it seems that a (presumably minor) charge for hygiene supplies was the least of her financial problems, considering her car was "ripped apart" and "permanently damaged", and that she actually lost her license over this(!) And the K9 dog wasn't even the biggest problem in the police handling. The police just acted in bad faith throughout. I expected to find just one or two extra screw-ups, but good grief, this is just an orgy of fuck-ups. Granted, this is just one side of the story, and some details can perhaps be contested, but overall it seems fairly solid and reliable to me. Much of this was captured on body cams. A summary: - A concerned citizen called the police to make sure everything was okay. - "Inexplicably, instead of initiating contact with Wendy to see if she was okay, Clark instead called for an ambulance–unnecessarily escalating the welfare check without even checking to see what was going on." - For some reason this "are you okay?" call expanded to a DUI investigation. Wendy was repeatedly denied to do a chemical test for alcohol or drugs, which she asked for to prove her innocence. Clark insisted on doing a field sobriety test, which was "improperly conducted [..] and improperly instructed Wendy on how to perform the tests", and even more damning "Clark positioned Farris to take the field sobriety tests in a spot ↪where the tests themselves would not be caught on camera" - She failed this test and was placed under arrest. Again she asks for a breath or blood test (the EMTs were still present, had already checked her out, and decided she was fine). Again denied. At this point she was "in a state of near panic". - Clark's report didn't mention that Wendy had been awake for 24 hours, had just been awoken, was forced to look out into the bright sunlight to respond to the officer (of course her pupils were constricted), and that she wasn't actually driving the car. - The dog fails to find anything on the first pass of the car, and near the end of the second pass the dog handler touches the car with the hand that was holding the dog's scent toy. Karma looks at his handler and "finds drugs". - They discover the $5,000. The car was impounded and "ripped apart in an effort to find drugs" which "permanently damaged Wendy’s vehicle". No drugs were found. She never got paid damaged for this. - Booked in to jail, according to Clark she refused a breathalyser; "Wendy did not decline, she simply advised the deputy that she had been told not to answer questions until her attorney arrived" (who was on their way, and had wisely advised not to answer questions). - Finally got her blood test done (results for this take a while, more on this later). - Cited with a DUI violation. Was booked in on Friday and released on Monday (doesn't mention times). - On Monday the prosecutor dropped the charges as there's no real probably cause. - The same day Wendy returned to complain about Clark's handling, and "In retaliation, Clark submitted the DUI arrest to the State of Washington Department of Licensing for an administrative decision on Wendy’s license. Wendy had no idea Clark had done this". The paperwork Clark submitted for this claimed that Wendy refused to do a breathalyzer. - Wendy’s driving privileges were suspended for a year and was required to get SR-22 insurance, which she can't afford. "As a result, Wendy has not driven since she discovered her license was suspended" and "as a result of unjustifiable suspension of her license, Wendy lost job opportunities". - Wendy was charged again for DUI based on Clark's lie that she had refused to take to a breathalyzer. She had to travel from Montana to Washington only to have the case dismissed again. - To prove her innocence she tried to get the blood test results, but according to the police office the "lab was busy" and the results weren't ready yet. In May 2020 she contacted the lab directly, and they informed her that the tests had been completed and submitted to the police office on March 27th, 2019. - She never heard about the complaint she submitted against Clark. Seems to have been >/dev/null'd. [1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.waed.91969/gov.uscourts.waed.91969.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.waed.91...
giantg2 5y ago
It's pretty well known that for lower level offenses (traffic, summary, etc) the system is a racket. You pay more to defend your innocence than it would cost to just pay the fine. Most states restrict public defenders to those who have low income. Are there states that will reimburse for legal fees if found not guilty? The ones I know of do not. I don't know what you would call it, but I don't think "justice" should be part of its name.
- sneak 5y ago
  PKD once pointed out that the only way to really live unmolested in a police state is to never find yourself on the radar to be examined in any way in the first place. They never really close the file.
Sleepytime 5y ago
Ever cop knows the phrase "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride". Arresting people you know will get charges dropped just to hassle them is standard practice.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throw170521 5y ago
> you are on hook for thousands of dollars even in the event that you are never tried or you are tried and found not guilty. You're on the hook for thousands of dollars even if you're never charged! Don't forget about the bail loan firms. Say, you're arrested and kept on a $20K bail. Even if you have the money in the bank, the only way to pay is by cash or money order. They won't accept personal check, they won't accept wire transfer, they won't accept nothing. You can't buy a money order from your cell. But they will helpfully refer you to a bail loan firm. They take away your phone, so you won't be shopping around much - their referral is all you have. And, unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you, this is the only practical way to pay. Bail loan firms charge 10-15% of the bond, which, of course, they get to keep even if you show up in court as promised, regardless of whether you're found guilty or even charged with anything. This is such a profitable scam those firms will do anything to keep the current system in place. US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries, yet nobody is even talking about it.
- derefr 5y ago
  Is there a justice system anywhere in the world that actually does state-driven financial punishment on police to disincentivize false arrest? (E.g. all costs stemming from a false arrest being taken as treble damages from the department and awarded to the innocent accused, automatically, without the accused having to bother to sue?)
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    I suppose the difference is that in most other places in the world there would be no 'costs stemming from a false arrest' (I mean direct costs if you exclude things like the opportunity cost of lost time, and the damages/stress inflicted, etc).
    - johannes1234321 5y ago
      In Germany you are compensated for a wrong arrest. (Base rate is 25€ per day, which isn't much, but you can claim additional reimbursements with some paperwork and help from your (state paid) lawyer)
AuthorizedCust 5y ago
I have a friend out almost $10,000 for simply being innocent of a DUI charge. (Breathalyzer and blood test were both 0%, and he does not take meds or do drugs.) This is what we get when we over-rely on armed agents and the legal system to fix far too many societal issues. That’s a result of too many fear-possessed people simply voting their fears.
- Navarr 5y ago
  What were the charges for?
  - AuthorizedCust 5y ago
    DUI

moshmosh 5y ago

Some relatives of mine got to experience a fun little hostage situation with, "either you pay [absurd figure] per month for a couple years for drug rehab at a facility we chose, for your adult kid, plus smaller amounts of money for other stuff pretty much indefinitely, or or they rot in prison rather than getting out on probation". On the one hand, the guy definitely did something bad. On the other hand, gee I wonder how generational cycles of poverty, driving future crime rates, happen. No mystery that the effects of criminality seems to afflict entire families when the justice system is actively contributing to that. And no, it's not like they only got charged that much because they're flush with cash. I'm pretty sure the courts didn't give a damn whether they could afford it (technically, yes they could, but in anything resembling a financially-responsible sense, god no, not at all, they weren't starting from a great spot and it basically ruined them—the bread-winner will now work until he dies or gets so sick he can't anymore)

plank_time 5y ago
I don’t have much sympathy for people that commit actual crimes. There are too many innocent people being arrested to worry about the guilty ones. They chose to spend their money to keep their son out of jail. Thats was their choice. That’s the consequence of the son committing what appears to be a major crime. Hopefully the son learns from that and he should be working to help repay that debt.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  > I don’t have much sympathy for people that commit actual crimes. Even when the "crime" doesn't hurt anybody except the "offender?" GP post strongly implies the charge was some sort of possession charge. Drug addicts do not need to be punished any more than they punish themselves.
  - plank_time 5y ago
    GP did not strongly imply it was possession. They said the guy “definitely did something bad”. So it sounds like to me it’s something more than just simple possession. That’s what I’m going with.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      You know, you didn't actually answer the question I asked....
      - shard 5y ago
        I don't think every person who replies to you needs to answer the exact question you asked. This is a general conversation, and people can talk about any interesting point in any part of the preceding text. Tangent conversations are just fine here.
        actually_a_dog 5y ago
        I don't think me writing a comment compels anyone to do anything about it, so, what's the problem? This is also the specific person I asked the question of originally to whom I am replying. I think when I ask a specific person a question and get a reply from that person, it's fair to expect that the reply answer the question. Wouldn't you agree?
        silly-silly 5y ago
        You'd hope, but people gotta peep.
syshum 5y ago
>>On the one hand, the guy definitely did something bad if the "bad thing" was voluntarily ingesting a chemical that state has no ethical authority to ban a person from ingesting into their own body then I would urge you to reformulate what you consider a "bad thing" Drug Abuse can lead to all manner of actual crime (theft, Intoxicated Driving, etc) that has a degree of probability to harm OTHERS, this is where the states power can be ethically applies, when a persons actions can directly physically harm another person against that persons will. However state power should never be considered ethical when they are attempting to "protect people from themselves" this mentality leads to all kinds of abuse by authority and create the very system that causes the issue you highlight
- katbyte 5y ago
  not to mention so can alcohol which is very legal, very marketed, well accepted, and also more deadly and addictive than many so called "dangerous drugs".
  - Retric 5y ago
    Alcohol does a great deal of harm simply because it’s very common and often severely abused. Few drugs are harmless when heavily abuse for decades drives up tolerance levels. Lifetime ultra heavy pot smokers for example face significant lung cancer risks, though very few people are heavy daily pot smokers for 50+ years at this point. At the other end, 1 glass of wine every day for 60 years is as far as we can tell on net harmless. Where even light daily pot smoking still causes some lung issues on those timescales. So yes, alcohol in and of it’s self can be deadly but it’s not nearly as bad as these comparisons generally suggest.
    - nine_k 5y ago
      I would say that inhaling smoke, especially tar-rich smoke from burning organic matter, is bad for lungs. The presence of any psychoactive substance in it changes little. There are several other ways to consume THC, though, somehow less destructive. By the same token, drinking alcohol in shots, cold and concentrated, is about the worst way to consume it, because most of it is then spent ruining the liver, and little actually reaches the brain. Sipping a glass of wine does not compare. AFAICT a lot of health problems that even heroin addicts face do not come from overdoses, but from the unsanitary ways of intravenous administration of it, and the wear-off of the veins from constant injection. Comparing drugs by just their chemical properties, and ignoring the ways they are consumed, is not very productive, alas.
birdyrooster 5y ago
This is how oppressors keep the bottom caste in their place while promoting a sense of justice to the unaffected.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  The bottom goes in and out of prison and does just fine. You can't threaten them because they have little to lose. A year working less than ideal jobs and they're back where they were. This is how you threaten the middle. You threaten their wealth and their careers.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "You can't threaten them because they have little to lose." This also reminds me of how some drug companies are pricing gene therapy drugs (like to restore sight, fix muscular dystrophy, etc). They have admitted that they weren't pricing the drug based on what it cost to develop but based on what that person's [function] is worth to them. If your pricing model is based on desperate people being willing to pay anything, then I don't think these executives have thought this through. Desperate people may be willing to pay anything, but when they have nothing to pay, then they are also willing to do anything. I think this can be a similar situation in the "justice" system. If you have no faith in the system do to their track record of misconduct, mistakes, etc, then you have no incentive to believ in them or try the legitimate path.
    - Aerroon 5y ago
      >I think this can be a similar situation in the "justice" system. If you have no faith in the system do to their track record of misconduct, mistakes, etc, then you have no incentive to believ in them or try the legitimate path. I believe this is why high level politicians and the wealthy get out of trouble. They know the system is a sham, so there's no point in going along with it.
      - ctack 5y ago
        They can afford to perceive the system as a sham. I might understand that it’s a sham, but I’d be miserable and powerless to push against it. So it’s a pointless belief to have. But after that, it becomes a bit chicken and egg: Is it a sham only because you have power to make it a sham or was it a sham all along?
LeftTriangle 5y ago
> No mystery that the effects of criminality seems to afflict entire families when the justice system is actively contributing to that. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence suggests that this is mostly mediated by strongly genetically heritable behavioral factors such as intelligence, aggression, and time preference. Familial criminality effects are only slightly moderated by e.g. adoption into a completely different family.
- thret 5y ago
  This is completely incorrect. There have been several large-scale tests of this theory, notably Australia, that proved it to be false. Genetics have nothing to do with it.
  - LeftTriangle 5y ago
    What, exactly, is the “it” that you think has been proven false?
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Some relatives of mine got to experience a fun little hostage situation with, "either you pay [absurd figure] per month for a couple years for drug rehab at a facility we chose, for your adult kid, plus smaller amounts of money for other stuff pretty much indefinitely, or or they rot in prison rather than getting out on probation". The entire host of companies people are forced to do business with by court order are like this. Rehab, post conviction monitoring, etc. etc. They're all scum. And they get away with it because nobody will defend criminals. Every time something like OUI comes up in passing on HN there's be a miles long comment chain where everybody is piling on about how they're terrible people. Sure, fine, they may be, but they also have rights. People like you (probably you reading this very comment) are why ignition interlocks and ankle bracelets can be made that report false positives left and right, the companies that run them can charge stupid amounts of money and get away with it all. Because your principals go out the window as soon as someone is convicted of something you don't like.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- giantg2 5y ago
  "And they get away with it because nobody will defend criminals." If only we had some mantra/idiom/whatever the correct word is like "innocent until proven guilty"...
  - m_mueller 5y ago
    Here it is more about how you treat the proven guilty. The answer I think should be measured proportionally, and geared towards rehabilitation. Plea bargains and privatization of various aspects seem to go right against that. It takes away control of the court systems and gives it to the executive branch, to people who are measured on their conviction rate and arrests. This all badly needs reform, but good luck when the Supreme Court is now just another political game.
    - giantg2 5y ago
voodootrucker 5y ago
> justice system is actively contributing to that Please help stop use of the phrase "justice system".
- froh 5y ago
  naming is hard, indeed. what do you suggest?
  - epicureanideal 5y ago
    Legal system, or judicial system, or court system.
  - artificial 5y ago
    Refer to it as a legal system.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    "Carcerial state"
    - froh 5y ago
      "carcerial policing complex"

userbinator 5y ago

"Our mistake, you get to pay for it" seems like something that should be illegal.

staplers 5y ago
You actually pay for it twice as a taxpayer.
- kleiba 5y ago
  I think mistakes should be paid for by the tax payer, not by the individual who was involved. Everyone makes mistakes, they're unavoidable. But the costs should not unilaterally burden the innocent person involved.
  - staplers 5y ago
    I can't tell if you are disagreeing with me. Everything you said is what was implied by what I wrote.
unishark 5y ago
It seems like legal bills somehow are often considered exempt from common sense like that. Perhaps it has to do with so many politicians also being lawyers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

arp242 5y ago

I read the suit[1] linked in the article and it's even more bewildering than you might think; it seems that a (presumably minor) charge for hygiene supplies was the least of her financial problems, considering her car was "ripped apart" and "permanently damaged", and that she actually lost her license over this(!) And the K9 dog wasn't even the biggest problem in the police handling. The police just acted in bad faith throughout. I expected to find just one or two extra screw-ups, but good grief, this is just an orgy of fuck-ups. Granted, this is just one side of the story, and some details can perhaps be contested, but overall it seems fairly solid and reliable to me. Much of this was captured on body cams. A summary: - A concerned citizen called the police to make sure everything was okay. - "Inexplicably, instead of initiating contact with Wendy to see if she was okay, Clark instead called for an ambulance–unnecessarily escalating the welfare check without even checking to see what was going on." - For some reason this "are you okay?" call expanded to a DUI investigation. Wendy was repeatedly denied to do a chemical test for alcohol or drugs, which she asked for to prove her innocence. Clark insisted on doing a field sobriety test, which was "improperly conducted [..] and improperly instructed Wendy on how to perform the tests", and even more damning "Clark positioned Farris to take the field sobriety tests in a spot ↪where the tests themselves would not be caught on camera" - She failed this test and was placed under arrest. Again she asks for a breath or blood test (the EMTs were still present, had already checked her out, and decided she was fine). Again denied. At this point she was "in a state of near panic". - Clark's report didn't mention that Wendy had been awake for 24 hours, had just been awoken, was forced to look out into the bright sunlight to respond to the officer (of course her pupils were constricted), and that she wasn't actually driving the car. - The dog fails to find anything on the first pass of the car, and near the end of the second pass the dog handler touches the car with the hand that was holding the dog's scent toy. Karma looks at his handler and "finds drugs". - They discover the $5,000. The car was impounded and "ripped apart in an effort to find drugs" which "permanently damaged Wendy’s vehicle". No drugs were found. She never got paid damaged for this. - Booked in to jail, according to Clark she refused a breathalyser; "Wendy did not decline, she simply advised the deputy that she had been told not to answer questions until her attorney arrived" (who was on their way, and had wisely advised not to answer questions). - Finally got her blood test done (results for this take a while, more on this later). - Cited with a DUI violation. Was booked in on Friday and released on Monday (doesn't mention times). - On Monday the prosecutor dropped the charges as there's no real probably cause. - The same day Wendy returned to complain about Clark's handling, and "In retaliation, Clark submitted the DUI arrest to the State of Washington Department of Licensing for an administrative decision on Wendy’s license. Wendy had no idea Clark had done this". The paperwork Clark submitted for this claimed that Wendy refused to do a breathalyzer. - Wendy’s driving privileges were suspended for a year and was required to get SR-22 insurance, which she can't afford. "As a result, Wendy has not driven since she discovered her license was suspended" and "as a result of unjustifiable suspension of her license, Wendy lost job opportunities". - Wendy was charged again for DUI based on Clark's lie that she had refused to take to a breathalyzer. She had to travel from Montana to Washington only to have the case dismissed again. - To prove her innocence she tried to get the blood test results, but according to the police office the "lab was busy" and the results weren't ready yet. In May 2020 she contacted the lab directly, and they informed her that the tests had been completed and submitted to the police office on March 27th, 2019. - She never heard about the complaint she submitted against Clark. Seems to have been >/dev/null'd. [1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.waed.91969/gov.uscourts.waed.91969.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.waed.91...

giantg2 5y ago

It's pretty well known that for lower level offenses (traffic, summary, etc) the system is a racket. You pay more to defend your innocence than it would cost to just pay the fine. Most states restrict public defenders to those who have low income. Are there states that will reimburse for legal fees if found not guilty? The ones I know of do not. I don't know what you would call it, but I don't think "justice" should be part of its name.

sneak 5y ago
PKD once pointed out that the only way to really live unmolested in a police state is to never find yourself on the radar to be examined in any way in the first place. They never really close the file.

Sleepytime 5y ago

Ever cop knows the phrase "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride". Arresting people you know will get charges dropped just to hassle them is standard practice.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throw170521 5y ago

> you are on hook for thousands of dollars even in the event that you are never tried or you are tried and found not guilty. You're on the hook for thousands of dollars even if you're never charged! Don't forget about the bail loan firms. Say, you're arrested and kept on a $20K bail. Even if you have the money in the bank, the only way to pay is by cash or money order. They won't accept personal check, they won't accept wire transfer, they won't accept nothing. You can't buy a money order from your cell. But they will helpfully refer you to a bail loan firm. They take away your phone, so you won't be shopping around much - their referral is all you have. And, unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you, this is the only practical way to pay. Bail loan firms charge 10-15% of the bond, which, of course, they get to keep even if you show up in court as promised, regardless of whether you're found guilty or even charged with anything. This is such a profitable scam those firms will do anything to keep the current system in place. US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries, yet nobody is even talking about it.

derefr 5y ago
Is there a justice system anywhere in the world that actually does state-driven financial punishment on police to disincentivize false arrest? (E.g. all costs stemming from a false arrest being taken as treble damages from the department and awarded to the innocent accused, automatically, without the accused having to bother to sue?)
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  I suppose the difference is that in most other places in the world there would be no 'costs stemming from a false arrest' (I mean direct costs if you exclude things like the opportunity cost of lost time, and the damages/stress inflicted, etc).
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    In Germany you are compensated for a wrong arrest. (Base rate is 25€ per day, which isn't much, but you can claim additional reimbursements with some paperwork and help from your (state paid) lawyer)

AuthorizedCust 5y ago

I have a friend out almost $10,000 for simply being innocent of a DUI charge. (Breathalyzer and blood test were both 0%, and he does not take meds or do drugs.) This is what we get when we over-rely on armed agents and the legal system to fix far too many societal issues. That’s a result of too many fear-possessed people simply voting their fears.

Navarr 5y ago
What were the charges for?
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  DUI