14 ms·

The last line in this article is the most insane one of them all. > ... Bento, who did not respond to a request for comment, said officials in that office had

by opdahl 5y ago

The last line in this article is the most insane one of them all. > ... Bento, who did not respond to a request for comment, said officials in that office had instructed him not to hand over any documents related to Castleberry’s 2006 drug case, including all records filed after May 2017 that actually pertained to Spriestersbach. > Spriestersbach was not entitled to the documents, officials said. > The reason: He was not the defendant in that case. He was not Thomas Castleberry. They are saying he is not allowed to get the documents for the case which he was the main suspect and subsequently hospitalized for since the documents for the case is for the other person. Even though it happened to him and not the other person. I'm dumbfounded.

cududa 5y ago
Wait to have your mind blown further. In Missouri if you’re exonerated for a crime via someone else pleading guilty, DNA, etc and have used up all your appeals you still have to serve out your sentence, even if it’s life in prison https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-people-still-imprisoned-in-missouri/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-peopl...
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  WTF.
- javiramos 5y ago
  Heartbreaking. The US criminal justice system is a shame.
  - oblio 5y ago
    I don't think it's a shame. It's intentional. Considering the fact that the US prison population is heavily skewed in one direction, that the US has the highest per capita prison population, that prison populations are used as forced labor, I'm quite convinced it's intentional. The small number of people that are accidentally targeted unintentionally are just collateral damage nobody really cares about.
    - sodality2 5y ago
      It's a shame that it's intentional, and it's a failure of what a good prison system should be like. I often hear "oh well {criminal justice system, healthcare, insert other bad industry} is not a failure because it's doing its intended purpose, which is profit". No, that's the current goal of the system running it. The actual, intended purpose, in a functioning society, is to {serve fair punishments and rehabilitate, enhance quality of health, etc}.
      - smhost 5y ago
        > The actual, intended purpose, in a functioning society, is to {serve fair punishments and rehabilitate, enhance quality of health, etc}. I'm not sure which history books you've been reading, but modern police were invented in the 17th and 18th centuries as brutal forms of population control. In America, the "actual, intended purpose" was to be a genocidal force that clears the land of Amerindians, to patrol the slaves, to terrorize the workers, and so on. In the South, you can trace the history of police departments directly to Confederate troops, who, immediately after losing the war, rounded up people and threw them in prison on fabricated charges. To a lot of people, it was as if the war never happened. The fact that there was no reign of terror in the south tells you everything you need to know. And the slavery continues to this day. So I have no idea what you mean when you talk about this fantastical "intended purpose".
        akomtu 5y ago
        We can trace the history of police all the way back to vikings, neanderthals or even to single celled organisms, but all that would be of little use to deal with the today's prison system.
        smhost 5y ago
        I'm not naturalizing organized violence, you are. I'm talking about the history of one institution and its forms of reproduction. How are you going to "deal" with today's prison system without understanding how it reproduces itself (through the law, through the indoctrination of people such as yourself, etc)?
- plutonorm 5y ago
  Humans deserve to go extinct.
  - bilbo0s 5y ago
    We probably will. Obviously we don't always act in the most logical fashion. Long term, that's not a good trait.
    - eptcyka 5y ago
      Humans as a species have had the best track record for acting in a logical fashion on earth. Logic has it's limits.
      - bilbo0s 5y ago
        Humans as a species have had the best track record for acting in a logical fashion on earth Which doesn't say much. Most complex organisms on Earth go extinct.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    Nobody thinks that, not even you.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      I very much think that. We are absolutely evil on a macro scale. We destroy ourselves and our planet. If aliens are out there I believe they have their finger on 'the button'. I believe to think otherwise is hubris. Could we change? Sure. Will we? Who knows.
    - jobigoud 5y ago
      There is something called the VHEMT, Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. (Personally I'm against our extinction but this exists).
  - bserge 5y ago
    Tbf, every major conflict the warmongers seem to be dying off. Just a few hundred years ago people were burned at the stake, impaled, cut open alive in front of a crowd. Every war kills off the most violent and aggressive. The next big one should wipe a lot of them. Then again, push someone hard enough and they'll turn against you. Don't even need violence and death, a miserable existence in fear and doubt can be a way better punishment. The sociopathic rich prove it works.
- mcguire 5y ago
  That is, I believe, true in most states, if not all. The response is to appeal to the governor for a pardon.
  - thioordc 5y ago
    Governor does not care.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "Right, it's outrageously absurd Moriarty asked, "How old was your daughter when you came in here?" "Seven weeks old," he replied. "So, you've missed watching her grow up?" "Every bit of it." "How old is she now?" "She just turned 43." But an apology, even from the prosecutor, is all he gets, Strickland is still in prison." This is fucking terrible. It brought tears to my eyes as it's both horrific and so tragic. It's no wonder that much of the world looks on American Justice with much askance and suspicion in that its implementation of 'justice' is so hypocritically at odds with stated American values—and even the Constitution. One wonders why so many American citizens actually tolerate this situation and do so little about it. For heaven's sake why aren't people on the streets protesting for change?
  - thesagan 5y ago
    There’s so much to protest and so many are crushed that many Americans have resigned hope for change.
    - hilbert42 5y ago
      So what do citizens do short of a revolution (no sensible person ever wants that)? I wonder if returning soldiers from D-Day and Iwo Jima would have allowed themselves to be crushed in similar circumstances. I doubt it very much. (Seems to me both the zeitgeist and ethics have changed greatly in the past 75 years. The question is why.) BTW, I note this story is now here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079154
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - gentleman11 5y ago
      They don’t protest it because a few years later something worse was going on, and a few years later something even worse, and so on. Nothing gets fixed, it just gets concealed behind some new scandal that people worry even more about. That’s why national unity and trust in institutions is almost at rock bottom, and why groups are starting to riot more often or resort to mob justice on social media
gowld 5y ago
"Computer says No."
FireBeyond 5y ago
I had a Verizon identity theft issue a year ago, where someone on the other side of the country opened a wireless account at a rural Walmart store. The number of hoops VZW made me jump through was stupefying. Multiple notarized documents, utility bills, property tax records, as well as the police report. And then they said "Our initial review says that the account stands as-is, that we are satisfied that it was in fact you that opened the accounts, based on the documentation you provided, and the documentation that was provided on account opening". Great (not really), I say, in that case, "I want to see the documentation 'I' used to open the account." "We can't do that, for customer privacy reasons." "You just told me that you determined -I- am the customer. Are you telling me it's a breach of my privacy to supply documents you've stated on the record -I- supplied you, to me?!?" "Well, you may not have opened the account..." Apparently, Schrodinger's cell phone account. Mine when they need the bill paid or sent to collections, and "possibly not mine" when it comes to them revealing what crap they accepted in order to open the account in the first place. It finally got sorted out, but took a lot more back and forth.
- smsm42 5y ago
  The most mind-boggling thing here is that they are the ones that screwed up by opening the account with bad information, but they're making it look like it's your problem to prove to them that they screwed up, and they are surely not going to make it easy to you to clean up their screw-up.
- scruple 5y ago
  I experienced identity theft with Verizon, too. Way back in 2000. It was taken care of almost immediately with a single phone call. I had to mail in some proof of identity (photocopy of my water bill, IIRC) to verify that I did not in fact live in whatever place the account had been opened and that was that. I get the sense that a lot of things that used to be easy to resolve, easy to deal with, easy in general, are actually quite painful and difficult today.
cannabis_sam 5y ago
Lawyers operate on the established parameters of a case as directed by a judges orders (and also the particular judge’s idiosyncratic nonsense, no matter how illogical or farfetched), not actual reality or truth.. If they can find a technicality to hide their own mistakes and general incompetency, why would they not try to influence the judge to proclaim their fantasy as the prevailing “truth”?

by opdahl 5y ago

cududa 5y ago

Wait to have your mind blown further. In Missouri if you’re exonerated for a crime via someone else pleading guilty, DNA, etc and have used up all your appeals you still have to serve out your sentence, even if it’s life in prison https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-people-still-imprisoned-in-missouri/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-peopl...

devoutsalsa 5y ago
WTF.
javiramos 5y ago
Heartbreaking. The US criminal justice system is a shame.
- oblio 5y ago
  I don't think it's a shame. It's intentional. Considering the fact that the US prison population is heavily skewed in one direction, that the US has the highest per capita prison population, that prison populations are used as forced labor, I'm quite convinced it's intentional. The small number of people that are accidentally targeted unintentionally are just collateral damage nobody really cares about.
  - sodality2 5y ago
    It's a shame that it's intentional, and it's a failure of what a good prison system should be like. I often hear "oh well {criminal justice system, healthcare, insert other bad industry} is not a failure because it's doing its intended purpose, which is profit". No, that's the current goal of the system running it. The actual, intended purpose, in a functioning society, is to {serve fair punishments and rehabilitate, enhance quality of health, etc}.
    - smhost 5y ago
      > The actual, intended purpose, in a functioning society, is to {serve fair punishments and rehabilitate, enhance quality of health, etc}. I'm not sure which history books you've been reading, but modern police were invented in the 17th and 18th centuries as brutal forms of population control. In America, the "actual, intended purpose" was to be a genocidal force that clears the land of Amerindians, to patrol the slaves, to terrorize the workers, and so on. In the South, you can trace the history of police departments directly to Confederate troops, who, immediately after losing the war, rounded up people and threw them in prison on fabricated charges. To a lot of people, it was as if the war never happened. The fact that there was no reign of terror in the south tells you everything you need to know. And the slavery continues to this day. So I have no idea what you mean when you talk about this fantastical "intended purpose".
      - akomtu 5y ago
        We can trace the history of police all the way back to vikings, neanderthals or even to single celled organisms, but all that would be of little use to deal with the today's prison system.
        smhost 5y ago
        I'm not naturalizing organized violence, you are. I'm talking about the history of one institution and its forms of reproduction. How are you going to "deal" with today's prison system without understanding how it reproduces itself (through the law, through the indoctrination of people such as yourself, etc)?
plutonorm 5y ago
Humans deserve to go extinct.
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  We probably will. Obviously we don't always act in the most logical fashion. Long term, that's not a good trait.
  - eptcyka 5y ago
    Humans as a species have had the best track record for acting in a logical fashion on earth. Logic has it's limits.
    - bilbo0s 5y ago
      Humans as a species have had the best track record for acting in a logical fashion on earth Which doesn't say much. Most complex organisms on Earth go extinct.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Nobody thinks that, not even you.
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    I very much think that. We are absolutely evil on a macro scale. We destroy ourselves and our planet. If aliens are out there I believe they have their finger on 'the button'. I believe to think otherwise is hubris. Could we change? Sure. Will we? Who knows.
  - jobigoud 5y ago
    There is something called the VHEMT, Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. (Personally I'm against our extinction but this exists).
- bserge 5y ago
  Tbf, every major conflict the warmongers seem to be dying off. Just a few hundred years ago people were burned at the stake, impaled, cut open alive in front of a crowd. Every war kills off the most violent and aggressive. The next big one should wipe a lot of them. Then again, push someone hard enough and they'll turn against you. Don't even need violence and death, a miserable existence in fear and doubt can be a way better punishment. The sociopathic rich prove it works.
mcguire 5y ago
That is, I believe, true in most states, if not all. The response is to appeal to the governor for a pardon.
- thioordc 5y ago
  Governor does not care.
hilbert42 5y ago
"Right, it's outrageously absurd Moriarty asked, "How old was your daughter when you came in here?" "Seven weeks old," he replied. "So, you've missed watching her grow up?" "Every bit of it." "How old is she now?" "She just turned 43." But an apology, even from the prosecutor, is all he gets, Strickland is still in prison." This is fucking terrible. It brought tears to my eyes as it's both horrific and so tragic. It's no wonder that much of the world looks on American Justice with much askance and suspicion in that its implementation of 'justice' is so hypocritically at odds with stated American values—and even the Constitution. One wonders why so many American citizens actually tolerate this situation and do so little about it. For heaven's sake why aren't people on the streets protesting for change?
- thesagan 5y ago
  There’s so much to protest and so many are crushed that many Americans have resigned hope for change.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    So what do citizens do short of a revolution (no sensible person ever wants that)? I wonder if returning soldiers from D-Day and Iwo Jima would have allowed themselves to be crushed in similar circumstances. I doubt it very much. (Seems to me both the zeitgeist and ethics have changed greatly in the past 75 years. The question is why.) BTW, I note this story is now here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079154
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - gentleman11 5y ago
    They don’t protest it because a few years later something worse was going on, and a few years later something even worse, and so on. Nothing gets fixed, it just gets concealed behind some new scandal that people worry even more about. That’s why national unity and trust in institutions is almost at rock bottom, and why groups are starting to riot more often or resort to mob justice on social media

gowld 5y ago

"Computer says No."

FireBeyond 5y ago

I had a Verizon identity theft issue a year ago, where someone on the other side of the country opened a wireless account at a rural Walmart store. The number of hoops VZW made me jump through was stupefying. Multiple notarized documents, utility bills, property tax records, as well as the police report. And then they said "Our initial review says that the account stands as-is, that we are satisfied that it was in fact you that opened the accounts, based on the documentation you provided, and the documentation that was provided on account opening". Great (not really), I say, in that case, "I want to see the documentation 'I' used to open the account." "We can't do that, for customer privacy reasons." "You just told me that you determined -I- am the customer. Are you telling me it's a breach of my privacy to supply documents you've stated on the record -I- supplied you, to me?!?" "Well, you may not have opened the account..." Apparently, Schrodinger's cell phone account. Mine when they need the bill paid or sent to collections, and "possibly not mine" when it comes to them revealing what crap they accepted in order to open the account in the first place. It finally got sorted out, but took a lot more back and forth.

smsm42 5y ago
The most mind-boggling thing here is that they are the ones that screwed up by opening the account with bad information, but they're making it look like it's your problem to prove to them that they screwed up, and they are surely not going to make it easy to you to clean up their screw-up.
scruple 5y ago
I experienced identity theft with Verizon, too. Way back in 2000. It was taken care of almost immediately with a single phone call. I had to mail in some proof of identity (photocopy of my water bill, IIRC) to verify that I did not in fact live in whatever place the account had been opened and that was that. I get the sense that a lot of things that used to be easy to resolve, easy to deal with, easy in general, are actually quite painful and difficult today.

cannabis_sam 5y ago

Lawyers operate on the established parameters of a case as directed by a judges orders (and also the particular judge’s idiosyncratic nonsense, no matter how illogical or farfetched), not actual reality or truth.. If they can find a technicality to hide their own mistakes and general incompetency, why would they not try to influence the judge to proclaim their fantasy as the prevailing “truth”?