5 ms·

Unfortunately you do not have to look to the past or the other side of the globe to find an epidemic of false confessions.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago
Indeed. Probably the dirtiest open secret of the US criminal justice system is that it is structurally incapable of giving a truly fair trial to the vast majority of the accused. The system would grind to a halt without the vast majority of cases ending in plea bargains, and we have pretty good reasons to suspect that common police interrogation tactics (often functionally indistinguishable from psychological abuse) tend to produce false confessions [1] [2]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-criminal-cases-justice https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-crim... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/false-confessions-police-interrogation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/false-confessions...
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  There actually have been cases where public defenders have used this to organize and demand better treatment for themselves and the defendants. Where public defenders all convince their defendants not to plea, simultaneously, thereby forcing the court into a situation where they cannot avoid violating the constitutional right to a reasonably speedy trial due to all of the cases. I wished more civil resistance like this happened, but I know how career-threatening a stunt like this could be.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    I think a bigger issue in this case might be there public defenders are oversubscribed and sometimes not acting with all the vigor one might wish.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      I think there is a worse problem still... I could tolerate exhausted public defenders putting up a weak fight. After all, even a weak effort is still effort. But who do these public defenders identify with? They went to law school too, they passed the bar too. Their careers 15 years from now will look much like the prosecutors' careers. Hell, they might be sitting behind a bench, they're on the right career track. If they identify with the other lawyers and the judges, then they might not be putting any effort into it at all. They might instead be in the business of conducting their "clients" through the plea bargain pipeline, and act as if their duties primarily revolve around making certain that pipeline doesn't get clogged up. This wouldn't be all public defenders, mind you. But even a minor fraction of public defenders acting in this way would be horrific.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        Yeah, I was being somewhat polite with the way I stated it... A PD who meets you at the last minute and just shepherds you through plea bargaining wouldn't be a surprise, and horror stories of them dozing off in court and the like abound.
splendor_spoon 3y ago
What does this peppering of whataboutism add to the conversation?
- emodendroket 3y ago
  I think trying to do apply this finding to an ongoing injustice is more urgent than cataloguing the failings of a defunct state.
  - splendor_spoon 3y ago
    You are welcome to add those points to the discussion but right now all we have a statement of, ‘but… but… they do it too!’. I appreciate the downvote though.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      I can’t downvote your replies (I’m pretty sure in general you can’t downvote any replies to yourself on HN) so you’ll have to take that complaint up with someone else. Anyway, what, I’m “more than welcome” to add these points but in some other, unspecified way than I did that you would have preferred? I’m not really sure what your issue is. I think it’s encouraging complacency to say these things happened in the Orient decades ago and not they’re happening right now, every day, in our own backyards.
      - splendor_spoon 3y ago
        Ooof. Well that is rather uncalled for. https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/whats_the_matter_with_saying_the_orient https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/whats_the_ma... Moving on… The GP quoted the article and found interesting anecdotes of said quote in history and brought them into the discussion with background information backing up the anecdotes. That’s interesting and additive to the discussion! Your comment did none of that except to slander another side of the world. This is not to say that there are not examples that would support your point, you just apparently don’t feel the need to add anything more! Working with you on being a better citizen of society (please update your terminology…) is also not interesting or additive to this thread. So I am going to leave it at that. Have a nice day.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago

Indeed. Probably the dirtiest open secret of the US criminal justice system is that it is structurally incapable of giving a truly fair trial to the vast majority of the accused. The system would grind to a halt without the vast majority of cases ending in plea bargains, and we have pretty good reasons to suspect that common police interrogation tactics (often functionally indistinguishable from psychological abuse) tend to produce false confessions [1] [2]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-criminal-cases-justice https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-crim... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/false-confessions-police-interrogation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/false-confessions...

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
There actually have been cases where public defenders have used this to organize and demand better treatment for themselves and the defendants. Where public defenders all convince their defendants not to plea, simultaneously, thereby forcing the court into a situation where they cannot avoid violating the constitutional right to a reasonably speedy trial due to all of the cases. I wished more civil resistance like this happened, but I know how career-threatening a stunt like this could be.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  I think a bigger issue in this case might be there public defenders are oversubscribed and sometimes not acting with all the vigor one might wish.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    I think there is a worse problem still... I could tolerate exhausted public defenders putting up a weak fight. After all, even a weak effort is still effort. But who do these public defenders identify with? They went to law school too, they passed the bar too. Their careers 15 years from now will look much like the prosecutors' careers. Hell, they might be sitting behind a bench, they're on the right career track. If they identify with the other lawyers and the judges, then they might not be putting any effort into it at all. They might instead be in the business of conducting their "clients" through the plea bargain pipeline, and act as if their duties primarily revolve around making certain that pipeline doesn't get clogged up. This wouldn't be all public defenders, mind you. But even a minor fraction of public defenders acting in this way would be horrific.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      Yeah, I was being somewhat polite with the way I stated it... A PD who meets you at the last minute and just shepherds you through plea bargaining wouldn't be a surprise, and horror stories of them dozing off in court and the like abound.

splendor_spoon 3y ago

What does this peppering of whataboutism add to the conversation?

emodendroket 3y ago
I think trying to do apply this finding to an ongoing injustice is more urgent than cataloguing the failings of a defunct state.
- splendor_spoon 3y ago
  You are welcome to add those points to the discussion but right now all we have a statement of, ‘but… but… they do it too!’. I appreciate the downvote though.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    I can’t downvote your replies (I’m pretty sure in general you can’t downvote any replies to yourself on HN) so you’ll have to take that complaint up with someone else. Anyway, what, I’m “more than welcome” to add these points but in some other, unspecified way than I did that you would have preferred? I’m not really sure what your issue is. I think it’s encouraging complacency to say these things happened in the Orient decades ago and not they’re happening right now, every day, in our own backyards.
    - splendor_spoon 3y ago
      Ooof. Well that is rather uncalled for. https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/whats_the_matter_with_saying_the_orient https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/whats_the_ma... Moving on… The GP quoted the article and found interesting anecdotes of said quote in history and brought them into the discussion with background information backing up the anecdotes. That’s interesting and additive to the discussion! Your comment did none of that except to slander another side of the world. This is not to say that there are not examples that would support your point, you just apparently don’t feel the need to add anything more! Working with you on being a better citizen of society (please update your terminology…) is also not interesting or additive to this thread. So I am going to leave it at that. Have a nice day.