4 ms·

People who are part of the legal system should be held to an even higher standard, as their lying undermines trust in the system itself. As such, their punishm

People who are part of the legal system should be held to an even higher standard, as their lying undermines trust in the system itself. As such, their punishment should be even harsher, and tolerance for their lies should be even lower.

sneak 3y ago
I agree. What's the first step toward implementing this system? What actions can be taken to get to that from where we are? The police are not going to arrest the police. The DAs are not going to prosecute the police (who they generally regard as the "same team"). The system as designed and currently operating is broken and intentionally unfair and unjust. How do we go about replacing or fixing it?
- cassepipe 3y ago
  Checks and balances. You create a strong independent body whose sole purpose is to investigate the legality of police action
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Chicago has tried this again, and again, and again. They keep dissolving each body when it fails to prosecute any officers and start a new one, which does the same. Almost every employee ends up being related to the police or SA and none of them want to find anything wrong. This is only the right solution on paper. Not in reality, sadly.
- novok 3y ago
  It might have to be a federal or state system that prosecutes this kind of stuff in the end, because the local system wont do it. Put the DAs, the police and maybe the judges on the hook. And the federal people who would do this (FBI maybe?) would have to be completely disconnected from the local police / judge organizations, probably on rotations like a foreign diplomat service. The key is they have to be completely different career systems, where they don't fraternize or socialize with each other, and you'd probably have to make it somewhat antagonistic culturally so they don't end up doing something similar. Which is why it has to be a different organization. Internal affairs is a systematic failure probably because it's within the same organizational tree as everyone else. It's really hard to incentivize people to do the 'right thing' when the incentives make it career suicide to do the right thing because you'll become a dangerous pariah as soon as you do. Also to start I'd start with actions in court / evidence, not in the field until that organization starts running out of those actions to enforce because they've installed enough fear in the police system. That way the police can never have the cultural excuse to do their crap because 'their life is in risk and it's a split second decision' because your lying on boring safe paperwork and court where you have plenty of time to think about your actions, and over %50 of this will probably be lawyers actions too. What is the first steps? Probably allying in blue states with anti-police movements and working with them in lobbying for a state enforcement arm that enforces specifically against unjust plea deals, testilying, withholding exculpatory evidence and focusing on prosecutors with out of the norm high conviction rates first. You'd also have to make it pay as well as private, which will also be hard. A wealthy state like california can fund such a thing, and it would probably be small, like 40 lawyers & their support staff, and be crazy effective. Unjust plea deals will probably be last politically if it is at all possible because the system will scream about it will screech to a halt and to address that is a much bigger issue.
- Veserv 3y ago
  You could make it so private citizens could bring criminal trials if the DA passes on them. This solves the DA and prosecution corruption problem where they are unwilling to prosecute for personal or career reasons. Obviously there are risks to opening up the floodgates to private criminal prosecution, so you need restrictions and checks to avoid abuse by the wealthy and powerful. However, in some sense, the wealthy and powerful can already do that in the current system via access to the DAs, so it is not as much of a risk increase as it would seem. The key here is figuring out a robust set of restrictions. Just to get ahead of the responses, I do not claim to have a comprehensive solution, so there is no point quibbling with me about how my proposal is incomplete. Take the problems you point out as areas of improvement and think about how they could be solved.
giantg2 3y ago
"People who are part of the legal system should be held to an even higher standard, as their lying undermines trust in the system itself." They should. Instead the system protects itself by insisting that secrecy must be maintained to preserve public trust. That's the reason they give for making judicial complaints so secret that you can't even subpoena judicial complaints to show a pattern of bias or misconduct by a judge.
LorenPechtel 3y ago
What I would like to see is that framing someone should carry the same penalty as the crime itself.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sneak 3y ago

I agree. What's the first step toward implementing this system? What actions can be taken to get to that from where we are? The police are not going to arrest the police. The DAs are not going to prosecute the police (who they generally regard as the "same team"). The system as designed and currently operating is broken and intentionally unfair and unjust. How do we go about replacing or fixing it?

cassepipe 3y ago
Checks and balances. You create a strong independent body whose sole purpose is to investigate the legality of police action
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Chicago has tried this again, and again, and again. They keep dissolving each body when it fails to prosecute any officers and start a new one, which does the same. Almost every employee ends up being related to the police or SA and none of them want to find anything wrong. This is only the right solution on paper. Not in reality, sadly.
novok 3y ago
It might have to be a federal or state system that prosecutes this kind of stuff in the end, because the local system wont do it. Put the DAs, the police and maybe the judges on the hook. And the federal people who would do this (FBI maybe?) would have to be completely disconnected from the local police / judge organizations, probably on rotations like a foreign diplomat service. The key is they have to be completely different career systems, where they don't fraternize or socialize with each other, and you'd probably have to make it somewhat antagonistic culturally so they don't end up doing something similar. Which is why it has to be a different organization. Internal affairs is a systematic failure probably because it's within the same organizational tree as everyone else. It's really hard to incentivize people to do the 'right thing' when the incentives make it career suicide to do the right thing because you'll become a dangerous pariah as soon as you do. Also to start I'd start with actions in court / evidence, not in the field until that organization starts running out of those actions to enforce because they've installed enough fear in the police system. That way the police can never have the cultural excuse to do their crap because 'their life is in risk and it's a split second decision' because your lying on boring safe paperwork and court where you have plenty of time to think about your actions, and over %50 of this will probably be lawyers actions too. What is the first steps? Probably allying in blue states with anti-police movements and working with them in lobbying for a state enforcement arm that enforces specifically against unjust plea deals, testilying, withholding exculpatory evidence and focusing on prosecutors with out of the norm high conviction rates first. You'd also have to make it pay as well as private, which will also be hard. A wealthy state like california can fund such a thing, and it would probably be small, like 40 lawyers & their support staff, and be crazy effective. Unjust plea deals will probably be last politically if it is at all possible because the system will scream about it will screech to a halt and to address that is a much bigger issue.
Veserv 3y ago
You could make it so private citizens could bring criminal trials if the DA passes on them. This solves the DA and prosecution corruption problem where they are unwilling to prosecute for personal or career reasons. Obviously there are risks to opening up the floodgates to private criminal prosecution, so you need restrictions and checks to avoid abuse by the wealthy and powerful. However, in some sense, the wealthy and powerful can already do that in the current system via access to the DAs, so it is not as much of a risk increase as it would seem. The key here is figuring out a robust set of restrictions. Just to get ahead of the responses, I do not claim to have a comprehensive solution, so there is no point quibbling with me about how my proposal is incomplete. Take the problems you point out as areas of improvement and think about how they could be solved.

giantg2 3y ago

"People who are part of the legal system should be held to an even higher standard, as their lying undermines trust in the system itself." They should. Instead the system protects itself by insisting that secrecy must be maintained to preserve public trust. That's the reason they give for making judicial complaints so secret that you can't even subpoena judicial complaints to show a pattern of bias or misconduct by a judge.

LorenPechtel 3y ago

What I would like to see is that framing someone should carry the same penalty as the crime itself.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]