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So e.g. >90% (or whatever it’s now multiplied by several times) should be entirely ignored because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to pro

So e.g. >90% (or whatever it’s now multiplied by several times) should be entirely ignored because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to prosecute them?

kortilla 2y ago
Yes. Scale up the judicial system and cut laws if needed. Also, there will likely still be some pleas. Some people own up to being guilty and want to move on. There is an absolute dearth of lawyers to support this. We just need more courts and more judges for the initial surge of a couple of years.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  So most property crimes will not longer be prosecuted? Also how exactly are jury trials superior to e.g. Magistrates Courts in the UK? Isn’t the American legal system already very bloated and inefficient? So spending even more money on it might not be the best idea?
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > Also how exactly are jury trials superior to e.g. Magistrates Courts in the UK? The purpose of the trial is to separate the innocent from the guilty, and there is intended to be a presumption of innocence. But because the prosecution has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, they'll tend to only bring cases when there is a high probability of guilt -- a good thing -- so then let's say 90% of the defendants are probably guilty and 60% are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A judge is going to become intimately familiar with that. ~90% of the defendants are actually guilty, so the judge develops the intuition that a new defendant is very likely guilty. That's a presumption of guilt. Soon even the innocent ones are getting convicted, when the whole point of the process was to prevent that. A jury is a fresh set of eyes who look at the defendant as the only case they're going to be deciding for the foreseeable future and haven't been prejudiced by a parade of evildoers sitting in the same chair. It's also twelve separate people who each individually have to be convinced.
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      Yet the conviction rate in England was 84 % in magistrates courts (misdemeanors and low level felonies) and 78 % in crown courts (more serious crimes) which is not that different. Especially if we consider how a lot of crimes like DUIs are somewhat open & shut compared to more serious offenses. > so the judge develops the intuition that a new defendant is very likely guilty. A good judge wouldn’t do that. Also by and large random people are relatively dumb and biased. Why exactly are they less likely to convict an innocent person? (Let’s assume that the conviction rate is the same in both cases)
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > Yet the conviction rate in England was 84 % in magistrates courts (misdemeanors and low level felonies) and 78 % in crown courts (more serious crimes) which is not that different. The conviction rate can't really tell you anything because prosecutors will calibrate to bring cases they think they can win in a given system. Systems willing to convict more innocent people will have similar conviction rates but more innocent defendants. > A good judge wouldn’t do that. What about a human judge? > Also by and large random people are relatively dumb and biased. Why exactly are they less likely to convict an innocent person? Because you have to convince all twelve of them.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
Don't pass laws that wide swaths of the public don't respect, which would dramatically reduce the number of cases. When the laws are ones that everyone agrees should be crimes, like murder, spend the resources to convict anyone who commits the crime.
- wahern 2y ago
  And what dictator is going to implement this perfect solution? Here's how things have manifestly played out over the past 150 years: procedural rules are strengthened because citizens are afraid of unjust prosecution. Some high profile bad guys, or parade of run-of-the-mill criminals, get off because of said procedural loopholes, after which voters demand politicians expand substantive criminal law to re-balance the equation. Upon which more unjust prosecutions enter the public consciousness. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is what systemic injustice looks like, and the cycle continues as unabated as ever. On the one hand, you have movements like BLM, which have indeed effected change even in the most conservatives jurisdictions, largely by changes in procedural rules by courts and in policy by prosecutors and municipalities. At the same time, you have #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, etc, which has resulted in the expansion of sexual crimes and punishments, and elimination of statutes of limitations, partly because procedural protections have made it extremely difficult to prosecute past behaviors, not because they strictly weren't already cognizable crimes. Nobody is going to lose sleep over Weinstein, but long-term which demographics will bear the brunt of this tightening of the screws through the substantive law? You see the fundamental contradictory behavior here? There's tremendous overlap between the #MeToo groups and the BLM groups, and for both their demands are premised on empathy and justice, but at the end of the day we're going to end up with a harsher system that will further disproportionately punish some segments of the population over others. That's what systemic racial injustice looks like, yet nowhere can you find ill intentions or a desire to oppress anyone. There's an alternative path, here. Notice how the legal screws have taken centuries to slowly but inexorably tighten without any concerted effort, yet in less than a single generation the normative behaviors of individual judges and other legal professionals, both as regards defendant rights (BLM) and victims rights (#MeToo) has seen a sea change. That suggests that by giving back more discretion to the system, not less, it's possible and, IMO, much more likely we could end up with a more fair system all around. Not guaranteed, of course, but neither is it guaranteed that just throwing more money and resources at the existing system would, even assuming we could even achieve let alone maintain that degree of attention from society. The difference between these two approaches, though, is that one requires trusting our fellow citizens, while the other holds out the (fantastical) prospect of an engineered solution.
antisol 2y ago
> because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to prosecute them? If your legal system doesn't have enough resources to prosecute 90% of people who are committing crimes................................. .......................................... then maybe the state should............................................. .................... wait for it................................... .....................................give the legal system more resources. (I know right, it's mindblowing, revolutionary, difficult-to-conceive stuff - I can see why nobody has thought of it before)
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  So make the system (that’s already inefficient) several times more inefficient and then increase funding by a magnitude or two? Certainly seems like a reasonable option. I bet all problems could be solved using this approach. What could go wrong..
  - antisol 2y ago
    Perhaps. I was thinking more along the lines of taking a system that isn't just or fair, and making it more just and fair. See, I wasn't really concerned very much by profitability and efficiency, more about what is good and right. Silly me, I guess.

So e.g. >90% (or whatever it’s now multiplied by several times) should be entirely ignored because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to prosecute them?

kortilla 2y ago

Yes. Scale up the judicial system and cut laws if needed. Also, there will likely still be some pleas. Some people own up to being guilty and want to move on. There is an absolute dearth of lawyers to support this. We just need more courts and more judges for the initial surge of a couple of years.

wqaatwt 2y ago
So most property crimes will not longer be prosecuted? Also how exactly are jury trials superior to e.g. Magistrates Courts in the UK? Isn’t the American legal system already very bloated and inefficient? So spending even more money on it might not be the best idea?
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Also how exactly are jury trials superior to e.g. Magistrates Courts in the UK? The purpose of the trial is to separate the innocent from the guilty, and there is intended to be a presumption of innocence. But because the prosecution has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, they'll tend to only bring cases when there is a high probability of guilt -- a good thing -- so then let's say 90% of the defendants are probably guilty and 60% are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A judge is going to become intimately familiar with that. ~90% of the defendants are actually guilty, so the judge develops the intuition that a new defendant is very likely guilty. That's a presumption of guilt. Soon even the innocent ones are getting convicted, when the whole point of the process was to prevent that. A jury is a fresh set of eyes who look at the defendant as the only case they're going to be deciding for the foreseeable future and haven't been prejudiced by a parade of evildoers sitting in the same chair. It's also twelve separate people who each individually have to be convinced.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    Yet the conviction rate in England was 84 % in magistrates courts (misdemeanors and low level felonies) and 78 % in crown courts (more serious crimes) which is not that different. Especially if we consider how a lot of crimes like DUIs are somewhat open & shut compared to more serious offenses. > so the judge develops the intuition that a new defendant is very likely guilty. A good judge wouldn’t do that. Also by and large random people are relatively dumb and biased. Why exactly are they less likely to convict an innocent person? (Let’s assume that the conviction rate is the same in both cases)
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > Yet the conviction rate in England was 84 % in magistrates courts (misdemeanors and low level felonies) and 78 % in crown courts (more serious crimes) which is not that different. The conviction rate can't really tell you anything because prosecutors will calibrate to bring cases they think they can win in a given system. Systems willing to convict more innocent people will have similar conviction rates but more innocent defendants. > A good judge wouldn’t do that. What about a human judge? > Also by and large random people are relatively dumb and biased. Why exactly are they less likely to convict an innocent person? Because you have to convince all twelve of them.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

Don't pass laws that wide swaths of the public don't respect, which would dramatically reduce the number of cases. When the laws are ones that everyone agrees should be crimes, like murder, spend the resources to convict anyone who commits the crime.

wahern 2y ago
And what dictator is going to implement this perfect solution? Here's how things have manifestly played out over the past 150 years: procedural rules are strengthened because citizens are afraid of unjust prosecution. Some high profile bad guys, or parade of run-of-the-mill criminals, get off because of said procedural loopholes, after which voters demand politicians expand substantive criminal law to re-balance the equation. Upon which more unjust prosecutions enter the public consciousness. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is what systemic injustice looks like, and the cycle continues as unabated as ever. On the one hand, you have movements like BLM, which have indeed effected change even in the most conservatives jurisdictions, largely by changes in procedural rules by courts and in policy by prosecutors and municipalities. At the same time, you have #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, etc, which has resulted in the expansion of sexual crimes and punishments, and elimination of statutes of limitations, partly because procedural protections have made it extremely difficult to prosecute past behaviors, not because they strictly weren't already cognizable crimes. Nobody is going to lose sleep over Weinstein, but long-term which demographics will bear the brunt of this tightening of the screws through the substantive law? You see the fundamental contradictory behavior here? There's tremendous overlap between the #MeToo groups and the BLM groups, and for both their demands are premised on empathy and justice, but at the end of the day we're going to end up with a harsher system that will further disproportionately punish some segments of the population over others. That's what systemic racial injustice looks like, yet nowhere can you find ill intentions or a desire to oppress anyone. There's an alternative path, here. Notice how the legal screws have taken centuries to slowly but inexorably tighten without any concerted effort, yet in less than a single generation the normative behaviors of individual judges and other legal professionals, both as regards defendant rights (BLM) and victims rights (#MeToo) has seen a sea change. That suggests that by giving back more discretion to the system, not less, it's possible and, IMO, much more likely we could end up with a more fair system all around. Not guaranteed, of course, but neither is it guaranteed that just throwing more money and resources at the existing system would, even assuming we could even achieve let alone maintain that degree of attention from society. The difference between these two approaches, though, is that one requires trusting our fellow citizens, while the other holds out the (fantastical) prospect of an engineered solution.

antisol 2y ago

> because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to prosecute them? If your legal system doesn't have enough resources to prosecute 90% of people who are committing crimes................................. .......................................... then maybe the state should............................................. .................... wait for it................................... .....................................give the legal system more resources. (I know right, it's mindblowing, revolutionary, difficult-to-conceive stuff - I can see why nobody has thought of it before)

wqaatwt 2y ago
So make the system (that’s already inefficient) several times more inefficient and then increase funding by a magnitude or two? Certainly seems like a reasonable option. I bet all problems could be solved using this approach. What could go wrong..
- antisol 2y ago
  Perhaps. I was thinking more along the lines of taking a system that isn't just or fair, and making it more just and fair. See, I wasn't really concerned very much by profitability and efficiency, more about what is good and right. Silly me, I guess.