5 ms·

The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth. The incentive is to prosecte and prove the charges. Speaking from t

The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth. The incentive is to prosecte and prove the charges. Speaking from the experience of being falsely accused after calling 911 to stop a drunk woman from driving. The narrative they "investigated" was so obviously false, bodycam evidence directly contradicted multiple key facts. Officials are interested only seeking to prove the case. Thankfully the jury came to the right verdict.

hnuser123456 6mo ago
I would absolutely never call the police on a woman. Simply walk far away and let her be someone else's problem.
- loloquwowndueo 6mo ago
  Unless it’s a Karen chasing you and yelling and threatening to call the police on you for some asinine reason?
  - komali2 6mo ago
    Imo they're right, if you're faced with the option of running away from some crazy person or interacting with the police in the USA, the safer option is to run. A police interaction can escalate to ruinous heights within seconds due to no fault of your own. Remember that cop that got scared by an acorn falling and started shooting at random? I don't care how many "good cops" there are, I'm not rolling the dice on encountering an acorn cop.
fc417fc802 6mo ago
> The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth. The truth is much more complicated and involves politics. For example Seattle (and possibly other cities?) enacted a law that involves paying damages for being wrong in the event of bringing certain types of charges. But that has resulted in some widely publicized examples where the prosecutor erred by being overly cautious.
- FireBeyond 6mo ago
  And then you have Florida who will bill you about $100 a day for finding yourself in a Florida jail, regardless of whether charges were dismissed, you were found not guilty or any such thing. And to nobody’s surprise, failure to pay this bill is in itself a Class B felony…
  - autotune 6mo ago
    That sounds absolutely terrifying.
  - fc417fc802 6mo ago
    That sounds like a recipe for domestic terrorism - the systemic disenfranchisement of people who have done nothing wrong for no apparent reason other than sheer greed. How long has this been in effect there?
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      The system doesn't push the issue on people who can't afford it. Blood from a stone and all that.
      - fc417fc802 6mo ago
        I'm confused. Are you suggesting such a ridiculous system is letting class B felonies slide here? That would certainly be the pragmatic approach to being evil but in that case simply treating it as regular debt and going through civil channels would be more than sufficient.
        cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        Are you letting stuff in your backlog that you'll never get to before the product is gone or irrelevant "slide"? Sure they could round those people up pretty easily just by following up on any contact with the system that they have, but why, for what, to cost the state more money that will likely never be repaid? Especially when sticking a body on DUI detail is hugely in the black. They'll just let that debt, it's accruing interests and the threat of further incarceration linger on the books indefinitely. If the person ever gets their life together they'll have to pay it or face incarceration. I'm sure someone somewhere has written a DB query to select from outstanding balance where <exists in some other DB that is a proxy for people who have money to pay> and prioritize those cases.
retrochameleon 6mo ago
There needs to be consequences for shitty, procedure-ignoring police work. Period. Minimum 1 year of jail time for grossly wrongful arrests that could be avoided with standard procedure or investigation tactics that were not applied.
- helterskelter 6mo ago
  I agree with this sentiment but when you start punishing this sort of thing you create more incentive to cover it up. It's a tricky problem and I'm not sure there's a perfect solution. What we really need is a change in police culture.
  - retrochameleon 6mo ago
    Then the system should be redesigned such that transparency is a priority and cover ups are not feasible. And when cover ups eventually get found out, the punishments even more severe.
  - true_religion 6mo ago
    We already have administrative punishments for the police when they incorrectly assign blame and cause a public relations mess. Is the termination of your career and/or potential retraining and social embarrassment not already an incentive to cover up?
    - tremon 6mo ago
      If the punishment fails to correct the behaviour, it is insufficient punishment or the wrong punishment. In this case, I'd say that individual punishments are the wrong tool to correct systemic behaviour. It should be career-ending for brass and prosecutors to be effective.
  - jcgrillo 6mo ago
    > change in police culture until then, there's a simple rule which works well: never talk to a cop. Or at least say the minimum number of words possible, give them nothing to use against you. Present ID if they ask for it, but never admit anything. If they persist, "lawyer". That has worked for me.
FireBeyond 6mo ago
There’s a judge down in Texas, Dallas area I believe, who is in social media a lot because he will excoriate prosecutors who bring bs in to his court room. He’s not soft on crime but hard on rights and process. If a defendant did the wrong thing, he will have the appropriate amount of sympathy, down to zero. At times he will tell them, we all know you got lucky here, do better. But he won’t let prosecutors slate by on garbage charges or statements or investigations by police. Which leads to my primary point at least for this discussion in particular: To me the scariest part of this as a process is how many times (I’d casually estimate at least 75%) it is blindingly obvious that the prosecutor has not read the statement of charges or officer statements until everyone is in front of the judge. I get on one hand this judge seems to often be handling probable cause hearings but so many of these should never have resulted in any paperwork being turned in to the prosecution, let alone anyone having to show up in court.
- phonon 6mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleischer_(judge) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleischer_(judge)
  - komali2 6mo ago
    It's fascinating to me that judges are elected in Texas, and what's more, run as members of a political party.
- rcvassallo83 6mo ago
  Scary process is an understatement, especially because I was facing a domestic violence charge. Long story short, emotional abusive partner got drunk and verbally combative, despite my attempts to de-escalate. When nothing worked I went into my bedroom and locked the door. She started pounding on the door and demanded her things. I gave them to her and told her she needs a ride home she no longer welcome. She verbally abused and provoked me for 10 minutes before getting in her car. Took the keys, called 911. She grabbed me causing us both to fall a few minutes before the cops arrived and told them I threw her to the ground. We both had a couple scapes so they arrested us both. Interfered with the 911 call, filed a false police report, assaulted me, caused property damage. She got charged with class c assault only and a dismissal. I felt like I was seen as guilty until proven innocent. Fortunately I recorded all her verbal abuse (prosecution tried to use it against me and brought in DV expert to explain both her conduct and my 911 call as typical in IPV cases) Fortunately the jury didn't buy it. I was literally being threatened with violence in my own home for telling her to leave. Between that and the bodycam statements contradicting her testimony I was shocked that they didn't drop the charges or offer a favorable plea deal. The judge was absolutely fair, prosecutor bent on punishment, alleged victim was attempting to ruin my life (as captured in my audio) Whew! In the end the claims were so obviously fabricated that my attorney made no defense. It was clear that the accuser was not credible. Perjury was provable. No consequences for her. This happened in Brazoria county
pylua 6mo ago
There is an incentive . It’s called fraud by negligence. I’m hoping she sues everyone here. That’s seems to be in the realm of poissibility here if I am understanding things correctly (imo)
bko 6mo ago
> The narrative they "investigated" was so obviously false, bodycam evidence directly contradicted multiple key facts. Officials are interested only seeking to prove the case. Thankfully the jury came to the right verdict. I don't get it, if they only care about prosecuting and proving the case, wouldn't they go by the bodycam evidence? They didn't prove the case. Maybe if their incentive was to prosecute and prove the charges, they'd go by the obvious evidence. Or am I missing something here?
- rcvassallo83 6mo ago
  In my experience, the narrative the prosecutor argued on behalf of the accuser was obviously false because specific key facts were contradicted by bodycam statements, for example "He took my phone and it was dead" -> bodycam showed her using the phone when police arrived I provided a recording of my accuser clearly being drunk, aggressive, threatening me while I was de-escalating. I was the one who called 911 to stop her from drunk driving. Her speech clearly slurred. Instead of realizing her story doesn't add up, the prosecutor brought in a DV expert to explain how it's typical for abusers to call 911 and that her behavior was a normal reaction to being assaulted. Thankfully, the jury knew better.

hnuser123456 6mo ago

I would absolutely never call the police on a woman. Simply walk far away and let her be someone else's problem.

loloquwowndueo 6mo ago
Unless it’s a Karen chasing you and yelling and threatening to call the police on you for some asinine reason?
- komali2 6mo ago
  Imo they're right, if you're faced with the option of running away from some crazy person or interacting with the police in the USA, the safer option is to run. A police interaction can escalate to ruinous heights within seconds due to no fault of your own. Remember that cop that got scared by an acorn falling and started shooting at random? I don't care how many "good cops" there are, I'm not rolling the dice on encountering an acorn cop.

fc417fc802 6mo ago

> The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth. The truth is much more complicated and involves politics. For example Seattle (and possibly other cities?) enacted a law that involves paying damages for being wrong in the event of bringing certain types of charges. But that has resulted in some widely publicized examples where the prosecutor erred by being overly cautious.

FireBeyond 6mo ago
And then you have Florida who will bill you about $100 a day for finding yourself in a Florida jail, regardless of whether charges were dismissed, you were found not guilty or any such thing. And to nobody’s surprise, failure to pay this bill is in itself a Class B felony…
- autotune 6mo ago
  That sounds absolutely terrifying.
- fc417fc802 6mo ago
  That sounds like a recipe for domestic terrorism - the systemic disenfranchisement of people who have done nothing wrong for no apparent reason other than sheer greed. How long has this been in effect there?
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    The system doesn't push the issue on people who can't afford it. Blood from a stone and all that.
    - fc417fc802 6mo ago
      I'm confused. Are you suggesting such a ridiculous system is letting class B felonies slide here? That would certainly be the pragmatic approach to being evil but in that case simply treating it as regular debt and going through civil channels would be more than sufficient.
      - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        Are you letting stuff in your backlog that you'll never get to before the product is gone or irrelevant "slide"? Sure they could round those people up pretty easily just by following up on any contact with the system that they have, but why, for what, to cost the state more money that will likely never be repaid? Especially when sticking a body on DUI detail is hugely in the black. They'll just let that debt, it's accruing interests and the threat of further incarceration linger on the books indefinitely. If the person ever gets their life together they'll have to pay it or face incarceration. I'm sure someone somewhere has written a DB query to select from outstanding balance where <exists in some other DB that is a proxy for people who have money to pay> and prioritize those cases.

retrochameleon 6mo ago

There needs to be consequences for shitty, procedure-ignoring police work. Period. Minimum 1 year of jail time for grossly wrongful arrests that could be avoided with standard procedure or investigation tactics that were not applied.

helterskelter 6mo ago
I agree with this sentiment but when you start punishing this sort of thing you create more incentive to cover it up. It's a tricky problem and I'm not sure there's a perfect solution. What we really need is a change in police culture.
- retrochameleon 6mo ago
  Then the system should be redesigned such that transparency is a priority and cover ups are not feasible. And when cover ups eventually get found out, the punishments even more severe.
- true_religion 6mo ago
  We already have administrative punishments for the police when they incorrectly assign blame and cause a public relations mess. Is the termination of your career and/or potential retraining and social embarrassment not already an incentive to cover up?
  - tremon 6mo ago
    If the punishment fails to correct the behaviour, it is insufficient punishment or the wrong punishment. In this case, I'd say that individual punishments are the wrong tool to correct systemic behaviour. It should be career-ending for brass and prosecutors to be effective.
- jcgrillo 6mo ago
  > change in police culture until then, there's a simple rule which works well: never talk to a cop. Or at least say the minimum number of words possible, give them nothing to use against you. Present ID if they ask for it, but never admit anything. If they persist, "lawyer". That has worked for me.

FireBeyond 6mo ago

There’s a judge down in Texas, Dallas area I believe, who is in social media a lot because he will excoriate prosecutors who bring bs in to his court room. He’s not soft on crime but hard on rights and process. If a defendant did the wrong thing, he will have the appropriate amount of sympathy, down to zero. At times he will tell them, we all know you got lucky here, do better. But he won’t let prosecutors slate by on garbage charges or statements or investigations by police. Which leads to my primary point at least for this discussion in particular: To me the scariest part of this as a process is how many times (I’d casually estimate at least 75%) it is blindingly obvious that the prosecutor has not read the statement of charges or officer statements until everyone is in front of the judge. I get on one hand this judge seems to often be handling probable cause hearings but so many of these should never have resulted in any paperwork being turned in to the prosecution, let alone anyone having to show up in court.

phonon 6mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleischer_(judge) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleischer_(judge)
- komali2 6mo ago
  It's fascinating to me that judges are elected in Texas, and what's more, run as members of a political party.
rcvassallo83 6mo ago
Scary process is an understatement, especially because I was facing a domestic violence charge. Long story short, emotional abusive partner got drunk and verbally combative, despite my attempts to de-escalate. When nothing worked I went into my bedroom and locked the door. She started pounding on the door and demanded her things. I gave them to her and told her she needs a ride home she no longer welcome. She verbally abused and provoked me for 10 minutes before getting in her car. Took the keys, called 911. She grabbed me causing us both to fall a few minutes before the cops arrived and told them I threw her to the ground. We both had a couple scapes so they arrested us both. Interfered with the 911 call, filed a false police report, assaulted me, caused property damage. She got charged with class c assault only and a dismissal. I felt like I was seen as guilty until proven innocent. Fortunately I recorded all her verbal abuse (prosecution tried to use it against me and brought in DV expert to explain both her conduct and my 911 call as typical in IPV cases) Fortunately the jury didn't buy it. I was literally being threatened with violence in my own home for telling her to leave. Between that and the bodycam statements contradicting her testimony I was shocked that they didn't drop the charges or offer a favorable plea deal. The judge was absolutely fair, prosecutor bent on punishment, alleged victim was attempting to ruin my life (as captured in my audio) Whew! In the end the claims were so obviously fabricated that my attorney made no defense. It was clear that the accuser was not credible. Perjury was provable. No consequences for her. This happened in Brazoria county

pylua 6mo ago

There is an incentive . It’s called fraud by negligence. I’m hoping she sues everyone here. That’s seems to be in the realm of poissibility here if I am understanding things correctly (imo)

bko 6mo ago

> The narrative they "investigated" was so obviously false, bodycam evidence directly contradicted multiple key facts. Officials are interested only seeking to prove the case. Thankfully the jury came to the right verdict. I don't get it, if they only care about prosecuting and proving the case, wouldn't they go by the bodycam evidence? They didn't prove the case. Maybe if their incentive was to prosecute and prove the charges, they'd go by the obvious evidence. Or am I missing something here?

rcvassallo83 6mo ago
In my experience, the narrative the prosecutor argued on behalf of the accuser was obviously false because specific key facts were contradicted by bodycam statements, for example "He took my phone and it was dead" -> bodycam showed her using the phone when police arrived I provided a recording of my accuser clearly being drunk, aggressive, threatening me while I was de-escalating. I was the one who called 911 to stop her from drunk driving. Her speech clearly slurred. Instead of realizing her story doesn't add up, the prosecutor brought in a DV expert to explain how it's typical for abusers to call 911 and that her behavior was a normal reaction to being assaulted. Thankfully, the jury knew better.