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posted by martyb on Thursday May 25 2017, @10:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-lives-matter dept.

A man who was found not guilty of armed robbery will still serve up to seven years behind bars after a judge ruled he had breached the rules of his probation sentence for another crime.

Ramad Chatman handed himself in to police when he found out he was a suspect for an armed robbery at a convenience store in his hometown of Georgia in July 2014.

The 24-year-old was already was serving a five year probation term (a court order served outside prison through fines and community service) for his first ever offence, breaking and entering an apartment to steal a television worth $120 in 2012.

The following February, a judge decided it was likely he did commit the robbery and as a result Chatman was re-sentenced for the original crime of stealing a TV and ordered to serve 10-years behind bars, back dated to the day of the crime.

Court documents nonetheless showed he did everything asked of him during his probation, including checking in, paying restitution and finishing his community service. He was also holding down a job.

But when the armed robbery trial came to court in August, he was found not guilty.

It later emerged that ahead of the trial Chapman[sic] tried to enter an Alford plea on the charge of aggravated assault in exchange for the armed robbery charges being dropped.

An Alford plea means the defendant enters a guilty plea, but maintains his innocence. It is often used when a defendant feels like despite his innocence, he will lose at trial.

The judge refused to accept the deal, so the case was heard before a jury - who ruled he was innocent of the crime.

Presiding Judge John Niedrach, disagreed with their verdict however.

So despite the fact police never recovered the weapon, stolen money, or any other evidence connecting him to the robbery, he declined to release Mr Chatman, who remains in prison for violating the terms of his first probation order.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-man-prison-serve-five-years-ramad-chatman-georgia-prison-not-guilty-probation-broke-terms-jail-a7744326.html


Original Submission[Edit: [sic]'ed the Independent's typo - FP]

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:27PM (23 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:27PM (#515408)

    Guilty of being black.

    Guilty of facing a horrible justice system perhaps, but you will have to present some evidence if you are going to assert his skin color had anything to do with it.

    I'm going to go ahead and predict that at worst I'll get personal attacks which grossly misattribute my political affiliations, and at best I'll get crime statistics by race with the implied assertion that black people are over-represented with nothing to back up that assertion.

    But hey, don't let me and my pesky skepticism get in the way of your feel-good moral grandstanding. Just mod me troll and pretend you don't have to address the flaws with your blind assumptions because someone who you don't like at some point of history said something similar and therefore I must be affiliated with them.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:40PM (#515416)

    > that at worst I'll get personal attacks which grossly misattribute my political affiliations,

    Nah, it can get a whole lot worse than that.
    I just put a 500 bitcoin bounty on your life. You best go to ground ASAP.

  • (Score: 4, Touché) by Mykl on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:43PM (4 children)

    by Mykl (1112) on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:43PM (#515419)

    You are correct - there is nothing on the record that unequivocally states that his race was the determining factor in the judge's decision.

    However, like the judge in this case, we can make a determination based on the balance of probabilities. In this case, it's probable that the judge is a dick and that the guy was fucked over for being black, particularly while living in a southern state.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:02PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:02PM (#515522)

      However, like the judge in this case, we can make a determination based on the balance of probabilities. In this case, it's probable that the judge is a dick and that the guy was fucked over for being black, particularly while living in a southern state.

      Well, I'm sure you have ample evidence that this is a significant trend in America and particularly among the southern states. Please cite your sources, I would love to go over them.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Friday May 26 2017, @08:30AM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday May 26 2017, @08:30AM (#515888) Journal

      So you answer is in the absence of evidence then racism? Is that how that works? Because we have NO evidence that it had shit to do with his race, for all we know the judge found out his wife was cheating on him, bashed his hand in a door before getting on the bench, hell he may have stepped in dog shit on his way to work that morning and that put him in a bad mood or he could just be an asshole, we do not know and to suddenly say "welp gotta be racism" is just as racist as saying "welp there was a shooting, gotta be a black that done it" because in BOTH cases you are going off of ZERO evidence and just sticking YOUR prejudices into the blank.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday May 25 2017, @01:13PM (3 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday May 25 2017, @01:13PM (#515437) Homepage
    I would propose that in an old die-hard slave state in a country where presidential advisors (e.g. Ehrlichman) has explicitly stated that laws were deliberately designed to be racist, that Ockham's razor points to racism as the simplest explanation. The hypothesis of no racism being involved is the extraordinary one, and thus would demand the extraordinary evidence.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:58PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:58PM (#515519)

      I would propose that in an old die-hard slave state in a country where presidential advisors (e.g. Ehrlichman) has explicitly stated that laws were deliberately designed to be racist, that Ockham's razor points to racism as the simplest explanation.

      Occam's Razor only applies when the other proposition is ridiculously outlandish. You cannot ignore plausible explanations just because another explanation appeals better to your sensibilities.

      The hypothesis of no racism being involved is the extraordinary one, and thus would demand the extraordinary evidence.

      The burden of proof lies with the person making the positive assertion.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:11PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:11PM (#515635)

        Occam's Razor only applies when the other proposition is ridiculously outlandish. You cannot ignore plausible explanations just because another explanation appeals better to your sensibilities.

        "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."

        So the two hypotheses we have are:

        1) Judge is prejudiced for whatever reason and abuses his power to punish the victim even after being cleared by a jury.

        2) Judge is... umm, what is the reasonable reason he would send an innocent man to jail for no reason whatsoever? Oh yeah, cause he thinks he did it.

        #2 fails the "fewest assumptions" test since the judge himself is making one rather tenuous assumption apparently against all evidence.

        • (Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday May 26 2017, @04:02AM

          by Spamalope (5233) on Friday May 26 2017, @04:02AM (#515823) Homepage

          The judge is an 'all suspects are guilty, otherwise they wouldn't be suspects' authoritarian
          The judge is in possession of illegally obtained evidence; isn't disclosing it (crime); is using it secretly as a basis for conviction (crime)
          The judge considers anyone on probation who comes to his attention to be a violator, without regard to whether any accusations have foundation
          The judge is prejudiced against poor people and would have treated 'white trash' the same
          The judge gets a kickback from someone who profits by the incarceration

          There are lots of ways for the judge to deserve impeachment/removal without needing racism. Of course there doesn't have to be only one reason. Without any reason to infer racism other than the location, you haven't got a reason to rule out the dick moves common everywhere - and you're assuming without basis that racism isn't common in northern courtrooms.

  • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:27PM (10 children)

    by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:27PM (#515472) Journal

    Spoken like a white dude, who believes that punitive excess directed towards Black people is an extraordinary myth, not a statistically demonstrable norm. The extraordiary circumstance is when race bias is NOT an element.

    --
    You're betting on the pantomime horse...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:44PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:44PM (#515510)

      Your statistical argument might have more weight than a pingpong ball were it not for the demonstrable disproportion of blacks committing vastly more crime compared to the general population.

      • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:47PM (#515575)

        Where is your proof that blacks commit more crime? What we have proof of is that blacks get arrested more often, charged more often, and convicted more often. As this case demonstrates, that's not necessarily proof of committing crimes. Supposing we knew for certain, for all crimes, who committed which crimes we could make your claim, but we don't so you can't.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:14PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:14PM (#515638)

          Nice try, Skippy. Picking the statistics that suit you and dismissing anything contrary neither validates your argument nor invalidates mine.

      • (Score: 1, Redundant) by compro01 on Thursday May 25 2017, @09:09PM (1 child)

        by compro01 (2515) on Thursday May 25 2017, @09:09PM (#515706)

        demonstrable disproportion of blacks committing vastly more crime compared to the general population

        And how do you know that? Because the "justice" system convicts them more often? And you don't see anything circular about that reasoning?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:30AM (#515830)

          Not the original AC, but just as a point of logic, the reverse reasoning, that we know the justice system is biased because there are more minorities convicted of crimes is also circular reason. Neither of the assumed causations, minorities commit more crimes or the justice system is unfair to minorities, can really be proved by the that statistic.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:52PM (#515515)

      Spoken like a white dude, who believes that punitive excess directed towards Black people is an extraordinary myth, not a statistically demonstrable norm. The extraordiary circumstance is when race bias is NOT an element.

      Spoken like someone with no evidence except to make personal attacks. I am absolutely shocked at this turn of events, who could have possibly predict it?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:13PM (3 children)

      by edIII (791) on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:13PM (#515678)

      We don't need stats. The truth is that white people also get shot and abused by police. Specifically, poor people on the wrong side of the tracks, vagrants, and other undesirables as far as LE is concerned.

      It's also the truth that minorities, specifically black men, are abused several times more than white men. The "myth" that people abused people, especially black people, turned into truth the moment Japan started helping make cameras ubiquitous in America. Evidence is fucking everywhere now. Black boys (not men) running away from officers and being shot in the back. A picture can say a thousand words, but with video sometimes no words need to be said. You don't need stats with all of the videos. What happened to Rodney King was a wake up call for America.

      Like you said, if anyone needs to prove anything, it's LE proving to us that they actually serve our interests. Prove they are not an abusive organization of men and women that have unique legal protections and strong group representation to resist reforms, oversight, and punishments. The Judicial has also been caught several times in for profit prison scams to increase populations. Entire counties in the South are dependent upon prison revenue.

      I was cynical about police abusing black people until the videos kept piling up. A couple a week at one point. Then another one. Then a few more. Abuse over black men gets the media attention, but the fact that a LOT of white people are being abused at the same time gets forgotten quite often.

      The videos are showing us that the police are not there for us. All of those "myths" we heard in the past are telling us that this is not something new. Our ability to record evidence and share it, that is what is new.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:43PM (2 children)

        by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:43PM (#515695) Journal

        Look at proportional and per-capita rates for US prisons.

        The expressed bias of America's legal systems and by extension, its society and norms, is evident. Anomalies in these statistics don't occur on orders of magnitude.

        --
        You're betting on the pantomime horse...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @09:31PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @09:31PM (#515717)

          > Look at proportional and per-capita rates for US prisons.

          In 2010 black men were 6x more likely to be incarcerated than white men. [pewresearch.org]
          If white men had the same rate of incarceration as black men, our justice system would be fixed overnight.

          Anyone who says that white men get the same treatment from the police — I'm looking at you eddie — is willfully ignorant.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:47AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:47AM (#515833)

            Derp derp he literally said black people are several times more likely to be prosecuted, he wasn't ignoring the fact just trying to jeep the conversation balanced and make it a conversation about LE problems and not only a racism problem.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:00PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:00PM (#515486) Journal

    My extended family has it's criminal element. Although I've never been to prison, or even charged with a crime, I know far more about prison than I ever wanted to know.

    Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas will all do the very same thing. You don't have to be found guilty of a crime to be returned to prison with a "violation of parole" stamp on your record. I'm sure that is an artifact of that whole "Prison for Profit" thing.

    My own, personal advice, for parolees is, DON'T ACCEPT PAROLE!! Tell them to go to hell, you'll just do your time. I'm pretty sure that I'd kill half of the parole officers I've ever met, if they set themselves up as a demigod that I had to obey. Well, maybe half is an exaggeration, but many of them are fucking martinettes that deserve being killed.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:49PM (#515512)

      Easy solution: abolish parole/probation completely. Parole officers unemployed, thugs off the streets longer. Wn-win.