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from the things-are-not-always-as-they-appear dept.
[IANAL]
In the US, courts assess guilt or innocence before a conviction, then after that the appellate courts focus solely on fairness. The Atlantic has an exposé on some people who are wrongly convicted are pressured to accept Alford Plea Deals in lieu of exonerations — that more or less means to plead guilty for a verbal guarantee from the courts to both speed things up and give a much lighter or minimal sentence. But how many do this is not known: this situation is not tracked there are no formal statistics. However, in Baltimore City and County alone, there were at least 10 cases in the last 19 years in which defendants with viable innocence claims ended up signing Alford pleas. These can translate to the occasional innocent person being stigmatized, unable to sue the state, and that no one re-investigates the crime meaning that the real perpetrator is never brought to justice.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by crafoo on Monday September 11 2017, @12:59PM (4 children)
Well, you discovered that humans are humans no matter what their job is. No one wants to work hard. Prosecutors and government attorneys do not want to work hard. They don't really want to do the right thing. They just want to get the easiest conviction possible. It's so much easier when people just waive their rights and plead out to some deal. The judge, bailiff, court recorder. No one doesn't want to hassle with it. Plead guilty, take a deal, move along.
If everyone asked for their day in court the system might work better. Prosecutors might stop throwing every crazy charge they can think of at people hoping to plea down to what they really want. Cops might make intelligent decisions arresting people v. actually keeping the peace. Judges might scream at law makers to write sane laws and lay off the mandatory sentencing BS.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday September 11 2017, @02:47PM (3 children)
Prosecutors and government attorneys do not want to work hard. They don't really want to do the right thing. They just want to get the easiest conviction possible. It's so much easier when people just waive their rights and plead out to some deal. The judge, bailiff, court recorder. No one doesn't want to hassle with it. Plead guilty, take a deal, move along.
This is wrong. It would be much easier if they'd just drop the affair to begin with, or not even bother attempting to prosecute. Instead, they expend effort to ruin the lives of people who either are innocent, or just made an honest mistake without criminal intent. They're not just lazy; these people in government are downright evil. If they were merely lazy, they wouldn't bother to harass anyone unless it was plainly obvious the person had criminal intent and was a true danger to society.
Cops might make intelligent decisions arresting people v. actually keeping the peace.
Again, this shows that they're actually evil, not just lazy. If they were lazy, they wouldn't bother expending the effort to arrest people unless they thought they really needed to. Instead, they're all too happy to arrest people when it isn't really necessary.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Tuesday September 12 2017, @01:02AM (2 children)
I disagree. I don't think most prosecutors or peace officers (or whatever the fuck they are called now) are evil. I think there are very real, measurable metrics they are held to. These metrics and goals, absent any other counteracting forces, produces what we have today. Internally they promote an us vs. them dynamic. They LARP as tough, powerful men, "busting ass, bringing shitheals to justice". Every incentive, employment guideline, and law drives them to the outcome we have today. They are not individually evil. They are no different than you. You need to recognize that if we are going to make the system work. You would do EXACTLY the same thing in their situation. You may pretend otherwise but you do not fool anyone.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:38AM
I agree that incentives matter, but not to the extent you imply. Some people do what they think is right, and damn the incentives or consequences. They're rare, but they're probably more rare because most people try to avoid situations where they have to choose between what's right and what's expected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden [wikipedia.org]
If I were forced to be a police officer in a horribly corrupt district, and I couldn't just quit, I can honestly say I'd end up a whistleblower, and possibly a dead one. But I'd really rather just not put myself in that situation.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:04PM
Bullshit. That sounds just like the ol' "I was just following orders" excuse. No one forces a prosecutor to prosecute someone who's obviously not guilty, yet they happily do it anyway because it helps their career. That is the very definition of evil. If you do evil, then you are evil.