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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: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 11 2017, @04:17PM (1 child)
Corruption, intimidation, and negligence of this sort is why people distrust and hate government.
Is that your only encounter with the law? Myself, I've been pulled over three times and let off with warnings each time, once for an unlit taillight, another for an unlit rear license plate light, and once for speeding. Another 2 times I was a passenger. One of those times, the driver was ticketed, and I think deservedly. So I wonder if the fear of overly zealous policing is a bit overblown. On the other hand, if I had a darker skin color, I probably would've been pulled over and ticketed more often.
But I've also been busted with a parking ticket at a meter that should not have expired, and by a red light camera for missing the light by 0.6 seconds, in which the yellow was about 0.6 seconds shorter than it should have been, and there was no mercy there. I simply ignored the parking ticket, as it happened in another state, and never heard any more about it. For the red light, I took the route of requesting a hearing, which went as I expected. I lost, but my main reason was to cost them any profit they would make from me, win or lose, and hearings do cost them. They were clearly interested in revenue, not justice. But I did in good faith bring my evidence that the light was mistimed, just in case.
There are other ways to fight. For instance, since then, I have boycotted that city.
You can also sometimes get minions in trouble with their superiors. All too often, they exceed their authority. They're being squeezed, and resort to lying and bullying citizens to boost their numbers, find it easier and safer to do that than buck their superiors. This also involves keeping their superiors in the dark about the rule bending they do. This is true of any large organization, government or corporate. In my hometown, the city police really had it in for teenage drivers, following them everywhere and pulling them over at the slightest excuse, such as not coming to a full stop, before the stop sign and again at the intersection in those cases where the stop sign was too far back. They especially targeted the top high school students. One time, my brother spotted one of the worst officers driving to work in his private car, going 15 mph over the speed limit, and followed him in and complained to the police chief and the city administration about the double standard. It worked. The officer must have been ordered to quit harassing him, because from then on, that officer would scowl villainously at him whenever their paths crossed, but no longer followed him about.
Bravo for standing your ground against that punk district attorney.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 11 2017, @05:16PM
"Is that your only encounter with the law?"
LOL, certainly not. That was only the worst trouble that I've ever been in, personally. Most of my encounters with police have involved traffic citations. Roughly 1/3 of those citations were accurate and just - the other 2/3 were made up out of thin air, and out-of-state driver's license.
I've met bad cops, good cops, and a couple of great guys wearing the uniform. Also, one evil SOB. The stories of the great cops, and the evil SOB would take pages to write out, so I'll just leave it there.
Just call me a scofflaw when it comes to traffic laws. I've talked to a lot of policemen in my lifetime. My EMT training has led me to stop a lot of times, as well, so not every encounter with the police has been about my driving.
Life can be interesting!