Several years ago, I was arrested on a hacking charge and got to see first hand the appalling nature of our legal system in criminal courts.
Normally, after your arrest, you have to have a hearing within 24-48 hours, but if they arrest you on a Friday as they did me, they are allowed to detain you for an extra day because it's the weekend. I'm sure this is a tactic used often to frighten and goad people. My hearing was exactly as the judge in this article describes. There were lots of minor, non violent offenders in the court room with me, most minorities, and many couldn't speak English well at all. The judge would openly mock them and condescend. One man obviously had no idea what he was even pleading to because his English was so poor.
Once I got to higher court for my actual sentencing, it was no different. The judge didn't even read my case and the clerk forgot to have it presented and available for the judge to review. My lawyer had to give him her own copy which he briefly skimmed without adjournment. I later discovered that the prosecuting attorney was good friends with the plaintiff and the investigating FBI officer assigned to my case.
The courts in America are a joke, the legal system is in bad need of an overhaul. I couldn't believe the level of incompetence, racism, bias and prejudice existed there.
I went to court in New Jersey in a wealthiest white suburb and what I saw seemed perfectly fine. There was a man there who, a rather sad case really, was in an accident that gave him brain damage and caused him to behave strangely. His wife had a restraining order against him and apparently he had broken into the house in the middle of the night to give his son a birthday present, then gone to sleep on the couch. It took around half an hour for the judge to patiently explain to him what was going on ascertain bail and all that jazz. He was very patient. I think the key thing about the article was that this is a courthouse in the Bronx. The way we treat the poor in this country is absolutely atrocious. We give them substandard educational facilities, poor infrastructure, treat them like garbage in the justice system, then perpetuate the myth that successful people in America deserve to be successful and that if you're poor it's because there's something wrong with you and must not have tried hard enough or been smart enough.
I wonder if someone could get all the court transcripts from these jurisdictions and do sentiment analysis on them and correlate against the average house prices in the courts' area.
If someone does do this, I'd be very interested in reading the outcome. Sounds like a fantastic idea. There's a few people who I've seen post on HN before that are familiar with filing FOIA requests. If the dataset can be acquired and released, I'm pretty sure there's enough people on HN who might be willing to work together in the open to write the analysis.
Admittedly, I didn't read the article. That said, I'm very familiar w/ the FOIA process and have a legal team setup to send them out; if the volume isn't huge then the cost isn't tremendous.
If you could provide more specific information to me on what would be beneficial/useful to FOIA, I'd be more than happy to take a look, and likely send them -- and put them up on a public Github repo with a license that makes the data useful.
Straight off the top, one problem is that transcripts aren't routinely generated, AFAIU. Yes, there's a court reporter taking down the proceedings, but what's generated isn't itself directly intelligible. Preparing an actual transcript from the proceedings for a small (2-day) case can run close to a thousand dollars. Doing this at scale would likely be highly expensive.
You bring to mind an alternative though: an automatic, random, appeal of a select number of cases to a review system of some sort. This might initially be a completely random sampling across all courts, but could then be subject to some sort of stratified sampling, with more cases subject to review from areas highlighted as problematic, and periodic reweighting.
What form does the "not directly intelligible" transcript take ? If it's possible to obtain that maybe there could be a way to generate an intelligible transcript automatically.
It has to be processed and formatted. The reporter uses a shorthand system that needs to dealt with, and you need to be able to figure out which party is which. Also, I'm pretty sure the reporter just blasts on through, so it would be difficult to distinguish between cases without some human intervention. You probably have hundreds of people getting arraigned in one session in the Bronx.
Digital audio can be more difficult. Automated transcription sucks, and the costs for human annoyed machine transcription are very high.
I don't know. I do know that preparing a relatively short transcript (in terms of court proceedings) can be a nontrivial request -- e.g., it's not simply pressing "generate" on some system.
That said, the records I've seen have been accurate.
Could potentially use cases for which both proceeding notes _and_ transcripts are available to train a sentiment analysis system to interpret the proceeding notes directly.
A further complication -- my understanding, this may be incorrect: court reporters are in at least some cases independent contractors. They hold rights to their transcripts. You're not actually dealing with the court in requesting them.
Your AI solution would 1) tremendously reduce consts and 2) almost certainly remove a large share of the income of these independent reporters.
Mind: the problem could be resolved by making reporters employees of the court.
Don't forget about a population density. I suspect a lot of the 'ratial' bias in the justice system stems from the number of interactions with poor people in high vs low population areas. In some areas you could sit on your back porch target practicing with a shotgun and nobody would care. That's not the case in any city.
Get drunk and drive off the road into a corn field, well if you can get out without anyone noticing then no big deal.
Several years ago(before it was against ToS) I scraped data from a county clerk website and did some mild analysis on it. I won't say what I was looking for, but I did find several correlations between case disposition (charges dropped, reduced, etc....) and certain combinations of judges/prosecutors/defense attorneys.
One particular combination showed a 10x increase in correlation with charges being significantly reduced or dropped.
It would be very interesting to see a proper dataset and analysis on this type of information.
So let's say this is the case. There are a lot of stupid people in this country, I might be one of them (the term is imprecise. Do behavior disorders call under that category?). What do we do about (to/for) these people? We can't find a better way towards a well functioning society than beating and jailing people?
Many of these criminals (especially drug sellers or users) are a manifestation of the cycle of poverty and mental illness while the court systems seem to make it worse instead of offering solutions for the community.
My solution is to deal with poverty as a whole, to reform the justice system, to recognize that we can give people the freedom of a basic standard of living so they do not have to live in crushing desperation. And the rest of us do not have to live as unwilling accomplices to an horrific system.
No. The reason he had the experience he had was because it was a "wealthy" suburb, not because it was "white". There is a difference between correlation and causation. The root cause wasn't race, but the low volume typical of wealthy suburbs, allowing the judge to take his time. Put him in a situation where he needs to arraign a 100 people in a session and he won't be as nice anymore.
There are a number of other posters who hit the nail on the head. The problem is really with how we fund the courts. More volume needs to equate with proportional increase in resources.
"Indirect discrimination occurs when an apparently neutral rule or policy has a disproportionate and adverse impact on a protected group, and supposedly neutral policies become suspect unless they can be shown to be necessary for achieving legitimate goals. For example, prohibiting headgear (which would affect Sikhs), imposing a minimum height requirement (which could exclude women), or requiring a graduation degree (in a social context where a particular racial group has very few university graduates)."
In this case, one may wonder why courthouses in poorer neighborhoods aren't as well maintained as those in richer ones, and why, if the court is overloaded with cases, there aren't more judges applied to it. _If_ that's because of a rule "a courthouse per X citizens", one could argue that's indirect racism.
However, that same blog post seems to indicate that US law isn't that strong in making "disparate impact" illegal, if the impact isn't intentional.
"""
On May 31 and June 1, 1921, hundreds of whites led a racially motivated attack on the black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing some 300 people, mostly blacks. The attack, carried out on the ground and by air, destroyed more than 35 blocks of the district, then the wealthiest black community in the nation. More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals and more than 6,000 black residents were arrested and detained, some for as many as eight days. [2] The official count of the dead by the Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics was 39.
"""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot
>* I think the key thing about the article was that this is a courthouse in the Bronx. The way we treat the poor in this country is absolutely atrocious. *
Not being from the U.S. or another common-law country, I'm tempted to ask: isn't this a natural outcome of the common-law principle "by lawful judgment of his Peers"? I.e. peers in Bronx are, on the average, quite different from peers in a wealthy white suburb.
I realise someone might take this as mocking but that is not my intention. I see it as a genuine problem in common-law systems. This then exacerbates other problems of equality. (If I'm a well-to-do expatriate who comes to work in New York, would I pick a place to live in this Bronx neighbourhood? Likely not. But, in a way, anyone who does not want to be a "peer" in such an area is just as guilty of creating the situation.)
Judges, which is what the article and the two parent posts are talking about, are not peers but trained lawyers. A judge in the bronx will probably not be from the bronx.
They are professionals assigned to a court and are supposed to be impartial.
Also, IANAL, but "lawful judgement of his peers" sounds like it is related to trial by jury, not common law, I think you are mixing up two very distinct concepts.
EDIT: And finally, most court cases are not going to be judges making new common law decisions, but simply applying existing ones. The issue we are talking about is that in the US it is not being done fairly in criminal courts in some areas.
I like the spirit of this, but there's a major problem with it. Sending poor people out of the city into the suburbs for rich white court can be a tremendous burden. Why not just have those judges take on some of the poor city caseload? They surely can afford the commute.
There's a massive potential problem, in either idea.
Passive aggression and resentment. The implicit loathing of a compulsory task.
The article is written by a volunteer. She finds the scenario repulsive, because there is stark contrast between her optimistic anticipation of a rewarding display of civic work ethics, and the dismal reality of thankless routine with no hope of escape and no end in sight, for anyone caught in this whirlpool of limbos pointed at hell. Neither the law, nor the victims, nor the accused may leave, all inclusive.
Taking a punitive mindset and trying to use it against the only population of participants who might have a glimmer of choice in the equation could backfire, with profoundly terrible side effects.
Use the lack of choice implicit in jury duty as a bellwether, to gauge the realistic level of enthusiasm any given non-adversarial participant carries into a court room. Not your own, but the observed ambient enthusiasm jury duty enjoys.
Like mercury concentration in seafood, that disposition likely magnifies, with ascent through the food chain.
This article is one judge's visceral reaction to a cavalcade of nightmares, on day one, going in cold. Now ask her to do it again, and again, and remain gagged, holding her tongue as she did in the article, and prevent her from acting in favour of any change. Her enthusiasm would choke and die after six months, although it would probably take longer to strangle any hope she harboured.
But the parade of misery curls around the block, and is longer than one judge's reaction or hope. It's a problem that's bigger than knee-jerk gut reactions. A direct attack on the situation might go all kinds of wrong.
An organisation of volunteers would really be a better strategy. This article highlighted one hotspot that needs volunteers to augment the workload, and the treatment of the cases. A conduit for volunteers, such as an exchange program to aid circulation, and help rotate operators of the system between duties (easy and hard), might improve results. It would need a monitor to ensure improvements are real.
If there's a strong link between the judge and the DA, eventually you will run into a problem with power. This is if you survive the initial onslaught of please of desperate help from desperate people (not all of whom will be paragons of virtue).
At that time, the political pressure brought to bear will be immense.
This reminds me of the recent case where the public defenders office attached the Governor to a case because of the constant budget cuts to their department.
The criminal justice system can be jarring, even to those of us who are lawyers. I was a clerk for a judge in Philadelphia, and saw a ton of criminal convictions - usually drug cases - come up on appeal. Two things stuck out: (1) we jail a lot of people for stupid things; (2) there are a lot of bad people in these communities.[1]
I'd see someone appealing a sentence for selling some OxyContin and think, "geez, what a waste of money to put this guy in prison." But he's got a rap sheet a mile long - theft, robbery, assault, etc.
The treatment of the criminally-accused in this country is deplorable. But it's also the product of a society that got fed up with skyrocketing crime a few decades ago and responded in a harsh and heartless manner. Crime is a lot lower today than it was in the 1990s, but even in the safest American cities murder rates are 5 times higher than big cities in Europe that aren't even considered that safe (like Berlin). And crime is heavily concentrated in poor places like the Bronx.
And the usual canard - for profit prisons - isn't even applicable here. Private prisons are illegal in New York. This isn't lobbying at work, this is purely a product of the democratic will reacting to devilish social issues. That's what makes it so hard to fix.
[1] I was also living in downtown Baltimore during the post-Freddie Gray unrest. I was disappointed to see the acquittals. At the same time, if I were in those cops' shoes, I'm not sure if have the moral strength to be any different. Society needs a certain amount of order to function. In much of Baltimore, that order doesn't exist. Gangs are in charge and the law-abiding people of those neighborhoods are the biggest victims of that.
Just because it is a public prison doesn't mean there aren't people making money to lock people up. There is prison labor, there is money handling (it costs money to send money to prisoners), there is the commissary, there are phone calls that cost $5 for 15 minutes. At every step of the way, the system beats down and exploits the most vulnerable in society. And they do profit. There are people doing time for petty theft simply because they can't pay the fees to get out of jail. [1]
Back in college I used to do odd programming jobs for local companies to make ends meet. (It was basically contracting, but I was too young to know that at the time.)
Anyway, one of the jobs I did back then was to move a Paradox db to Access. (Yes, this was a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG time ago.) It was for a company that provided goods to jails around the state for the commissaries, as well as providing food for the inmates meals. I recall doing double takes at the prices that they were charging for some of the things they were "selling". A simple small bag of Cheetos would be marked up 5 or 6 hundred percent. Sanitary goods might be marked up a thousand percent. The list went on and on. It was crazy. And it was, most likely, VERY good money for that firm.
I don't know if they have gotten rid of those firms, but that is one place where A LOT of money was being made at the time. The more prisoners there were, the more money that company would make. Because the prisoners would buy these goods from the commissaries at ENORMOUS markups.
Not only that, but I always thought there was a HUGE potential externality built into that business. I mean, this is just speculation, but let's suppose companies like this supply prisons as well as jails. Well you could have a prisoner that is allowed to buy Cheetos and Snickers bars and sit around and get obese for his 30 year term. Only at year 20 he comes down with diabetes, or heart disease. (Not surprising.) And the tax payer is actually stuck with the bill for the medical care for the last 10 years, even though those companies made all the money off of selling the prisoner the Cheetos that contributed to the heart disease.
What should the markup be? What you say sounds very high indeed, but there is a certain markup that will be required. Why? Operating a commissary in a prison is more complex than a local convenience store
(I'm making some assumptions here) each bag of Cheetos needs to be individually inspected to make sure that nothing is being smuggled into the prison. This would go for every item being sold into the prison.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if there was competition in selling into prisons, but my guess is you'd end up with some kind of split duopoly at best where things would be about the same as they are now. The reason is that no one can just establish a new business, which is the most important thing for creating competition.
>Operating a commissary in a prison is more complex than a local convenience store
Why so? Here they just got a few pallets of normal grocery store stuff and mostly used inmate labor to run it.
Really simple and costs essentially nothing to operate, especially since they don't have to be open every day.
The only complexity comes from potentially transporting the inmates to the commissary, but that's not a particularly efficient way to do it when you can just give inmates paper "menus" where they can just fill in their orders and have them brought to their cell blocks.
The reason (the only reasonable one o can come up with) is the added cost of inspection before selling them.
I don't disagree that the mark up mentioned in the post was extreme, but I don't have a good idea of what it would be otherwise.
Based on my having visited places with high tariffs, or a difficult place to deliver things (top of a mountain) you definitely see large markups. Not 6x, but 2x-3x isn't uncommon.
> or a difficult place to deliver things (top of a mountain) you definitely see large markups. Not 6x, but 2x-3x isn't uncommon.
But surely they aren't charging 2x-3x more because they need to make profit, but because it's justifiable for them to charge 2x-3x more (mostly due to lack of competition).
However, profiting from prisoners by exploiting artificially restricted competition seems rather unethical to me.
It depends on the goods. Snickers and Chips really Are luxury items, even on the outside. But if you sold those at the same prices, you'd get in trouble for price gouging. More, maybe 5-10% extra. Security costs are part of running a prison, and should be looked at as such. I'd even argue that having some of this stuff occasionally helps keep morale better.
But hygiene items? Tampons or pads, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and other such things shouldn't cost any more than they do on the outside. I'd argue that these things, at a basic level should be free and one can pay for higher quality items unless medically necessary. As far as we understand, being clean helps folks stay healthy.
Explain the ursurious telephone rates under your "complexity" theory!
Contractors aren't responsible for security -- that's a threat to their margins and to the corrections Union.
The reality is that prisoners are just seen as a mark. Inflated goods bring more money into the prison, because inmates don't make enough to buy $8 Cheetos. So relatives wire money in through some scammy system. Often the prisons get commissions for these types of sales as well.
I'm not a bleeding heart for prisoner luxury. But I hate seeing people getting ripped off by profiteers.
As someone who used to x-ray bags of chips I see which had prizes in them - you can screen stuff pretty damn fast for very low cost. You can just image the whole box the stuff is shipped in. However this assumes the contraband has a higher density than chips.
I'll bet the markup was to cover the cost that was charged to have the shop in the first place. I'll bet that the prison shop has a very high rent/lease.
It's possible, but either way the same abuse would be occurring. It happens for the same reason Tylenol is charged at like $60/pill during a hospital stay, and while we're at it the same reason the criminal justice system is so out of control: These people don't answer to anyone. Nobody is going to stop them. Talk and dream all you want about voting corruption away, it is not going to change. The system is too entrenched, and there are too many powerful people that have too much to lose to ever let it happen.
"Tylenol" doesn't charge "$60", the hospital does, to cover the cost of the time spent of the nurses' shifts medicating patients. (Not to mention the various other huge (legitimate!) types of overhead a hospital has.)
> "Tylenol" doesn't charge "$60", the hospital does
That is what I stated. And band-aids are roughly the same price per instance. And there are also staff-related line items. And there is a completely separate EMT bill if you are transferred from the scene of an accident.
A stay of about 16 hours with no procedures, just a transfer by EMT, a few bandages and Tylenol, with about 30 minutes total of staff interaction was billed at almost $15,000.
There are absolutely "legitimate" charges involved, and there is a markup that would be considered legitimate, but there is also a lot of abuse that goes straight to overpaid doctors, overpaid hospital administrators and insurance companies, in the same way prison's are charged 6x or more for miscellaneous items.
Legitimate charges would be listed as legitimate line items, not hidden in other marked up line items.
The problem is not be $15 bottle of Tylenol. It's that itemizing hospital services is a total fiction given the necessity of hospitals subsidizing those who cannot pay by overcharging those who can pay.
That is sad. Companies should not be able to profit off of people like this. This is why we need someone like Hillary. She should be able to put an end these corrupt government programs.
Let's not forget prison guard unions, which unsurprisingly spend vast sums of money on lobbyists to push "tough on crime" agendas (which, not so coincidentally, have a direct impact on their members' employment prospects).
That's what makes me really cynical about all this. Injustice in the legal system for the lower-classes is a hobby-horse of the Left these days. So naturally, they rail endlessly about private prisons, which are a tiny part of the overall legal system - 16% of prisoners overall, lack of money for public defenders, etc. Yet look at who some of the Democrat party backers are: unions, especially prison guard and police, and lawyers. So naturally, they ignore the parts of the problem caused by their base, and just happen to recommend solutions that will be good for other parts of their base. Makes you wonder how much they really care.
I suppose if you asked a honest Democrat bigwig, they'd say something like they're just focusing on the problems that are practical to fix right now, and they can't fix everything at once because they need the support of these other groups to be able to accomplish anything at all.
Prison guards are under the umbrella of law enforcement, and no one crosses the law enforcement unions. Even Scott Walker, who made his name busting public sector unions, didn't go after police unions.
You're on to something. The FCCs attempt to regulate prison phone call prices in the fall of 2015 has been put on hold via appeal by private corporations. Really, really sad.
>> "I'd see someone appealing a sentence for selling some OxyContin and think, "geez, what a waste of money to put this guy in prison." But he's got a rap sheet a mile long - theft, robbery, assault, etc."
It sounds like this is a clear indication the justice system is failing. This guy has committed crimes in the past serious enough to land him prison and he has come out and repeated those mistakes. Why? That's the question we need to get an answer too. Is he just a bad person? Can he not change? If we believe that why not lock him up for life and save all the hassle of a trial every few years? I don't believe this is the case. He's likely put in prison, become accustomed to violence and injustice, pitting him even more against the 'system'/'man' and then came out to no money and no job possibilities. This seems to be to be something that could be fixed very easily. Private prisons would probably be against it (fewer repeat customers) and in a state where private prisons are illegal politicians probably can't campaign successfully on a promise of more money to help rehabilitate criminals.
I was also living in downtown Baltimore during the post-Freddie Gray unrest. I was disappointed to see the acquittals. At the same time, if I were in those cops' shoes, I'm not sure if have the moral strength to be any different. Society needs a certain amount of order to function.
Berlin is "not considered safe"? Sounds a bit strange to me. Sure there are occasional spots where you may not want to spend your time, with a continuous conflict of some squatters and anarchists vs. police, but overall, my feeling there is safe everywhere. I'm not a resident but cannot recognize that unsafety in Berlin (whereas years ago, in San Francisco I could very suddenly take a wrong turn and not want to step out of the car).
No, what's wrong with this country is latte liberals who don't understand what causes injustice in the justice system. Like I said, I think the treatment of the accused is deplorable. I don't think we should imprison people for selling Oxy. But I live in a ritzy part of DC where I don't have to deal with gangs trying to recruit my kid every day. It's easy for me to blame private prison lobbyists or red staters or whatever the scapegoat is today.
The justice system is the way it is because communities like the Bronx have serious social problems. It's a bad solution to a bad situation.
When you have an electoral system that basically boils down to choice between two candidates and you get one vote, it's hardly surprising that things end up a mess.
Third world countries have swift third world justice for a reason. Their unruly law disobeying populace would have consumed incredible amount of time and judicial resources otherwise, that these countries cannot afford.
I'm sorry but I find this statement completely deluded. Law enforcement in third world countries is often inaccurate, corrupt and ineffectual. Swift justice is actually just pre-determined guilt: the police arrested them because they were guilty. It is more about maintaining power structures.
Which at least builds on the belief that courts should work as courts. Not mock trials where guilt is pre-supposed and you end up tossing people you don't like away.
The idea of a quick sentence without a fair trial is abhorrent and kryptonite to the functioning an actual robust society,
I can't tell you what's wrong with a whole country and I doubt anyone can, nor that such a statement would be useful. I can tell you what's wrong with your comment:
A personal attack for no apparent reason, and no actual content - that's wrong with it.
I don't see anything controversial about rayiner's point that US voters have often rewarded a "tough on crime" stance with a vote.
It was not well expressed, but it is a valid sentiment. I don't think rayiner's point was as you say, that "tough on crime" is rewarded at the ballot box, but that he thought the approach taken was justified. Many would argue that cruel and inhumane treatment is never justified, and as a long term solution is never effective (as it entrenches poverty and provides continuing motivation for crime).
And I hear from family and friends about how we 'coddle' people in the system too much, and we're not 'tough' enough.
A large number of our people seem to think if we're sufficiently cruel and inhuman to people accused of breaking the law, then people will magically stop getting suspected of breaking the law. It's more than a little horrifying seeing people's eyes light up when they talk about how our cops aren't afraid to kill people and how merciless our prisons are.
This horrifying system is a symptom of our cruelty, and any move to make this more humane (or less of an atrocity) will face stiff resistance from people who get off on seeing people get punished.
I don't know what I can do, or what anyone can do.
I'd like to see a move away from sentencing being regarded as punishment. It should be more along the lines of a person needing to be withdrawn from society for a time because they cannot behave themselves. I.e. it should be about protecting society from them.
This has the public opinion problem that once you think about it that way, many things become life sentences on the basis that reform is scarcely possible.
Personally I think that people should be in jail for as long as they remain dangerous, but many people are not comfortable with that logic.
It's often a catch-22 situation: as long as they remain in jail they will remain dangerous, due to the nature of prison.
The problem of re-integrating felons with society is difficult and often ignored. It can be impossible to get work for many of these people, leading almost inevitably back to criminality (primarily narcotics, thence prostitution and petty theft).
I agree with you: deprivation of a person's liberty is, in itself, a harsh punishment, even without taking into account the details of their incarceration.
However, reasons matter. If policy dictates the purpose is to punish, then that justifies longer sentences "to make sure they are sufficiently punished" and to be ill-treated because "they are here to be punished".
If policy dictates the purpose is to act as a deterrent to other crimes, then sentences are not justified as any longer than required to serve that purpose. That can be empirically observed, and I believe it has been studied and shown there is a strong scope insensitivity to the magnitude of punishments. This is even more pronounced in criminals, who are disproportionately more likely to have lower-than-average general intelligence or impulse control issues.
If policy dictates the purpose is to keep the criminal out of society until they are ready to rejoin it, then incarceration should be optimised for preparing them to return to society, and they should not be kept imprisoned any longer when they are ready. How to judge whether this has been accomplished is difficult, but the effectiveness of the methods can be empirically observed, principally by recidivism rates.
Note that the purpose of "punishment" is the only reason of these that cannot be empirically observed. It can justify just about any mistreatment, and doesn't, as far as I can tell, have any firm ethical justification except for the religious or pseudo-religious.
So even if it seems like a minor question, deciding the purpose of the criminal justice system is of the utmost importance and has wide-ranging policy implications.
Neither GP or I expressed a great deal of nuance, but I'd like to see a move away from sentencing being regarded as punishment. calls for a reply. It should absolutely be regarded as a punishment. It's just that we are damn fools if that's all we use it for.
Yeah, I said Neither GP or I expressed a great deal of nuance because I didn't expect much disagreement. It's just the phrase you used is an unfortunate way to express the thought, because we should always keep in mind the harsh part of it, and it sort of sets it aside.
The punishment should be incidental, not the point. Our justice system is punishment-first, when it really should be correction-first.
I don't think anyone is arguing that convicted criminals don't deserve to be punished, just that punishing them shouldn't be the primary goal of our justice system.
Oh, but we but we still call prisons "correctional facilities". They're not, but we like euphemisms that make us feel better. The language permeates the entire justice system - parole boards speak of "rehabilitation". So at least at some level we already like to believe that we're doing this "for their own good" - we don't like to confront the retributive impulses that really drive the system. So it's unfortunately not a question of dispassionately debating whether "punishment-based justice" or "rehabilitative justice" works better - the answer to that is obvious. It's a question of forcing people to face up to the uglier parts of themselves.
I haven't seen any evidence that making things as miserable as possible for inmates reduces recidivism or crime rates. It's simply being mean, and being mean should have no place in our criminal justice system.
A small example of public's attitude can be seen in prison rape jokes, both in real life casually and in media/movies. Most people just look at cons as less than humans, even the non-violent ones. And then we have media "personalities" like Nancy Grace who make a mockery of the system.
Yes, and the fact that in common culture there is a belief that the prison system itself will punish the especially vile offenders. The acceptance and expectation that we can give a child molester a prison sentence so the prison population can kill him is demented. But it seems we routinely give them an official slap on the wrist, then with a wink and a nod we turn the other way and say "do what you will". If child molestation deserves the death sentence, then our system of government should do it outright, instead of relying on the undercurrents of justice.
Consider that these people do not have reliable information sources for what the justice system is really like. They watch the nightly news which recounts the arrests of murderers and thieves of various stripes. They watch Law and Order which shows the elements of the justice system working hard to get and keep the bad guys behind bars, and big showy trials where weeks are spent on determining one person's guilt or innocence. That's generally the extent of the public's interaction with the justice system.
What doesn't get shown is that the judge spends 3 minutes looking at your case and passes a mostly-arbitrary sentence. They don't show that you get crammed into a courtroom and forced to wait 5 hours before your case is heard. They don't show that lawyers are more than happy to let you rot if you can't forward them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that many public defenders consider their cases a total joke (or that many private attorneys frequently blow off their smaller clients). They don't show technicians more considered with linguistic niggles than a moral and fair outcome.
Things like Making a Murderer (which had to be shown on Netflix, not a major broadcaster) are helping to break the trance, but there's still a long way to go.
Americans have been thoroughly programmed by the elite for decades. We have to undo it and try to show reality, not the flashy Hollywood-style rendition of events. Most people are sympathetic and helpful if they truly understand what's going on.
Making a Murderer was great - I assume you have seen the news on the case?
I think Netflix is now probably a major broadcaster. Don't forget their international reach.
We need to teach real self sufficient skills in schools. Such as financial education, physical and emotional well-being. And we need to get successful ppl on front of the kids. Many do not respect teachers bc they're not viewed as financially successful or independent. This will help engage young ppl and help them feel as one with the rest of the world with their freedom intact instead of on a corporate conveyor belt to identity politics hell.
The majority of people jailed/sent to prison in this country are due to drug possession charges. The majority of violent offenders are generally in the drug business. Without these two the prisons would be half full and the courts able to keep up.
I had a friend who ended up with a drug related charge. When bailing them out, the bondsman, who was a conservative, ex cop, hardened and huge, told me how my friend was lucky to get the judge they got.
There were three judges in that court and one was known to be particularly rough. A defendant (drug charges, heroin) was asking for bail to be set, had secured a bed in a locked down rehab facility and the judge denied his bond. The bondsman said he had never seen someone leave the courtroom so broken.
Here is a case where a man acknowledges his crime, says he will do his time but wants more than anything to get clean. And securing a bed in a lock down rehab facility, besides being expensive, is not easy. Here is a case where the state had every interest in sending the man to rehab, even to save the cost of housing them in a jail, but the system doesn't care. The DA, the judge, don't care. Bail denied because the man had missed a hearing due to being in another jail after being picked up on the street with dope.
The bondsman said he sees this kind of thing every day. It was the rule, not the exception. People are just cycled in and out of the system. The addict will get locked up, released and locked up again.
I've observed the criminal justice system at work in Texas a few times. A murder case, some misdemeanors, a few felonies. I've seen it from arrest to prison life.
It is a dark and deeply depressing thing. There is little compassion for victims, the accused, the convicted. I could write a thousand words but it pains me to think about it.
I pray I never get falsely accused of a crime and I'm so glad I'm not black. If all the boring white folk who couldn't fathom finding themselves so much as suspected of a crime had to go through the criminal justice system as the average YBM the system would be massively overhauled yesterday.
Most of the boring white folk I know think everyone in jail is a cold blooded psychopath who works out all day and dreams of stabbing people... "hardened criminal".
The system is just full of unlucky humans. God knows I did shit in my youth I could still be in prison for. The extremely violent type are actually quite rare.
My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment. The big difference I have observed, independent of race, wealth, etc. is that people who have criminal records tend to "go off" while others do not. Otherwise it may as well be the same person.
> My observation is that most criminals fall into a category that would be solved with "impulse control" pills and/or better mental health treatment.
You don't even have to go that far. "Impulse control" is the big one. Several inner city social programs were all about getting people to simply think for a moment before doing things like killing someone for "disrespect". It's really surprising how strong the taboo for killing people is and how well it asserts itself if you just give it a moment to kick in.
I am always surprised when I (very often though) hear/read "normal" people, generally meaning good, who think that there are two separate kinds of individuals, the "we" and the "them"; who cannot fathom that all of "us" may slide slowly or fall suddenly into the "them" category.
Just to be clear, I thought everyone has a capacity for murder and other crimes.
Fixing 'them' may also involves fixing 'us' since crimes also occur in the context of our social environment. Think of prosecutors and the police. They are driven by incentive and cognitive bias to commit gross miscarriage of justice and get away with it.
In order to do that, you have to know humanity on an uncomfortably and dangerous deep level.
No. People who are middle of the road, don't take risks, don't hang out with odd characters, people who have zero chance of getting mixed up in something stupid.
If you're doing anything interesting, there's a good chance that you'll end up in a courtroom, either criminal or civil.
Tons of tech businesses are built on the back of open disregard for intellectual property and tech access laws. It just takes the wrong combination of events to get hauled in for that. Look at Aaron Swartz, whose conviction proceeded purely based on Carmen Ortiz's desire to get a cybercrime prosecution on her resume.
The truth is that a good deal of the work that HN users are likely to get involved in could be considered criminal because of unfair laws like the CFAA, DMCA, and the Copyright Act, all of which prescribe criminal penalties.
There are other laws that stalk startups and businessmen, ranging from tax law to esoteric industry regulations. If a businessman makes the wrong person mad, he could easily end up locked in jail. Martin Shkreli is another good example of this -- a few days after he made the news and pissed everyone off, the SEC filed an indictment. They did that because it's easy to accuse anyone who's done anything slightly out of the ordinary of crimes. This really has almost nothing to do with the person's moral fortitude or the harm they've caused in the world, except insofar as you believe that people in authority are unwilling to target innocent people (true pretty often, but not often enough).
> If you're doing anything interesting, there's a good chance that you'll end up in a courtroom, either criminal or civil.
Funny you put it that way... I made this account to tell about the time I tried to protect my girlfriend from the mental health system. The hospital wouldn't let her go, so I went to the superior court and got a hearing. The commissioner looked into the matter and ruled that my girlfriend's detention by the hospital was not legal, and ordered the hospital to let her go.
I should have called the police to accompany me to retrieve my girlfriend from the hospital's illegal custody. I got attacked by one of the security guards, who I'd later learn knew exactly what to say to the responding police officer because he was a retired cop himself. I got arrested, and my girlfriend was sent to be professionally misdiagnosed and mistreated by the system.
That was last September. I'm going back to the courts next week to ask for another hearing. I have looked at the laws regarding compulsory mental health, and have found several that are not being complied with or respected.
But... Someone I respect told me soon after I was arrested that... "missionaries get eaten by cannibals." The system perpetuates itself.
I basically follow the law, on par with other folks that follow the law. I've never had a ticket even, though I've gotten pulled over. In the states, I worked in a pharmacy. They do background checks per federal regulation. Etc. I've generally found it would be bad to get in trouble for stuff, even when I disagree with the laws and/or punishments.
I also have blue hair (the color changes from time to time). That means that unless I'm established in an area, I'm a target. I'm in my late 30's and get followed around for theft in stores and have been most my life. Even if I'm dressed professionally. I've stopped in McDonalds where cops have stopped and gotten followed out of town. Some employers would have fired me for my hair or never given me a chance. I'm likely to get searched at airports (and have, once for bombs because of artists pastels). Luckily I'm living in a different country now, and though there is a bias, it doesn't hold me back nearly as much there.
What boring white folks really means is: People that look and act like the average white folks for the area, and are into the average things (or at least what can be observed). People that fit in place and aren't on the fringes.
(I don't find Kozinski and Tseytlin's original in a brief search, though it should be out there. Very much worth reading, and helpful to consider that federal law isn't the only possible risk.)
“Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.”
Biologically, risk taking when things are going well is a bad characteristic. Risk taking when things are going badly is probably a good characteristic. So I think you over value risk taking without any other considerations.
I never understood the concept of "plea bargain" in the USA that comes up in the article. Either somebody is guilty and should be convicted by a judge or they are not guilty and should have the chance for a fair trial. I can see that there are situations where they can be useful but they seem to be the norm instead of being used in certain, limited situations. Scaring somebody into pleading guilty for a lesser sentence is simply unfair and in my eyes undemocratic.
What I never got isn't how plea bargains are treated differently than bribing a witness. You're paying the witness (defendant) in the form of a lesser punishment to possibly commit PERJURY by admitting to doing something they didn't in a court of law. Just because the bribe isn't with currency doesn't mean it's not a bribe. And even ignoring that fact, it's still perjury. How is that legal?
And before someone says it's similar to pleading not guilty when you are guilty, AFAIK, a plea bargain is different; It's an admission of guilt, not a declaration of guilt. Declaration != admission.
In my younger days, I was offered a plea bargain to plead nolo contendre (no contest, as in "I do not contest the charge nor do I admit guilt") to a lesser charge in exchange for: probation, adjudication withheld (no conviction on my record) and, once probation was served, record expungement.
I got the impression it was because the state's attorney felt I would best learn my lesson with that outcome than the otherwise mandatory sentence for the crime with which I was originally charged — non-violent, mind you; it was a bounced check. Yes, really.
So in some cases, plea bargaining is a "way out" of otherwise too-harsh sentencing. Yes, the sentencing guidelines should be overhauled, but in today's legislative climate, the path of least resistance is simply to allow the prosecution the flexibility to charge a defendant with a lesser crime.
The prosecution already has the flexibility to decline to prosecute. They shouldn't prosecute anyone who doesn't deserve to be punished. In theory, it's an important check on the legal system, but in practice, it turns out attorneys like being employed, so they make work for themselves.
I guess here the point was that here we had someone who deserved to be punished. But a slap on the wrist was a more appropriate punishment than putting the person in jail - and at the same time, not prosecuting wasn't appropriate either.
Plea bargains should be illegal. The state cannot only afford to take a small percentage of cases to trial, so there's an institutional imperative to force people to take pleas, which they do by overcharging.
Just from a purely game theory perspective, as a defendant you can easily find yourself in a position where it's stupid to reject the bargain even if you're innocent.
I have some family friends, and their son recently got arrested for a felony drug dealing charge at the end of his spring semester at college. From what I understand, the police built this whole sting to catch the guy at his school mailbox when he got his shipment from whatever Silk Road's current successor is. Anyway, he confessed everything and now he's just waiting around, unable to get a job because interviewers invariably ask why he stopped school. Apparently having a job really helps in these cases.
Anyway, they remarked one day on the phone, "we've never dealt with criminal Court, and we don't know anything about it, except the lawyer doesn't sound very optimistic. The only hope we have is because the system is so racist that being middle class and white might actually save us."
They also said something about how the police were pushing some angle about using Tor. I'm very concerned about that: I can just picture the ghost story that the prosecutors are going to tell some septuagenarian judge about this special internet for terrorists and arms dealers.
I was shocked at the casual racism emanating from the bench. The judge explained a “stay away” order to a Hispanic defendant by saying that if the complainant calls and invites you over for “rice and beans,” you cannot go. She lectured some defendants that most young men “with names like yours” have lengthy criminal records by the time they reach a certain age.
Thereby instantly disqualifying herself from the privilege of serving on the bench. Ample grounds for impeachment, by any reasonable standard.
Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is to actually impeach a judge, only fifteen(15) Federal judges have been successfully impeached in the entire history of the United States.[1]
Shouldn't have to be so drastic as impeachment; it would be enough that judges and other staff are watched and their performance reviewed. This judge clearly should get a stern warning that racism will not be tolerated. Repeat offenders should simply be fired. They are employees that have superiors after all.
Nope, federal judges are not "employees that have superiors" they are civil officers of the united states whose appointments are approved by the Senate. Impeachment is the only way to 'fire' a federal judge. I suppose the plus side of this is that the government can't fire them for political reasons or because they don't like their judgements. Without impeachment anyway. A federal judge does not have a 'superior'.
Thanks for that explanation. Sounds completely broken if only 15 were ever impeached (assuming a lot more than 15 were likely bad apples).
Even a short clip of obvious racism should result in impeachment as you can't be fit to serve as a judge if you don't consider everyone equal.
Judges should be hard to replace (see e.g Turkey right now) - but peer review based bonuses or some kind of measure to get rid of bad behavior seems like a reasonable compromise.
Uh, I think you have a deep misunderstanding of how the Government is meant to work here. The Judicial is a branch of Government on-par with Legislative and Executive that is intentionally meant to be sovereign from public influence except for limited checks and balances by the other branches. Opinions like yours are the exact reason why.
The idea that anyone who ever utters anything that could possibly be interpreted as being slightly racist should be burned at the stake is just one political fad among many others that have came and went over the years. As well as the Gestapo-like idea that anybody who offers any resistance to the idea that anybody deemed to be racist must be burnt at the stake should also be burnt at the stake. And the primary reason why judges cannot be removed easily is to protect them from political fads exactly like that. If you deem that your favorite fad is "special" somehow, then the next one will be as well, and the next one too, and that protection becomes worthless.
And that quoted statement is not obvious racism. It was condescending and insulting, but not racist, except in the most mild sense. Actually racist would be "I am sentencing you to an extra 5 years because you are Hispanic, and Hispanics cannot control their impulses".
> She lectured some defendants that most young men “with names like yours” have lengthy criminal records by the time they reach a certain age.
I think that's pretty obvious racism. By "with names like yours", we agree she means Latinos, right? I think it's racist to say in court that most Latinos have lengthy criminal records, and the judge probably knows it or they wouldn't have used the (totally transparent and pro forma) euphemism "with names like yours."
By "with names like yours", we agree she means Latinos, right?
Well, no. When I read the article the first time, I presumed she was talking about Black non-Hispanic Americans with Africanized names. Re-reading, I see that this wasn't stated either, but I still read "some defendants" as contrasting rather amplifying the previous use of "a Hispanic defendant". It's possible you are right, but it's far from "pretty obvious".
The Bronx is sufficiently multicultural that I'm sure there are groups I've scarcely heard of who have widely held prejudices against groups that I'd never even guess. I think you, and I, and probably everyone who wasn't in that courtroom are reading things into the account based on our own preconceptions. Racism is one explanation, and likely at least partially present, but I don't think there is any way to know how from this short account how much of a role it plays.
For example, what race do you picture the "racist" judge as? Would it alter your verdict of racism if she herself was Black, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Jewish? What about the court officers laughing at the "young man" with his pants around his ankles? I don't know, but I wouldn't be startled if both the humiliators and humiliated belt-less defendant were all of African origin, or Spanish speaking, or both.
And what about the "85-pound drug addict who was arrested because she was in a park after hours" or the "pale, slight, and visibly anxious" woman there for a protective order? Is there any reason to presume that judge's lack of sympathy for either of these two was because race? As the old joke goes, does it count as racial prejudice you hate all minorities equally?
So no, it's not "obvious racism", unless we start by assuming that racism is the only reason that one person would mistreat another. I mean, doesn't proof of "racism" at least require showing that the judge treats members of one race better than those of another? Is there any evidence of this in the story? If not, why do we call it "racism" rather than "prejudice", or just "hate"?
Would it alter your verdict of racism if she herself was Black, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Jewish?
Not at all.
I mean, doesn't proof of "racism" at least require showing that the judge treats members of one race better than those of another? Is there any evidence of this in the story? If not, why do we call it "racism" rather than "prejudice", or just "hate"?
Whether she's certifiably "racist" or not is a red herring. The point is that she's obviously biased against defendants based on family origin and language background (and incredibly condescending, to boot). Which are both attributes manifestly incompatible with her job description.
>> Would it alter your verdict of racism if she herself
>> was Black, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Jewish?
>
> Not at all.
Could you walk me through that? I don't see how an accusation of "racism" can have meaning unless we care about the races of the parties involved. For example, if I were to declare that it is obvious that the judge acts they way she does because she is "sexist", wouldn't you want to know the sexes of the judge and the defendants before deciding whether the accusation is true? And at least one example of how the judge treated a male differently than a female? Perhaps you feel that "racism" and "prejudice" are synonyms at this point, and that it's pedantic to differentiate them?
> Whether she's certifiably "racist" or not is a red herring.
Yes, and if it's a red herring --- a false clue designed to distract and mislead the reader --- why should we let the accusation stand just because the subject has other shortcomings? How does this improve the situation for future defendants?
Sure, the judge probably holds racial prejudices, and these probably influence some of her behavior in the courtroom. But I'd wager though that there are many other factors involved, and one of them (economic prejudice, overwork and burn-out, ignorance and stupidity, simple lack of compassion) is playing a larger role, and that a correct diagnosis is the first step to improvement. I'm not excusing the judge's behavior, I'm claiming that putting false blame on racism is a distraction from the real issues (whatever they might be).
Edit: Here's a couple other articles about the author, Judge Shelley Chapman:
> I were to declare that it is obvious that the judge acts they way she does because she is "sexist", wouldn't you want to know the sexes of the judge and the defendants before deciding whether the accusation is true?
Defendants? Yes. Judge? No. The sex of the actor is irrelevant in determining whether their actions demonstrate systematic bias against a particular sex in their judicial decisions.
(There are situations where the sex of the judge might be interesting in discussing the sexism once it was established, but not in determining if it exists.)
I carefully avoided saying that it wouldn't be sexism if the sexes were the same. At least, I tried to, although perhaps I edited badly. I started out with a longer example including reference to the US Census's definition of Hispanic as an ethnicity rather than a race and including North African's as White, but decided it was too confusing and ended up "wouldn't you want to know".
(There are situations where the sex of the judge might be interesting in discussing the sexism once it was established, but not in determining if it exists.)
Yes, and not only for discussing, but to have any reasonable chance of working toward a solution. I think the "fix" almost certainly depends on the cause of the prejudice, which I think almost certainly depends on the sexes of the parties.
Similarly, with "racism", mutatis mutandis.
But that's the question, right? What stays the same, and what changes? And in this case, do you think that "racism" is a helpful diagnosis?
> Well, no. When I read the article the first time, I presumed she was talking about Black non-Hispanic Americans with Africanized names.
Okay, still racist.
> For example, what race do you picture the "racist" judge as? Would it alter your verdict of racism if she herself was Black, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Jewish?
Not much.
> As the old joke goes, does it count as racial prejudice you hate all minorities equally?
One young man’s arraignment was particularly unnerving: The ADA noted that the defendant’s “street name” is “Guns and Butter,” and then proceeded to refer to the young man not as “the defendant” or by his given name, but rather as “Mr. Guns and Butter.” The judge made a thinly veiled attempt to hide her giggles, while the court officers made no attempt whatsoever to subdue their outright laughter.
So I just looked up "Guns and Butter" to try to understand why someone might have this nickname. To my surprise, the phrase is originally a reference to a macroeconomic model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_versus_butter_model
The guns versus butter model is an example of
a simple production–possibility frontier. It
demonstrates the relationship between a nation's
investment in defense and civilian goods.
I wonder if any of the people giggling in the courtroom knew any of these references, or whether they were just laughing at the guy. I wonder if they would have cared. I wonder if the defendant himself even knew why people called him "Guns and Butter". I hope so.
I didn't refer to the quotes from the article as being that racist, I meant that there are likely examples of times when a judge has acted less than ideally - but not bad enough for impeachment.
Racism isn't a political fad though - it's contrary to the idea that everyone is equal under the law. That is a theme that is at least as central to democracy as the separation between judicial and legislative.
Just like you say the judicial branch must be well protected and no kind of political influence can exist.
This is why peer review could work. If a judge is condescending and insulting something has to go. The protection of the judicial from the legislative is important but not important enough that one can shrug at judges that can't do their jobs.
Who is the 'superior' that can fire a senator or congressperson? A president?
Which isn't to say the system can't be reviewed. Perhaps theoretically we could imagine some system of peer review that would be useful. But it's crucial that judges have political independence and can't get fired for making unpopular rulings or rulings not liked by those in power.
"Bonuses"? Judges don't get bonuses. And I have trouble imagining any system of 'bonuses' for judges that would steer clear of encouraging politically (in any sense of the word) motivated rulings.
Although the judges in this article actually _weren't_ federal judges, were they?
Personally I don't think that snarky comments should be grounds for impeachment. What's important is what's happening, not that the judge says "rice and beans" instead of "sandwiches". Let's keep our priorities straight, lest we get our fill of accomplishment by controlling others' speech instead of improving conduct.
Sure, and what's happening is many many criminal defendents are not getting just due process.
It so happens that there is a correlation (not universal, but a correlation) with race and whether you get fair treatment in court though. I think it actually goes beyond judges just 'not liking' black people or latinos though, it's an issue of the structure of our society, not just bigotry in judges. But those bigoted comments from judges do give a hint that this is certainly not something that has nothing to do with race.
With the information given, I can't see how you reach that conclusion? Being invited for rice and beans is quite common in some cultures, just as being invited for coffee and cake is in others. It is obviously an example the judge thought would make it clear for the person upon whom the restrictions were placed: "This is no longer for either of you to decide - be careful so you don't get set up."
About the names: It could be nicknames, it could be names common in a militant (i.e. political) subculture. There is no information what was meant - only the conclusion that it was racist.
About the physical standards of the building, and the assembly line of verdicts: That is something to fix!
(Also this clumsy confusion of 'pen' for 'pentitentiary' and 'pen' for 'farm animal enclosure' should be corrected with a new sign.)
>Even I, as a bankruptcy judge, know that the point of bail is supposed to be simply to ensure that a person will return to court.
That is the point of posting bail, but that is not the standard of granting a defendant the right to post bail/bond.
The standard is more along the lines of: a) is the defendant a flight risk; and b) does the defendant present a danger to the community.
As to b) it is not simply enough that the charges are non-violent, which seemed to shock this Judge. For example, DUI while not a violent crime generally one eligible for bail/bond by default, may not be granted if, say, it is the 3rd or 4th DUI. Or if say the defendant was already out on bail/bond and picked up a new charge, a Judge may revoke the bail/bond on the 1st crime. I'm not claiming this is always how it works and the decisions are always just, but I just want to give a little more perspective.
As to the shock of the state of the courthouse, only a Federal Judge would find that shocking. Don't get me wrong it's a pleasure to practice in a gorgeous Federal Courthouse, complete with grand marble accents, but I'm of the opinion those types of luxuries are a waste of tax payer dollars.
My friend gave me a tour of the Supreme Court the other day. Apparently, each quadrant of the building is made with marble sources from the corresponding regions of the US, and the marble in the main courtroom is Italian. My first reaction was that that this building would never get built today.
But I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. I think it's necessary symbolism. The rule of law works because we collectively agree to abide by the rulings of people who don't even have guns. Which is really incredible if you think about it: only in an advanced civilized society like ours can a tiny octogenarian woman like Justice Ginsberg wield the kind of power she does. The fancy marble edifices are part of how we express that collective commitment.
That is one gorgeous building. I have been twice and done official tours, I imagine a private tour is quite special.
I have practiced in both Federal and Court courthouses in Florida, and have been fortunate enough to do the same pro hac vice in a few States. I have seen plenty of Nice County Courts (Palm Beach County is like a mirror image to a Federal Courthouse, though the rooms themselves are not comparable) and some very poor ones too, but I have never seen a poor Federal Courthouse, though they likely exist too.
I guess part of my post is just imagining a NY Federal Judge's reaction entering a poor County Courthouse. While your position on necessary symbolism is well received (and I agree), I also think if, say, Bankruptcy Courts were removed from the Federal Courthouse and placed in County Courthouses (even poor ones) it would have little if any impact on the authority and function of that institution. Certainly I wouldn't extend that suggestion to the SCOTUS, though I would probably be intimidated by the bench no matter where they sat.
> only in an advanced civilized society like ours can a tiny octogenarian woman like Justice Ginsberg wield the kind of power she does
Wu Zetian was the formally-crowned emperor of China at the age of 80 years old in 704. Hatshepsut was the formally-crowned king of Egypt at the age of 50 (she died at 51) in 1459 BC.
The most powerful position, king, actually appears to be much more open to women than lesser positions do, historically. I tend to think that's because people really, really don't want power struggles.
> Don't get me wrong it's a pleasure to practice in a gorgeous Federal Courthouse, complete with grand marble accents, but I'm of the opinion those types of luxuries are a waste of tax payer dollars.
I completely agree that elaborately ornamented and luxurious buildings are a waste of money. However, it sounds like the courthouse in the Bronx was not just plain and simple, but instead actually decrepit and hostile. You don't have to spend a lot of taxpayer money to have public buildings that are clean and pleasant. (Not that you would necessarily disagree, based on your comment, just adding my own couple of cents).
To me, it sounded from the description like the place was built in the brutalist style and then (as seems to be inevitable for brutalist architecture) degenerated from "imposing" to "dank and oppressive" with lack of proper maintenance.
I have to disagree with the idea that brutality buildings inevitably degenerate into dank and oppressive. Those qualities are almost always orthogonal to style. Usually they have to do with pretty much universally bad design moves, like limited natural light, confusing circulation, and cheap finishes. Of course, poor maintenance can make almost any building pretty dank before too long.
We don't need marble stairs, but treating people like animals is not the answer either. You seem to gloss over those points of the article (which is to say, the main point).
Half my post was dedicated to one of the issue of treatment the Federal Judge took to issue, denying bail. The only reason I comment on that was because I wanted to expand upon it, because it may not necessarily be as egregious as the Judge thinks, but we don't know bc the facts of that case were omitted.
Obviously I don't need to sound off as an echo chamber, racism/off color remarks have no place in the court. That said I also went to law school and read SCOTUS opinions openly referring to African-Americans in ways that would make any decent person shudder. In my own experience, practicing in South Florida, I see similar comments regularly in the Court. Then again in my time I have also filed Motions for Fraud against prosecutors and lodged formal complaints against prisons guards (one example, an immigration detention center guard called my client a "bitch" in front of me and my client suffered from a chromosome issue that mad him look like a women).
There are some other things that might sound bad to lay persons, and maybe were, but are quite normal and not necessarily egregious or inhuman. For example, a judge engaging in small talk with prosecutors/PDs or bailiffs is not unusual or necessarily a bad thing either.
>Don't get me wrong it's a pleasure to practice in a gorgeous Federal Courthouse, complete with grand marble accents, but I'm of the opinion those types of luxuries are a waste of tax payer dollars.
It'll last almost forever. See POS city buildings or annexes built in the last ~50 years. At a certain point all of it will will rot. There's no need to paint marble. And no matter how much you paint drywall, it'll still need painting again eventually and there's a limit at which point it increasing looks like junk. Carpeted public places? Gross. Marble everywhere, nice and clean.
The marble does last, but the Federal Courthouses must be restored and renovate like anything else. For example, the Miami Federal Courthouse has been under renovation for what feels like more than 2 years now. That gorgeous masonry work on the outside/facades over time crack and end up breaking off. Maybe the Miami courthouse is just a poor example of good masonry work, but I'm pretty sure it's not unusual for the beautiful masonry in DC to have to continually be attended to in order to avoid continued and further damage.
I suppose, and I'm all in favor of cost/benefit analysis where it makes more sense to replace rock buildings with something modern with a fixed lifespan. We're sorta stuck with these buildings due in part to the era in which they were built, and that razing them would cost a lot also.
You don't have earthquakes and other geological excitement where you are I'm guessing. As much as I'd like more marble, the thought of its behaviour in an earthquake would make me less keen.
It sends a message about what we value. Lawyers wear suits and judges robes to impress upon everyone that what they do matters. A few marbel panels is a small price to raise people's respect for the law.
We decorate according to the import of the institution. Institutions that we value are ornately decorated, while institutions we would prefer to do without are hideous.
How many white men making more than, oh let's say, $70K a year get arrested for DUIs? I am confident the number is not insubstantial. How many get denied bail? I am confident the number is miniscule.
There are lots of studies showing racial disparities at all levels of the criminal justice process. I don't know if there are any of specificaly DUI's or even more specifically DUI bail. I would assume it is consistent, but if you have any studies feel free to share.
I think the scenario of a DUI being talked about was interesting, because in our stereotypes wealthy white men DUI plenty too. I think the statistics show that DUI is one of the few crimes that there is relatively little racial disparity in arrests, probably because it's a lot less subjective. I do know some white people who have been arrested for DUI, all of them were let out on affordable bail prior to trial, none of them served any prison time.
>Once the court officers caught their breath from laughing, they barked at him, “Where is your belt?” Of course, it was taken from him in the lockup, he said.
I don't like to watch crime/legal drama and even I know this. How does someone who work in the legal system as a day job not notice this?
The writer's implication is that officers of the court knew in advance that his belt had been taken from him, and simply enjoyed humiliating people who they consider beneath them. It's akin to arresting someone for getting blood on your uniform after you beat them: http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/348010247/in-ferguson-mo-befor....
What background are you from that allows you to presume ignorance is more likely than malice? Are you perhaps from a more civilized country where those in power don't use petty humiliation to assert their superiority? Or were you employing some sort of subtle trolling humor that flies over the heads of us Americans?
I completely missed the implication that it was out of malice. My naive self wasn't able to, and still can't, imagine an officer of the court deriving pleasure from humiliating someone like that. I would be so screwed if I ever end up on the wrong end of the American criminal justice system.
We need a better accountability system for judges. Even for those judges who are elected, the public is usually not meaningfully informed about the judge's performance.
It would be cool to live stream every courtroom in the US continually. Then we can visit and watch any court we wanted and actually make some meaningful comparisons that aren't based on hersay.
I don't really know for sure, of course, but I'd guess that almost all of these live streams would be incredibly boring. A few then would be interesting. But wouldn't it require changes to laws in many places? I understand that currently you can't even take photographs in courtroom in many jurisdictions?
I was hoping to read about that at the end of the article too. Or, it would have been nice if the author suggested something actionable we average citizens can do to improve the situation.
After reading this article, I have to wonder if the criminal court system is under funded and overworked. I think America's core institutions have been under decay for some time now.
As far as I can tell, the point of view of that 'deconstruction' is "Yeah, criminal court is totally fucked up, but we're used to it, what you think you're better than us because it's still shocking to you? fuck you elitist!"
I'm sure lawyers and judges look up and down at each other with elitism, and they can take that up among themselves or whatever. But this "too cynical to be outraged at a really fucked up system" stuff helps nobody, and is just it's own kind of pretentiousness, directed at the rest of us.
i must say, though i was in people's court once trying to get my security deposit back from my landlady, which is by definition the lowest level court in the land, i too have many apprehensions about the "fairness" of the judicial system in america. that's not to say that my 1 incident should be representative of the entire judicial system, as i still believe that there are lots of excellent examples of upstanding individuals, probably more so than bad ones, but the judicial system is powered by people and their interpretation of the law, and though with some checks and balances, people having unconscious biases and tend to work these around the system, just like her example of guns and butter, no one's going to penalize that judge for this and she knows it.
my particular case was in quincy, mass, i remember the faces of the judge, deputy, and clerk that waited to put my case towards the very end after about 10 cases and all other people had left, behind closed doors, seemed i didnt understand much about the system back then, but this was an arbitration, under the guise of a court order to reappear for an appeal. the landlady, a chinese national, had lost the claim originally and had ninety days to appeal, she appealed after 138 days, and the court ordered me to show up with an official court summons. in looking back, i should not have showed up, i had no need to show up, this was over a measely 700-900 usd if i recall correctly. and the way the judge, clerk, and deputy nodded their heads in contempt of me as i spoke my case was so planned and orchestrated that in my mind i decided that this was useless and to go ahead and tear up the check that she was asked to pay me for my security deposit after the first decision which i hadnt even cashed because it was never about the money.
if these are the shenanigans in the lowest of courts, i wonder what things are like in the upper courts. my lesson from that day was 2 fold, try your best never to go the legal route, and the american system, although perfect in many ways, still cannot provide perfect justice.
Some of the modern courthouses reduce the courthouse violence problem with a "triple entrance" system, one for all the court personal, a second for defendants briefly released from county jail, and a third for public witnesses and spectators. You dont have the hallway encounters between the three parties you had in older facilities.
I wonder if that has something to do with the different level of 'leniency' which is accorded in bankruptcy cases versus criminal cases.
My gut tells me that white-collar transgressions will always be punished less often (and less severely) than outright blue collar crime.
It sounds like the bankrupcy judge who wrote the article is surprised by the fact that the justice system actually punishes people for doing bad stuff.
Maybe it's not the criminal justice system which is harsh - Maybe it's her who is too lenient with her own cases...
Perhaps you should read the article again. It is quite clear that she is dismayed by the blatantly pro-prosecution behaviour, guilty-until-proven-innocent bail hearings and plea bargaining, and the racially coloured nature of discourse. At no point is sentencing even discussed, and no punishment is dispensed (these are first appearances), so your contention is completely unsupported.
I agree with every fact you make here, but I don't see how that disproves my statement. I didn't mention anything about sentencing - I used the term 'leniency' in a general way; as the tendency to view defendants as innocent.
Also, I'm not saying that the criminal courts are doing it right - I'm saying that maybe we have two extremes and the ideal justice system operates somewhere in the middle.
I can't stand that self-righteous legal crap about 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' - In my books, if you can't prove something mathematically, it's not proof - In effect, you can never really prove anything in a legal context - In reality, everything is always judged "on the balance of probability".
Well, despite your view that considering those accused as innocent is lenient, the burden of proof falling on the accuser is in fact a core tenet of common law justice (and supported by the 5th, 6th and 8th amendments to the Constitution). And if someone accused you of wrongdoing you would see the value in that.
Humouring your dislike of such judicial proofs, it is reasonable to view the system of justice as a series of ever more precise and expensive diagnostic tests. At all stages there is a desire to finalise the proceeding to reduce the bill for enforcing the law, with the dual goals of (A) not letting too many innocents be shafted or (B) too many guilty walk.
Many would argue that the current system is broken. I doubt the fix is just fair trials, because most of the defendants are indeed guilty. It is related to lack of opportunity, a predilection for jailing people for minor offences rather than rehabilitating them, and systemic racism.
This is what bothers me so much about the Trump campaign. Even though he'll probably lose, he's helped legitimize the kind of speech and attitude this judge demonstrates.
I'm hoping there's a strong enough backlash that this kind of speech and attitude gets called out more often. I hope the long-term effect is not to make this judge's behavior even more accepted.
What this article describes is much worse than anything Trump has done in his campaign. It's one thing to engage in "hateful" speech on a podium to get people to like you, and an entirely different thing to do so in official government capacity, directed at specific individuals, right at the moment when they are most vulnerable.
Trump is distasteful, maybe even dangerous, but this judge and the officers of the court are absolutely despicable.
That's true in a very technical sense that Trump is only spouting speech at this point. (And of course technically correct is the best kind.)
But it's worth pointing out that in his speech, Trump is promising extra-judicial murder of family members of terrorists and torture of suspected terrorists if he's made commander-in-chief. Were he able to actually implement these, it would actually be worse.
Trump's words are no different than the reality of what's been done by the past 2~3 presidents. The important difference now is that the torture, etc., is a campaign promise rather than something the administration was ashamed of.
Normally, after your arrest, you have to have a hearing within 24-48 hours, but if they arrest you on a Friday as they did me, they are allowed to detain you for an extra day because it's the weekend. I'm sure this is a tactic used often to frighten and goad people. My hearing was exactly as the judge in this article describes. There were lots of minor, non violent offenders in the court room with me, most minorities, and many couldn't speak English well at all. The judge would openly mock them and condescend. One man obviously had no idea what he was even pleading to because his English was so poor.
Once I got to higher court for my actual sentencing, it was no different. The judge didn't even read my case and the clerk forgot to have it presented and available for the judge to review. My lawyer had to give him her own copy which he briefly skimmed without adjournment. I later discovered that the prosecuting attorney was good friends with the plaintiff and the investigating FBI officer assigned to my case.
The courts in America are a joke, the legal system is in bad need of an overhaul. I couldn't believe the level of incompetence, racism, bias and prejudice existed there.