A major winning strategy of the last hundred years or so is the "law and order" platform, in which the politicians exploit racism, classism and even ageism to provoke fear of violent crime. The politician promises that they will increase arrest rates, win trials, and impose higher sentences in order to protect the [white, middle-class, elderly] citizens from the [black or hispanic, lower-class, teenaged] hoodlums.
And they win, and they put these policies into effect.
Do they work? Well, they work at getting the politicians re-elected, and that's the only real success criterion.
It turns out that if you ask Americans what to do about most issues, and you phrase the questions in non-aggressive ways, and you invoke empathy -- they mostly agree that treating people kindly is important. That innocence should be an absolute defense. That everyone should get necessary health care, and nobody should starve or be cripplingly poor. That people should work if they can, but not be abandoned if they can't.
But those positions are not very effective for the media and politicians, so they go with what works for their goals instead.
and this is a success story. A man is free to walk after 414 days of jail because some enlightened new procedure that allows innocent people be set free before trial. Somehow reading all this I just cannot help but stare at the this number: 414. Before a trial [1].
Can this happen to anyone or do you have to enjoy a particular socio-economic situation to deserve this treatment?
[1] http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/murder-c...
E.g. you can get life in prison for 3 "strikes", even if it's for something like stealing cookies. You know, the thing Europe derided back in 19th century with Jean Valjean.
A 15 year old can be sentenced to death (and has).
A man that's later proven innocent can rot in jail for decades without much recourse.
The 5% of the world's population have 25% of the world's prisoners.
...
I sat on a jury once for a car thief. He totally did it, the police detective who testified was very thorough and professional, plus the accused did not dispute that he'd been caught driving the stolen car (he blamed someone else for the actual theft) but we listened to both sides and deliberated for a couple hours, considering everything. There was a lot of solid evidence, I am certain he did it even though I'm sceptical about what the police say (I have absolutely seen them lie under oath on multiple occasions). I am well aware of the concept of jury nullification.
We were a little confused why the guy didn't take a plea deal and went to trial but we took the job of jury seriously and after looking at the evidence we were comfortable saying he was guilty. The problem was that we had no idea this was the guy's 'third strike' and the judge mentioned this only a moment before sentencing him to life imprisonment. Several on the jury were clearly surprised by this and I think had we known it may have changed our verdict.
The defendant was a young man, and I am not convinced that sending him to prison for several decades for stealing a car (which was recovered undamaged) is of any benefit to society. Being on a jury means you are definitely not going to see the 'big picture' and when combined with mandatory minimum sentencing, this can be a problem.
> Piper says that though they know these kinds of tests can be unreliable, being confronted with the chance to take one can filter out disingenuous defendants. Regardless of the results of the test - which are inadmissible at trial due to issues with the reliability of the technology - the assistant state's attorney (ASA) in charge of the case would also perform a "de novo" or "from the beginning" review of all the evidence.
So basically, the polygraph is a bluff.
No, it's not.
The point is that polygraphs are utter nonsense, at about the same level as reading tea leaves. Had she failed the polygraph, she'd still be prosecuted. No judicial process should have a decision point that is stochastic by design.
So basically does that mean that although they don't trust the polygraph, they trust the defendant's trust in the polygraph? That seems shaky and subject to change.
They've publicly admitted that their test will have its result ignored. Any lawyer will quickly learn this and tell their clients, "you might as well, even if you fail, even if you are actually guilty (two entirely unrelated variables), they will still revisit your case".
What a waste of time, money and credibility. And this is the new, improved system. And it truly does seem better than what went before it. The mind boggles to comprehend the brokeness of this.
It sounds ridiculous that "the defendant might actually be innocent" is something that hitherto was excluded in the process.
In Sweden you're entitled to compensation for:
* suffering (starting by default at $3700 for the first month, down to half per month after six months)
* loss of income (including sick pay, unemployment pay, etc)
* expenses (rent not compensated)
Source in Swedish: http://www.jk.se/ansokan/frihetsberovande/
In some extreme cases people who have been wrongfully convicted of e.g. murder and served many years in jail have received up to about two million USD.
How is that not a major issue for a media campaign or politicians of one flavour or another?
Sorry, no.
I support the use of force, including lethal force, on violent criminals when the public is in danger. I support the appropriate use of force otherwise. But in return for that support, there has to be some kind of feedback mechanism in place. I understand that workplace accidents happen, and nobody's perfect. But ruining somebody's life isn't the same as an IT worker forgetting his security badge one day. "Actual innocence" looks like a gimmick to make the poor rube you screwed over feel better, not evolve the system to a better state.
As bad as these stories are, my concern is for the next victim -- and the next thousand after that.
Man whoever thought of that is a fucking radical and needs to be stopped /s
Just a thought: if you're wrongly convicted, don't you have a possibility to get compensation ? But if you're case is just dismissed before even going to trial, does it mean that the authorities have no obligations to reimburse you any legal expense you might have had while planning for the worse?
So there is a difference between real innocence and "we-are-not-able-to-convict-him-but-we-think-he-is-guilty" innocence? And the prosecutor gets to decide?
Then why even bother with the due process? Why not let the prosecutor decide directly? /s
If the police doesn't have the right to search the house but does it anyway, it can now turn a person from "actually innocent" to "technically not convicted". Which is for some purposes halfway to a conviction. This means that police gets rewarded for doing wrongful searches.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...
"The ASA shall confirm that no other probative forensic testing can be conducted and that no other witnesses can be identified and interviewed," the protocol reads. "At the end of this review, if both the ASA and supervising ASA(s) either no longer believe there exists a moral certainty of the defendant's guilt or believe there no longer exists a reasonable likelihood of conviction, then the case shall be dismissed without prejudice."
So, basically: The defendant asserts they're innocent and are prepared to take a polygraph and there is insufficient evidence or no real prospect of prosecution anyway.
Yes, they filter out the ones who
- believe in polygraphs and
- believe they would fail
> According to a theory put forward by economics professor Peter Leeson, trial by ordeal may have been effective at sorting the guilty from the innocent. On the assumption that defendants were believers in divine intervention for the innocent, then only the truly innocent would choose to endure a trial; guilty defendants would confess or settle cases instead. Therefore, the theory goes, church and judicial authorities could routinely rig ordeals so that the participants—presumably innocent—could pass them. To support this theory, Leeson points to the great latitude given to the priests in administering the ordeal and interpreting the results of the ordeal. He also points to the overall high exoneration rate of accused persons undergoing the ordeal, when intuitively one would expect a very high proportion of people carrying a red hot iron to be badly burned and thus fail the ordeal.
This is exactly the same thing, but with an ordeal that poses no actual physical risk even without cheating by the officiator.
"The use of the ordeal in medieval England was very sensitive to status and reputation in the community."
Sounds like that part hasn't changed much.
That is a bad example of a frivolous lawsuit. The coffee in question was served much hotter than industry standard and they had been repeatedly warned that their coffee was dangerously hot. If you spill coffee on yourself, you expect to get burned. You don't expect it to instantly melt your flesh. They were very rightly held responsible for the extra damage that they caused by serving their coffee at a dangerously high temperature.
The article does not support that claim. It might be. But they also specifically acknoledge that polygraphs are unreliable and seem to use it mainly as a filter to deter people who are worried they might fail it, and in parallel they carry out a case review.
> No judicial process should have a decision point that is stochastic by design.
In an ideal world, no. But adding an extra decision point where the worst that can happen is that the prosecution that was going forward keeps going forward, and the best that can happen is that the case gets dropped without the ordeal of a trial sounds like a substantial improvement even if it doesn't always work.
Uh, that's not the worst that can happen. The worst that can happen is that those who actually committed crimes are let off because they learned how to 'beat' a polygraph, or who just got plain lucky. And if you know already that your suspect is innocent, then why the polygraph?
Look I understand how adding some voodoo scapegoat to a complicated social construct can be used to change institutional mores that are impenetrable otherwise. So in that sense, I have no rational reason to discourage the use of a polygraph here; just like one can say 'if homeopathy helps people, why shouldn't they use it? And why shouldn't we finance it from the same means we finance regular health care?'. From a utilitarian point of view, there is no denying this. I maintain that it's still bad (maybe not a net negative, but a negative still) to use acknowledge superstition this way.
They would also need to "beat" the case review of the available evidence. If there is no evidence, they shouldn't be convicted anyway - even if they are guilty.
No the worst that can happen is that someone who actually is innocent fails the polygraph and goes to jail anyway.
So if I was charged with a crime and when offered a polygraph test and I refused it on the grounds that it is unreliable I would be treated as being likely to be "disingenuous" and therefore presumably more likely to be guilty?
Edit: I meant more likely to be thought of as guilty.
However, an overhaul of the process would need to accompany any use of a polygraph.
Except that in this case the defendant should have a defense attorney who will tell them the truth, that the ordeal itself is a farce and the real test is whether agreeing to suffer it will convince the prosecutor.
Which destroys its value as a filter and converts it back into its true form, a waste of tax dollars on pseudoscience BS. (And a method for prosecutors to coerce innocent defendants into giving up their right to remain silent or communicate through their attorney.)
They are concerned they might ask a question unrelated to the case that incriminates them
They are concerned that they ask a question that causes them personal problems, even if they are innocent (like past infidelity from 20 years ago, etc)
They are concerned that the polygraph might be wrong and incriminate them for something they haven't done
If they don't use the results of the test for anything, then it's a deceptive interrogation technique and one that should be stopped.
Presumably that is why the jury is not told. If the jury's job is to determine, as fairly and impartially as possible, whether someone committed a crime of which they have been accused, then it makes sense to hide other information that does not affect that fact but could cause emotional rather than logical and evidence-based deliberation.
The problem here doesn't seem to be hiding the full situation from you and your colleagues on the jury. The problem seems to be that having fulfilled your purpose in the proceedings by making the determination you were asked to make, and the judge was then denied the ability to fulfill their purpose in the proceedings properly because their hands were tied by the Three Strikes rule and so the punishment arguably did not fit the crime.
Of course, whether the way the jury is kept in the dark in such a case stands up to ethical scrutiny in light of principles like jury nullification is a different question.
> And what's even more crazy is he stole a car, knowing that it would be his third strike
At this point one should stop for a moment and ponder why that might be, and not be satisfied until you have an answer.
When society is so broken that someone is willing to risk life in prison over a theft, then to me the problem is the society that left him without better alternatives first and foremost, not the thief.
I had my car stolen a few years before I got seated on that jury and while it was unpleasant, I got my car back a couple weeks later in perfect condition. The most annoying thing was that the police had it towed to an impound lot and didn't tell me for several days, and I had to pay for the tow and daily impound fees! I explained this during the jury polling and was really surprised to still be seated.
It was a different police force handling my stolen car and I remember thinking that they were total clowns compared to the ones I saw years later as a juror.
Well, I want him alright. There are tons of examples of people who have done such things, including repeatedly, that include some great artists, writers, inventors, businessmen, etc. And of course tons of people who went to to change their ways, become great parents, etc.
We could lose some people thinking like your statement above from society, though.
"Felony" is a legal term -- and the "seriousness" is related to the laws passed and the culture around them. Heck, it might not even reflect society's opinion of the offense.
Back in the day stealing a car for a ride (equally a "felony" as stealing it permanently) was something "delinquent youth" did routinely, without much harm to anyone -- the practice, common in many countries, is called a "joyride" (nowadays electronic locks make it more difficult -- it was much more prevalent back in the day).
Apart from that the joyriders are usually doing it so they can drive dangerously, which can and does result in people getting killed or seriously injured. And the thousands of pounds of property damage.
Not that it deserves a life sentence, but delinquency shouldn't be an excuse but a reason for intervention.
Sure, but we'd probably be better off finding something better than jail as well.
Actually, I'd rather we get rid of the cars...
Besides, cars kill far more people than car thieves (actually, they are the leading cause of death in young people), pollute the air, have a big environmental impact for their construction (including electric cars), contribute to urban noise pollution, and influence city planning in creating monstrous (sub)urban sprawls. And that's before the billions spent on oil for car use, and the millions killed to ensure first world countries control it and get it for cheap.