Previous discussion(208 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34161214
It paints a picture of an American justice system that is entirely corrupt, where judges, attorneys, police and prosecutors all work on the same team, all operate different levers of the same meat grinder, where the rules are an impediment and treated like a joke. The only people to get any kind of justice are those with deep pockets, and often not even then.
Local police have far too much power, far too little knowledge of the law, and far too often escalate an interaction because of their hurt egos. And they have so many tools: 'officer safety' being a perennial favorite. How does this stop? Why are the police in other countries better behaved? When will people stop being distracted by pronoun wars and get outraged at something real and urgent? What do you do with the legions of unthinking supporters of the meat-grinder, who cannot or will not imagine that one can have societal order without it, and that the lever-pullers are doing God's work? One can play whack-a-mole with this systemic injustice and that one, but the system as a whole is so deeply embedded, it seems impossible to change incrementally. The cops, judges, lawyers, AGs are just too comfortable operating with impunity, and they are too politically connected to ever change.
No other effect at all? It brings transparency and shines light on a failed prosecution tactic. This can now be easily googled and understood by both defendants and judges.
These guys ultimately are desperately wanting a black box computer algorithm, where 1. you type in the suspect's name, 2. the algorithm spits out "guilty" and 3. that is admissible to a jury. If they had this, every single one of their jobs are a piece of cake:
A crime happens. The police can now pick up literally anyone they don't like. The prosecuting attorney doesn't have to do anything--just enter the suspect into the algorithm. The judge doesn't have to do anything. Computer Says YES. The jury doesn't have to do anything. Computer Says YES so I can convict and go home. This is the future of law enforcement. They just have to get that darn black box approved and invulnerable to defense attorneys.
The problem is that in a free society policing needs to be hard. Places where policing is easy are called police states.
Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It doesn't matter if the suspect is guilty. If the guy goes to prison, they win.
> This judge wouldn’t allow her to continue and cut the testimony short. Faria was acquitted. He’d spent three and a half years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
> None of this bothered Harpster, who needed fresh kudos to repackage as marketing material and for a chapter in an upcoming book.
"Justice" system.
Yes, exactly. I still can't wrap my mind around this.
The same system also allows a lawyer that knows his client is guilty to still defend them (if they wish).
At the end of the day, if someone is dead or something is stolen, there are cases where we know what happened (for example video evidence). In the other cases, where we don't know for sure (hearsay, witnesses, etc..) if we don't convict someone is not getting justice. It can absolutely be wrong but this is where the two pressures of the system have to work as hard as possible and see where it breaks. There is no other way to do it.
...with respect to which parameters? Efficiency is not an absolute measurement in any sense.
To my mind, an efficient justice system would address crime materially relevant to the median citizen per cost to the tax payer, not the rabid delusions of the average new york post reader.
Yes. It is not. It is a "legal" system
I can't even...
It'd deeply distressing that these sorts of charlatans steal decades of life from their victims, and the closest thing to a punishment for it they'll ever face is having to say "oops!"