Jello wrote:
Decius wrote:
janelane wrote:
Hey, have you seen this case of her's? Seems there are also concerns about her persuasiveness.
-janelane
Another thought about this is that it is an example of a prosecution of someone who was innocent (or at least had an affirmative defense for his actions). This happens. Most of the negative consequences stem from the effects of being wrung through the legal system as a defendant, which can be devastating.
I think that our legal system has some serious systemic weaknesses of which this is an example. We talk about presumption of innocence but in many respects our system presumes guilt. People who are charged often loose their jobs. While we have whole government institutions full of investigators and prosecutors who are devoted to putting people in prison, we offer up only the most meager public defense we can get away with offering. You have to buy your defense, the price goes from zero to infinity, and if you care about your freedom you'll spend every penny you have, guilty or innocent.
Basically, the system is heavily weighted against defendants, and very heavily weighted against poor defendants. There is a presumption of guilt that underlies the architecture of the system, and it has serious consequences for innocent people who get caught up in it.
When I lived in Russia, where the police can arrest/rob you at random, and if you enter the justice system you're likely to only get out in a reasonable amount of time if you have enough money to afford a bribe... someone asked me if it was like that in the US. I started to say that it was different, but after thinking about it, I said that it was an identical system, although the money goes to pay for a defense, rather than a bribe to the judge.
Lacking resources for bail or a defense, our system is comparable to the Russian system for poor people. And if you have lots of cash, you can to one degree or another buy your way out of it. Two criminal justice systems for two classes.
There is an important difference in that the people who do the arresting don't get the money, but the availability of high paying jobs in criminal defense is a structural part of the system that provides a long term incentive to prosecutors.
