There Oughta Be A Law
This is an extended argument from this comment I made a couple of days ago:
The only reason Homelessness has become such a huge problem is that American politicians at every level of government have unanimously decided on an "incarceration first" solution.
There is no law enforcement solution to homelessness, mental illness or drug addiction. The only solutions are mental health and social services approaches, which have been unanimously rejected by the political elites for decades. Low income housing was initially slashed by Reagan and never recovered. America's low income housing stock is at an all time low. The rent is too damn high. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_Is_Too_Damn_High_Party
Low income housing may be the most neglected and ignored infrastructure problem in America. It is just barely even on the political radar.
Of course "incarceration first" is a very lucrative approach for the prison industrial complex. As far as the political elites are concerned, incarceration first is the unanimously agreed on approach to practically every problem you can think of.
http://caucus99percent.com/comment/188080#comment-188080
Here's a perfect example:
Well, this year, a brave New Jersey state senator, a Democrat, took on the pernicious problem of distracted walking. Faced with the fact that some people can't tear themselves away from their smartphones long enough to get across a street in safety, Pamela Lampitt of Camden, New Jersey, proposed a law making it a crime to cross a street while texting. Violators would face a fine, and repeat violators up to 15 days in jail. Similar measures, says The Washington Post, have been proposed (though not passed) in Arkansas, Nevada, and New York. This May, a bill on the subject made it out of committee in Hawaii.
That's right. In several states around the country, one response to people being struck by cars in intersections is to consider preemptively sending some of those prospective accident victims to jail. This would be funny, if it weren't emblematic of something larger. We are living in a country where the solution to just about any social problem is to create a law against it, and then punish those who break it.(emphasis added)
Where do many Americans get their inspiration for concepts of criminal Justice?
Often, when citing the sources of their beliefs about justice, students point to police procedurals like the now-elderly "CSI" and "Law and Order" franchises. These provide a sanitary model of justice, with generally tidy hour-long depictions of crime and punishment, of perps whose punishment is usually relatively swift and righteous.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37750-there-oughta-be-a-law-should...
With the way jurors are routinely screened for jury duty every single member of the jury will be programmed by decades of watching Hollywood crime shows to believe judges and prosecutors are honest truth seekers who would never dream of abusing their authority.
Unless a defendant can afford bail and $50-100,000 for a highly competent attorney they will be convicted. Zero tolerance and maximum sentences for the tiniest violation of puritanical social codes is the rule of law in America.
Comments
This sets up a great voir dire question.
What would you say is your primary source for understanding the American system of law? Would that be television, the law library at your local university or the back of a cereal boxes? Do you own a copy of Black's Law Dictionary? Do you understand what "jury nullification" means and that a judge has no authority whatsoever to punish a juror for asserting the right to jury nullification?
These should be great times to be a legislator! All one needs do is repeal tons of stupid laws and tweak a few good ones that may need attention. But no. Persecution is popular!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Irrelevant
The problem with every good voir dire question is that it's not relevant/allowed unless the judge, a former prosecutor, allows it. Public Defenders don't even try.
When the defendant says "Not Guilty", the Public Defender hears "Let's make a deal".
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Indeed many of those in prison never had a jury. They
were forced into a plea bargain for fear of having the book thrown at them. Our judicial system was overwhelmed in the 1970s. How much worse must it be since the Clinton "reforms"?
Income inequality only guarantees worse things to come. As the very few accumulate more and more, there will be less and less for those who need help. I never thought I'd live to see the rebirth of feudalism with all its cruelties.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
It's worse than the original kind of feudalism
It's the kind that flourished under Louis XIV and his autocratic successors and equivalents, where the Ruler has all the power, the nobles are useless sycophants, and the peasants are crushed under increasingly heavy taxes.
The peasants will only take it until they have nothing left to lose, and then - Katy bar the door....
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I see the same historical precedent you cite.
And one must remember that this "system" led to tumbrils and the guillotine. Maybe our oligarchs should read a little history.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Try and have a little sense of humor.
It wasn't a serious proposal.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I do have a sense of humor, but I know better than to
laugh with bullies. I may smile a bit to myself, but I don't want to encourage cruelty.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
My comment wasn't directed at you but
directly at the essayist's remark directly pointing out a major problem with the jury process.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Voir Dire Is A Serious Problem
Your suggestion actually presented the type of questions defense attorneys should raise. The prosecution is free to exclude any juror who has had or knows someone who has had a negative encounter with cops. Jurors with a realistic perspective on law enforcement practices are routinely excluded from jury duty.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Mental health and no beds available
Thanks St. Ronnie!
A Houston mother was found not guilty of stabbing and sexually mutilating her son in the driveway of their home by reason of insanity. She's to spend time in a mental health facility, except. . . There are no beds available.
http://abc13.com/news/mom-found-not-guilty-of-attack-by-reason-of-insani...
God only knows how many mentally ill people are in jails; and those are the ones not killed by cops before going to jail in the first place. Smdh!
The California Institution for Women (CIW) is 130% Capacity
CIW has suicide rates 8 times the average for women's prisons in America. In 2013 it became the only location for all Security Housing Units in CA women's prisons. Hideous place that should be closed and all inmates released to community correction programs
More info at the Cal. Coalition for Women's Prisoners: http://womenprisoners.org
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I used to work in a state psych center
Most of the patients came there after serving some time in prison first. Quite a few of them were at some point shot by cops. One young woman was shot for wielding a disposable plastic knife. She had threatened her mom with it. The incident was listed in her chart as attempted murder.
People were called arsonists for falling asleep with a cigarette. 99% were drug users, so most were incarcerated for minor drug related crimes such as possession and parole violation. The overwhelming prevalence of drug and alcohol use among the mentally ill suggests that our society really needs to rethink our views on drug abuse. I, personally, don't think of it as a disease, but as a symptom of deeper issues.
It's heartbreaking how we treat our mentally ill. They should be getting help, not being locked up in prison!
I generally avoid CSI and most other procedural crime
shows. I watch others critically, remembering whether or not there's a death penalty (which I oppose). They're more fantasy than fact, like a story about flying horses. I guess they're the rainbows and unicorns of the right.
We seem to have embraced all the worst aspects of Dickensian society. It is a terrible world to live in. I'm amazed how many people who appear kind in person, accept this harsh ethos.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Nobody reads Dickens any more
and what they read, they do not understand. Same for Mark Twain - they read Tom Sawyer, maybe Huckleberry Finn, but they are blissfully ignorant of the deeper implications. They wouldn't dream of opening the covers of, for instance, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - which is very, very dark compared to the fluffy movie versions and has a major downer ending.
They'll go to see "Les Miz", but they'll never read the book - it's heavy going even for serious readers. (Hugo nailed the problem with Marx in one of his essay chapters: spot-on diagnosis, unsatisfactory prescription - not that Hugo had a better one!)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
It's so easy to read that stuff these days
It's all in the public domain and available free on the internet. But I guess so is Pokemon Go.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Until rather recently a local church had "A Dickens Christmas"
every year. I think it was a big fundraiser.
I was always amazed that people appeared to be nostalgic for such a time, but I supposed that Scrooge's eventual private charity was considered the appropriate help for the poor.
They had to give it up a few years ago. The county wanted the structures of the display to meet safety standards, but the church gave it up instead.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
(For Example): FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decades
By Spencer S. Hsu April 18, 2015
The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.
Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.
The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions.
The FBI errors alone do not mean there was not other evidence of a convict’s guilt. Defendants and federal and state prosecutors in 46 states and the District are being notified to determine whether there are grounds for appeals. Four defendants were previously exonerated.
Link to WP article
***
This is one of the reasons we're screwed. We're living in a land of lemmings. People who are so afraid of EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY that they're willing to allow the lying bastids in positions of authority the power to lie and cheat and steal, whatever it take to keep us prols in line. I used to laugh at some of the crazy shit that they came up with on the first season of CSI (that's as far as I got). I always wondered how, if forensic science was that good, anyone guilty of anything was still walking loose on our streets. I was waiting for the episode where they pulled someone's DNA out of the air because they had been breathing at the crime scene. I don't know if it ever got that crazy because I just quit watching.
I don't think I'd even want to put my freedom or life in the hands of my fellow Americans considering some of the crazy stuff they believe.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I Generally Avoid Television
ESPECIALLY crime dramas. I have much better ways of spending my time. Commenting here is but one of them
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
It seems like there is a larger problem with society
A widespread lack of empathy. A complete lack of a sense of solidarity (unless it wears a military uniform and involves war).
It's like we've forgotten what makes society work.
Remember the popularity of the Darwin Awards? Although I
could see the humor, I felt that those"awards" killed empathy by laughing at people's poor choices rather than empathizing.
Who hasn't made a poor choice in their lives? And many of our choices are based on what we learned at home. Is it appropriate to shame people for what they've had to do without? That is how you kill empathy and replace it with smug self-satisfaction and greed.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
I think you missed the point of the Darwin Awards
They aren't for common everyday stupidity - they're for the kind of total imbecility that removes the person from the gene pool by eliminating either them, or their ability to reproduce. It's a way of ensuring there's a lower limit to the Idiocracy. (Then again, that is a bit of a "eugenicist" argument....)
Most humor is based on cruelty, if you stop to think about it. That's why I could never get into the Three Stooges - they were too blatantly cruel.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Common everyday stupidity kills people all the time
and it's true that all of us do stupid things at times, things that could potentially remove us from the gene pool. Most often, we are lucky enough that we don't die from our dumb mistakes; other times people are not so lucky, and then they get Darwin Awards. It's not usually for being exponentially stupider than the rest of us, but for being especially unlucky that day.
I never really thought about the Darwin Awards as being cruel or reducing empathy, but I think Lily is right about that, now that she points it out. I think we like to laugh at other people's misfortune with things like Darwin Awards because it makes us feel safer to imagine it is a special level of dumbness that killed them, so we are safe from such consequences in our own life.
So wrong. I know of several times when myself and also my spouse had very close calls doing dumb things, and we look back and say "whew! That was close! I really should be more careful/thoughtful." But it could have been a Darwin Award, just as easily, if things had been just a hair different.
Well said CS!
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Thanks Lily. But now I have a confession to make...
My husband and I were just chatting about this thread, and he reminded me of a news story here from a long time ago; we live in the Sonoran Desert, where saguaro cactus thrive (the only place on earth these grow), and these majestic plants live for a very long time. Sometimes big ones with many arms are hundred+ years old. They provide homes to many desert birds and small animals. I love them.
So, there was this guy who thought it would be fun to shoot one with a shotgun, while standing right in front of it. He blasted the trunk of this huge cactus that was like 40 feet tall with a dozen arms at least, a very old cactus, and the entire body of the huge cactus fell forward and landed right on him and squashed him flat.
While we never thought of this as funny in any way, we did recall thinking of him as a Darwin Award candidate, and feeling a sense of, well, justice. A feeling that nature had delivered an instant-karma smackdown that he deserved. I felt more sorry for the cactus than for the idiot who thought it was a good idea to shoot one for fun, and I utterly failed to consider the impact on his family, friends, loved ones of his sudden death.
And if memory serves, he already had a couple of kids, so his genes were already in the pool anyway. It's hard sometimes to feel empathy for people who do things like this. I need to work on it.
I have little sympathy for those who have
toppled balancing megaliths which has happened at least twice recently. They have posted video online of them laughing while "protecting others" from those "dangerous" stones. But they seem to exhibit smug self-satisfaction that would delight in the misfortune of others rather than protect people from misfortune.
Cultural trends can help make the unthinkable, thinkable. When I graduated from high school in 1970, I never would have imagined the mentally ill being shot down merely for having a mental crisis. I thought "hobos" were a thing of the Depression long in the past by then.
"You have to be taught to hate and fear. You have to be taught from year to year. . ." Political trends are often led by cultural ones.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
In Leipzig, a bus driver was crushed to death by her own bus
when she got out to deal with a problem and forgot to set the hand brake.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leipzig-busfahrerin-von-ihrem-eigenen-bus...
It can happen to any of us.
It's just a hop, skip and a jump to Social Darwinism, though
IMO. I understood the whole removal from the gene pool thing, but soon people find themselves judging who is deserving of death. It becomes easier and easier to laugh at another's misfortune. That's how cruelty is bred in the human heart. I hope you understand my point.
Edited.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
I was picked for a jury about two years ago, to my surprise
It was a DUI/criminal damage case, where the defendant (a young Mexican-American woman in her 20s) had left the scene of the accident (she had wrapped a rented car around a tree in the late morning on a Sunday, after a night of partying the night before, no one else involved), so they didn't find and arrest her until several hours later, at which time she was unquestionably quite drunk. But the prosecution could not prove she was DUI, due to the many hours delay of finding and testing her. She had a public defender who did a decent job on her defense.
I argued in the jury room to find not guilty, and had to make some effort to remind a few of the other jurors that to convict, the state had to prove she was drunk at the time of the accident, which they could not do. These people "felt" she was guilty anyway, (and it's entirely possible she was), but eventually they saw the point, and we found her not guilty on the DUI. Still guilty on the criminal damage for totaling the car, which she had "borrowed" from the person who had rented it, without his permission. She did not go to jail.
I still don't know why they picked me for that jury. I certainly am no law-and-order type! But lucky for her they did and I know I turned the tide of how that case turned out. Some of the other jurors were pretty dim on the concept of the state having to actually prove guilt in order to convict.
Back in 1984
I served as a juror in a major crime case involving four defendants, sixteen charges ranging from first degree murder to conspiracy to commit murder, to running drugs and RICO. The actual case originally had numerous defendants, some of whom plea bargained and others turned state's evidence. The defendants before us were two of the principle planners of the crimes and two supposed hit men.
We were sequestered 24/7 for two months. It was one of the most difficult things i ever had to do, but for me, it simply was a question of did they prove the charges or not. I never viewed myself as passing judgment upon character of the defendants. We had two jurors (our youngest jurors, both male, one black and one white) who wanted to find one defendant guilty on one of the charges because we all "knew" he did it. But the state had zero proof upon which to base a guilty conviction. In the end, we returned mixed verdicts on three of the defendants and not guilty of all charges on the fourth. I was satisfied with the way our jury went about rendering the verdicts. No one on our jury took our duty lightly and we methodically went through the evidence, deliberating for three days on three of the defendants. We immediately found the fourth not guilty in the first fifteen minutes of deliberation. Our first vote on every charge was done by secret ballot and surprisingly we had only that one disputed charge where we had to discuss our differences.
That trial left me with a positive experience as a juror. I am sure not all juries go like that. Sequestration was something else that I hope I never have to endure again in my life. It is like being in jail with better food.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
In America, Poverty Is A Crime
After all, are the streets not paved with Fool's Gold? All one needs to do is pick some up and sell it to someone with more dollars than sense! Not to do so is a crime against society, punishable by a life sentence at hard labor in a private prison without parole.
/snark
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
Check out Brave New Films' Overcriminalized series
You'll like it. They cover alternatives to jail for homelessness, mental illness, and drug abuse. http://www.bravenewfilms.org/overcriminalized
Very important to note: All the kind alternatives cost LESS than prison! Imprisonment is very expensive. If you neither jail nor provide alternatives, then people end up in ERs, which is the most expensive.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
TPTB make us think they want low cost, but what they really
want is big profits. People don't matter, money does.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"