Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

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Those Americans who believe that persons cannot be held without trial are completely naive and need to spend time watching what goes on at an actual courthouse or police station. There are countless persons held without any allegation let alone formal charges. Material witnesses top the list. Jail (as opposed to prison) isn't about punishment. It is about the state holding people it deems useful to hold.

As a lawyer, my advice is always to stay as far away from police as possible. Do not volunteer anything. Do not participate. Online, always work under the assumption that you are the target of an investigation. Encrypt everything. Use VPNs, preferably overseas VPNs by default and Tor where necessary. If asked, never speak to any investigator without first talking to an attorney. Do no rely on some lay interpretation of a constitution. That document is not the friend people make it out to be.

Yes. Do not talk to the police.

http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc

Edit for the downvote. The video has 6mio views and is considered good advice.

"Edit for the downvote"

Don't discuss your own votes. Don't even mention them.

Do not interrupt the discussion to meta-discuss the scoring system.

Ridiculous advice. Mobs in this place routinely abuse the system to sink lengthy, well-written posts that they find objectionable. To not discuss this is to let it carry on as normal.

Eh. Don't tell that to a customer ;)

What should folks who are the victim or witness to a violent crime do?

Go talk to an attorney first.

Hire him.

Lol. I'm the wrong type of lawyer. I'd send you to a friend who deals with criminal matters on a daily basis.

Can't you, in theory, challenge any detention without trial with a writ of habeas corpus, including detentions for contempt?

It won't stop them from throwing you in jail, but if your detention is bullshit, and someone on the outside knows it, that is supposed to get you out.

Habes are possible, but they take time. And courts, in my experience, do not want to talk about habes where the prisoner is still "going through the process". The fact that the process can take years doesn't seem to phase them.

FYI: "faze" is the current widely accepted spelling.

This is why "Sovereign Citizens" assemble their own courts to issue bogus writs. Unfortunately, their usual mode of operation is like seeing that a clock is keeping incorrect time, then trying to fix it by prying open the mainspring casing.

If local judges were more interested in upholding the ideals of justice than in keeping their calendars tidy, ordinary people would be more engaged with the system, and more inclined to trust in the results.

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