Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

This is sort of tangential to the rest of the article, but I'm glad it was mentioned:

> Duff considered the possibilities. In so many places, he thought, it would have gone differently. If the attempted frame-up had happened in one of the gang neighborhoods of Los Angeles where he used to prosecute shootings, rather than in a rich, placid city in Orange County ... if the cop who found the stash of drugs in Kelli Peters’ car had been a rookie, rather than a sharp-eyed veteran ... if she had been slightly less believable ...

I know there's a lot of talk about inequality and such on HN lately, but if you're from the US and this paragraph doesn't catch you for a second, in my opinion you need to reexamine your values.

View on HN

Highly illustrative example of privilege. Over and over we're told that Kelli Peters is the perfect victim, that anyone else would not have been believed, yet nowhere other than that one sentence does anyone even come close to pointing out how wrong that is.

The whole affair is also an example of the fallout from over-criminalizing everything when it comes to the "War on Drugs" -- mere possession is enough to destroy entire lives, making it easy (and apparently tempting) to use it against one's enemies. Statements from former members of the Nixon administration[1] confirm this is of course intentional, and mainly targeted at minorities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#War_on_drugs

This quote struck me:

"...They had put 20 detectives on the case against Kent and Jill Easter at one time or another, and the lead investigator had spent six months on it exclusively."

If the woman had lived in a bad neighborhood, exactly one cop would have been involved: the arresting officer. She would have been convicted at trial on nothing more than his testimony that he found drugs in her car. Instead, they put 20 detectives on a case that was as much about exonerating the woman because she didn't fit the profile of a drug dealer as it was about catching the couple that planted the drugs.

That said, given the high probability that someone found in possession of illegal drugs will deny that they knew the drugs were there, what would you propose we do in the alternative? The resources simply don't exist to give all such cases this kind of attention. Would you prefer that no such cases be allocated these kinds of resources, which will lead to an increase in innocent people going to prison?

The special handling of this case based on where this woman lives certainly feels wrong. But I also don't know of a better solution than having cops focus their limited resources on investigating scenarios that statistically make the most sense, a strategy which undoubtedly relies at least in part on racial/socioeconomic profiling. If anyone knows of a reasonable one, I'd love to hear it.

This took place in a low crime community that was fortunate to have some very smart and experienced law enforcement professionals who were able to see through the Peters' ruse.

Certainly, had this happened in a high crime area, the police would simply not have had the time to properly investigate. The victim would not have been believed, and might well have done some prison time.

One way to look at this asymmetric justice system is that the Irvine standard is what all cities should aspire to. We should provide police departments and courts with the resources to solve cases and pursue justice at the same high level as was done in the Easter case.

In the long run, this would increase people's confidence and faith in the criminal justice system to treat everyone fairly and equally, and consequently there would be a commensurate increased respect for the law.

> One way to look at this asymmetric justice system is that the Irvine standard is what all cities should aspire to.

Maybe, maybe not. I'd want to know if a black janitor caught up in a similar situation at the same school would've received the same benefit of the doubt and resources dedicated to exonerating them.

True, but he probably stands a better chance of receiving justice in Irvine than he would in south LA, especially if the school and the parents vouch for him, as they vouched for Mrs. Peters.

Fifty years ago, forget it, he'd be thrown in prison. But today, in some ways, police are even more careful around minority suspects out of fear of lawsuits, riots, protests, and other career-ending events, a few tragic officer-involved shootings notwithstanding.

Any stats I've seen have suggested that any time Police are given leeway to choose who they pick on, then minorities and the poor are chosen, for the very rational reason that they are relatively powerless, which seems to contradict your tale of police officers walking on eggshells around them. Around the rich and well connected on the other hand, yes that seems plausible.

I'm not making this up; it's based on what some police officers I know have told me.

That's a bit like polling Trump on how the debates went.

yes, for sure, totally agree. Which reminds me of the number one rule - don't talk. Shut up and ask for your attorney. She got lucky and is a prime example of an exception to the norm as many of us know what that means. Again, don't talk to cops. She was foolish to consent to the search without a warrant.

Refusing to talk wouldn't work if you were black or brown though. Either the cop would have looked in the car and found the drugs anyway, or they would have gotten the warrant and found the drugs.

At which point you would be threatened with a trial that might not even be that winnable by the prosecution, but that they'd use as a stick to bully you into taking some kind of plea bargain, maybe even without jail time, but now at least you're on probation and/or have a criminal record.

simply not true. refusing to talk removes the cop's ability to use what is said against you. Talking to them gives them ammunition. Don't take it from me. See what a lawyer and a cop both say:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

That's easy to say with some distance, but I can certainly imagine why you might take a different decision in the heat of the moment, when you're sure there's no contraband in your car.

The common advice is to never talk to police or consent to any search, even when you're sure there's no contraband in your car.

It needs a little perspective, though. That advise is from defense lawyers, and it is intended to make it easier for them to exonerate you and/or get a good plea bargain after charges have been filed. But it's a much better outcome to not have charges filed at all. This may involve actually engaging with the officer on the scene, telling him what he wants to know, letting him see the full situation.

In this particular case, if she had pulled the whole "I don't give consent to search anything", "Am I being detained", "I want my lawyer" bit, she most likely would have been searched anyways, had the possession charge filed, and been convicted of it, no matter what kind of lawyer she had, because there were in fact drugs in her car. On the other hand, engaging with the officer and behaving in a way he would expect somebody who is actually innocent to behave allowed him to take a closer look at things and decide that the evidence doesn't quite match up with an open-and-shut possession case, and that it deserved being looked into further.

That's not to say this is a good idea in every situation. The lawyer advice often is a good option, particularly if you are in fact guilty of the crime that you are suspected of.

If you're wealthy, you can afford the lawyers to see that you're treated properly.

If you're poor, you're fucked and nothing will save you.

Do you get this proves nothing?

She was of privilege and innocent?

Privilege people are more likely to be innocent hence she was correctly found to be so.... Could be the thesis proven here???

I think you need to reexamine your logic if you think there's a moral here.

I think you are twisting logic to a cause. I feel it doesn't help.

On violent criminal offenses, sure.

On drug charges, I would love to see some data backing up that stereotype because I don't believe it's true for a second. All kinds of rich people do all kinds of drugs. Hell, at Columbia University an entire fraternity was shut down for running an LSD selling ring.

My point was not that she turned out to be innocent. My point is that she actually got fair treatment in the US justice system and support from her local police department. The doctrine of "innocent until proven guilty", combined with the equal-protection clause, ought to ensure that all US citizens get those two things. The fact is that if you are non-white, or poor, or heaven forbid both of those things at once, you simply don't have access to those same things. It has nothing to do with probability of guilt, because by law it shouldn't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com