Judges refuse to order fix for court software that put people in jail by mistake
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Just a continuation of the sad state of our legal system where punishment is not so much an issue of guilt but of wealth or more specifically the lack thereof.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-new-orleans-public-defend...
throw in the courts, even appellate courts, do not like ruling against a judge and its harder to see it happen over a question that does not pertain to an individual case.
all of this budget cutting of staff to work the courts is fascinating but expected in a state that is nearly run by its police public service union. they are big money and getting people in the system is priority there. hence attempts to fix or slow that can be stymied with little public outrage
don't forget the prison guard union. That one is probably most powerful in the state, and naturally plays the same side with the police union.
This police and prison guards' unions are why California had the "three strikes" law in the first place. So yes, there is a direct connection.
1) Laws should pass a constitutional court before being put into place.
2) Anyone should be able to challenge a law. Period. Of course, those "with standing" should have more weight. But many clearly unconstitutional laws stand simply because of a lack of standing.
Civil and criminal Courts are intentionally blind to the cost, suffering and disruption the process inflicts. It should be obvious that filing an appeal and moving to correct records is expensive at a minimum, and hugely disruptive to people struggling to survive, support families, etc. It may be easier and cheaper to simply do time for alleged offenses, innocent or not.
Its appalling. @wonderwonder's comment is on target.
Now if he is to proceed further, he needs to find ground to bust that case law and an insane legal doctrines it is based on
(Until such time, of course, everyone affected can get f'ed.)
The real problem is not the legal system, but the fact that the people of Alameda County are bad people (collectively, not individually) and have elected a government full of bad people. You're asking the court system to try to overcome a moral deficit in the political system (and ultimately, in voters).
I don't know how much you can really blame the voters, though. First-past-the-post is a large part of the problem, too. People want to make sure you're not a Republican before they vote for you, so you'd better make sure you be a Democrat! /s (or vice versa.)
Meanwhile, of course, the lobbyists are lined up with the checkbook out on both sides of the aisle.
Nope; while the court elected not to use it's discretion to allow public interest standing, there were a stack of other reasons for denial cited that would have meant denial even had the court exercised it's discretion to allow public interest standing. Which is why they didn't do it: no court willl exercise that kind of discretion unless the issue affected by that discretion is decisive.
One could even argue that the public defender's clients were affected, this impacting him.
Unfortunately this can lead to a catch-22, where you statistically know that people are being harmed, but without a lawsuit you can't identify specific people, and without specific people you can't launch a lawsuit. I feel that something like what happened with some of the government spying stuff in the last decade or so.
I can't find the story, but there have been a lot of people who wanted to sue as victims of PATRIOT ACT spying, but who couldn't because they couldn't actually prove they'd been spied upon. The lawyer for one such person was accidentally sent papers by the government (as part of a larger, intentional shipment of relevant papers) acknowledging such spying had occurred, but (I think) FBI agents showed up at his door the next day and demanded their return.
One could argue that, but then those clients, not the PD, should be bringing the suit.
The problem affects poor and indigent people, it doesn't affect anyone with wealth or political influence. In fact, fixing it would cost them more, so they would be inclined to leave it.
There were also a whole host of other procedural issued cited in denying the appeal (including that it's an appeal, but the specific remedies claimed and the entities against whom they are claimed weren't argued properly in the trial court), in the non-exhaustive list of reasons for denial provided by the court.
Assuming the court isn't blatantly misrepresenting the procedural history, it looks like the plaintiff did, almost literally, everything possible wrong procedurally.
OTOH, I have to wonder if the intent isn't really to get the court to issue an order but to get headlines and media attention to force Alameda County to fix the problem.
There's the metric. Maybe there's a law firm that's willing to sue on behalf of all of these people. Surely the hassle of that lawsuit would push them to change, and those defendants would have standing.
America admits no legal liability of court employees over anything except gross miscariage of justice, and even for such cases Americans invented insane legal theories that let few judges walk away from charges ranging from corruption and bribery to selling "freedom for blowjob"
Push for personal liability of judges in mistrials and violations of court protocols
What is this "normal jurisdiction" you speak of? The jurisdiction most people are in?
China, India, U.S.?
Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan?
Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia?
Mexico, Japan, Ethiopia?
Philippines, Egypt, Vietnam?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...
Even these countries do not have 25 % world 's incarcerated population.. US legal system has a problem whether you admit it or not
Maybe by "normal" you meant "ideal". Or maybe you meant "where I live". But if "normal" means "usual", I think you are wrong.
From a brief reading, it seems like the complaint is delays/errors in document entry by clerks (like updates to probation terms or bail postings) and that the search interface isn't connected with other databases.
Just sounds like confusing software, or users that haven't been trained to use it. However, it's not clear if it's causing more or less clerical errors than the last system they had.