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Comment by mathieuh | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I'm sorry, but as a citizen of the UK, the US system of bail and bail bounty hunters is just nuts.

A child could see that it is incredibly regressive (in the economic sense of the word).

Same as the plea bargain system - it's completely obvious that US has loads of completely innocent people pleading guilty just to get out of jail, if the alternative is waiting a year or longer for the trial. It's insane.

Which is insane. We acknowledge that someone making a statement when they are kidnapped is under extreme duress. Yet when the state does it, somehow the "confessions" aren't under duress and are legally binding?

Hardly.

Edit: Currently at -1. For those who -1'ed me, I'd like to hear your arguments why state imprisonment prior to a guilty verdict isn't extreme duress, or a violation of "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"

When you've been kidnapped, you have good reasons to think that the kidnapper might just kill you if you don't go along with what they want. I've heard a lot of abusive police interrogation practices in the US, and none of them go so far to make you worry you'll be taken out back and shot.

You're drawing an equivalence that just isn't there, and I think you know that.

I do remember reading articles saying that prosecutors frequently say to detainees who have already spent 3-6 months in jail "look, you can plead guilty to this minor crime, and with the time served you can go home to your family tomorrow. Or you can wait for trial, which can happen maybe in next 12 months, if the judge isn't sick on that day and doesn't reschedule for another 3 months later. So what will it be? Do you want to go home tomorrow, or stay locked up for a year before even going to trial?"

Like, I don't think I'd care how innocent I was - I'd want to get out asap. If your options are presented as "get out now" or "stay locked up for an indefinite amount of time, with no hope for compensation for the time lost even if you win" then it's an easy choice.

It's absolutely not a false equivalence.

For starters, many people do die in police custody without being convicted

But "kidnapping" does not require a threat of death to have a real impact on your life. If your choice is to "confess" to a minor crime with time served, or lose your job/home/etc due to being locked up without trial, it's a no brainer for many people to falsely "confess", and it's absolutely under duress

The Plea Bargain system is really a result of the problems with the money bail system. There's less incentive plead guilty if you're not in jail.

> Yeah, I'm sorry, but as a citizen of the UK, the US system of bail and bail bounty hunters is just nuts.

Which is somewhat ironic since the foundation of our bail system originates from UK common law and the limitations on it (e.g. the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) originate from limitations put into place after abuses of bail in the UK legal system. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excessive_Bail_Clause#Origins

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