Hacker News Reader

Comment by remoteorbust | Hacker News Reader

> she was then deemed a "fixated person", which involved incarceration without charge, being taken to a mental institution and forcibly injected with anti-psychotic drugs for months. Eventually a judge decided she could go home. All media coverage of it is banned in Australia until the trial is finished, which has been postponed at every hearing for over a year now

Holy shit. Maybe I'll stop complaining about the US plastering the names of the accused all over if this is the alternative.

View on HN

Yep, that's the entire point. It would be horrifying to have your name broadcast in connection to some heinous crime you didn't commit, but the alternative to broadcasting that is effectively secret trials. People should be able to view due process, they just need to withhold judgement until the facts come out in court.

The problem is that the average passer by, John/Jane Doe, doesn’t on average care enough about the abstract reasons why they should withhold judgment, they instead react along the line of “well if they are being investigated they are probably guilty” which is results in the public typically judging anyone dragged into the judicial process.

So it’s actually inverted outcomes from what you described, secret is normally good, (with obvious exceptions, such as the case in point) and public is normally bad.

Completely agree, most trials should be reported fearlessly after completion and not have speculation or the court of public opinion loom over the judge/jury beforehand.

Yet it seems to be abused here in order to protect cozy relationships between a certain big business and the government. Whistleblowers proven correct should be held up on a pedestal and highly respected, not thrown to the wolves with little chance of future employment.

There seems to be a rather simple solution. Trials must occur within four weeks. Prosecution is not allowed extensions to this so long as the accused is charged with a crime and in custody or released on conditions. Any charges not tried for within thirty days are automatically dismissed, expunged, and the defendant paid compensatory damages out of the prosecutor's budget. Defendants may petition for limited extensions on the explicitly defined grounds of preparing a defense.

This will obviously never happen because it's far more lucrative to draw trials out for years.

Indeed, that reminds me of the former Soviet Union :(

It's like Soviet Union placing dissidents in psychushka [1]. He must be insane if he can't accept comunism.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatr...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com