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Comment by williamstein | Hacker News Reader

Much more interesting to me is that the article says "he will not need to report until threat of COVID-19 pandemic has passed." and "With no end to the COVID-19 pandemic in sight, it is possible that Levandowski’s latest lawsuit will be resolved before he even reports to jail."

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A courtesy not afforded to the largely not-rich, not-white general prison population. I don't think Levandowski should be treated worse, just noting it would be nice if less privileged prisoners were treated as humanely.

No, the state of California is letting a ton of criminals out of prison. I don’t think they have to finish serving their time either.

This was a federal case?

Totally agree. I don't like it when the responses are "they should rot in prison" because so many people have done less and been in prison forever. We need to severely reduce sentencing in this country - across the board - for everyone, especially the minorities and impoverished that have borne the brunt of our ridiculous school to prison pipeline.

Rich black people don't have the same privileged to buy justice as rich white people?

That's not true. From basketball players to music icons like Michael Jackson the rich can buy a certain level of justice.

If you think the white rich still have it easier. I think we are focusing on the wrong thing. The 1% or .1% percentages have it better than everybody else regardless of color.

> Rich black people don't have the same privileged to buy justice as rich white people? > > That's not true.

Kinda funny how you made up a statement that they didn't say and then started arguing against it. Congratulations, you fought yourself and won.

It was in response to the parent post. Below is a direct quote.

"A courtesy not afforded to the largely not-rich, not-white general prison population. "

but in your direct quote, it clearly says "not-rich, not-white", so clearly the direct quote was not talking about "rich blacks"

The phrase can be interpreted two ways.

To simplify this comment, when I say "black" I mean "not white". Easier than to keep typing non-white, etc.

You have a quadrant of four categories:

1. Rich and white

2. Poor and white

3. Rich and black

4. Poor and black

You are interpreting the statement to refer to "people who are not (rich or white)" - which with Boolean logic expands to "people who are not rich and not white)". Looking at the first form, this means category 4 (people who are poor AND are not white). It also means that poor white people get this privilege, and rich non-whites do.

The other person is interpreting it as "not (rich and white)" which means all the categories except 1.

Hence the confusion.

in English, comma separated lists of adjectives or other descriptors are almost always understood to have AND between them, not OR. OR must be explicit, otherwise AND is implicitly assumed.

This is not just a matter of two equally valid alternative explanations: a reasonable reading of the original sentence "not poor, not white" (along a minimal amount of thought about the context and subject matter, e.g. prisons clearly are not full of rich blacks) would have easily led to the other person realizing that it was category 4 that the parent was talking about, not 1-3.

> Hence the confusion.

Why would anyone believe that there was confusion? It smells like ideology to me.

I think rich any-people shouldn't get a free-ride buuut... The comment you're responding to focused on privilege being the primary differentiator, but you focused in on "largely not-rich, not-white general prison population", please read comments a bit closer.

I know it wasn't the main point but using false race stereotypes need to get called out regardless.

It’s a courtesy that is absolutely being afforded to people in California, where this is taking place.

Some people just want to see racism everywhere they look.

Come to California and see for yourself. It is afforded to everyone.

You’re trying to make this into a race issue, when that’s not really the case here.

The justice system in San Francisco bends over backwards to keep criminals of all races, classes, and backgrounds out of prison, and especially so with Covid-19.

Class is a race issue.

It’s not a class issue. It’s not a race issue. It’s a “the Bay Area is not putting anyone short of convicted murderers in prison right now” issue.

It makes sense though - if California only had a single prison and it was built inside of a volcano then we'd object to folks not receiving capital sentences being sent there since there's probably be all sorts of chances that the prisoner die during incarceration. The prisons we have weren't designed for Covid, they aren't safe and while those people are criminals they are people. They did ill but weren't judged worthy of losing their lives and, I'd wager, some people look really closely at their behavior to figure out if they're going to be an immediate societal risk before deferring their sentence.

Isn't this a Federal case?

A vast number of nonviolent inmates have been released in California:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

> A courtesy not afforded to the largely not-rich, not-white general prison population.

This claim seems to be unsubstantiated and in fact blatantly false... Please take the care to do cursory research on the situation before blindly stoking the race flame. That kind of thing is the very last thing we need in the public discourse right now.

They are https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

There's about an equivalent number of whites and blacks in US prisons, with a lower number of Hispanics and a much smaller amount for the rest. [1] Race doesn't matter, only wealth and status insofar as they get you the influence and connections to swing justice your way.

The fact that he's still sentenced and will have to serve while other inmates are currently being released due to covid shows that there isn't a major discrepancy in this particular case.

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-g...

Who said money can’t literally buy a get out of jail card?

When you say "literally" do you mean to imply he literally paid someone? That's quite implausible.

He can pay lawyers to make the arguments for delaying until after Covid. A public defender isn’t going to do that for you.

> Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to alleviate the outbreak by releasing as many as 8,000 inmates and further reducing the population by about 10,000 through delayed admissions.[1]

I would guess some of them had public defenders. Although I guess they got it without even having to argue for it. Did Levandowski's lawyer argue for it? According to the article Levendowski's lawyer argued for home confinement (unsuccessfully, obviously).

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200802050956/https://www.latim...

He certainly paid his legal team.

> When you say "literally" do you mean to imply he literally paid someone?

Sadly, "literally" can mean "figuratively":

From M-W:[1]

"in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible"

(Yes, I know they used the word "literally" in the definition).

They also made a special page to explain this.[2]

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

[2]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...

Yes, in this case "literaly" means "figuratively", but still, what's the mechanism? I don't think he paid a bribe, and nobody is suggesting that. One may argue that the judge was somewhat subconsciously influenced by Levandowsky's wealth; this is also quite improbable, the judge in this case [1] is a very high profile judge. In particular he rebuked Trump on DACA.

In the end though, if anything, it looks to me Levandowsky's prison postponement makes his sentence harsher, not more lenient. He will still have to serve his whole sentence in an actual prison, and until he starts the prison sentence his liberty will be curtailed (for example it's very likely he will not be allowed to leave the country). A good defense team would've gotten for him house arrest during the Covid19 crisis, and his defense team argued for this. They didn't get it.

So, literally or figuratively, how did money buy Levandowsky a get-out-of-jail-free card?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Haskell_Alsup#Deferred...

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