After 20 Years as a Prosecutor in Illinois, I Quit
realclearwire.com
realclearwire.com
I was on Jury Duty last year and every day I had to walk past a tiny decrepit Public Defender office and then past sprawling, spotless floors of Attorney General offices. I probably have the wrong terms, the specifics are fading, but the general meaning of the signs seemed clear enough. What a shameful disgrace. Society doesn't have a thumb on the scale, it has a foot on the scale.
No, I don't think shifting the extreme imbalance even further towards Prosecution is going to fix crime.
Maybe things are different in Chicago, but I'd want to hear from Defense before just believing a rant from Prosecution.
Public defenders are doing noble work. They are also denied the resources necessary to perform that work with the same zeal seen in the prosecution side of the justice system.
For reference, I have being on the receiving end of an entirely unwarranted accusation for a trivial crime in the UK (which is often held up as being a good example of a fair system). It occupied an unbelievable amount of headspace and was hugely stressful. I'm educated, reasonably well off and white. The system felt very very powerful and unpredictable from my position and I was never even arrested (just accused, which is enough for the police to treat you as a perpetrator). If the prosecution had happened and had gone anywhere (it didn't) and I'd been convicted I would have got a small fine, but I was still far too worried that my innocence was insufficient to protect me. All the way through you're treated as though you are guilty, and the accuser is the "victim". Honestly, the only victim in the whole sorry affair was me.
I can't imagine what it must feel like if you're on the receiving end of an unwarranted accusation for a more serious crime. Especially if everyone thinks you're guilty because your have priors and "look guilty".
The solution is fixing the social safety net for the poor and disadvantaged. Not throwing people in prison for trying to survive and making mistakes along the way.
So, to clarify: if someone is clearly a violent criminal, are you really saying we should feel bad for them and assume they are a victim of “the system”? Do we drop charges? What’s the actionable plan for reducing violent crime?
Why do people have such a tiny, narrow view of life?
The approach is to try to reform them. Get them psychiatric help if that's what's needed. Put them in a prison that doesn't just punish them, but also teaches them how to be useful members of society.
On the other end, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Well before that point, make sure everyone has equal opportunities while growing up. Ensure all citizens get taught how to be responsible with money and how to make intelligent life decisions in school. This helps a lot by itself.
Despite the above, some people may still fail, due to bad luck or due to actually not being great students. For these, institute a "poverty floor" below which no one may fall. People who are not desperately poor are less likely to commit crimes.
Of course, yes some people are lazy. That's unfortunate. Lazy people should still get some money, for the simple reason that it's a lot cheaper than dealing with criminals and crime. Obviously we shouldn't give them too much, since then they stay lazy and/or it just drains our coffers dry.
Worse, some people are just plain bad. That's when you put them in prison. But even there you can attempt to reform them. Those who don't reform stay in prison or get rearrested soon enough. Those who do reform can get out and have a second chance.
If you think all the above is hypothetical, it's not. Many western countries apply (at least some subset of) the above policies. This is a of course a very short summary of a very large and nuanced topic.
Yes, absolutely. 100%. We should feel bad for people who find themselves in circumstances and life experiences that have driven them to violence. We should feel bad for sociopaths who inflict violence because the life and experience of a sociopath is objectively a sad thing. We should feel bad for non-sociopaths who were driven to desperation and extremes due to a lack of healthy coping mechanisms for stress and anger or anything else.
> Do we drop charges? What’s the actionable plan for reducing violent crime?
My comment isn't suggesting that dropping charges is going to fix the problem - it's the opposite. It's that we need a system of accountability that is a net-positive for society. Incarceration as-is in the US worsens the problem severely. It needs reform to be a place of actual rehabilitation and many people who need rehabilitation due to violent offenses absolutely need to be forced into doing so. But it needs to not be at the expense of their families, it needs to not further generational harm, and it needs to not harm the people being incarcerated. Harm for harm is a fucked up concept that doesn't help anyone except shallow people who crave a sense of justice, who are themselves inflicting violence too. People should leave prison in a better position than when they entered (in terms of dealing with their life better and in more healthy ways) and the opposite is happening. We're actively harming peaceful society with prisons today.
Restated:
Throwing people in prison does not fix the problem. We have tried it for a long time at various levels of intensity and it has provably not worked, and no additional level of intensity has improved things. We can't _just keep doing this_ and expect that at some point things will get better.
We need to address the root causes that lead so many people into situations where they find it reasonable or are desperate enough to commit those crimes. That's how you make a dent in this problem, and that's what we should work on transitioning to. Fix the top of the funnel, and you won't have nearly as many concentrated violent problems down at the bottom of it to deal with.
Pretty much what I'm saying is that jail time should be reserved solely for the violent.
Which isn't to say there should be _no_ answer to that question, but more that the answer to that question shouldn't also be the answer to all the other crime encountered. Not even all the violent crime, which is frequently a product not of the individual, but of the situation that individual is placed in.
None of the perpetrators were trying to survive or had any other excuses.
Poverty and other social disadvantages might breed crime, but they do not breed violence.
What we should do is stop locking people up for non-violent crimes and free up space for violent offenders.
Frankly they can stay locked up for all I care. They are a tiny enough minority that it wouldn't cost that much. We are causing irreparable damage to non-violent people by locking them up for minor crimes that can be rectified. We are basically feeding them to the real criminals and making them stronger.
They're all humans. Humans are largely a product of their environment. Sociopaths obviously exist, but most people in prison for violence are not sociopaths.
I am mentoring one who you mean. Left on the streets at 13.
That is the root cause of their trouble.
The baggage is incredibly difficult to get past. A lot of that is systemic.
And defense in general? Necessary, unless we intend on jailing lots of people who do not deserve it.
I also feel we need to break this down too. There is a big difference between felony violent criminals and the average Joe who gets caught up in a resisting or interfering charge.
Bluntly, I think you're lying.
One attorney I talked to was relatively inexpensive but I can tell I had a grudge against the cops and the justice system in general. They were not going to be a good pick
The second attorney I talked to said for $10,000 they can make this all go away. And they wouldn't file a tort. That seems more like a formalized punishment that I choose than justice.
And the last one was 2500 bucks she said I needed a trial told me why and that's the one I picked and it was a good experience overall. We filed the tort I got my money back and it was a couple of years and I came out clean.
So yeah, it does depend on specifics. And you're right to say that people shouldn't rule the public defender out. Good comment.
I don't think there's a good way to measure that. If you go by conviction rate, it's something like 75% +/-10% depending on jurisdiction and grading. Then you'd have to adjust for the 2-10% of wrongful convictions for the incarcerated. Then adjust for the people who commited a crime but were not convicted, but I haven't seen stats on that.
Even if we all agree that minimizing type I errors (false positives) is of paramount importance, the optimal design of the system depends heavily on the true positive rate at the top of the funnel.
Your 2-10% wrongful conviction rate matches the rate capital defendants are legally found to have been wrongfully convicted[3]. They're a good subset to focus on because they're the cases get the most resources and attention, and are the only category of defendants who regularly get volunteer lawyers for postconviction review.
But that can't prove that the system doesn't wrongfully convict at a higher rate. If public defenders are underfunded that will reduce their ability to prove wrongful convictions, for example. Note that a successful postconviction petition is much harder without a good record established by the original trial counsel. The Glossip case is a good example of how "innocence is not enough" to get exoneration.
(Your stats are also off by a bit. The average state conviction rate is around 80%, but there's way more than 10% variance. California is up at 94% while Florida is at 55%. [1] Meanwhile the feds are all the way up at 99.6%. [2]
[1]: Table B-1 on https://www.paperprisons.org/statistics.html
[2]: https://www.doarlaw.com/blog/2021/04/what-you-should-know-ab...
[3]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1306417111
Edit: I forgot cite 3
Getting a verdict overturned based on procedural issues isn't as easy as popular culture makes out. You have to show both that your rights were violated and that no reasonable jury could have possibly found you guilty if your rights weren't violated. Simply having signed statements from your jurors that they wouldn't have found you guilty if they knew what the prosecutors covered up isn't sufficient, for example.
(And it wouldn't "almost certainly" lead to a tossed conviction. The defendant would have a chance but not a guarantee at getting a new trial. See the comment you replied to for details)
It’s definition is here: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/criteria-for-inclusion-...
It includes acquittal or dismissal of charges after the original conviction was tossed. But that does not imply actual innocence. For example, if a key piece of evidence is excluded because of an unconstitutional search that could lead to acquittal or dismissal of charges.
The innocence thing isn't just death row. There are groups who have helped people who are not on death row, mostly using DNA. The majority of the people they help are not on death row. Sure, it could be higher. The point was that there is already what I would consider to be a high wrongful conviction rate. In my own experience, I think the wrongful conviction rate for non-custody offenses is multiple times higher.
What I meant to say is that death penalty eligible defendants get better representation than pretty much everyone else. So their wrongful conviction rate should be lower than average.
In what circumstances is arresting someone necessary or even beneficial for society on the whole? There are costs both to the people in terms of booking & housing someone in jail, and to the individual as for most folks not regularly dealing with law enforcement being arrested is at least somewhat traumatic.
Given the contents of the rant, especially as it pertains to bail reform, I don’t think it is.
Your experience about jury duty is important, but it was not in Chicago. I grew up there. I get what he's talking about.
Depending on the neighborhood, things can get very unsafe very quickly. No one talks about "what a disgrace" when they can hear gunfire three blocks away.
Despite the salary schedules being the same (or similar), the State will always have more resources; they have forensic labs, and an army of investigators. The multifaceted mission of a prosecutor's office necessitates the resource disparity.
The Public Defender's priorities are much more focused; (1) provide criminal defense services for those in need, mainly the indigent, (2) influence criminal justice policy through by identifying judiciable appellate matters; and, (3) working with private defense attorneys to challenge prosecutorial policy on a broader level.
With offers from various state attorneys general and public defender offices, I selected the latter for the more focused mission. Yes, resources were scarce, dollars had to be selectively spent on experts to get the most bang for our buck. But you would be surprised at what a feisty PD can do with a handful of retired state police investigators to assist.
I would call this broad. How is the prosecutor's mission more multifaceted?
This is the fundamental misunderstanding of anti-plaintiff reform. Justice isn't served when neither the plaintiff nor defense are doing anything.
I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. It’s been well known public defenders are forced to take up an unreasonable number of cases where the prosecution decides to hand over the evidence to be debated about— the prosecution is supposed to hand over everything, but there’s been multiple cases of prosecutors happenstancely not handing over evidence that would prove innocence and then not losing their jobs for doing so!
PS Very cute username!
"They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers.
Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time:
https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspe...
That is psychopathy in the justice system.
If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds, not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the accused’s likelihood of showing up.
The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was further threat to society or a flight risk not because the crimes were heinous, if they failed to prove it, that is on them.
Far too easily we judge people as a society quickly and usually with strong racial bias.
1% of America is incarcerated far higher than any other developed economy. I don’t think we are predisposed to crime more than others perhaps we need to think how we ended up here ?
[1] he probably did I am not arguing the facts of the case, keep in mind unlike civil cases where balance of probabilities is the deciding factor in criminal cases beyond reasonable doubt
If he is a risk to society that won't change however much money he pays. A millionaire murderer isn't less dangerous than a minimum wage one.
Judges are allowed to deny bail based on dangerousness. That's the appropriate tool here, not setting a high dollar number.
No. Bail shouldn't ever be excessive... if it's purpose is to ensure that they show for trial, then it can only be so high that the defendant should work towards avoiding forfeit. By definition, it must be affordable to them, if only barely so.
It shouldn't be used to keep someone detained. In such cases, prosecutors should have the balls to demand they not be offered bail, and judges the same to withhold it.
Every time a judge sets some ridiculous bail (I think I've personally heard amounts approaching eight digits and this for non-billionaires), it further conditions everyone including the public that high amounts are justifiable, it normalizes it.
Given our reliance on the parasitic bail bonding industry, it turns these amounts into either a pre-conviction fine, buying their way out of detainment, or judicial/prosecutorial incompetence masquerading as prudence.
Perhaps bail should be denied then as courts have the power to do , but setting it high is not that different from denying .
Your implied timeline is wrong here. The two (alleged) murders happened in May and June 2021. He was arrested for the first in October 2021 and posted bond in November 2021. Then he was arrested for the second - which happened before the first bond, remember - in December 2021 and posted the bond for that in March 2022. At no time (that we know of) did he commit murder whilst out on bond.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/c...
"Bond reform so no one stays in jail"
if every american suspected of shooting someone is held in jail rather than released, we have just removed the most likely population of people who cause future shootings. from the safety of the publics perspective, now the surviving victims/witnesses are more likely to be victims of more crimes because the suspected violent attackers are back on the street.
i dont really think there is room for debate on the "truthyness" of his statement, as if we kept more people in jail, less people would be out in public able to commit crime. how much is a good question tho.
[1] https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-county-st...
so usually its after a new crime is commited, the police stories read like:
"X suspected of serious crime violated his electoronic home monitoring Y amount of times, we rearrested him during the act of a seperate crime"
if both options arent funded/run appropriatly public safety is harmed either way
Your assumption is contingent on the accuracy of the accusations to begin with, and doesn't account for deadweight loss, so this isn't straightforward. This deadweight loss also isn't going to be shouldered by just anybody, but especially the justice system itself. Especially considering the alternative being proposed here is not "total unconditional freedom" but "freedom unless imprisoned for violating bail conditions, and $$$ for the justice system if such a violation occurs". You can make bail conditions quite onerous if you want to but still cheaper than jail cells.
If on account of not making bail we have to put somebody in prison, police may be directed to make less arrests, DAs may be motivated to bring forward less charges, Judges may be inclined to give people lighter sentences, and parole boards may be motivated to release people earlier, as this will free up the limited resource of jail cells.
I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower.
From the letter:
> we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes I've also assumed that our system of government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the defendant.
Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much higher burden of than the defense.
Politics is about perception, and whether or not a well-identified paper finds a causal link from bond policies to crime is kind of neither here nor there. His anecdotal evidence (gunfire within earshot, drug-dealing behind his house) suffices for him. It's really hard to argue with that kind of reasoning by pointing to abstractions, i.e. a statistical model.
Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam.
One side is 'tough on crime', the other is 'tough on speech'. As a disillusioned lefty, and thankfully not in the US, one of these scares me more than the other.
If there’s a workable progressive solution to degraded qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime—where is it working? SF? Portland? Chicago? DC? NYC?
It’s not like there are republicans in any of these places, so what’s the issue?
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
Here's a workable solution: stop spending over 3x what China does on "defense" and maintaining military bases all over the world and spend that money on homelessness, education, infrastructure, and jobs programs to get our middle class back.
https://www.longtermtrends.net/us-debt-to-gdp/
especially when you look at it from the perspective of the drastically lower taxes rates of the 80s.
One problem is the richer you are the easier it is to flee the problems and let someone else clean up the mess. But it cant be government or cost any taxes...
I don’t know if progressive policies are the answer to everything, but we’ve steadily been throwing money in the other direction so consider whether that strategy is a failure.
Wonderful logic.
I specifically did not say to vote more, but that an election is not enough. It takes constant public pressure, and of course good strategy to effect change. Even if Lightfoot really did want to reform the CPD, it’s too powerful to face without a collective effort focused on small, achievable policy to start. I respect the outsiders, but she was not very political. Maybe Johnson, as a former organizer, will do better.
That wording implies that these were crimes committed while electronic monitoring was in place. However, you shared a graphic that shows that more people who already committed crimes were being given electronic monitoring. Nothing you posted supports the idea that people on monitoring are committing crimes.
To me, this sounds like the precursor for a planned political career wherever he's moving to. Chicago is the icon for terrible awful no-good very bad liberal crime policies in popular conservative politics and an Illinois prosecutor who's moving because they just can't take it anymore would be optimally positioned to capitalize on that. Ah, politics.
Of course a career prosecutor would see a ‘crime problem’ as a result of insufficient prosecution.
Crime is complex, but largely related to poverty and economic opportunity. The interventions that are likely to matter most are so far outside this person’s perspective, that they are unable to see how modest judicial reform is merely the nearest corner of the iceberg.
You can look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b..., sort by the homicide rate and almost all of the top 50 voted Democrat in the 2020 election. Not Tulsa or Oklahoma City, not Mobile. Eyeballing it, I don't see any other cities that voted Republican.
High homicide rates are a blue city thing, almost exclusively.
I'm happy to look at pre and post policy implementation compared with similar entities, taking national and regional trends into account. Anything else is posturing.
Short answer: Bounty hunters.
If you jump bail, they get part of the bail payment for capturing you. It's a long standing privatization of law enforcement in the US.
It's all a bit...predatory.
That is what I did when I faced this scenario.
Takes a long time. Speedy trials suddenly slow down. Pressure to get a person on more charges goes up. Offers get better. Requests for court appearances increase in frequency and more.
And if they’re judgement proof there’s nothing you can effectively do.
The theory of bail is that someone who is to trap the charged individually financially, by locking up as much of their liquid assets as possible behind a promise to actually show up to court. If people are needing to take out loans to pay bail, the bail was set too high. If the accused doesn't have enough assets to meaningfully pin them down with bail, cash bail is inappropriate. In a system that was effectively setting cash bail, the only scenario where someone would take a loan out would be to cover unexpected expenses between arrest and trial.
But that's not how bail is applied in the US. Cash bail is set absurdly high, because the prosecution knows that the individual is going to get a bail bond, and thus the 10% needs to be a significant hit, and the remaining 90% needs to be enough to convince a bounty hunter to chase someone down.
There are two justice systems in the US, one for the rich and one for the others. In effect, this is one cog in the machine of systemic racism, as minorities tend to not be part of the rich class.
The unfortunate fact is that as the prosecutor in the OP lays out, it is not State's job to make sure every single legal advantage is pressed to the fullest.
Acquiring solid legal representation is a big financial barrier, but that's something we do help with as a society - there's public defenders, then there are civil programs for people up to 400% of the poverty line.
Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, states that it takes 10x the effort to dispel bullshit as it takes to make it. Therefore, every set of bullshit charges takes a public defender 10x the resources to counteract. Any fair system, every fair system, would have public defenders substantially better funded than prosecutors.
I think I speak for a good number of Cook county residents when I say: Bye Felicia.
Prosecutors suffer a self-serving delusion: they’re born on third base thinking they hit a triple.
That way the resources are in the same 'pot' if you will.
Still have to contend with the fact that a mere accusation colors public perception, and so often gives the advantage to the prosecution in the court of public opinion
Enough "horse-trading" goes on as it is (you go easy on client A, I'll offer client B up to you on this other case on a silver platter; that way we both make our numbers and look good).
A better idea would be the appointment of a special "evidence master" who holds and controls all evidence and determines who gets to see what evidence, with a bias toward everybody seeing everything. Right now police turn their evidence over to prosecutors and prosecutors determine what the defense (and public) see. If prosecutors don't want them to have something, they don't get it, and no one's ever going to know. I have real trouble believing any society where prosecutions rely on bluffing and brinksmanship to coerce plea bargains is a fair and just one.
There should be no plea bargains. There should also be no peremptory juror challenges. In all honesty, I think AI would be a great candidate to replace both prosecutors and defense attorneys. The playing field would finally be level for once. Judges too.
Does such things invalidate the points made in the article? No. But it helps me judge the level of scrutiny I need to apply.
If it were the WSJ, Telegraph or Times (London) publishing it too, your concern would be more justified.
The news CNN or NYTimes night carry is often ignored by NYPost or Fox and vice versa because it doesn't fit their narratives.
Having a narrative on either side doesn't mean the things being reported on are incorrect or even embellished.
But yes, you do need to be aware of the narrative so you can place different weights on news items.
Or... Find better news sources.
It also leaves out that the point of bail is ensuring people return, not keeping them in jail. This makes sense: if someone is dangerous they're dangerous no matter how much money they have.
There's much more slanted crap in their opinion section, but this is a news article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/nyregion/bail-reform-hoch...
> Foxx has directed her office to not prosecute shoplifting cases under $1,000 as felonies.
I mean you can still prosecute them as anything else i.e. misdemeanor. Personally, I'm not sure that stealing a backpack with a laptop should count as a felony.
If not getting to put somebody away for a decades for stealing an iPhone makes you quit your job; maybe you're not in it to protect and to serve.
> declining to prosecute low-level shoplifting and drug offenses and by diverting more cases to alternative treatment programs.
So instead of sending people to jail she's sending them to rehab. I'd personally say a very short prison sentence followed by rehab is probably most effective (I mean look at how hard white collar criminals try to avoid prison; it has a powerful effect even if its for <7d). But unless he's going to show that the people in rehab instead of prison are committing these crimes (which it almost always isn't; plenty of fresh criminals available) it's an argument without any evidence.
I also don't think firing gunshots in a playground (his actual complain) counts as "low-level shoplifting" as well as crime is increasing everywhere including non-democratic states/counties. She'd never get elected in the bible belt so many he should consider employment there. (note: bible belt has the highest homicide rate [1]).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussie_Smollett_hate_crime_hoa...
His primary reason (as given by him) is gunshots in the playground and Smollett's case involves neither non-drawn firearms nor sounds of gunshots. As well as Smollett did not commit any more crimes while before the trial ultimately found him guilty (so bail-reform probably doesn't apply).
Ironically?, Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded prosecutors that he thinks are the problem.
Utah looks better [0]. Higher gun ownership %, but lower gun death rate than Massachusetts.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
Utah is ranked just ahead of Florida.
Oh, I see, your numbers don’t include suicides, which is the majority of gun deaths.
It would be very odd indeed to include suicides in stats of how dangerous it is to live in a state.
> Utah looks better [0]. Higher gun ownership %, but lower gun death rate than Massachusetts.
They didn't say
> Utah looks better [0]. Higher gun ownership %, but lower gun homicide rate than Massachusetts.
That isn't a very pedantic distinction. Conservative states suffer poorer mental health services and support networks, but more gun ownership rates also play a role in higher suicide rates.
Many would argue that personal safety includes risk of not feeling like and having the ability to end your own life.
Given the main support network is friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues, how is this measured?
> Many would argue that personal safety includes risk of not feeling like and having the ability to end your own life.
This is passing facts through too many layers of abstraction to be useful and clear. I think trying to force this point through is a mistake. The main danger to worry about is homicide.
If someone is on the edge of genuine mental health collapse to the point of suicide then that seems a much more niche case than the general danger posed in states/cities with high numbers of criminals willing to attack you with a gun (or any other weapon).
The numbers don’t seem to hear that out.
Wow.
The people who actually live in Chicago just elected a progressive mayor who ran against a "tough-on-crime" candidate. Maybe those people (the ones living in the city) see things differently than you (someone not living in the city).
Sentiment here is definitely shifting in favor of tough-on-crime.
Are you not familiar with the CPD (Chicago Police Department)? The police probably have more of an impact on the topic at hand (crime and violence) than CPS.
They are far more shameful, dysfunctional, and incompetent than CPS. From forced confessions [1] to planting drugs [2] to electing radical leaders [3]. They are on a Federal consent decree because of their ineptitude and violations of civil rights [4].
[1] https://news.wttw.com/2017/09/22/chicago-really-false-confes...
[2] https://news.wttw.com/2021/11/04/judge-tosses-5-more-convict...
[3] https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/4/21/23036206/fop-fraterna...
You have cried wolf too many times and now no one believes you.
Normal people have completely soured on the idea that we can hug our way out of these areas completely overrun with crime.
Complete strawman, arguing against a policy that nobody has ever proposed. It seems you are the one crying wolf while pointing at everyone else.
Limited examples? The consent decree alone comes from decades of datapoints collected by the Federal government. You should read it.
There are certainly problems, but the good far outweighs the bad. We discuss Chicago’s problems openly all the time (and certainly randos here on HN seem very excited to discuss it, frequently).
What, exactly, do you think the problems and solutions are? Let’s discuss them openly.
At the time you make bond, you have merely been charged with a crime—you are not a criminal. I’m sure a prosecutor does get tired of having to argue cases against defendants who were able, by virtue of habeas corpus, to prepare a defense.
> shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders,
Things that mitigate real inequities present when the justice system interacts with poor people.
> the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers,
This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police officers have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal defenses that protect them from almost every form of wrongdoing.
> overuse of diversion programs,
The United States already incarcerates a relatively large fraction of the world’s children. He would prefer incarcerating more.
> intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor,
This prosecutor has had this power for twenty years, and I’m certain he’s used it freely. He’s likely used it to protect people he feels sympathy toward, and refrained from using it to protect people he feels no sympathy toward. He’s likely used it because he feels overworked or under-appreciated.
> all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation.
As a prosecutor, he had wide-reaching legal power to make his community a better place. What did he do instead? To hear him tell it, he was the one in prison for twenty years.
Yeah, the author lost me here. I'm all for law and order when it comes to catching and prosecuting murderers, rapists, kidnappers, armed robbers, etc. However, I've seen FAR too many videos of situations where there was no crime that had been committed and no threat to public safety when a police officer showed up and escalated a non-issue into a serious situation that resulted in someone being killed, beaten, and/or arrested for no real reason. There has to be some sort of middle ground.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/longtime-chicago-prosec...
a. Incorrectly and significantly disrupting people's lives by locking them up pre-trial when many cases up getting acquitted. This can often sink folk into much worse situations than they were before, creating an endless cycle
b. Potentially releasing some dangerous criminals back into society while they wait their trials
edit: to be clear, I think the likelihood * impact of false positives is way worse than the false negatives
For example in NY, it was sold as only applying to non-violent crimes. So one might say - sure this sound great, obviously we don't need to pre-trial hold non-violent criminals!
However technically, as defined in law, theres a lot of things that "sound violent" but are considered non-violent felonies. Second degree manslaughter (125.15) is, for the purposes of NY State law, a non-violent felony.
So the next question - what might get a person charged with second degree manslaughter? * Well, a guy recently chocked an erratic mentally ill homeless man to death on the subway was charged with second degree manslaughter only
Other historical examples just to name a few-
* Speeding 55mph in a 25mph local road (Delancey), killing a pedestrian and fleeing the scene
* Guy accidentally shooting a friend with an unregistered gun while playing video games
* DUI with kids in the car so badly you flip the car, killing one child
* Drunken stealing a truck, driving up 7th Ave and hitting a Bus so fast they killed the driver
* Guy overdosing his 10 month old on fentanyl somehow
* Cop accidentally shoots a guy in the stairway of a housing project, proceeds to leave and call union rep rather than render assistance, while arguing with his partner not to report the shooting
* Drunk driving 90mph in a 25mph, crashing into another drunk driver who was on a suspended license, killing a passenger in the back, and the most either of them got charged with was again, second degree manslaughter
Did they intend to kill? No.
But what did they think was going to happen when they drove drunk 90mph / acquired an illegal firearm and used it recklessly?
But there are clearly many classes of "non violent" crimes which seem violent enough, and/or result in death. And as a lay person it's a bit opaque.
Given prosecutorial discretion in charging, there are things that could be murder or manslaughter, and therefore the same crime can be "violent" or "nonviolent" depending on some 50/50 charging choices by the DA... sometimes those choices being driven by what they think they can get a conviction on with a jury, not what they think the crime actually merits.
Some people do bad things. Some people repeatedly do bad things. Living consequence free leads to more bad things.
I mean what do you do with a DUI driver, already on a suspended license who causes a fatality? Take away their license?
He and two others were subduing the homeless man to protect other passengers (there were five 911 calls), then tried to help the homeless man after he went unconscious.
But I leave that with the NYPD, DA and jury. There is evidence few of us have seen or heard going in either direction which will be seen inside the courtroom.
However, it seems bizarre that he is ultimate charged with something, which sounds violent & scary "manslaughter in the second degree" that obviously did involve violence (choking & death) but ultimately under NYS law, it is not classified as a "violent felony".
This is what I mean between the difference of the logical & legal definition of violence, and how some bail reform supporters didn't understand what they were supporting.
How does this lawyer, who is supposed to be trained in logic, not see the doublespeak here. On one hand they say there are needless prosecutions of police, but then laments the discretion to not prosecute some crimes. Which do you want - to vigorously pursue crimes, or to use discretion? It seems they want discretion, but to only use it with police. It's laughable they think the defenders have an fair chance and even resources (as implied in their mention of the adversarial system and respect for them).
I agree that some of the policies listed are problematic. One thing this guy completely misses is that crime is primarily driven by socioeconomic issues. Did the policies in place exacerbate crime? Many likely did. But the majority of the increase in the past few years has been driven by the pandemic and policies around that.
We're talking about someone who's job is to persuade people for a living. Why would you doubt the deliberateness of their speech?
Let's see if anyone with a username linked to their true identity can figure out a way to speak honestly about this without tanking their career.
> The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt.
So the claim is that his state, county, and agency are all backing policies that predictably lead to more crime.
Those policies are then characterized as:
* bond/bail reform * reduced parole and sentences in some cases * "malicious" prosecution of law officers * not prosecuting some crimes that are on the books
Unfortunately the author makes zero references, citations, or arguments for why these policies are harmful, as enacted, and why they might have led to the negative experiences of their family.
So it's an emotional content (nearly) free emotional rant that doesn't move the discussion forward in any helpful way.
Analysis that showed even correlation would be interesting/useful. This is not.
> malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers
None of this has anything to do with "no repercussions for gangbangers".
There’s not much content here. The author is a prosecutor who is upset that policies have been introduced that put fewer people behind bars. They think that we need “tough on crime” laws that keep their kids safe. I am not surprised in the least.
I find it quite troubling, but that's where we are. I don't care about my reputation.
So, yeah, if I see someone attacking a view popular among the left, my first assumption is going to be that the person in question leans right.
I stopped reading here. It's nearly impossible to prosecute a cop for anything but the most heinous abuse of the system. This is just gibberish.
[1] https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/departing-cook-county...
"The people" can fight for themselves by voting and they voted for his bosses. Fighting for the people means honoring their electoral decisions!
There is a lot being said between the lines here that I won't get into but this guy leaving the state and his job is a good thing for everyone involved.
You know, many developed countries are far more lenient on bail bonds,sentencing,etc... than even illinois. But the fact of the matter is, criminals can get caught and do get locked up even in his state but the police and his colleagues are worried about locking up drug dealers and users and overpolicing minorities to meet quotas. He and his cop buddies suck at their jobs and like their peers in other big cities they are conservative and blame their own incompetence on liberal elected politicians whom the people support.
Criminals they go after can't afford good lawyers like the ones that make ADA and overworked and resource starved public defenders can only do so much and this guy has the nerve to claim they are equally resourced like prosecutors are!
The more I think about it the more this guy pisses me off. Who told him locking up criminals and preventing victims was his job? His job is to prosecute in accordance with his elected boss's policies! Not appointed, but elected!
I don't think it "goes without saying" at all. We have an adversarial system. They make it very explicit that neither ethics nor honesty are required.
Every lawyer will be very clear that you absolutely, positively need a lawyer for any interaction with the legal system. You cannot assume that the other people will be "evenhanded". It's your lawyer's job to force ethics on them. Without that, it goes without saying that they can get away with behaving unethically.
To have it "go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly" would require a completely different legal system than the one we have. Our current one says exactly the opposite, by design.
I spoke to a prosecutor recently that in his office, it was spoken out loud that they were to be ethical and evenhanded. But that was not a requirement, and other prosecutor's offices did not follow it. Their job was to be zealous in prosecution, just as the defense's job was to be zealous in defense, and everybody hoped that "justice" would emerge from that somehow.
Make all crimes have unlimited statue of limitations
Understand you have no Constitutional right to be charged with a crime you have been accused of doing
This loophole avoids due process for an accused person entirely
The unlimited statue of limitations will allow any law enforcement agent investigating you to have unlimited powers as judge, jury and possibly executioner.
The state legislature will no longer need to worry about passing laws with associated crime and punishment
Since the accused will never have a day in court and never have to face any punishment defined by law, it will save lots of money paying for courts, judges, Juries, prosecutors and public defenders.
All accused people can be treated as guilty until proven innocent and will have no opportunity to prove innocence
The endless "investigation" can slowly take away the accused life over time. First family and friends, followed by their career and home.
Before long they cannot work, they become homeless, and the process itself simply becomes the method of execution.
Crime solved. /s
(This is actually being done to me)
That actually explains a lot. Like blatant disregard for the concept of truth in the entire justice system. From the lowliest convicts to the top judges. When there's competition and relationships are adversarial, the truth is the first victim. "If you are not cheating you, are not trying hard enough." mentality sets firmly in.
Whenever we look at these situations as HNers there is often armchair reasoning about the situation. The author is not reasoning from an armchair. This is visceral to him. Whether he is right or wrong, we should do him the courtesy of acknowledging his feelings and believing him when he is there and we are not.
It may also just be that, as his LinkedIn shows him now working for a fancy law firm in Wisconsin, the amount of money dangled in front of him was "visceral" and this letter is just an easy cheap shot when he's already out the door.
This is a society problem. You want gun toting thugs shooting shit up? Treat people like gun toting thugs!
Fix society. Give people a way out of this shit.
But no. That's too hard. That takes empathy. And empathy is "woke".
Before we ever started, he told us that if our hearts saw no crime, we had the discretion to not indict. This was strange, I was of the opinion they wanted to keep such things secret, after all. But he told us the story of a little old grandma, 90 years old, going to the airport and forgetting a Derringer in her purse.
They were so fucking lazy. I know what you see on TV, but our grand jury consisted of another on the DA team coming in, giving a 30 second summary of the crimes of the accused, showing us no evidence whatsoever, and then moving on to the next. Probably 25 or 30 of these minimum, before lunch rolled around. We were allowed to ask questions, for which there was always a smarmy answer.
"Oh, if you can't make it in, just call, a quorum's 9 so we probably won't even need to bring in an alternate".
They did discover a need to bring in an alternate, the morning only 9 of us showed up. I had veto power. Every drug case that they made no claim of violence or gross negligence... no bill. Then I heard the "This isn't justice! You're all temporarily dismissed, until we can get an alternate in here later this afternoon"
All because they had a hard-on for some college-aged kids selling weed. I think there was a sizable cash confiscation, but my understanding is that they got to keep the free money anyway. Even if not, I think the legal term is collateral estoppel, that is if they managed to "find" some new evidence they just introduced the case to a new grand jury when our term was up. I didn't really save anyone from anything, unless the prosecutors were truly as lazy as I believed them to be.
On another day where it was slow, he sat there bragging about (at least before covid) they'd have 4000 cases a year... and do 30 trials. "We like the trials, they're so fun, it breaks up the monotony". They didn't like trials enough to give them to the other 3970 defendants they charged. Nor were they even clever enough to recognize that the nature of plea deals coerces those defendants to waive their rights to a trial. None of people on his team ever scored 99th percentile on a standardized test while in elementary school, I'd bet money on it.
Though there was never an opportunity to ask, I often wondered if it clicked for him that his excuses for prosecuting crimes that shouldn't be crimes sounds an awful lot like the defense of those at Nuremberg.
It may be impossible to find justice in our world, but if it is to be found, it must be in the opposite direction of where these people live and work. Deep space, the edge of the visible universe, it's probably not feasible to go far enough away from them to find it.
Despite all of this, I have little doubt that if one of them were to quit, they could easily have written an article just like this one. Self-righteous, blind to the fact that they were if not the cause of these problems, then the biggest factor aggravating them. Remember, at the end of the day these assholes won't even do their job, they actively avoid trying to take each case to trial. If pleas aren't forthcoming and a two year stint in county waiting on a date won't cause the accused to budge, they're just as likely to drop it than push forward. They regularly pervert the bail process. They're complicit in turning it into a system of pre-conviction fines.
Fuck'em all.
Chesa Boudin and Priscilla Price
With all the talk of China being a police state, the US has more people incarcerated than China - and China's population is more than four times that of the US.
European countries don't have these problems, like the rash of mass shootings we have had in the past few weeks in just Texas.
Also these prisons are a sop to rural communities for money and jobs, with prisoners from the cities. The prisoners also count for congressional districts going to these areas but can not vote.
Of course there is also the profit making of private prisons. Judges have been found sending innocent people to jail for kickbacks.
It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one step is incarceration going down to three times the rate of China, as opposed to over four times.
But when here in eastern europe got same policies forced down our throats... Here culture is slightly different and many criminals are career criminals and take pride their... line of work. So we get routine re-offenses. Or people commit new crimes while waiting for trial. West seems to have issues with certain parts of their societies that ain't culturally trained to behave too.
This doesn't work well if society accepts crime as a respectable line of work. E.g. glorifying criminal „subculture“ and normalising that.
But correlation does not imply causation, right? I don't understand how it follows from noting our incarceration rate being higher than another place with less crime, and then reaching the seeming conclusion that the answer, therefore, is to stop putting people in jail.
Summary execution keeps incarceration rates down. It also disincentivizes crime.
Sure US has an overly large prison population but no other developed country is as diverse, it also doesn't have a wide social safety net that works around the problem at the cost of blocking development with insane taxes.
It's a country where you either win, or you lose, and the system must ensure that those who lost don't get in the way of those still running.