Framed For Selling Crack, Surveillance Video Helps Him Sue Police
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$500,000 won't make prosecutors suddenly interested in veering away from extinguishing people to win. I doubt $500 billion-with-a-B would scratch beyond the surface of flawed architecture.
The United States' criminal justice system, as a particular hodgepodge of incentives, disincentives, esoteric proceedings, privileged access, violent sentencing, plea pressure, and power-tripping careerism -- irrespective of cruel laws -- is a deeply failed model in the context of ethics. It's a very 'successful' model in other contexts. Before anyone replies with comparative excuses or appeals to historical precedence, see this. I, too, agree that US "justice" is far more ethical than the "justice" of North Korea and several other fundamentalist countries. Great. I, too, agree that nearly every other nation's justice system is similarly ethically primitive. Rejoice for a second in shared misery.
+1
> I, too, agree that nearly every other nation's justice system is ethically primitive.
I don't have data about my own country, but I can tell you about fundamental differences between France and Commonwealth law structures:
- Lying is only a fault in Commonwealth countries. In France, people are allowed to lie for their own defense and the girlfriend/wife too. It changes heaps. The policeman has to prove the crime, because proving that the person has been inconsistent is such and such answers won't lead anywhere. Of course, like in US, helping the police is a positive point at the trial. The "allowed to lie for your own defense" rule seems heaps more ethical to me, because it's so much more aligned with human's behavior.
- In France, you only get convicted for the highest crime and charges don't add up. If you rob a bank, use a gun without license and kill the security guard, you will get convicted for only the worst of those crimes. That also changes everything: Of course in US you use the "sum" system to frame gangsters whose business you didn't succeed to unveil, but it also means that an almost-non-criminal can be thrown for life on a few actions he did to cover a mistake.
- In France, you can plead guilty, but the crime still has to be proven, which is different from the Us[1]. I think pleading guilty is a fundamental flaw: Under the excuse of saving public money, the poorest citizen who can't afford the defense to prove their case would bargain for a crime they didn't commit.
- In France it's illegal to imply someone is guilty until they were proven guilty. That's what hurt so much the ethics of French people when pictures of DSK in handcuffs were shown before the trial.
There are different systems and, as opposed to you, I think there are more ethical rules to be found in each of them. And, yes, flaws too.
[1] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaidoyer_de_marchandage Sorry for the French, but the English page of wikipedia doesn't say enough.
> There are different systems and, as opposed to you, I think there are more ethical rules to be found in each of them.
That's not opposed to me. There are different systems, indeed. :) There are positive ethical traits lurking in the corners of even the harshest of places. Focusing on flaws is often seen as excluding or overlooking positives. To the contrary, it's one and the same to me.
> In France it's illegal to imply someone is guilty until they were proven guilty. That's what hurt so much the ethics of French people when pictures of DSK in handcuffs were shown before the trial.
Plus you have 2 independent criminal investigations. One against you and one for you. Everything done by the police. Where in the US you have only one Against you and you have to prove that you are innocent by yourself (so by paying private investigators).
But if only we would have the spirit of entrepreneurship from the SV. And I am not even talking about the open source, the technologies, or the engineers freedom to innovate: an innovation starting right from the bottom...
Omg srsly? We need this... right now.
It's quite a good system in theory, but it has some quirks.
Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows? http://hany.rashwan.com/good-thing-bad-thing-who-knows Let's say we currently have an optimist faith in our system.
> if only we would have the spirit of entrepreneurship from the SV
Out of scope here - but you tickle my most favourite topic: I don't believe Frenches are unentrepreneurs by nature, but we can discuss it on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7088467
Yes it reminds me this : http://youtu.be/B2L1-TgfKb4 But I said it because I know French lawyers and judges. And I know the basics of the French business law with jurisprudence cases.
> Out of scope here.
Yes out of scope. I didn't see this post but I just wanted to show pros and cons between the US and France.
There is a community but it's small. People here see companies as something being big. It is more about management, hierarchy, and to start from the bottom by having a career. The company spirit is dominated by styles like Oracle, Microsoft, IBM or HP. Even in a small company you find this spirit rather than a startup spirit like you have in the SV.
Maybe it's the Irish cultural thing of not taking many things seriously which applies mostly to police as well.
Even so people who are used to dealing with a sympathetic Irish Garda [Police force] are in for a rude surprise if they expect the same in France. Local police can be extremely unsympathetic and they make no allowance for visiting tourists.
I wouldn't imagine a police force with a reputation to be lenient. Is it like this for the Irish Guarda? Do they still succeed in keeping the death rates low?
Yes it's an opinion piece. But it's an opinion piece from a large motorist organisation, which gives information about motoring and travelling. France is very close to Ireland and many people travel there, so their recommendations are probably true.
Do they still succeed in keeping the death rates low?
Yes. We have had a massive reduction in deaths on the roads in the last few years, down to 162 in 2012[1], down from about 415 in 2000[2]. The Wikipedia list of road deaths per year[3] also shows Ireland scoring lower than France for various road death metrics
[1] http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/Our-Research/Deaths-injuri... [2] http://www.garda.ie/Controller.aspx?Page=10717&Lang=1 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...
Huh? Who said that? There are far better justice systems in some european countries -- and far more pragmatism than puritanism in pursuing the spirit of the law too.
In Scotland, prosecutors only require to provide the evidence they intend to use against you; any other evidence, including exculpatory evidence can (and is) withheld - it's up to you to find that by yourself.
Your only safeguard is the requirement for corroboration - a second piece of evidence to confirm what is suggested by another; in this case the informant's pictures would be considered corroboration of his claim.
The Scottish Government is currently trying to remove the requirement for corroboration completely so a single allegation (without any supporting evidence) is sufficient for a conviction.
What could possibly go wrong ?
And if the evidence is as clear as these tapes apparently were why would they even continue with a prosecution? They must know that the tapes are going to be released at some point?
It shows the importance of off-site backup. Sending the video to an off site store would have allowed his legal team to get access much earlier.
You're right about the Scottish situation being scary.
Why?
In the article seven other cases are now being looked at because they might be wrong. That's a lot of time and money chasing innocent people, and not chasing guilty people. That's a lot of goodwill lost. Since we are policed with our consent they need all the goodwill they can get.
Do you have an argument for why the this corroboration rule, that no other country has, is actually a good thing? I'm willing to be convinced if there's a reasonable argument in favour.
While this is perhaps not called 'corroboration' in the way it is enshrined in current Scottish legislation, it is generally required - indeed, the Grand Jury in this case are, as I understand it, tasked with considering the allegation and any evidence the police have in order to consider if the allegation has merit before the case can proceed. To my mind, this sounds like a corroboration requirement by a different name.
While Scotland has it's share of miscarriages of justice, corroboration does act as a safeguard against some of the circumstances where a miscarriage can happen. The concentration on various 'straw men' - typically involving cases of uncorroborated claims of sexual assaults as these are highly emotive - in the debate is a disservice which is setting Scotland up to become little more than a series of kangaroo courts (in my opinion).
In the particular cases of [extremely rare] uncorroborated sexual assaults, convictions are often obtainable via the Moorov Doctrine where the same accused has often engaged in multiple independent acts which, as a whole, are considered corroboration. [In "American": the same MO points to the single suspect.]
[Sexual assaults often have forensic evidence as corroboration so unlike the emotive arguments put forward, they do not actually always end up as he-said, she-said credibility competitions.]
I seriously doubt that. Please cite a reliable source or an original document for this, I suspect you've misunderstood a proposal and drastically exaggerated what it means.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-2573...
Fortunately (heh), we've carefully defined obstruction of justice in the USA so that it doesn't seem to apply to prosecutors who stare right at exculpatory evidence and then try to hide it to pervert justice anyway. I'm inclined to stop calling them "prosecutors" and take the advice of my spellcheck when I mistyped it and call them "persecutors".
The procedures for handling evidence are very strict, and police are obliged to register everything in a database (I don't know the name of the laws forcing them to do this, but it was explained to me when I was on a jury).
You then have both the officers who were on the scene and the master of records, where video evidence is used, testify about the source of the video and any processing it has been through, and so on. These prosecution witnesses are all cross-examined, and if a defense lawyer had the angle that procedure had not been followed properly (i.e. the master of records, and those investigating the case, had ignored or hidden evidence that supported the defense), the officers' testimony would fall apart and they would likely be charged themselves (or at least disciplined internally) on the basis of the evidence they gave in court under oath.
It usually prevents these kinds of misgivings.
That's frightening that France and Belgium have the need of a special judge called a neutral judge.
Edit : And the Juge d'Instruction IS a special judge, because he doesn't judge anything, his job is to head all investigations in serious and complicated cases. Normally that would be the prosecutors job... so it's an independent and trully neutral man (a judge) doing a prosecutor job, in the interest of the accusation and the defense, at the same time. That's quite special.
Some friends of mine were setup by Austin Police Department undercover officers...the protest they intended to participate in would have led to misdemeanor charges. The undercover officers encouraged use of, and provided, dragon sleeves (a type of lockbox to make it harder to separate protestors who are in a sit-in or lockdown of some sort), which led to felony charges for seven of the protestors.
It was entirely a lucky break that one of the undercover officers was outed (a friend of a friend recognized him from school and knew he was a cop), and with that information the lawyer was able to request all the records that showed how things went down. Had that lucky break not happened, those kids would still be in jail today and saddled with felonies.
The prosecuting attorney tried to make the case that his Houston officers didn't know about it, and that it wasn't relevant to the case and that evidence shouldn't be brought up. The judge, thankfully, disagreed.
In my experience, cops lie, prosecuting attorneys lie, and when they lie they face no consequences.
The officers overseeing this case, and the district attorney prosecuting this, should be out of a job or, better, in jail for trying to destroy a man's life. But, to them it's just another day. They got caught this time, but dozens of others weren't lucky enough to have surveillance footage proving their innocence.
I don't have a very high opinion of police or the justice system, as you may have guessed by now. But, I think it's important to stop living under the illusion that this is an isolated incident and that "most cops are good people".
And the NSU is an entirely different beast of a story - personally I think it is one or more blacker-than-black ops gone wrong and the intelligence service fucked up to properly cover their traces.
Lack of no major scandal means either: (a) The system is fair and basically works as advertised or (b) The system is so massively corrupt that it happens often enough, but that information is hidden from public view.
However it's rare for a prosecutor to be personally held liable for withholding evidence, unless it was something really egregious where it can be proven they did it on purpose.
The upside is, it won't affect trials where the accused is guilty. But it will affect trials where the prosecutor is.
Yes, if there's a single doubt about the evidence, you _must not_ frame the person.
We're talking here about the justice system refusing to return evidence which could help the defense, and the accused was found innocent. It's not like they acted well anyway. Tampering with jail time _must be_ a high pressure job for those who execute it. No mistake allowed.
Not even a bar complaint?
The Grand Jury mentioned is the article is not the actual trial but a pre-trial procedure to decide whether to even charge the suspect with a crime. Special rules apply that favor the prosecution. If the grand jury decides to charge then there will be a trial with normal rules to decide guilt.
EDIT: New link.
http://alllifeislocal.blogspot.com/2010/09/federal-grand-jur...
How neutral the judge is depends often on his political alignment, the alignment of the defendant, possible stereotypes that might apply to a defendant and of course if there is some reputation gain for a judge in case of a conviction.
While in theory the system of a neutral judge is good in practice it's pretty flawed because no single human can really be neutral.
I wish we had a jury system in Germany because that way you at least need 12 people to fail instead of just one - who might have hidden motives for a conviction - for someone to get wrongfully convicted.
It should be allowed but the person who collected the evidence illegally should have separate trial and punishment for that.
One of my good friends, who is a civil rights attorney in Boston, represented a client who secretly used his phone to record himself getting pulled over for a speeding ticket.
He was subsequently charged with a felony for the recording.
...For the audio portion of the recording. It's not illegal to record the video without consent.
And how much of the $500k will be actually be paid by the guilty parties, and how much will be paid for by innocent citizenry?
The fact that these even exist is disgusting.
What are the board-meetings like in this kind of company?
"Okay guys, last quarter had a decrease in people put in jail. We need to increase our profits this coming quarter so what can we do to put more people in jail? Also, there's talk about losing our cash-cow. Weed might be legalized. We can't have that."
I wish someone could "accidentally" leak the discussions that go on with execs in charge of those places.
Sounds about right...
There are other types of informants, obviously. I'm not referring to informants who act upon true desire and commitment to "truth" and not threats. I don't know the motives of the guy in the article. Many convicted people or people facing charges need no other motive to fuck over others, lie, or help authority other than the chance of getting a candy bar, a day of sunny adventure, or watching the world burn.
[1] Countless stories like this roll on over the years. I can't remember, but This American Life might've had a segment about the twisted process of churning out the enslaved helpers they call informants. Example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-newman/get-busted-for-mar...
surveillance video of my own property which I have direct access to, can encrypt and protect, is not a problem.
Here's a "This american life" episode which gives you a nice overview: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/448/a...
Also this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wvSSRWjjUs
Even though I agree that China and the US are still different in their justice systems, I believe the lines between them are blurring, and eventually we will find it hard to distinguish the difference. Or maybe, the US has always been like that (unjust), but just really good at marketing (via Hollywood)
Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
If we can't place reasonable trust in law enforcement... well, then, we are no longer a nation of law (imperfect as that is).
The compensation should also be at least an order of magnitude larger, as only painful (both in publicity and in resulting operating constraints) amounts of money seem to have any real effect on the larger system.
It just seems like it's worth checking this guy's Surveillance Camera Footage sooner rather than later.
It's all about chain of custody. You don't want to be begging for access to evidence that you know exists, you want to have it, introduce it yourself and make prosecutors look stupid.
And if your connection is physically cut, then you can introduce an element of doubt.
So the cops were flat-out lying?
Police officers, at least, can be fired for being caught lying and have an incentive for peace and order in the public.
The other thing is to live stream a backup to somewhere out-of-reach of local & country jurisdictions. Because if you don't provide your own reliable evidence, you're going to get fucked.
Obviously the use of compensated informants would be prohibited as well.
Why didn't his lawyer bring up the Brady rule?