Three Years on Rikers Without Trial | Hacker News Reader

Three Years on Rikers Without Trial

newyorker.com

87 pointswhiddershins25 comments

My good friend's gf is a psychiatrist at a bay area prison. She had taken a young man under her wing, who had been incarcerated via the three strikes rule. Without going into too much detail, his strikes against him was possession of firearms without a license, and protecting himself inside a prison vs gang related targeting thus giving him a disorderly conduct strike.

He was sentenced to life in prison and was being sent back from protection to where he "had a mark" on him and was going back into hell on earth.

The day before he was to return to the prison, he hung himself. He was 18.

The system is terribly broken.

The system isn't broken, but rather that Californians are awful. The three strikes law, the most oppressive in the country, works exactly as designed. And California's voted for it by referendum by a 72:28 margin.

The system isn't broken, but rather...

Perhaps both propositions could be true? A system of government that brings out the worst in its citizens might not be the best one they could have.

Why do you think this law reflects the worst of its citizens?

Maybe people are sadistic at best.

If those people got their moral education from the system they then vote in, that would be a broken system...

In 2012 the 3 strike rule was changed such the final strike has to be due to a "serious" or "violent" offense:

http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_36,_Changes_in...

The entire thing, including the original story the parent comment, is Kafka-esque. We need massive prison reform.

Victim's rights are such a sham. I don't want to attack victims, it's not their fault most of the time, but nobody would think a court would be fair if the jury were comprised of victims because victims are inherently impartial due to their suffering. Victims are unreasonable, and punishment of the offender does nothing to undo the harm they've done so I think instead of considering victim rights we should consider what's best for society instead, which probably involves rehabilitation. I'm not sure that except in the most extreme circumstances someone should ever go to prison for 15+ years. After 15 years in jail, with focus on rehabilitation, I doubt most would go back to crime. No you wont get punishment and suffering out of the offender for the crime, but that's a stupid thing to want in the first place.

"it's not their fault most of the time"?

The people in this country most oppressed by crime are not well-off conservative white people. Crime is a scourge of low-income communities, and most of it is violent.

I was simply saying that victims are most often not to blame for being a victim. I didn't expect that to be a controversial statement.

We've not yet decided if the system exists for punishment or rehabilitation, until we the people decide, this sort of thing will be depressingly common.

Yes I was making an argument for rehabilitation I think. Also I made a typo, I meant not impartial.

It's not that Californians are awful, it's that direct democracy is awful. It's a noble idea that time and time again has proven to be a horrible idea.

California is the only US state where it's completely illegal to own an assault weapon. Something about that doesn't sit right with me, though you can take that with a grain of salt cause I'm from Michigan.

This is what happens when you replace judgement with rigid rules. The obverse is that you have good-old-boy networks that let friends and family off easy. There's always trade-offs when people are involved.

Sad that your gf had to go through that, I'm sure it must have upset her terribly.

This is what happens when prosecutors get unlimited leverage and no accountability. I get it that the system is stressed; but the right thing to do in that case is drop cases, starting with the least violent. Sure, you'll release some (perhaps many) legitimate law-breakers, but that's preferable, in my opinion, than promulgating gross injustices like those suffered by Browder.

I'm glad, though, that Browder avoided suicide and is taking positive action against the system that perpetuated a gross injustice on him. Other New Yorker's would do well to pay attention to and support this case, lest they or someone they know get caught in the same horror show.

But, because Browder was still on probation, the judge ordered him to be held and set bail at three thousand dollars. The amount was out of reach for his family...

He committed the worst crime of all. The one that adds up to more jail time for those that commit it than any other. Being poor.

I would be far from surprised if the court had good reasons to set bail high and wanted him off the streets. A good kid does not just up and steal a truck for a joyride one day. The cops probably knew exactly who he was and knew what happened with the new theft charges.

The story should have been about the plain fact of an unjustly delayed trial. I suspect the journalist unnecessarily painted a falsely sympathetic picture.

Show your work.

A good black kid doesn't, apparently. A good rich white kid does this sort of thing rather frequently, it seems.

This makes me so angry.

The miscarriage of justice, the way that police and prosecutors can and will get away with this behavior with impunity. How no one is accountable.

I hope he wins his civil suit for some relief, but that doesn't really solve the problem...

Ah, the criminal justice system, a completely self-contradictory system of principles that only apply to random degrees of completeness, where 6 months means 3 years, and indictment is a low enough bar as to not even matter, and plea bargains and overly harsh sentencing mean proper results often don't happen.

Good grief. Reading this made me want to throw up.

wow sometimes I'm scared if something like this will happen to me. Innocent people end up in jail nowadays for nothing they didn't do and end up doing time for 30 years or so. Happens all the time depressing stuff.

No, it doesn't really happen all the time, but the few times it does are sensationalized.

Fucking depressing.

It's important to know that without help, this is a dead kid. This is the kid you hear about getting shot by the police, overdosing, or going to prison for life for murder.

The justice system would have killed this kid if somebody from a magazine hadn't picked him as an example. Our society kills thousands of kids just like him on a weekly basis.

Ah, but if the prison turns him into a violent criminal, then his fate is his own fault and the rest of us can relax in our sense of justified vengeance.

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