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I was falsely arrested

iwasfalselyarrested.com

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Re: I was falsely arrested

#71

Post by benbenolson »

golergka wrote: post #61
throw_this_away wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because...innocent until proven guilty. But according to the parent comment, guilty until proven innocent. The author of the story doesn't need to prove anything to you. His experience and the fact that he was ultimately released from prison should be enough.

> But according to the parent comment, guilty until proven innocent Where did I state something even remotely close to this?

Sometimes I really wonder about how some commenters on Hacker News extrapolate things like this. My guess is that someone feels badly for the wrongly accused (which is quite understandable), and wants to do anything in his/her power to defend him, like bringing down comments like yours that may reveal any wrongdoing or mistakes on the website creator's part.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#72

Post by coldtea »

justathrow2k wrote: post #42
dragonwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recognizing that, in practice, racial identity in the US has a significant correlation to various differences in life experience is not racism.

I would agree, that's not racism. However, I would say that a blanket statement about all members of a race such as this, 'black people have no alternative to understanding how the world really works.', is.

We all know that blanket statements are just a convenient way to speak for what a group does or tends to do "in general".

The fact there are outliers doesn't mean a blanket statement is "racist" as long as it's accurate for the most. It's doubly not racist if it's positive (and "understanding how the world really works" is a positive thing).

Re: I was falsely arrested

#73

Post by justathrow2k »

coldtea wrote: post #66
justathrow2k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly racist way to look at the issue.

There's absolutely nothing racist about that statement. It's actually a very accurate description of how a group that historically is facing systematic injustices and racism get to have fewer illusions than the comfortable majority. If anything, it's ANTI-racist. Not being racist is not the same as believing that racial minorities have absolutely the same experiences and outlooks as the majority. A group of who had t…

So, I hope I'm using this term correctly, but it seems like you're building a straw man here. I certainly never made the claim that everyone has the same experience and outlook regardless of race. However, as I mentioned in another one of my replies, making a blanket statement that 'black people have no alternative to understanding how the world really works.', reeks of racism to me. In this day and age, people are born into many diverse situations, regardless of shared racial makeup.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#74

Post by coldtea »

integraton wrote: post #36
dragonwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recognizing that, in practice, racial identity in the US has a significant correlation to various differences in life experience is not racism.

It is when it ignores class and takes people of different ethnic and economic groups and treats them as homogeneous based on skin color alone.

>It is when it ignores class and takes people of different ethnic and economic groups and treats them as homogeneous based on skin color alone.

You mean just like a racist society does (which makes the statement even more accurate)?

Because even a "rich/european/etc" black person is still a n... when it comes to a racist society, and while his experiences might be better, they'd still be shaped by racism.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#75

Post by dragonwriter »

justathrow2k wrote: post #42
dragonwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recognizing that, in practice, racial identity in the US has a significant correlation to various differences in life experience is not racism.

I would agree, that's not racism. However, I would say that a blanket statement about all members of a race such as this, 'black people have no alternative to understanding how the world really works.', is.

> However, I would say that a blanket statement about all members of a race such as this, 'black people have no alternative to understanding how the world really works.'

Context matters: in a discussion of percentages of a population holding particular views, where it is offered to explain why a certain percentage of blacks holding a view is improbable, that's not a blanket statement, its a statement about the relative frequency of experiences relevant to the belief in question.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#76

Post by AnimalMuppet »

apercu wrote: post #47
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #6

I'm happy that this guy finally got out of jail. Here's hoping he doesn't let this terrible tragedy hurt him the rest of his life. I support any reasonable thing the public can do to help folks like him out. We live in a security state, and video cameras everywhere are beginning to show how rotten it is in places. Having said all of that, I do not want to see us become self-indulgent with pity. There are 300 million…

Just curious... are you American? "Having said all of that, I do not want to see us become self-indulgent with pity. There are 300 million people in the U.S. There are tens of thousands of cops. You could run a video like this everyday and statistically there still wouldn't be much incompetence or corruption going on." Because it's mind-boggling to me that you don't think there is incompetence and corruption.

> Because it's mind-boggling to me that you don't think there is incompetence and corruption.

He didn't say that. He said "much".

There are things that need to be fixed. Is the whole system rotten? No.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#77

Post by Nadya »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #60
Nadya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as the majority population deems an error rate to be preferable to letting the more extreme criminals (rapists, murderers, arsonists, blah) 'walk free', there will be an error rate. I'd sooner let ten all-but-certain criminals walk free than convict even a single innocent person. But I am not most people. Furthermore, there is not a good demonstration that decreasing the error rate (which would require impris…

How many guilty people would you set free to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? You said 10. But probably some of those 10 will be repeat offenders. So how many innocent people will you see murdered in order to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? That's a different question, isn't it? I think this gets to the question of "beneficial for society as a whole". If you stick some plausible values on this (say we're t…

>How many guilty people would you set free to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? You said 10.

All of them. With the difference in terminology: They are not being "set free" after being "knowingly guilty" but "remaining free" after "uncertain evidence".

>But probably some of those 10 will be repeat offenders. So how many innocent people will you see murdered in order to avoid imprisoning an innocent person? That's a different question, isn't it?

I'm well aware of the entire argument you are trying to make. Which is why I said the false conviction rate exists. People are willing to trade security from potential repeat offenders at someone else's expense, while never imagining themselves as that someone else.

Let me ask you this:

Would you serve a lifetime prison sentence for a crime you did not commit?

If you are not willing to serve one yourself - you have absolutely no right to ask someone else to do so for your or societies' security. That is my stance on this. People are only okay with this because they never imagine themselves becoming a part of that statistic. Likewise, nobody ever thinks they'll be the one to die in a car accident and even less that they'd be at fault for the accident. But it happens.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#78

Post by vinceguidry »

My takeaway is that public defenders seem to be practically worthless.

I wonder if the problem can't be fixed with a bit of self-help. Black communities could contribute to a fund that would be used to keep a law firm on retainer to deal with criminal accusations on any of their members.

Re: I was falsely arrested

#79

Post by coldtea »

justathrow2k wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely nothing racist about that statement. It's actually a very accurate description of how a group that historically is facing systematic injustices and racism get to have fewer illusions than the comfortable majority. If anything, it's ANTI-racist. Not being racist is not the same as believing that racial minorities have absolutely the same experiences and outlooks as the majority. A group of who had t…

So, I hope I'm using this term correctly, but it seems like you're building a straw man here. I certainly never made the claim that everyone has the same experience and outlook regardless of race. However, as I mentioned in another one of my replies, making a blanket statement that 'black people have no alternative to understanding how the world really works.', reeks of racism to me. In this day and age, people are b…

>In this day and age, people are born into many diverse situations, regardless of shared racial makeup.

The problem is that racists don't look into "diverse situations", just racial makeup.

E.g. is there any more diverse situation compared to a poor black guy from the ghetto, than being the President? And yet, even the President is often described, from private discussions down to protest banners in racism terms -- heck, even as a n....

Re: I was falsely arrested

#80

Post by brazzledazzle »

chris_wot wrote: post #18

Four genuine questions: 1. Isn't there something called prosecutorial misconduct? Surely that would apply now. 2. Isn't it defamation to say someone committed a crime when they clearly didn't? 3. Being incarcerated must be awful, especially if you are falsely imprisoned. There must be legally available remedies for false arrest and miscarriage of justice? 4. His defender was manifestly inadequate. What sort of liabil…

When you can (barely) afford an attorney after rotting in county with a shit waffle public attorney begging you to take a deal you're not exactly a threat.

Public defenders are notoriously shitty. I have an acquaintance who gets into legal trouble every now and then that is quite smart despite being so stupid. He uses a public defender most of the time and has to actively micro-manage them. This includes what motions to file and who to contact. If he is in jail this can also require reaching out to friends to visit the defender in person so they can't just ignore him. If he doesn't do this they just ask him to take a deal.

They are underpaid, overworked and they deal with actual shitty evil people every day and sometimes the only way to tell the difference between them and the innocent is simply their word. Attorneys you hire can overcome the last issue by being paid enough to offset it.

I think the public defender system needs a complete overhaul. I can't think of any solutions that don't have their own downsides but everyone deserves a fair trial and an attorney whose interests are aligned with their own. The best outcome you can hope for right now if you're poor and subject to prosecution is either a rare defender who cares but is also not overworked or a bright eyed and bushy tailed grad who's out to change their world.

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