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How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

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Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#151

Post by empath75 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #114
newsmania wrote: post #18

Cops get a bad rap, but the DAs haven’t come under fire. They knowingly ruin many many more innocent lives than cops. And unlike cops who may shoot in a poor split second decision, DAs knowingly and willingly destroy the lives of the innocent for their own personal gain. It’s time we put blame where it is due.

I have read quite a bit about innocent people who were convicted and later released. In pretty much every story the prosecution kept fighting to the end even against overwhelming evidence. Only one prosecutor apologized to the exonerated person. I don't know what the culture is in prosecutors' offices but it seems they have lost touch with common sense and the real purpose of their work.

https://www.stlmag.com/longform/pam-hupp/ Here’s a recent example.

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#152

Post by Ironchefpython »

wdr1 wrote: post #122
RealityNow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely absurd that "arrest quotas" are even a thing in America. The job of the police in most first world countries is to protect the people, not make arrests for ludicrous laws. I don't want my tax dollars funding police officers camping out on highways to hand out speeding tickets or arresting random people for having pocket knives on them. No wonder Americans have such an adversarial relationship with the…

"Arrest quotas" is a bit like voter fraud. It's talked about a lot, there's heavy speculation, but there's little evidence showing it exists in any systemic form. It's also worth noting in many areas arrest quotas are outright illegal. What departments do typically do is look at distributions. Say on a Friday evening shift, over the past 12 month period, a typical officer typically has 16-18 speeding stops. However,…

> "Arrest quotas" is a bit like voter fraud. It's talked about a lot, there's heavy speculation, but there's little evidence showing it exists in any systemic form.

This is incorrect. Almost every law enforcement organization in the United States tracks the number of arrests made by each officer, and there is ample evidence that this information is used when making personnel and staffing decisions.

Also, many municipalities track arrests by organizational unit (in NYC it is per precinct), and when management (police chief) requires that mid-level management (commanding officer) "get their numbers up", you have exactly the same incentive to commit fraud that you see in places like Wells Fargo.

Also, rather than taking my word for it, you should look at the many, many, many, many news articles that have been done on the subject. There's the first google hit (http://www.nbcnewyork.com/investigations/NYPD-Lieutenant-Say...), feel free to look at the first 200 search results for corroborating reports.

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#153

Post by wyager »

arca_vorago wrote: post #21

This is a single symptom of a larger issue, namely an excess of laws to the point that any law can be arbitrarily used to prosecute you if you are of an unwanted class, race, etc. Add on top the police quota system and you have a recipe of this type of injustice that runs the gamut, from antiquidated knife laws to the drug war. To me, this is largely a result of lawyers fucking ruining everything they touch, and then…

> It's the lawyers that are out of control here. They are the ones who got the bad law passed, they are the ones who keep allowing prosecutions to happen, they are the ones who keep the law from being challenged

I don’t think you know what a lawyer is. You’re respectively describing legislators, prosecutorial administrators, and various forms of politicians. These people may or may not be lawyers.

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#154

Post by mschuster91 »

Koshkin wrote: post #132
mschuster91 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol they're common in other parts of the world too, e.g. in Germany. They dont officially exist, rather informally, and end up in the UN complaining about racial profiling by cops. Pro tip, avoid German train stations if you're not white.

Do you mean "avoid loitering at train stations" or "avoid using trains"?

> Do you mean "avoid loitering at train stations" or "avoid using trains"?

Avoid using the major traffic hubs. No joke. Cops here will even fleece you on the spot sometimes if you're black. They seem to believe that all black or rasta wearing persons are dope dealers.

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#155

Post by rtpg »

greedo wrote: post #146
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The officer said, ‘When I find someone with one of these knives, sometimes I arrest him, sometimes I give him a summons, sometimes I just let him go.’ ” Galluzzo’s partner, Zachary Johnson, also a former district attorney in Manhattan, adds that such discretion is supposed to be exercised by prosecutors, not cops on the beat . “An officer should be making an arrest every time or none of the time,” Johnson says. “Oth…

The last thing the world needs is cops that don't have discretion. Imagine when our AI robot overlords are in LE; the number of citations/arrests will go through the rough since most Americans break a law or regulation on a daily basis.

The "everyone's always breaking laws" trope is a bit tired.

It's like saying "most programs crash on a daily basis because computers are soooo fast and there are soooo many crashing opportunities". You going about your daily business will probably not be breaking laws.

If you're running a grocery store, however.....

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#156

Post by Fnoord »

louithethrid wrote: post #123
arca_vorago wrote: post #21

This is a single symptom of a larger issue, namely an excess of laws to the point that any law can be arbitrarily used to prosecute you if you are of an unwanted class, race, etc. Add on top the police quota system and you have a recipe of this type of injustice that runs the gamut, from antiquidated knife laws to the drug war. To me, this is largely a result of lawyers fucking ruining everything they touch, and then…

Lawyers are mercenarys, and mercenarys thrive on conflict. It makes perfect buisness sense to create laws to propagate and expand conflict. Here in germany we have a law, that rules that if somebody dies without a last will- all his belongings are shared in percentage among his decendants - creating the "Erbengemeinschaft". In theory this is a good law. In reality, this generates even among the best familys,as it all…

I'm not familiar with that law, but it sounds a lot like what we have in The Netherlands. I'm curious about your alternative to "Erbengemeinschaft"?

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#157

Post by Fnoord »

briantakita wrote: post #118
jackmott wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If one cannot protect oneself against criminal elements, one is vulnerable to be harmed, intimidated, & suppressed. That really isn't the first order way one protects themselves from criminal elements. Even if you are Jason Bourne, living in a mad max wasteland you will not live long. Whereas millions of people with zero self defense skills can go through their whole lives never having to defend themselves at all in…

> Even if you are Jason Bourne, living in a mad max wasteland you will not live long. Whereas millions of people with zero self defense skills can go through their whole lives never having to defend themselves at all in civilized societies. This is a false dichotomy. Banning legal gun ownership does not mean a civilized society (i.e. Bordertowns in Mexico) & protecting legal gun ownership does not mean a Mad Max Soci…

Quoting [1] "No Other Rich Western Country Comes Close Gun homicides per day if each country had the same population as the U.S." See chart.

"Chicago has some of the strongest gun control laws in the USA; yet, gang members don't seem to want to follow the law...and the violent crime rates hold testament to the consequences."

The cat is out of the bag in the USA. Guns are everywhere, and the Constitution permits it. You cannot change a society like that overnight, even with the best will in the world. You can put effort in tightening the grips, apparently like in Chicago, but that doesn't mean its going to be followed. Especially not by criminals. The other part of strict gun laws, is actively enforcing them. One big advantage when you do see a gun in such case is: either its an undercover cop (unlikely) or a criminal (that means: freeze or flight, since you don't have a gun). In the USA you got far too much fight instead of flight, the source underlines that.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-...

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#158

Post by roywiggins »

Simon_says wrote: post #70
Pinckney wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts haven't yet decided whether or not the "bear arms" part of the second amendment means you have a right to carry arms outside your home. Wrenn v. DC recently ruled in favor of that interpretation, and DC is now deciding if they want to try to take it to the supreme court. The 9th circuit found otherwise in Peruta v San Diego, so there's a good chance SCOTUS takes it if appealed.

> The courts haven't yet decided whether or not the "bear arms" part of the second amendment means you have a right to carry arms outside your home. Absurd

It wasn't decided that there was a right to bear arms outside of a well-regulated militia until the Heller decision, which is quite recent and the court chose to make a narrow determination based on the circumstances of the case (which is common).

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#159

Post by gozur88 »

URSpider94 wrote: post #127
wdr1 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Arrest quotas" is a bit like voter fraud. It's talked about a lot, there's heavy speculation, but there's little evidence showing it exists in any systemic form. It's also worth noting in many areas arrest quotas are outright illegal. What departments do typically do is look at distributions. Say on a Friday evening shift, over the past 12 month period, a typical officer typically has 16-18 speeding stops. However,…

From the article: ““It’s an easy way to make an arrest. And they’re under pressure to make arrests.” A poster on Officer.com, a verified online message board for law enforcement officers, put it bluntly in 2013 when he advised a rookie to be on the lookout for “GKs”: “make sure they have a prior conviction so you can bump it up to that felony!!!” So, there may not be quotas, but it’s pretty clear that there is pressu…

But they have to put pressure on cops to make arrests, because if they don't, cops will only make an arrest when someone pisses them off or does something so bad and so public it's going to make the papers.

Speeding tickets are a perfect example. The sergeant has a life outside work - he gets days off, he runs errands, he drives to and from work. And all the while he sees people doing stupid stuff just like the rest of us. So it's hard for him to imagine his officers can drive around for an entire shift and never see someone speeding, running a red light, or making an illegal u-turn.

What do you think your boss would do if you sat at your desk and did nothing all day?

Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail

#160

Post by MertsA »

headShrinker wrote: post #50

I used to carry a pocket knife in in NYC. Nothing huge, just a 3 inch folding knife clipped to the inside of my front pocket. On some random day near Times Square a cop asked me about it. I noted that he checked the hinge to see if the blade would fall under its own weight. I didn’t realize how close to a criminal charge I was. In the end he cited me for $50 because the clip of the knife was visible. The cop was nice…

> The cop was nice

The man was looking to imprison you over a ridiculous perversion of a law that no reasonable person would ever conclude they were violating. I don't care about the B.S. legalese justification for it, if a law is that morally repugnant then the man enforcing it bears some of the responsibility.

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