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New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

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Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#51

Post by noer »

ekianjo wrote: post #48
clord wrote: post #44

The government should pay back-salary to anyone with a case dismissed in this manner. This would cause queue back-pressure that would focus the system on high-value targets at the front of the queue.

> The government should pay back-salary to anyone with a case dismissed in this manner. The "government" is the taxpayers, basically. I'd rather have all folks involved in ruining that man's life being sued like they should, and having to repay him for the opportunity loss. Taxpayers represent an infinite pocket to steal from, but private citizens don't have as much resources and should be held responsible for their…

Prosecutors, for the most part are immune to civil suits being brought against them.

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#52

Post by loeg »

clord wrote: post #44

The government should pay back-salary to anyone with a case dismissed in this manner. This would cause queue back-pressure that would focus the system on high-value targets at the front of the queue.

You're arguing that higher income poeple should get speedier trials than lower income people?

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#53

Post by sillysaurus3 »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #37
flightrisk wrote: post #30

There's an inmate in LA County jail who has been there 9 years awaiting trial on attempted murder. He is completely and totally institutionalized. A very nice guy but intimidating. Cops can arrest you for any reason, and if you can't make bail, then they place you in jails with convicted violent felons, some on murder trials. In LA jails, you have to be racist. Depending on your pod and program, you have special requ…

Sincere question -- how do we spot things like this? Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a relatively competent programmer with small amounts of disposable income to spend on hobbies, such as running algorithms over government datasets. (Okay, that's a weird one -- but I think it's good to apply my craft towards politics.) I know a lot about making computers scan through large sets of data looking for patterns, and s…

The main problem is that most people in American society don't care what happens to prisoners. Don't be surprised if you employ these techniques only to discover nobody lifts a finger.

That said, this would be a project I'd be interested in contributing to. If you set it up, shoot me an email.

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#54

Post by woah »

nezzle wrote: post #19
praet wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty confident he's not suggesting a rapid death-penalty for drug-offenders

Hey it works for Singapore, Indonesia, and probably the Philippines. I think people are easier to control, but less productive when they have drugs. So it's really a question of what your nation is optimizing for at the time. Of course having a sub-class of previously convicted minor offenders, who as a result struggle with work/life, can also be fairly effective. It's not exactly slavery - that was mostly their ance…

People in the US have a lot of drugs and are also very productive. Your assertion makes no sense. I don't know much about Indonesia, but Singapore is an authoritarian state, and Duerte is trying to turn the Phillipines into a dictatorship. Tyrants like drug laws, and especially death penalty for drugs because it gives them an easy way to keep their thugs in practice, remind the populace that they are ready to kill, and gives them an easy way to assassinate troublemakers.

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#55

Post by djsumdog »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #37
flightrisk wrote: post #30

There's an inmate in LA County jail who has been there 9 years awaiting trial on attempted murder. He is completely and totally institutionalized. A very nice guy but intimidating. Cops can arrest you for any reason, and if you can't make bail, then they place you in jails with convicted violent felons, some on murder trials. In LA jails, you have to be racist. Depending on your pod and program, you have special requ…

Sincere question -- how do we spot things like this? Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a relatively competent programmer with small amounts of disposable income to spend on hobbies, such as running algorithms over government datasets. (Okay, that's a weird one -- but I think it's good to apply my craft towards politics.) I know a lot about making computers scan through large sets of data looking for patterns, and s…

The algorithms are part of the problem. Many states use a point system to assign risk and determine bail amounts. Some might be arbitrary, others based on existing statistics, but in this attempt to be blind and fair, you're either adding bias by the humans who make the algorithms or you create a self-defeating system because those stats are used incorrectly, pushing inmates into recidivism and essentially building a feedback loop. US prisons are a self perpetuating system.

In the particular case of the OP, if this is all true, it looks like they tried to call someone out who was very powerful. When corruption runs that deep, it's very difficult for change to occur. For every story that ends up like the one behind the movie Changeling, there are probably a dozen or more of people who tried to do the right thing and end up silenced in prison or mental hospitals forever.

Troy Davis was executed, even after former President Jimmy Carter spoke up and called for his case to be reexamined.

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#56

Post by djsumdog »

retailbuyout wrote: post #28
phil248 wrote: post #16

I would hope that these days no rational individual could support jail time for any non-violent drug crime, with the possible exception of cross-border smuggling, which treads on some different areas of the law.

Hmm, I’m not so sure we should allow people to sell fentanyl pops or cocaine to kids without going to prison. Not arguing against your point broadly, but that’s exactly the type of response that would sink an effort to remove imprisonment for non violent drug crimes. As I see it, we need both a propaganda campaign pointing out how nuts the drug laws are in addition to some recognizable way of incrementally easing the…

One of the big problems in America is simply not effectively treating drug use and addiction. Putting people in jail doesn't stop drug use.

You're talking about big distributors, not individual users. Portugal has probably had the best response to drug use, evaluation each case individually and helping people quit drugs when it interferes with their lives.

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#57

Post by an_account »

jopsen wrote: post #26
leesalminen wrote: post #21

The concept of bail negatively affects the poor. Washington DC has a new system where they got rid of the bail system. They have 2 options: RoR (release on your own recognizance) and hold until trial. Although not perfect, this is much better than a bail system.

> The concept of bail negatively affects the poor. I thought that was intentional :) afaik bail isn't used much outside the US, Canada and UK. The US for-profit bail industry is the usual case of Americans taking a bad idea to the extreme in the search of a little profit.

It makes sense as a deposit to make sure you show up to trial. But in practice, with bail bonds, it’s a fee. The financial amounts are rarely in line with what it would take to get someone to show up trial.

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#58

Post by jsmthrowaway »

swang wrote: post #45
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, four-month felony pretrial inmate who is proudly defying recidivism here. I’m the kind of guy who thinks load balancing is a fun topic of discussion — ask anyone who knows me how incredibly unfit for jail I am — and I survived just fine. You seem to have had the shit scared out of you, and I wanted to clarify a few things for you. You don’t have to be racist to survive county. You simply stick with your race. The…

okay so woods means white people, kinsfolk means black people. But DO = ?

Detention officer, yes. Other places call them deputies, apparently. Prisons usually call them corrections officers (COs).

Re: New Orleans man locked up nearly 8 years awaiting trial, then case gets tossed

#60

Post by tcarn »

selimthegrim wrote: post #59

I live in New Orleans. The judge, Flemings-Davillier, is well known as a tool of the district attorney, Canizzaro, who employs dirty tactics like fake subpoenas. For more on Orleans Parish justice, google "Give me a lawyer dog"

Oh man that was a crazy case...
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