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Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

bbc.com

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Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#101

Post by [deleted] »

bunderbunder wrote: post #50
Symbiote wrote: post #16

For comparison, what happened just after alcohol prohibition ended in the USA? (I'm not American, so not too familiar with this.)

Things bounced back petty quickly. It only took about 80 years for us to start having access to good beer again. More seriously - I don't think organized crime went away. It was a big problem before prohibition, and it continued to be a big problem after. However, it may have been weakened by the loss of an extremely profitable revenue source. Alcoholism dropped precipitously during prohibition, and started coming ba…

[deleted]

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#102

Post by stevehawk »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #92
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me but the wet lawn mower clippings mixed with cinnamon and spicy chai with a shot of 5w40 for texture that is currently in vogue is not "good beer". I want a beer I can drink, not one I have to endure.

It's why I just drink cider now. Hard to find quality ones, but when I do they don't involve getting punched in the face with hops.

I live in a tiny town with a surprisingly popular brewery with ~8-10 beers on tap. IPAs. Every. Damn. One. Of. Them. And my local beer shop switched distributors so now I can't get my preferred beer (Prairie Bomb!).

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#103

Post by [deleted] »

Agustus wrote: post #30
mabbo wrote: post #15

> "For too many who call Seattle home, a misdemeanour marijuana conviction or charge has created barriers to opportunity - good jobs, housing, loans and education," she said. The problem isn't the marijuana convictions, the problem is a society that believes people with criminal records can and should have their entire lives ruined for it. It's a society that doesn't believe in rehabilitation, just "good people" and…

The problem in hiring criminals is that they have committed a crime. Once they are brought to justice and sentenced, there is no real rehabilitation program, why we have such a high recidivism rate in the states. The best example of this is sexual predator label, if our society honestly believed they had been redeemed they would not need the label. The plan should be how can we get people who have been convicted to f…

[deleted]

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#104

Post by misiti3780 »

Bjartr wrote: post #97
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They probably were in dire straits at the time and saw no other solution. So what happens if they get in dire straits while working at the bank with far greater levels of access to all sorts of financial information?

What if that happens to any other employee? How many of them have experienced that before to know that they wouldn't have done the same? How many of them have been in those positions and did commit crime, but didn't get convicted? Having someone with criminal experience can also provide value as they would know what what to look for to find others who would do the same. Frank Abagnale Jr. being the extreme example of…

I'm not saying they should never be hired, I'm saying that you cannot discount human bias, and unfortunately a lot of the time the person working at the bank will toss that resume. That is just the reality we live in.

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#105

Post by krob »

reefoctopus wrote: post #75
paulsutter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the low bar to litigation in the US. Employers are afraid hiring a person with a criminal record because if even the slightest problem occurs, they’ll be sued because they “should have known they hired a convict” and a jury will rule against them. I don’t know how this can be solved EDIT: It would not cause a lawsuit directly, but it would harm your defense in any lawsuit, which could increase the chan…

Do you have any evidence to support this? I’ve never heard of anybody being sued for that reason.

Isn't this why companies incorporate in Delaware? Isn't it like $50k or something to file suite?

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#106

Post by paulsutter »

staticautomatic wrote: post #79
reefoctopus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence to support this? I’ve never heard of anybody being sued for that reason.

As someone who works on lawsuits for a living I join in your question. People make a lot of assumptions about employment lawsuits that I, as something of an insider, don't see IRL. I can at least say that this particular issue has never come up in any employment suit I've ever worked on. It may well be true that employers do certain things because they're afraid of being sued, but I'm not convinced that those fears a…

The concern is not about wrongful termination lawsuits, but the myriad other lawsuits that a business could be subject to. Examples might include sexual harassment cases involving employees that were sex offenders, negligence in personal injury cases, customers or vendors accusing the company of violating contracts, etc.

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#107

Post by maceurt »

ergothus wrote: post #93
clarkmoody wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Main problems I see are one step deeper: - Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense. This is a deep cultural problem, and I blame compulsory state schooling for exacerbating the issue of blindly trusting the government. Deference to arbitrary authority is drilled into our young minds over many formative years.…

> Too many equate "legal" with "moral" and defer to the authority of the state when it labels someone officially as a "criminal," no matter the offense. This is s huge point, and not just in drug convictions. If someone us poor and gets a warrant on the for unpaid parking fines, that is used in any public debate about them to show they are of low moral character. Reverse the issue and executives that settled charges…

I think people are more against criminals, because they go against the rules of society. The norms and rules of society are more important and mean more than most of the actual crimes. Me stealing $5 from someone is not going to do much harm, but people will want to punished not for the crime necessarily, instead for breaking the rules that bind us together and make us civil.

The only thing that separates savages from the civil are the laws and rules of a society, if you break those rules you are not just doing the moral harm in breaking the rule, but doing harm against the society as a whole.

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#108

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

benrbray wrote: post #73
frockington wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with that. Being young does not inherently mean you make bad decisions. Some people make dumb decisions in their youth but no need to discriminate against a population based on age. Many people enlist in the military, start companies and/or start families before 25.

Starting a family before the age of 25 is an example of GOOD decision-making??

In many cases, yes. Why would it be unconditionally bad?

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#109

Post by DrHuman »

Shivetya wrote: post #31
mabbo wrote: post #15

> "For too many who call Seattle home, a misdemeanour marijuana conviction or charge has created barriers to opportunity - good jobs, housing, loans and education," she said. The problem isn't the marijuana convictions, the problem is a society that believes people with criminal records can and should have their entire lives ruined for it. It's a society that doesn't believe in rehabilitation, just "good people" and…

No offense, but many with criminal convictions are bad people. I know it may be nice to think otherwise. However there just are many people out there who are difficult if it not impossible to fully integrate into society. then you run into not society but government issues as well. just some examples my cousins run into all the time, they have to use temporary agencies to filter people and stock crews each week. Why?…

As a person with some criminal convictions in my past due to substance abuse, but now ready to reenter the workforce, this mentality terrifies me. What is going to happen if I am not deemed "rehabilitated"? It reminds me of a quote that has stuck with me from an unrelated article:

>Capitalism doesn’t just determine our source of income but how we relate to each other, our surroundings, and ourselves. To be rendered superfluous by the system is damning to social wellbeing as well as economic livelihood.

https://qz.com/1269525/capitalism-is-unfolding-exactly-as-ka...

Re: Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions

#110

Post by toofy »

stanleydrew wrote: post #82
andrepd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>many with criminal convictions are bad people So are many people without criminal convictions. What's your point? I for one think that, say, the Walton heirs or similar rent-extracting landlord heirs are more of a drain on society than poverty-stricken kids selling drugs or making other bad life choices. Life isn't black and white, and further to the point data shows that rehabilitating criminals delivers better out…

This is true, but I think it's understandable that many employers will see a criminal conviction as a signal and make decisions accordingly. Is it a lazy approach to hiring? Yes. So is hiring anyone with an MIT degree just because of their credential. If the signal is imperfect and there are efficient ways to reveal whether the signal is valid or not then some market participant would likely figure out how to exploit…

I think what you, the parent post, and the grandparent post are showing is: When the signal indicates a high likelihood of risk involved with hiring someone convicted of nonviolent crimes, we have a fairly significant flaw in our system.

As other threads have been discussing, if this is the signal that people are receiving, maybe the punishment based system isn’t working and we may want to investigate systems where rehabilitation based systems are seemingly showing more promise. This may help us shift what signals society is receiving.

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