Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 234 posts

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#151

Post by slightwinder »

laurieg wrote: post #49

The most curious thing: Why were none of the Japanese executives arrested? Not even briefly for questioning? Ghosn was held for hundreds of days, Kelly is currently undergoing trial. It seems to me that this was a corporate coup with assistance from the prosecutors office. The plan was Ghosn would be arrested, admit guilt straightaway, possibly under some questionable interrogation[1] and then get a fine/suspended se…

> Why were none of the Japanese executives arrested?

For what? A criminal is claiming his innocence, classical story, people do that all the time. Without further proof, why should anyone bother people who are probably innocent, and more important: powerful. That could seriously harm your career if you do something to lightly. Who would do that in this situation?

The other problem is the pretty strict chain of responsability people in Japan maintain. Especially in the legal system, there is a very strong and infamous believe that people do not fail in their work, and questioning it is a serious matter. This is a long known problem with japan, but it's quite hard to fix this. So even in a regular harmless case, hardly anyone would do something to insult someone else by questioning the result of their work.

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#152

Post by noaccnt »

Google234 wrote: post #130
noaccnt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why too bad? They obviously broke the law and got caught. Imagine a pair of spetznaz break Derek Chauvin out of the US and bring him to another country. They get caught. Too bad these foreign special forces got caught?

The difference between what happened to Ghosn and them was what I was contrasting.

So you also believe that its too bad that Ghosn escaped trial and punishment? And that it's particularly nasty that the guys who engineered his escape ended up worse than the root criminal?

If so, we agree. But that there are no consequences of breaking another country's sovereignty the way Ghosn and those American goons believe they're entitled to, is ridiculous. Actually, it's American exceptionalism.

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#153

Post by bzbarsky »

Asooka wrote: post #128
Clewza313 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So she was falsely accused, detained for a week, and released with apparently no consequences? That's not great, but it's hardly a uniquely Japanese horror story either. For comparison, back in the Land of the Free, here's a kid in New York who was jailed for three years on Rikers Island for a similar false accusation of theft: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law

Yes, but that case is egregious by American standards, while the woman's case is everyday occurrence in Japan.

_Is_ that case egregious by American standards?

The 3 years might be (though I'm not convinced for some jurisdictions), but the overall shape of the case is, I think, depressingly common in the US...

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#154

Post by bzbarsky »

bogomipz wrote: post #122
Tams80 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the prosecution only go for cases they are very certain about. That alone is bad, but on top of that it breeds a culture of them 'always being right and how dare you question us'. Sorry, but it's a sign of a justice system very out of whack and not something to defend. People are only okay with it because most people don't have any interaction with law enforcement, let alone the justice system.

>"Sorry, but it's a sign of a justice system very out of whack and not something to defend." I was in no way defending that system at all. I was just pointing out that the 99% statistic is constantly thrown about in Ghosn discussions without ever mentioning what the conviction percentage is anywhere else. And if you use the US as a a standard of comparison then that statistic is actually quite high as well. And if us…

I would love a citation on where you are getting "above 99%" for the US.

What I managed to find easily just now in https://www.justice.gov/usao/reading_room/reports/asr2012/12... page 9 has: "Of the 87,709 defendants terminated during Fiscal Year 2012, 80,963, or 93 percent, either pled guilty or were found guilty."

So quite high, but not anything like over 99%.

This is federal cases, though, so maybe state cases have higher enough volume and conviction rates to make the overall number over 99%? Again, I would love to see hard data.

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#155

Post by throwaway2037 »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #34

> in a country which has a 99.4% conviction rate. Brutal. Either they're really good at building the necessary evidence or they're just ruthless when it comes to criminal justice. Based on the other comments in this thread, it seems the latter. It's interesting to me how a society that prides itself on honor can act so dishonorably when it comes to human rights. This applies to their work ethics as well. They have th…

"a society that prides itself on honor"

Are there any society that does not? This seems a meaningless, often parotted phrase about Japanese culture by people who do not understand it.

That exact same sentence could be applied to the treatment of black and brown people in the United States. Do you remember stop-and-frisk in New York City? What percentage was black and brown people? It was an appalling programme and gross miscarriage of justice. And that happened (figuratively) in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#156

Post by throwaway2037 »

Google234 wrote: post #132
Tams80 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should have sorted out moving to a country that wouldn't extradite them in their deal with Ghosn then. Ghosn would have been desperate enough to provide it.

Coming back to the US was dumb, the Taylor’s apparently had a home in Lebanon.

I Googled pretty hard for a source on this, and I could not find anything. Can you share a source?

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#157

Post by throwaway2037 »

jwdunne wrote: post #27
liberalasshats wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats sound advice not sure why you get downvoted, a niche vpn would probably also work, or you can can torrent it

Not so sound when we Brits have to pay a license fee by law for owning a TV that can tune in to any public channel just to fund the BBC!

As a non-British person living outside the United Kingdom, I also find it frustrating that I cannot pay to watch some things on the Beeb! (Steve McQueen - Small Axe!)

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#158

Post by paulpauper »

djrogers wrote: post #138

>For more than a year, Mr Ghosn spent long periods in custody or was held under house arrest in Tokyo after being bailed. It was not clear when a trial would take place - the fear was it could take years - and Mr Ghosn faced a further 15 years in prison if convicted, in a country which has a 99.4% conviction rate. >It was during a period of house arrest, when Mr Ghosn was told he would not be allowed to have any cont…

Not really. Federal prosecutors have a 98 percent conviction rate. Combined with long sentences means a lot of ppl just plead guilty even if innocent

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#159

Post by sn41 »

djrogers wrote: post #138

>For more than a year, Mr Ghosn spent long periods in custody or was held under house arrest in Tokyo after being bailed. It was not clear when a trial would take place - the fear was it could take years - and Mr Ghosn faced a further 15 years in prison if convicted, in a country which has a 99.4% conviction rate. >It was during a period of house arrest, when Mr Ghosn was told he would not be allowed to have any cont…

99.4 percent conviction rate? That sounds very suspicious to me.

Btw, strange that Japan is called as 'Western' - perhaps the better term is OECD? Same goes for NZ, I guess.

Re: Carlos Ghosn: How I escaped Japan

#160

Post by csomar »

Tams80 wrote: post #114
google234123 wrote: post #26

Too bad for all the people that helped him escape who are being jailed now.

Should have sorted out moving to a country that wouldn't extradite them in their deal with Ghosn then. Ghosn would have been desperate enough to provide it.

With $1.3 million, they can settle in lots of third-world countries until this whole saga clears. It was a miscalculation on their part.
Post reply on HN