21–30 of 169 posts
Just goes to show what can happen when you get featured in a viral hit podcast. That’s a great outcome for him but I shudder to think about what it tells us about our judicial system.
Periodically I go back and check on Mumia Abu Jamal. Yep, still in jail [previously, I had said "on death row"]. He had far more coverage but I guess it happened before things went viral.
Truly a great piece of satire: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-very-fatal-murder/id...
Just goes to show what can happen when you get featured in a viral hit podcast. That’s a great outcome for him but I shudder to think about what it tells us about our judicial system.
Periodically I go back and check on Mumia Abu Jamal. Yep, still in jail [previously, I had said "on death row"]. He had far more coverage but I guess it happened before things went viral.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest I don’t understand how it’s thought that police have to much power. Especially since every case makes it’s way in front of a judge.
Something like 95% of cases end in a plea deal, where a judges involvement is pretty minimal.
In many cases, the potential sentence for these cases is exceeded by the time they would actually spend in jail waiting for the trial; even being found guilty would result in time served. In these cases, the plea deal is literally a lesser sentence than being found not guilty.
Just goes to show what can happen when you get featured in a viral hit podcast. That’s a great outcome for him but I shudder to think about what it tells us about our judicial system.
Periodically I go back and check on Mumia Abu Jamal. Yep, still in jail [previously, I had said "on death row"]. He had far more coverage but I guess it happened before things went viral.
This isn't a case of mistaken identity - he was shot by the person he shot. He had a gun that had been discharged 5 times.
What am I missing? What's his explanation for having fired 5 times? All I saw was a vague claim that police shot him randomly as he crossed the street.
Just goes to show what can happen when you get featured in a viral hit podcast. That’s a great outcome for him but I shudder to think about what it tells us about our judicial system.
Coincidentally, this is the general topic of season 3 of Serial.
Just goes to show what can happen when you get featured in a viral hit podcast. That’s a great outcome for him but I shudder to think about what it tells us about our judicial system.
Our justice system is pretty busted, to be honest. And it's end to end busted - we trust police too much and with too much power, we don't have enough public defenders to protect everyone, we have long backlogs of cases, court fees and fines can be unending even if you are innocent (to say nothing about civil asset forfeiture), people are goaded into plea deals for crimes they don't commit, our jury selection process…
There's a lot of injustice tied up in expediting cases. Massive backlogs of work, not enough people to do the work, and massively asymmetric funding for prosecution and defense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something like 95% of cases end in a plea deal, where a judges involvement is pretty minimal.
To expand on this, plea deals are most common for poor defendants. The police convince a magistrate to set cash bail the defendant can't pay, and the defendant has the choice of taking a guilty plea for a "lesser charge" or sitting in jail for months until the case can be tried, at which point they are defended by an overworked, overwhelmed public defender. In many cases, the potential sentence for these cases is exc…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our justice system is pretty busted, to be honest. And it's end to end busted - we trust police too much and with too much power, we don't have enough public defenders to protect everyone, we have long backlogs of cases, court fees and fines can be unending even if you are innocent (to say nothing about civil asset forfeiture), people are goaded into plea deals for crimes they don't commit, our jury selection process…
To be honest I don’t understand how it’s thought that police have to much power. Especially since every case makes it’s way in front of a judge.
This is not at all true, at least in the sense that it provides a major check on police mistakes or abuse.
You can spend a great deal of time in jail, literally decades in extreme cases, just by being charged with a crime -- no conviction needed. Criminal penalties in the US are so extreme, and conviction rates so high, that there is a huge risk in going to trial. Even if a person is innocent and/or the evidence is weak, the incentives often push them to accept a plea deal; and that's exactly what we see. The vast majority of cases reach a plea deal and never come to trial.
When I finished the podcast I was not at all convinced of his innocence. For me was 50/50 or even 60/40 against innocence. Just my takeaway/opinion of course.. EDIT However, reading both of the AP News articles on this now, it does serve to sway me more toward his innocence. Crazy that the prosecutors withheld this at that time.. Par for the course unfortunately I guess. Seems as though the SA office is trying to do…