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More people are getting away with murder

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Re: More people are getting away with murder

#91

Post by giardini »

schaefer wrote: post #40
privatedan wrote: post #22

Was on a jury for a murder trial dec 2021. The trial gave me a new found respect for how trials are conducted, what evidence is allowed in, how defendants are protected, and the general thought and reasoning behind it all. Then, the jury deliberated and I lost a ton of respect for the ability of a jury of my peers to logically reason and responsibly decide. It was an absolute shit show in false pretenses, irrational…

Different trial (attempted murder), but I too was on a Jury. At the start of deliberation, it was an even split. Towards the end of deliberation it was 11/12 in favor of returning a verdict of guilty. However... One juror opened up some bizarre Pandora's box arguing against the fundamental knowability of the universe. How could any fact truly be "known"? At times, I love conversations like that. But not when a man ha…

I can see the headline: "Juror Dies Mysteriously in Chambers: Body Bears 11 Distinct Stab Wounds."

"Et tu, Brute?"

- lit. "You too, Brutus?" - from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act 3 Scene 1. The phrase is spoken by the Roman dictator Julius Caesar during his assassination to his friend Marcus Junius Brutus when Caesar realizes Brutus is also one of the assassins.

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#92

Post by aristus »

aristus wrote: post #87
prepend wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you tell the cops are deliberate and the teachers aren’t?

Cops don't have their budgets systematically cut. Quite the opposite.

Or their unions demonized, or their pensions threatened, or their training examined, or their political leanings questioned, etc etc.

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#93

Post by owyn »

jdkee wrote: post #50

"While reasons behind the drop are multi-faceted, Cook and other experts warn that more people getting away with murder in the the U.S. is driving a kind of doom loop of mutual mistrust: low murder clearance rates impede future investigations which in turn potentially drive up killings in some communities where a lack of arrests undermines deterrence and sends a message that the police will not or cannot protect them…

Police didn't like the "defund the police" movement (which was most active in 2020, so there's your temporal coincidence). The theory is that they are deliberately doing a bad job to make crime worse. Just be bad at your job and you'll get paid more because the low morale and understaffing means it's harder to hire and your overtime pay goes up so that's a win-win. In general no defunding actually happened anywhere. If you google around you'll find plenty of articles about that [0]. From the article: "local spending on police increased in 90 percent of locations since 2019." Anecdote, I've only talked to one former Oakland cop in person, but when he talked about his experience literally ALL he talked about was overtime and how to get more of it, and this was years before the pandemic. So it seems to be part of the institutional culture now.

In Oakland, the police department is like 25% of the total city budget. Depending on the year and what you count as "budget" it can be closer to 40% of the general fund [1]. Either way, as a percentage their budget has actually gone UP significantly since 2019, mostly due to excessive overtime. It works "kind of" like a protection racket. Some back of the napkin math and the OPD budget is something like $500k per officer and $3.5 million per murder, which they don't prevent and barely bother trying to solve. I think a few million redirected to better mental health and homeless services would probably pay off. They have lots of new SUV's which they like to drive through residential neighborhoods really fast though.

[0] https://abc7news.com/defund-police-oakland-crime-shooting/12...

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3Ou1LrUcAE67SZ?format=jpg&name=...

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#94

Post by somebodythere »

kevviiinn wrote: post #80
Zigurd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on the jury for a simple drunk driving case where the cop, the only witness testifying, with no other evidence presented, was caught lying about being "run off the road." Lost a lot of faith in mankind that day.

It's so common that police have a special term for it: testilying https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/nyregion/testilying-polic...

I thought we already had a word for it: "perjury"

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#95

Post by rcme »

kasey_junk wrote: post #29
privatedan wrote: post #22

Was on a jury for a murder trial dec 2021. The trial gave me a new found respect for how trials are conducted, what evidence is allowed in, how defendants are protected, and the general thought and reasoning behind it all. Then, the jury deliberated and I lost a ton of respect for the ability of a jury of my peers to logically reason and responsibly decide. It was an absolute shit show in false pretenses, irrational…

Counterpoint, I was on a murder jury several years ago where every part of the justice system was pretty abysmal. Whether the police who were near incompetent in their investigation, the forensics people who could barely maintain chain of evidence or both sets of attorneys who couldn’t make logical arguments on either side. The only people who came out looking good was the judge who was able to keep this circus from…

This sounds more like the Dunning-Kruger effect than a true reflection of the justice system.

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#96

Post by [deleted] »

privatedan wrote: post #22

Was on a jury for a murder trial dec 2021. The trial gave me a new found respect for how trials are conducted, what evidence is allowed in, how defendants are protected, and the general thought and reasoning behind it all. Then, the jury deliberated and I lost a ton of respect for the ability of a jury of my peers to logically reason and responsibly decide. It was an absolute shit show in false pretenses, irrational…

[deleted]

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#97

Post by voltaireodactyl »

aristus wrote: post #92
aristus wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops don't have their budgets systematically cut. Quite the opposite.

Or their unions demonized, or their pensions threatened, or their training examined, or their political leanings questioned, etc etc.

Agreed, you’ve got it exactly.

Their union is not demonized, but accurately described as the largest and most dangerous obstacle to actual police reform.

Their pensions have never been in question in my lifetime, not even as a source of funds for the endless successful lawsuits against them.

Their steadfast refusal to allow insight into statistics re office involved shootings means their training cannot be properly examined, nor altered in response to data.

And the political leanings of the police as a whole remain unquestionably conservative.

Glad to see others speaking up!

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#98

Post by m3kw9 »

privatedan wrote: post #22

Was on a jury for a murder trial dec 2021. The trial gave me a new found respect for how trials are conducted, what evidence is allowed in, how defendants are protected, and the general thought and reasoning behind it all. Then, the jury deliberated and I lost a ton of respect for the ability of a jury of my peers to logically reason and responsibly decide. It was an absolute shit show in false pretenses, irrational…

That’s why there are 12 or so juries not one

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#99

Post by [deleted] »

aristus wrote: post #24
0zemp2c wrote: post #3

Why limit this to unsolved murders? How many police depts ignore property crime? How many police depts have hour long wait times for 911 response? How many 911 systems routinely delay or drop calls? We had a story near here recently where a DUI accident investigation couldn't proceed because it took so long for police to arrive that the suspect sobered up enough Or the woman who was hit by a car and the police took o…

It's pretty clear that cops are staging a slowdown strike. They are one of the few industries where they get more money when their KPIs go south.

[deleted]

Re: More people are getting away with murder

#100

Post by bsder »

version_five wrote: post #25
privatedan wrote: post #22

Was on a jury for a murder trial dec 2021. The trial gave me a new found respect for how trials are conducted, what evidence is allowed in, how defendants are protected, and the general thought and reasoning behind it all. Then, the jury deliberated and I lost a ton of respect for the ability of a jury of my peers to logically reason and responsibly decide. It was an absolute shit show in false pretenses, irrational…

Your anecdote sounds like an example of the system working to me. I'm absolutely sure your assessment is correct: I lost a ton of respect for the ability of a jury of my peers to logically reason and responsibly decide People as a rule are horrible at logical thinking. But that's absolutely the right side to err on. Much better for twelve people to have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Put another way, it's…

> I'm happy to hear anecdotes where it's seemingly biased this way.

Except that it's not.

For most jurors, being in the defendants chair means guilty. Consequently, it's rare to find people on the jury who will make the prosecution actually do their job.

A friend of mine was on a federal jury for a conspiracy charge. He came into the jury room figuring it would be a slam dunk verdict--the defendant was documented to be out of the country by the prosecution when the supposed in person conspiracy planning was happening. He didn't even understand why this was allowed to come to trial.

But, no, half the jury was basically "He's done bad things and should be in jail." It wound up a hung jury in spite of the fact that there was physical evidence presented by the prosecution that contradicted the whole case.

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