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Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

reason.com

201–210 of 229 posts

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater evil being what?

Not following due process.

Due process should always fall on the side of protecting the innocent.

That would have been a nice constitutional / Bill of Rights principle. Or a Supreme Court standard.

Instead many ways in which clearly innocent (or very likely innocent) people have been convicted or had appeals denied have been upheld, at the alter of not just due process, but at having no principle or procedure of adjusting due process in these cases.

In this case, how can there be information that was not submitted directly to the court given its relevance to the case? Who had that information and withheld it? That should itself be criminal. (Some information may be sensitive - but courts already deal with that in other circumstances.)

Due process adjustments for an "innocence protection principle" would still be reviewed by higher courts, so this could be a standard but rare practice with its own due process, without being a Wild West.

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No system for any large organization should provide no process for exceptions to accepted practice at the ground level to be escalated.

Corporations, governments, social media sites, banks, etc. all end up crushing powerless people when they provide no recourse for unanticipated or ignored harm by the organization's current rules.

Individual humans do not have a legal pass to say, "well I have these rules for myself, and they don't include effective review or action on information about my unjustly harming you." If an individual is notified of harm, their culpability starts then. Courts would consider systematically ignoring such communication to imply a significant increase in culpability - for an individual. Throwing away such communication would be interpreted as a conscious intention to continue harming.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#202
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is it money laundering if it turned out the money wasn't proceeds of crime.

I spent a few minutes trying to figure that out, but Reason is incredibly slanted, they just link to some even nuttier site, and even starting with news I couldn't find specifics of the one count he was convicted on. But I'd be a little skeptical of Reason's handwave "properly reported to the government". Reported on taxes? To SEC? As part of disclosure for this trial? One way it could be money laundering without bei…

Reason may be "slanted", but you can follow their logic in their articles, regardless of your stance.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater evil being what?

Not following due process.

I’d agree if we were talking about prosecutorial evidence. Citizens rights need to be respected by the state and police do have to do the hard work of real police work correctly. But for exculpatory evidence I’d really rather we just focus hard on not sending innocent people to prison or worse.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one does that surgery unless you have very advanced lymphoma. It’s not a cure.

You're weaseling with the ambiguity of the word "cure". I already stated the extreme conditions that approach would require. It has resulted in deliberate, although incidental, cures several times. It was certainly a cure for them. CRISPR personalized approaches are more promising by precisely excising vDNA. There is no panacea here.

Based on your username, I’m not sure if you have HIV but EBT 101 has begun human trials as of last year and we should find out how it turns out before the end of this year. It’s from the same team that was able to eliminate SIV from primates using the same techniques.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#206
post #155
post #3

"And on June 17, Lacey is scheduled to be sentenced on the one count—international concealment of money laundering—on which the jury found him guilty. It comes with a possible sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison. Lacey plans to appeal his conviction on this count, and there seems like a good chance it will be successful, since the money he allegedly "concealed" was reported to the federal government with all…

This guy got into a pissing contest with the Arizona AG, which led to FOSTA/SESTA over the casual encounters page. This has years of history. I worked in a similar industry to backpage for 11 years.

arguably, it is also helped get Kamala Harris into the White House. [https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kama...]

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#207
post #74
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that ironic? Of course nobody will care about stopping labor trafficking if it benefits them.

> Of course nobody will care about stopping labor trafficking if it benefits them Same with sex work it seems.

The issue is that unlike cheap gardeners, where most of the population benefits and a small portion of the population loses (‘native’ gardeners - probably just a couple % of the labor force), approx. 51% of the population ‘loses’ with cheap sex work.

Which is why, in almost every jurisdiction, prostitution is illegal.

But since approx. 49% of the population ‘wins’, it is also why it still happens, just where it isn’t obvious.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would incentivize prosecution to avoid court at all costs. Their job is to prosecute. Their only option is to pick cases that can be won. Which isn't hard, as the average person who is charged with some criminal act is not only guilty, but clearly guilty. > Which means de facto immunity for wealthy people who can easily afford to go to court. Money can't make a guilty man innocent. If you've actually done someth…

> as the average person who is charged with some criminal act is not only guilty, but clearly guilty. I don’t even know why we have all this stuff like lawyers judges, prosecutors, hierarchy of courts, appeals. It could all be automated with kiosk at the police station. I am not sure you are not just trolling :)

We have all that stuff because if we didn't, it's likely that prosecutors would start abusing their power a lot more, and then the average person charged would not be guilty.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is because we would rather have many guilty people go free than send an innocent person to prison No we wouldn't. Or we wouldn't utilize the plea deal in 93% of criminal cases. And we use it with little-to-no oversight. Unless what a prosecutor offers is so -utterly egregiously inappropriate- that it causes a judge to double take, they can pretty much do as they like. Which is why we use it more than 60x more…

> Oof. Not only is it "possible" you're not actually innocent, your attitude is "it doesn't even make sense to assume that". Screw it, why do we need a justice system? You were arrested, let's just take you straight to prison. Of course it's possible. But if someone is charged with 5 crimes and convicted of 4, why should we reimburse their legal fees? That is what GP proposed, and it would be nuts. If the prosecution…

These are criminal cases we are talking about. Cases that destroy lives when the prosecutors get it wrong. They damn well should be certain and they shouldn't be overcharging just to drain resources, as is clearly happening in this case.

If prosecutors aren't certain they can win on all 5 counts, bring 4. Or 3. Or even 1.

Most crimes should have pretty serious consequences. So convicting on one well-proven count should be enough.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to do it would be to require the state to provide funds for legal defense for everyone, regardless of income or assets, with at least with the same budget as they use for the prosecution. Again, this won't change anything in the typical case, because the typical criminal case involves something who is clearly guilty. But it'll keep innocent people out of jail.

Or we could hire anyone who needed it a lawyer for their defense. We could call them public defenders.

I am suggesting public defenders. I'm suggesting we expand that to everyone who is charged. Because in the current system, legal bills tend to ruin people who get declared innocent and provide enormous incentives to plea to crimes people did not commit.
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