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In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

nytimes.com

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Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#221

Post by fn-mote »

mattw2121 wrote: post #194
askonomm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, by all accounts we have a higher life quality than Americans. Only Americans care about money, because in USA you don't get anything without paying for it all yourself. Here we have minimum mandatory vacations for 4 weeks per year, and many countries have a lot more than that, most countries have a year or more of maternity leave, paid of course, we have plenty of public holidays, paid of course, and we don'…

After reading your comment, one might come to the conclusion that Europeans see Americans through the lens of reporting and social media, just as Americans see Europeans through the same lens. Both sides believe characterizations of the other.

> one might come to the conclusion that Europeans see Americans through the lens of reporting and social media

Heck, Americans see Americans through the lens of reporting and social media.

Look at the incredibly polarized climate. Why is it a novelty to just bring together people of "opposite sides" to talk? When political "debate" is just a grounds to get your sound bites out to the media, democracy is in danger. And not just from the current administration.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#222

Post by marcus_holmes »

askonomm wrote: post #185
lurk2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed…

And yet, by all accounts we have a higher life quality than Americans. Only Americans care about money, because in USA you don't get anything without paying for it all yourself. Here we have minimum mandatory vacations for 4 weeks per year, and many countries have a lot more than that, most countries have a year or more of maternity leave, paid of course, we have plenty of public holidays, paid of course, and we don'…

> and they view people who work less than 80 hours a week as lazy

In my last startup in Germany, I worked with a bunch of ex-management consultants who had all worked in a famous consultancy in the USA (you've definitely heard of it).

They all shared stories of Americans staying 12+ hours in the office but not actually doing anything. It was all performant "we're working really hard", mostly chatting to each other and scrolling social media. The Germans were incredibly frustrated because getting anything actually done was really difficult, and they ended up mostly sharing the work amongst themselves so they could actually get it done. Needless to say, their American colleagues thought they didn't work hard because they left the office after only 10 hours or so.

I've seen this in American-influenced startup culture, too - a tendency to use hours spent moistening a chair as a productivity measure, because measuring actual productivity was "too hard".

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#223

Post by lurk2 »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #187
lurk2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed…

> Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. In theory. Articles like this are about how it works in practice.

My point here was not to idealize America but to criticize the idealization of Europe.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#224

Post by mcherm »

FilosofumRex wrote: post #104

Of course big corp media like NYT would report on injustices in red states, especially Texas. Next door to NYT in the deep blue state of Massachusetts, two men have been arrested for simple trespass even though they had valid active IDs. Cops simply took the ID and left it out of police report, and never turned it over to the DA or the defense as exculpatory evidence. All with complete impunity and re-arrested them h…

There is a HUGE difference between what the NYT article is reporting on and the case you describe.

Certainly the Massachusetts case you describe is as bad as -- probably worse than -- the Texas case described by the NYT article. But the NYT was using that specific case as an illustration; the point of the article is that this is happening REGULARLY, even to a majority of the cases in that county.

One-off failures of justice are unavoidable (because no system can be 100% perfect) but they must be aggressively stamped out to maintain the integrity of the system. System-wide failures mean that the integrity of the system is already gone.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#225

Post by NotYourLawyer »

FilosofumRex wrote: post #108
BrenBarn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a link to a non-big-corp-media source where we can read about it?

No, because cases are very recent , as in 2024-25 and one is still pending. I got it from a local court listener who said they had filed an 800 page lawsuit against alleging various undisclosed connections between major corps, elite universities and the notorious Jeffery Epstein.

An 800 page lawsuit full of conspiracy theories? Sounds legit.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#226

Post by bavell »

kubb wrote: post #217
chasd00 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man the European/anti-US folks are really triggered this morning. Yeah criminal justice moves slow in the US and isn’t perfect at all. It’s a huge thing from local police and courts to the FBI and… even more courts. As for lawyers there’s a reason for the joke “what do you call a million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.”

Calling people triggered only works as an argument in the US. It’s meaningless over here.

Sounds like an observation, not an argument.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#227

Post by marcus_holmes »

lurk2 wrote: post #170
SauciestGNU wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but it explains the disdain for Europe in the current American government. European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Fascists hate a counterexample.

> European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed…

The self-defence thing absolutely fascinates me.

What are you guys so scared of?

It's a literal fact that a gun is much more likely to be used to kill its owner (or a member of the owner's own family) than any intruder or external threat [0]

Why is this such a thing in the USA? Why do you guys hold gun ownership up as this amazing freedom when owing a gun is literally, provably, way more of a threat to you and your family than anyone else?

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9715182/

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#228

Post by treis »

CrossVR wrote: post #168
AngryData wrote: post #38

Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. 90% of it is about extorting the population for funding for the courts and cops. If you can't afford a lawyer, they will provide you with a joke. And if you can afford a lawyer, now its just a question if you are willing to spend more on your lawyer than the state is hoping to extort from you. If you are, you will get…

> Now you better not lose because you are on the hook for all of the money the court wants to believe it cost them to prosecute you. In a criminal case you aren't liable for the legal costs of the prosecution. I think you're confusing criminal court with civil court.

Many jurisdictions add fines for various parts of the process. Lab fees, probation fees, rehab fees, jail fees, and on and on. Some do even charge a prosecution fee to fund the district attorney.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#229

Post by thinkcontext »

FilosofumRex wrote: post #104

Of course big corp media like NYT would report on injustices in red states, especially Texas. Next door to NYT in the deep blue state of Massachusetts, two men have been arrested for simple trespass even though they had valid active IDs. Cops simply took the ID and left it out of police report, and never turned it over to the DA or the defense as exculpatory evidence. All with complete impunity and re-arrested them h…

> Of course big corp media like NYT would report on injustices in red states, especially Texas.

NYT in particular reports all the time about injustices in blue states. Its done a string of stories on the horrific stories on Rykers Island prison. There's also been extensive coverage of prison conditions in California.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#230

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

kubb wrote: post #217
chasd00 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man the European/anti-US folks are really triggered this morning. Yeah criminal justice moves slow in the US and isn’t perfect at all. It’s a huge thing from local police and courts to the FBI and… even more courts. As for lawyers there’s a reason for the joke “what do you call a million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.”

Calling people triggered only works as an argument in the US. It’s meaningless over here.

Let me in :(
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