221–230 of 543 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The death penalty should be reserved for people who violate a position of public trust and authority.
Yeah that would never be weaponized with trumped-up charges against political opponents.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the worst examples in the US is the consequence asymmetry for speech. Law enforcement and federal agents can lie as much as they like with impunity when dealing with citizens, but (a) it's a federal crime to lie to a federal officer (18 US Code § 1001, up to 8 years imprisonment), and (b) truly, anything you say to law enforcement when under any suspicion can and will be used against you in a court of law, eve…
This distinction doesn't make sense. A police officer's job is to lie to you. Are we expecting jailtime for doing their job?
Federal statute should categorize that as a fireable offense and an intentional tort incurring punitive damages at minimum, and any subsequent proceedings (after the lie) as inadmissible evidence.
If that makes investigation more difficult, then so be it. For too long, law enforcement and federal investigators have relied on inappropriate and immoral techniques to obtain conviction. Mass surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, manipulating suspects -- what happened to old-school investigation that was after truth via smart observation and deduction? There's a reason people love watching Poirot: it's a (admittedly stylized) snapshot of real justice in progress.
Their expected standard of behavior should be higher than that of citizens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're going to change the system, which you need to do to make it possible to bring charges in a case like this, the other changes I suggested would be more effective and harder to weaponize. The core problem here is that the system allowed an innocent person to stay in jail. That needs to be fixed on a system level, not by trying to punish people after the fact for bad outcomes.
What could a systemic solution to this possibly look like? He didn't stay in jail for 37 days because the system left no room for any other possible outcome. There were a number of points at which he could have been released had the system worked correctly. But Sheriff Nick Weems, an official in a key position of authority administrating the local justice system, decided that he'd like to subvert the system and steal…
Instead somehow bail was set at $2 million and the hearing to reduce bail was delayed.
Those are flaws in the system that should be fixed, and will continue harming people even without bad faith from sheriffs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of those arrested are just for mild insults, which are illegal under the censorious UK regime; not incitement to terrorism or threats.
I'm pretty sure it's threat of violence. Sure, in some of the cases, the threats are mild ('i will fuck you up'), but they are often repeated, which, to be clear, should be considered harassment in any case (and the fact that it still isn't in other countries is wild. Someone keeps sending me insults, I should be able to legally retaliate to make him stop, no?)
Here in the UK it is illegal to be grossly offensive online. Racism for example will have you charged under the Communications Act 2003.
I’ll cut against the grain here and say it’s ABSOLUTELY appropriate for taxpayers to pay the bill here. It’s pretty toxic that people don’t want to take responsibility for their own government in a democracy. In this case, it’s especially bad, given the sheriff is elected by the people directly. But I’d go even further and say even where control is less direct, we need incentives for voters to take this stuff serious…
The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.
"In return, Bushart will drop the federal civil rights lawsuit he filed against Sheriff Nick Weems, investigator Jason Morrow and the county for violating his constitutional rights." Even at his age of 60 (I'm getting up there), I wouldn't have made that deal. https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates...
For example, there are surely dozens of others who are taking plea deals because they can't afford a lawyer to bring such a lawsuit, a few hundred thousand could multiply the impact tenfold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a uniquely-American perspective: "Our government can't do anything right. But hey, I still trust it to kill the right people."
so true, citizens of the dozens of other countries with the death penalty believe their governments to be infallible
Vast majority of death penalties happen in countries where citizens don't have much of a say what their government does...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I mentioned elsewhere, neither currently apply because due process of law was followed.
How can a deliberate blatant violation of the First Amendment be "due process of law"?
When there's a warrant, even if wrongly granted, the arrest and imprisonment is considered lawful.
The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.
In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions. Police don't face criminal charges for this. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
I don't know why HN has become full of authoritarian anti-free-speech apologists. The current political divisions are turning people insane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? My original comment says that we need to reform in a different way.
Your original comment is different from "we need to reform in a different way". If that's what you meant, that's not what you posted.
And in comments I expanded on this and gave several specific reforms.
Not sure what your understanding was.