One of the things privileged members of society have a hard time understanding is the cynical viewpoint of the underprivileged. What does one think when the "justice" system commits fraud and one grows up realizing that you're too poor to afford facts being facts and the truth being the truth? It's George Orwell's "ultimate insult," writ savage.
> Research shows that ordinary human beings lie a lot — multiple times a day — even when there’s no clear benefit to lying.
Years ago, I mentioned the notion of never lying in front of my girlfriend's mom, and she laughed out loud. I was shocked. Is this what most people are really like? I'm beginning to think that I don't like most people.
I suppose it would only be fair that they received the mandatory minimum sentence for the crime of which they were making the false accusation. Bonus points for allowing the trial to procede untainted and then just transferring the sentence.
There are already laws against perjury, and in many cases, IIRC, it is a felony. Ironic, isn't it, that prosecutors are unwilling to pursue all these potential felony convictions...
The cops work for and with the prosecutors. They're the ones that do investigations, collect evidence, and pick up suspects. That's why prosecutors won't cross them.
any law that 80% of people on the freeway break is a terrible law. They are actually supposed to be set so that 80-90% of the people are obeying the limit (see MUTCD), but that often results in limits that are perceived as being too high by communities.
Why have speed limits at all then? I've heard anecdotes of professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets because they know how to handle a vehicle at that speed (and presumably had the good sense not to be driving way faster than traffic if there even was any) and its certainly possible to get a speeding ticket when traveling under the limit if conditions do not permit. Seems to me that they should be…
> Why have speed limits at all then?
Because speed kills, plain and simple. It reduces the time you have to react to any problem, increases your braking distance and increases the damage and lethality of any impact. The latter two are affected with the square of speed.
There are very, very good reasons to have a universal hard speed limit.
> professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets That seems unlikely. > Why have speed limits at all then? To reduce the frequency and severity of crashes. To give people a baseline for safe speed. If most people's usual driving speed is "10 mph over the limit," then the effective speed limit is simply N+10 mph, where N is the number on the signs. > tailgating It's easy to deal with this effectively on…
> > professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets > That seems unlikely. It happens sometimes. A co-worker of a friend of mine was speeding in excess of 100 mph in a dodge viper and was pulled over and charged with reckless driving. However, the driver had completed the dodge viper training school so the judge ruled for him, and the officer had neglected to add any additional charges such as speeding.
If he wasn't charged with speeding, that is _not_ "getting out of massive speeding tickets".
Sort of OT: I processed accident claims for over five years. You don't have to do anything "insane" on a motorcycle to get seriously racked up. What would be a minor fenderbender in a car leading to minor whiplash, where the policyholder was trying to see how many neckrubs he could get covered, on a motorcycle can be them picking gravel out of your road rash and involve broken bones that don't want to mend right and…
And the motorcyclists who do not get injured? You saw their insurance claims, too? You have the most biased perspective on this as is possible :)
I am only remarking on comparable things, like a low speed, one vehicle car crash versus a low speed, one vehicle motor cycle crash. The outcomes are drastically different. Yes I also saw files on car crashes that left people mangled for life. Those folks usually were doing insane things, like drinking or doing drugs and driving 100mph at night. You can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time on a motorcycle and get your shit very permanently, very fucked up because of some other careless driver who did not see you. The same outcome in a car takes a lot more going wrong.
Edit: In reviewing that many files, most serious accidents had an element of "accident waiting to happen". Cases of "Damn, it sucks to be you. Shit happens." were very extremely in the minority. It radically changed my view of risk assessment.
My sister in law is a public defender, she has managed to get cops that lie under oath fired. We're not talking capital crimes here, we're talking stupid traffic citations where the officer would rather lie than admit they made a bad call. Her belief is that lying is like cocaine, you use it once to get through the case because you know that even though its not strictly the truth the right thing will happen, and then…
Why managing to get them fired is considered a good result?
Perjury is a serious crime and should be prosecuted as such.
Cops should [be made to] understand that lying in court even in small cases carries a risk of criminal charges (in USA, up to 5 years IIRC) instead of internal disciplinary action.
On a historic note, Stalin's first, bloodiest purges were also governed by quotas and the heads of various departments of the secret police (NKVD) trying to one up each other, exerting pressure on their subordinates, and in the absence of judicial oversight. Stalin ended up replacing over-enthusiastic NKVD chiefs twice, and the last one, the one we remember the most and whose name, Beria, we come to associate with th…
It's veering a bit off-topic, but there's a fascinating historical debate on the Purges going on since the opening of many Soviet archives post-1990. Some historians (though not all) are moving away from the traditional view of Stalin as mastermind in complete control of the situation, and are putting more emphasis on machinations within the NKVD, which seems to have been the source of a lot more independent activity than we had thought, with Stalin often not appearing to be in the loop. In the strong form of the interpretation that's led some to argue that the purges were primarily a function of the bureaucratic machine, with Stalin mostly riding the wave and trying to stay on top of the chaos. In fact they argue that the traditional view, of Stalin as Machiavellian mastermind, was largely an invention of Stalin himself, who was trying to appear in complete control of the situation. Other interpretations revise the traditional view somewhat less, but most do seem to be putting more emphasis on what was going on in the NKVD.
There are already laws against perjury, and in many cases, IIRC, it is a felony. Ironic, isn't it, that prosecutors are unwilling to pursue all these potential felony convictions...
Lawyers tell me that judges rarely prosecute lying under oath, they just rule against the liars. The reason? If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial? He's already accused of that crime, so more lies makes little difference. This is why perjury trials are so rare. Also, "perjury", strictly defined, means testimony that's both material to the issues and le…
Regarding your "If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial?" - What's to stop an accused murderer from lying more during the murder trial? Does this prevent us from handling murder trials?
In a perjury trial, why do you need to ask anything at all? You have the documented testimony where the accused said X under oath, and you have the facts/evidence proving not X.
Lawyers tell me that judges rarely prosecute lying under oath, they just rule against the liars. The reason? If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial? He's already accused of that crime, so more lies makes little difference. This is why perjury trials are so rare. Also, "perjury", strictly defined, means testimony that's both material to the issues and le…
Regarding your "If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial?" - What's to stop an accused murderer from lying more during the murder trial? Does this prevent us from handling murder trials? In a perjury trial, why do you need to ask anything at all? You have the documented testimony where the accused said X under oath, and you have the facts/evidence proving…
You need to ask, because that's what a trial is for. To give folks a chance to defend themselves; to allow mercy into the process.
Its pretty common for Engineers to deconstruct social processes into algorithms, but the humanity often gets lost.
Let me try: lying under oath happens during someone else's trial, when you're bound by law to tell the truth. During your perjury trial you're protected by the 5th amendment, so the process must by necessity involve information-gathering from external sources. Whether you lie or not then becomes almost immaterial.
On a historic note, Stalin's first, bloodiest purges were also governed by quotas and the heads of various departments of the secret police (NKVD) trying to one up each other, exerting pressure on their subordinates, and in the absence of judicial oversight. Stalin ended up replacing over-enthusiastic NKVD chiefs twice, and the last one, the one we remember the most and whose name, Beria, we come to associate with th…
It's veering a bit off-topic, but there's a fascinating historical debate on the Purges going on since the opening of many Soviet archives post-1990. Some historians (though not all) are moving away from the traditional view of Stalin as mastermind in complete control of the situation, and are putting more emphasis on machinations within the NKVD, which seems to have been the source of a lot more independent activity…
Makes sense. Bureaucracies are soulless moral-free machines good at crushing individuals in some mindless goal of self-perpetuation. In fact, makes perfect sense!