In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by psd1 » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:16 PM UTC

almostgotcaught wrote: post #40

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…

> Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. and just like re healthcare, this is the rub of communicating about this: 90% (to pick a random number out of thin air) of hn's target demo has had perfect/sheltered lives and has never come into contact with the "law". so they believe all the political and institutional rhetoric around it. the other 10% know it's a…

Absolutely flabbergasted in the canteen one day when my colleague said, unironically, "well, if they stop you, you were probably doing _something_”...

White South African

Yes, working eyeballs

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

#62

Post by psd1 » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:21 PM UTC

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #51

potato3732842 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If good people can't run the system right the system is broken and good people ought to support its reform or replacement.

Of course! If the codebase gets non-performant or hard to maintain, all you have to do is rewrite it to be not-that. Typically makes sense to fire anyone who wrote the broken version too, just to get a fresh set of eyes on it. Not sure why there’s any non-performant or unmaintainable code in light of this fact.

Irony noted, but I think it's rare for the horrors of a codebase to be deliberately inflicted for self-enrichment or cruelty.

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

#63

Post by saghm » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:30 PM UTC

wtcactus wrote: post #19

jMyles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Colonization ended 50 years ago and yet, there were never as many slaves in the world as there are today. There are more than 40 million people enslaved now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Slavery_Index

My immediate thought when reading this was that the number of people is much higher today than 50 years ago, but before my kneejerk reaction I decided to check the math. Assuming the results of a quick google can be trusted, we have around 4 billion more people today than 50 years ago, which means that entire percent of the population growth in the past 50 years are people in slavery. That's staggeringly higher than I would have estimated before reading any of this.

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

#64

Post by ty6853 » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #21

nine_zeros wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As someone who was born in the country that led the third world, don't use us as comparison for stuff like that. Stuff like this is often forgotten: https://i.redd.it/lb2npuvhxobb1.jpg

You're aware Yugoslavia had an ethnic war not long after that right?

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

#65

Post by kubb » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:33 PM UTC

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…

Is this where the whole Europe bashing on social media comes from? US needing to believe that a better society, rule of law, social services isn’t real in Europe and impossible in general?

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

#66

Post by ajsnigrutin » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

ty6853 wrote: post #64

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was born in the country that led the third world, don't use us as comparison for stuff like that. Stuff like this is often forgotten: https://i.redd.it/lb2npuvhxobb1.jpg

You're aware Yugoslavia had an ethnic war not long after that right?

Yes, i still live here.

But being third world doesn't mean that everything is shitty and everything bad should be compared to that.

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

#67

Post by askvictor » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #51

potato3732842 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If good people can't run the system right the system is broken and good people ought to support its reform or replacement.

Of course! If the codebase gets non-performant or hard to maintain, all you have to do is rewrite it to be not-that. Typically makes sense to fire anyone who wrote the broken version too, just to get a fresh set of eyes on it. Not sure why there’s any non-performant or unmaintainable code in light of this fact.

I appreciate the irony, but it doesn't have to be that drastic. In Australia we have the Law Reform Commission, which looks to gradually make laws better. Is the legal system perfect? Far from it. Does it get political? All the time. Is it getting better? I would argue yes, slowly.

To your analogy, it's possible to incrementally improve a code base. It's also possible to stop it getting worse.

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

#68

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

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…

My understanding is the root of the evil is in our overcriminalisation of day to day life. Is this accurate? Or would reducing the prison population through reduced sentencing not alleviate the worst of the problems?

(Reduced sentencing loads mean you can raise standards for court-appointed counsel, possibly ban plea deals, et cetera.)

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

#69

Post by SauciestGNU » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

kubb wrote: post #65

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…

Is this where the whole Europe bashing on social media comes from? US needing to believe that a better society, rule of law, social services isn’t real in Europe and impossible in general?

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.

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

#70

Post by SauciestGNU » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

almostgotcaught wrote: post #40

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…

> Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. and just like re healthcare, this is the rub of communicating about this: 90% (to pick a random number out of thin air) of hn's target demo has had perfect/sheltered lives and has never come into contact with the "law". so they believe all the political and institutional rhetoric around it. the other 10% know it's a…

Forget actual legal culpability, the range of outcomes in the American legal system ranges from cops killing you at worst, to the stacked legal system making you wish they had only killed you at best.