Ive just listened to the first two episodes of the new Serial season which tackles the justice system from inside a courthouse. Coming from another justice system, it sounds absolutely insane to me.
Reminds me of an essay written by a civil lawyer who got peripherally involved in a criminal proceeding. tl;dr: Criminal court is a total farce which would be funny except the people going to jail.
Title doesn't do it justice. It's such a tangled clusterduck of judicial/police incompetence, AI effects on society making it impossible to believe anything, at the same time adults feeling comfortable sending death threats without having any reliable facts, obsessive parenting, weird US school culture and even CSAM rears its ugly head, all in one
When I reading the story, that part was just screaming at me. In my limited knowledge of the law, the guy got incredibly lucky in having illegally gain evidence accepted in a court of law (from a defendant).
It's mind blowing to think about being in a situation where the only way to get justice is to break the law. It sounds good in action movie but in real life, it's appalling...
I remember that episode. It's mind boggling that you have all these people in the justice system going through their procedures but nobody does anything when something goes blatantly wrong.
I uprooted this not because I think any of us should take purist interest in the tragic events of someone else's life. The article is interesting on many levels.
This how an abuser works, subtly and forcefully both. The dialogue is also bizarre in that it focuses on technical details as a vehicle (and would be almost incomprehensible 10 years ago.
It shows how the justice system works at the retail ("end user") level, when most discussion of justice issues happens at a macro level.
And it shows how ubiquitous cameras/recording devices change not just police and politicians, not just big airlines, but the justice in proples' lives. Ubiquitous surveillance cuts both ways.
(Plus there's the weirdness of the court being in "fabled Palo Alto" -- wtf?)
Not having grown up in the US, I listened in fascination to the first episodes of Serial season 3, “... Cleveland. Not for one extraordinary case; instead, Serial wanted to tackle the whole criminal justice system. To do that we figured we’d need to look at something different: ordinary cases.”
After a few episodes I had to take a break. It is so upsetting. Justice is not a reality.
““Charge stacking” is a process by which police and prosecutors create a case with numerous charges or numerous instances of the same charge to convince the defendant that the risk of not pleading guilty is intolerable. The defendant may be convinced to plead guilty to a few of the charges in return for not being prosecuted for the remaining charges.“
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtroom_Workgroup
The Prenda case has been amazing to watch. For years.... If you're interested, this is some of the most amazing jaw-dropping legal coverage of how stupid these lawyers were... and obviously, they are also criminals. https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/
Just goes to show what can happen when you get featured in a viral hit podcast. That’s a great outcome for him but I shudder to think about what it tells us about our judicial system.
OTOH, if you want to see a really politically unconnected, very "unsympathetic" defendant get utterly fucked, the Escher Aurenheimer ("weev") case is a perfect example.
It happened 11 years ago when I was a minor living in a small, extraordinarily corrupt town. The officer had been stalking my friends and I for some time. She is a known meth manufacturer and distributor. She planted drugs on me at the scene of an accident and conspired with the local prosecutor, judge and my public defender in order to give me a mistrial and snuff out any attempts at an appeal. I got the maximum allowed sentence despite no prior criminal history. Unfortunately I was 17 and homeless at the time just trying to graduate high school, unable to fight back.
The full story is much longer and so insane that I don't even want to open the full can of worms here at the moment, but I should do a write-up and talk to a lawyer now that I have the time/money, despite the statute of limitations which probably protects them.
I mean I've literally watched this officer with my own eyes procure meth ingredients, I have footage of her distributing, some people I know murdered her brother and there was a giant meth lab found at his house, it's just a total unbelievable shit show from start to finish. But I was the one who got railed. The FBI refuses to get involved despite numerous tips.
In the update it looks like the Color Run has a compelling story to tell as well. Whatever the full truth it is clear the legal system here in the U.S is completely out of control in terms of the cost and time involved.
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