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litany of gulps posted:So basically you took the law into your own hands and did what you please. Ah, so you prefer the cops who enforce the letter of the law without regard for how it fucks people over even in the case of stupid laws?
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Jul 1, 2014 20:37
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Lemming posted:That's interesting, I didn't know that, but I was more insinuating that I feel it's likely that the prosecution treated him like Wilson. In NY the defendant has a right to testify in narrative form - the prosecutor can ask questions but has to give the defendant the opportunity to tell their story, uninterrupted, even to the point of allowing them to bring in their own evidence. NY is very defendant-protective, even if it's still usually a bad idea to testify to a grand jury there.
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Dec 3, 2014 21:11
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Spoke Lee posted:I read the case had taken 9ish weeks and called something like 30-40 witnesses and experts to testify. Sounds like he bombed it. His other option would have been to let the officer testify without any witnesses to contradict him, since the officer has to be allowed to testify if he wants. I would be fired for malpractice if I let a witness testify without having a witness of my own to contradict him, as unrebutted testimony is pretty much a "I give up, you win." The length/number of witnesses (20-odd of whom were random people who saw it) isn't really indicative of bombing it (or not bombing it) because it's consistent with either theory. It does signify that if it was him dumping the case intentionally, it wasn't blatant, since if he wanted to do it blatantly he could have just not called witnesses and cried about NY law requiring him to allow the defendant to testify.
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Dec 5, 2014 08:51
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Spoke Lee posted:How long is a GJ usually? Most are short in NY, but most are simple drug charges where it's basically "yes, I bought drugs from this guy" "ok next." Trying to draw a comparison from that to a case where a defendant takes the stand and is generally a sympathetic defendant (cops are sympathetic defendants, particularly to a Staten Island jury which skews whiter, more conservative, and has higher police/fire/EMS representation than NYC as a whole) is misguided. They're not the same thing, whether or not the prosecutor is trying to throw it. Once the defendant testifies to the grand jury it's very different - it tends to help them (partially through self-selection, in that only defendants who have a decent shot at swaying a jury appear) which means that a prosecutor who wants an indictment is going to have to put on more evidence in order to rebut the defendants testimony. In Ferguson you could draw a conclusion about the prosecutors from the length and witness list; not so much for Garner. The prosecutor could have been trying to tank it, or he could have been trying for a conviction, but the gross numbers don't tell us much one way or another.
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Dec 5, 2014 09:39
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MeLKoR posted:Not that I disagree that educated cops are better but those numbers are useless if you don't include the percentage of cops who have four-year degrees. For all we know going from those numbers alone maybe only 2% of cops have four-year degrees but they account for 11% of disciplinary actions. From the original study: Officers who had only high school diplomas-58 percent of officers-were the subject of 75 percent of all disciplinary actions. Officers who had only associate's degrees-16 percent of officers-were the subject of 12 percent of all disciplinary actions. Officers with bachelor's degrees-24 percent of officers-were the subject of 11 percent of all disciplinary actions. So yeah, education seems to have a strong correlation to reduced likelihood of disciplinary action.
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Dec 5, 2014 09:53
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30.5 Days posted:Also, no, it really doesn't come down to hair-splitting. If your purpose is to punish someone, making prison uncomfortable suits your purpose. If your purpose is to incapacitate someone from committing crimes and you reject retribution, making prison uncomfortable is actually wrong. In terms of how the justice system should be structured, there's miles of difference between retribution and preventing someone from committing a crime. Making prison uncomfortable is retributive, but retributive justice doesn't actually rely on any kind of vengeful and punitive harm for the sake of harm to the individual in question. Put it another way: if we could guarantee that - without actually modifying any aspect of their individual situation - the offender would never commit the crime again and that others would not be inclined to commit the crime either, would it be wrong to in some way seek retribution from the offender by modifying some aspect of their individual situation? If your answer is "no", congrats, you believe in retributive justice.
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Dec 10, 2014 17:58
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30.5 Days posted:Well yesterday AR was making the argument that retribution is important so victims can feel good about having revenge. But that didn't catch on, so today retribution is the same as restraining someone from committing more crimes and anyone who says otherwise is a pedant. That is the opposite of what he said today. And it isn't about victims feeling good about "having revenge" - it's about victims having their harms recognized as valid and worth taking seriously.
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Dec 10, 2014 18:00
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30.5 Days posted:YOU ARE LITERALLY DESCRIBING DETERRENCE Right. So we have a hypothetical in which deterrence and prevention are guaranteed without any change in situation. Is it wrong to do something further?
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Dec 10, 2014 18:18
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30.5 Days posted:Yes? Like, of course? I'm not sure what kind of situation you're describing. I guess like a battered wife murdering her husband, should we put her in prison at all since she only had the one. However, if murdering your abusive husband had no repercussions it would no doubt be more common. Obviously, AR's "I would murder you with this axe but then I'd go to prison" example only goes so far: if murdering people with axes literally was not a crime, then more people would probably murder others with axes. So attaching some sentence is necessary for deterrent reasons. Arguing with the hypothetical, you get an F.
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Dec 10, 2014 18:33
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30.5 Days posted:I endeavored to even imagine a situation that fit your requirements, found the closest thing I could, explained why it did not fit your requirements, and then used that exercise to explain my reasoning for answering you, "yes". I then challenged you to find a better example. I don't know how much closer I could engage with you. Assume the situation exists. Then answer the question. The specifics of the situation are 100% irrelevant to the question asked, which is: If you assume that deterrence and rehabilitation are met by the offenders current situation, is applying some modification in the offenders situation as a result of their crime morally wrong or not? quote:Can you actually come up with an example in which society's needs for deterrence and rehabilitation are met without sentencing? Because if not, there are no consequences to answering "yes", so why would I hesitate to do so? So do you think that sentencing is justified even if you assume that deterrence and rehabilitation are met, or not? It's a simple question designed to force you to understand whether you actually oppose retributive theories of justice or not.
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Dec 10, 2014 18:48
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30.5 Days posted:I do not, but this is the third time I've answered this question. I apologize for explaining myself rather than just submitting to whatever retarded socratic railroad this is supposed to be. Okay, you don't believe in retributive justice. So you were fine with the grand jury not indicting Darren Wilson even though he never would have been convicted and the impossibility of conviction would mean he and others wouldn't be deterred from re-offending?
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Dec 10, 2014 19:00
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30.5 Days posted:This post leaves me speechless. You've taken my breath away, forums poster Kalman. So why should the grand jury have indicted?
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Dec 10, 2014 19:22
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30.5 Days posted:It also seems extremely straightforward that if the police are allowed to make an illegal search when they "forget" the rules, they're allowed to make an illegal search. That's not the holding of that case, though.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:19
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30.5 Days posted:I apologize for misunderstanding the case, then, but it seemed as though they were saying that if probable cause for a search arises entirely out of a misunderstanding of the law then the search is still valid. Seems as though an officer can always, then, justify a search. The key words are "objectively reasonable misunderstanding", meaning that what the officer who screwed up thought the law meant is essentially irrelevant. What matters is what your hypothetical reasonably good (officer or judge, it's not clear who just yet) would have understood the law to mean in that situation. If they would have misunderstood, and misunderstood in the same way as the officer, then it's okay. And the specific law in question really was unclear (are brake lights stop lamps, rear lights, or both? There's good arguments for each of those categories and it was only decided when the guy appealed the issue). I mean, like most 4th Amendment stuff the way it's applied will determine how much it matters, but my suspicion is that it isn't going to have much impact since most officers are going to have a perfectly legit reason to make a pretextual stop anyways. Even if an officer wanted to game the system it's a lot easier to game it by waiting for someone to do some minor thing indisputably wrong than to get into a dispute about whether it was objectively reasonable to interpret the law the way it was interpreted by the officer.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:37
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Pomp posted:I'd like to hear your justification for evidence collection not being held to the same standard as getting prosecuted, ya' toady. If a cop who knows the statute applies it in a way that makes sense to the average (cop or judge, tbd) and later turns out to be wrong, there is literally zero purpose served by finding it to be an unreasonable search. It's not going to deter police from making mistakes because they aren't going to be able to tell its a mistake ahead of time. It provides an artificial exclusion of evidence based on a cop doing something that, after the fact, is decided to be reasonable but incorrect. Also we do it all the time already in other contexts including arresting people!
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Dec 17, 2014 15:37
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Suborning perjury is still ground for disbarring, yes? They discredited the specific witness in question in front of the GJ. Good loving luck getting a perjury charge to stick - it's incredibly difficult at the best of times. (Much less suborning perjury charges.)
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Dec 20, 2014 15:51
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So you support making sure law enforcement is only composed of the worst of the worst?
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Dec 22, 2014 19:44
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moths posted:I'd actually love to see statistics concerning how dangerous it actually is to be a police officer relative to something like being a woman or trans, in terms of contributing factors to their death or abuse. I looked at some bureau of labor stuff, and we're lucky lumberjacks and commercial fishermen aren't throwing grenades on babies. While I doubt it has much of an effect, the fact that cops are trigger-happy when they even remotely think they're in danger probably does help to reduce the number of actual instances of danger they're subjected to. (In much the same way as using an umbrella at all times, including when it's sunny, reduces the chance of getting rained on.)
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Dec 22, 2014 23:16
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archangelwar posted:Then he should have the lights on during a routine check. That's not really what police lights are for... Instead, the dash camera should have just been on at all times
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Dec 24, 2014 17:20
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archangelwar posted:That's fine too. As far as that not being what they are for, so what. Cops use their lights for a variety of circumstances, many of which are not likely "what they were for." So police lights being on has a meaning and it's stupid to corrupt that meaning when there's a much better solution?
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Dec 24, 2014 17:33
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archangelwar posted:Look man, I was only talking about the situation where the dashcam is tied to the lights being on. I never suggested that is the perfect solution. If the car is moving, then it's one of two meanings: "get out of my way" or "pull over." If the car isn't, then it's "something is actively happening right now other cops should at least check in" or "I am literally in the middle of a traffic stop everyone move over." It is not "I am just heading inside to check in on things." See? Generally speaking, I do think cops use their lights for those things - sometimes the "get out of my way" isn't justifiable, but people understand what it means.
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Dec 24, 2014 17:48
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archangelwar posted:OK, that is a fine opinion. I am of the opinion that leaving lights on when responding to a possible crime is also OK. Cops seem to do it a lot, so they might also share my opinion. Is there a rulebook you can show me so that I can report these cops for illegally using their lights? Even if this was a rule, rather than a custom, breaking rules isn't illegal. If the crime is over and done with and you don't need the lights on to make sure people don't come near, then you don't need to use your lights. Point being: cop didn't do anything wrong by not having their lights (and therefore camera) on. Making a rule that requires them to do it so their camera turns on is dumb (like you) in comparison to simpler solutions like "just leave the camera on."
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Dec 24, 2014 18:00
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archangelwar posted:No, you may not need them on, but I also don't see what is wrong with leaving them on if you are operating in official capacity for various things that are not simply "poo poo GOING DOWN RIGHT NOW." So you agree that the cop didn't do anything wrong in leaving their lights off. So we clearly need to change something to make sure that the camera is on when needed. You suggest that we make the cop change their normal behavior of leaving the lights off to make sure the camera is on, leaving the cop the ability to "forget" (or to actually forget.). This also removes some ability for lights to signal actual trouble. I suggest that we just make the dash cam be always on. Which removes the issue entirely without relying on a human. Which suggestion is easier to implement and has more advantages?
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Dec 24, 2014 18:30
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archangelwar posted:I am of the opinion that this was likely justified, but I don't think this is an excuse. WJ left out a bit of context, which is that they were a relatively new piece of equipment so they hadn't had time to train them in use yet. Like most things, you generally build in some transition time when doing something new before you start punishing people for not doing it.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:08
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30.5 Days posted:Are the differences between Ferguson and Berkeley, which is two miles away, so significant? Anonymous uncovered several Ferguson cops who were klan members. Given the new vid dumps it seems likely that the Berkeley shoot was good, but given police rhetoric and the status of many St. Louis-area cops as literal members of the club whose leader was calling for retaliatory execution of black men, it kind of does sound plausible. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/24/372867144/police-kill-young-man-in-st-louis-area-sparking-new-anger Yeah, I think that the city with a black mayor, majority black council, and majority black police force might actually have some significant differences with Ferguson.
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Dec 25, 2014 03:21
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Randandal posted:I'm sure Ramos or Liu at least had a hand in beating up some Occupy protesters or perpetrating some enthusiastic stop-and-frisk or something. Based on...?
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Dec 26, 2014 15:49
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DARPA posted:Is grand jury service mandatory like on a petit jury? Or is there an option to walk away rather than swearing to secrecy? Grand jury service is mandatory.
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Jan 5, 2015 19:31
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Martin Random posted:Thats why you backstop them with union funds. Cops as a group protecting bad cops should pay as a group for the consequences of that. Once it starts showing up in their union balance sheet, I guarantee this bullshit will either tamper down or stop. Why would the union backstop cops for acting outside of the scope of duty? Are you suggesting some kind of statute force them to be responsible? Or are you thinking they'll do it to protect their members?
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Jan 5, 2015 22:23
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Are civilians with legal guns allowed to draw down everytime someones dog scares them or is that a cops only thing? It strikes me as odd that this is such a regular thing it only gets mentioned in passing in a story like this. Basically the same rules as with respect to self defense against humans, usually. There was a Washington state court case on exactly this issue recently. E: that said, shooting a dog is probably going to get you less sympathy from jurors than shooting a black person.
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Jan 8, 2015 02:12
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LorneReams posted:If there is a lawsuit, won't they be compelled to release the video anyway, or will it be lost by then? They would be compelled to provide it to the defense, but there may be portions of it that couldn't be presented to a jury for various reasons. If the video is made public before then, it taints the jury pool by exposing them to evidence that they may or may not be supposed to see. If it's lost, then there's probably going to be a pretty harsh spoliation instruction along the lines of "assume the officer is lying" or similar sanctions. Destruction of evidence you've admitted you have tends to piss off judges.
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Jan 13, 2015 17:13
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Radish posted:Your analogy is still bad. Just because firefighters take precautions which result in their safety, it doesn't have anything to do with if over aggressive police actions actually make their jobs safer. Of course not. At the same time, you have what evidence they don't? Being paranoid as hell most likely does make them safer - the real question (to borrow Jarmak's analogy) is whether they're doing controlled demolitions only of buildings that pose a real danger to occupants and surroundings, or whether they're demolishing all the black buildings because they're scared of the paint jobs even though they actually aren't a danger. And what the appropriate level of investigation of the buildings structural stability is prior to demolition. It's actually a really depressing analogy!
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Jan 15, 2015 16:44
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zzyzx posted:Holder hasn't announced a decision yet, but several sites have been reporting a rumor that the DOJ won't be bringing federal civil rights charges. Against Wilson. Reports are that the investigation into department practices will continue, which was always the more likely case to go ahead.
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Jan 23, 2015 18:13
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tezcat posted:At least this argument makes more sense than a cop lying about having a gun pointed at him. Why do you assume a lie instead of human error in perception during stressful incidents?
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Jan 27, 2015 16:52
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tezcat posted:Probably for the same reason you won't do the same for the victim. But suffice to say you are welcome to disagree. Thankfully we have video to show the officer is so mental he cant even be trusted to do basic visual checks in a stress environment. That should be enough to get his badge pulled through it won't No, the victim shouldn't be accused of lying if his memory/testimony doesn't match up with video either. No one (officer, citizen, or otherwise) has accurate recall of events. Human perception and memory is inherently and fatally flawed, which is why eyewitness accounts are terrible and shouldn't be trusted, but also why when someone on either side says something you should generally assume misperception and misrecall rather than active lying.
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Jan 27, 2015 17:05
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tezcat posted:More of a reason a cop with legal training and we can only assume your level of common sense to keep his mouth shut until the video was released like other officers in similare situations. People (cops included) don't generally understand that their perception of events isn't actually a good record of what happened. It's part of why cops (like you) assume people who testify contrary to evidence are lying, even though they're usually just misperceiving and misrecalling. Only real assholes assume people are lying.
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Jan 27, 2015 17:31
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tezcat posted:Not an assumption considering the video evidence. Or he is retarded, cross eyed in dire need of glasses or possibly mentally defective which is certainly a trend in police officers shooting brown people holding a gun in any circumstances. What part of "people and cameras perceive things differently in the moment" do you not understand? Cops, despite your idiocy, are people, and will experience events like people do. This isn't really something you can "train out" of people. Someone's running away from you after you found their gun, they drop it, turn around, and grab it - it doesn't make you a liar to have your brain tell you "he's going for his gun to shoot me!" and remember it that way even if the camera differs. The Cleveland one, well, sometimes people do lie. It's almost like we, as humans, can understand the difference instead of assuming people lie because of their profession.
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Jan 27, 2015 23:58
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I know you don't believe it, but quite a few of those "gun nuts retards" did think they were going for their guns. That's a failure of perception, not a lie. A lie would be if he thought he wasn't going for his gun and decided to shoot him anyway. Is that what you're saying happened?
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Jan 28, 2015 03:06
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tezcat posted:You're not reading again. I'll help you. Third paragraph after the "or". So every human being needs to be institutionalized because they exhibit imperfect perception under stress? Because that is true - essentially no one can accurately recall events and particularly not when stressful situations are involved. Just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly here.
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Jan 28, 2015 03:38
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tezcat posted:Actually your the one not making much sense and trying so very hard to strawman. Do you think that there is an issue with White Officers using unneeded lethal force on black people they think are armed with a gun? Yes/No? Well, I would start with disarming cops (and people in general) rather than trying to train humans to do the impossible (consistently exhibit accurate perception in stressful situations). But hey, mischaracterize people and advocate for unsustainable approaches if you want.
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Jan 28, 2015 14:59
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