[HN Gopher] Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in ...
___________________________________________________________________
Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location
as witness
Author : georgecmu
Score : 215 points
Date : 2021-08-31 16:43 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sturgisjournal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sturgisjournal.com)
| duxup wrote:
| I kinda wonder how zoom court cases could even dehumanize the
| folks involved too.
|
| There's something about everyone being remote that worries me
| about how flippant / careless people could be about every aspect
| of it.
| liquidise wrote:
| I found my way to court feeds (namely Judge Middleton's[1])
| during Covid. Incidentally i'm listening to Aug 19's proceedings
| now. Seeing these specific clips go viral feels like a microcosm
| of modern consumption habits.
|
| There is so much to learn about the legal system and, more
| broadly, about the nature of people in trying circumstances
| watching court proceedings. The pureness of exchanges and the
| total lack of editorial bias is refreshing and too hard to find
| these days.
|
| I have a theory that if more people watched court proceedings
| (daily misdemeanor, not just OJ/Floyd cutups), political opinions
| might shift toward humanizing both the accused and the victims.
|
| 1:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS8gM5S889oBPyN6K07ZC6A/vid...
| dougmwne wrote:
| Thanks, that's quite interesting. Video conferencing does seem
| to hold a lot of potential for these kinds of proceedings. I
| imagine it would allow for a much more efficient use of the
| court's time. But Zoom seems like an absolutely terrible tool
| and the court has been abysmally trained on it's proper use. It
| looks like a big missed opportunity for Zoom and a big unmet
| need.
|
| The stream I watched was a landlord-tenant dispute hearing. It
| was sad to hear people's pretty desperate circumstances, but
| also fascinating to learn just how long a leash the court might
| give you on debt and eviction if you know how to work the
| system, as some tenants and the anti-homelessness orgs helping
| them seemed to understand. We have a pretty weird system all in
| all, patch after patch on this "Capitalism OS."
| mct wrote:
| Thanks for the link!
|
| Are there any other court feeds you've found interesting?
| mc32 wrote:
| And then you have cases like State of Georgia Vs. Denver Fenton
| Allen. (Adult Swim did a re-enactment it was so salty)
| nieve wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd consider death threats aimed at children
| just "salty"? https://www.ajc.com/blog/legal/georgia-judge-
| loses-over-vulg...
| nickff wrote:
| > _" I have a theory that if more people watched court
| proceedings (daily misdemeanor, not just OJ/Floyd cutups),
| political opinions might shift toward humanizing both the
| accused and the victims."_
|
| There has been a lot of work on this, showing that people's
| reactions to newspaper stories about court cases are polarized,
| but similar people on juries generally find common ground. I
| don't have any citations handy, but I'm sure they're easy to
| find.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Kudos to Davis for catching on that the witness was under duress
| and for getting the cops there pronto.
| yreg wrote:
| There is a community around watching court cases at /r/zoomcourt
|
| Judge Middleton and Deborah Davis (the attorney) from this case
| are very popular over there. She is even a member of the
| subreddit IIRC.
| jedberg wrote:
| My understanding is that only judges can share these recordings
| because it would be an ethical violation for the lawyers to do
| it, but I wonder, why isn't it an ethical issue for the Judge?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well in ordinary circumstances it is often allowed for the
| public to be in the courtroom (not always, obviously), so I
| would think that the judge would apply the same criteria?
| IANAL.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It varies from court to court, but in general the judge has
| the responsibility of evaluating whether public interest
| outweighs rights to privacy for any given piece of recorded
| court information. I'd imagine it is an ethical issue, but
| the judge has the authority to evaluate the ethics and reach
| a decision.
| isk517 wrote:
| I would imagine it is harder for the judge to benefit from
| sharing recordings, where a lawyer could use a release
| recording to promote their practice or attempt to sway
| public option in the event of a mistrial.
| notananthem wrote:
| Why are the cases being streamed on the internet?
| lmilcin wrote:
| Criminal court proceedings are normally open to public by
| default in many jurisdictions.
|
| The idea being that law is applied in public to keep process
| in check, unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| ...and with public viewing galleries in courts closed or
| access-limited due to covid, live-streaming over the
| Internet is the straightforward replacement.
|
| Though there is a substantial difference between having an
| modestly-sized, in-person audience of dispassionate local
| journalists, plaintiffs, relatives and the occasional
| curious member of the public - and having potentially
| thousands of Internet gawkers and potential doxxers.
| Especially in cases like rape/sexual-assault and the like:
| there's definitely a public-interest (for the accused, the
| victim, the guilty and the innocent alike) in having a
| limited audience.
|
| ...can/would any judges agree to limit the public streaming
| audience to a smaller number in those cases?
| mrlatinos wrote:
| This happened 5 months ago. HN looking like my YT recommendations
| mkr-hn wrote:
| HN often hosts discussions on things that happened long enough
| ago that they wouldn't fit the usual definition of news. This
| fact isn't news, or a problem.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I saw a milder version of the same thing myself a few weeks ago
| in a zoom traffic court. While I was waiting for my turn one of
| the other cases had the same thing. A guy was being charged with
| something about a domestic dispute, doesn't speak English very
| well, they ask if he has anyone that can translate, yes my wife,
| she leans into view, someone from the court says she's the the
| victim. They abort everything and schedule for some other time
| with some other translator.
|
| Dude looked over 30, wife looked under 20.
|
| Traffic court sometimes makes you grateful.
| dheera wrote:
| > "Um, I'm at a house," [NAME] said, with hesitation, giving a
| [STREET NAME] address in [CITY].
|
| This should NOT have been publicized. There is enough information
| in the above sentence that I was able to Google for her exact
| address. This is a gross danger to violence victims.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| The other solution seems to be endangering the general public
| by opening the courts in a pandemic or to start having secret
| courts. Neither are particularly compelling. Far less people
| were assaulted in the US than died of coronavirus, and even
| fewer were assaulted for witness intimidation. And a secret
| court is obviously bad for a rules based democracy.
| dheera wrote:
| It needn't be one or the other.
|
| You can have remote trials but just don't put personal
| information in records, and prohibit unauthorized recording.
| Have one official recording that redacts personal addresses
| and contact information.
| djbebs wrote:
| No parr of the justice system should be hidden from view.
| If its too dangerous to be made public, its not important
| enough to be used.
| dheera wrote:
| I disagree. I strongly think the justice system should be
| first and foremost protecting victims and not exposing
| them to more harm.
|
| That would encourage victims to not bring wrongdoings to
| trial in fear of their personal info being exposed.
|
| If someone is convicted, then yeah, go ahead and put them
| on a sex offender registry with their address. Loss of
| privacy is a consequence of their actions. That's
| justice.
|
| But goddamn no don't put the _victim_ 's address in
| public view.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Everyone should be treated equally in the court. A court
| that prioritizes the victim is barely batter than having
| a system based on vigilante justice.
| dheera wrote:
| Well yes, so you start out by not publishing either
| party's address. If and when someone is convicted as a
| sex offender, it's reasonable to publish their address at
| that point, and continue to protect the victim's
| identity.
| Hackwar wrote:
| You can censor live events for nuisances like strong language
| or nudity, but you can't protect the privacy of victims? You
| would be absolutely astonished, how many women are
| intimidated/assaulted each year. The infection rates of covid
| pale against that.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Roughly 300,000 people were assaulted in 2019 (last year of
| uniform crime stats from the FBI). The annualized amount of
| COVID-19 _death_ is about 400,000.
| dheera wrote:
| Correction: 300,000 _reported_ assaulted, not 300,000
| assaulted.
| rurp wrote:
| Specifying that for only one side isn't exactly balanced.
| There were only 400,000 _reported_ covid deaths as well.
| wjko21 wrote:
| I'm not sure why is it that you only mention "women" here,
| are you implying men are never assaulted?
| [deleted]
| leephillips wrote:
| Transcripts are already public information. The accused
| obviously already knows where she lives. How does this affect
| her security?
|
| Even if we could keep the identity of witnesses secret, we
| don't want to. We have the right to confront our accusers, and
| we don't want secret trials.
| dheera wrote:
| It allows more people to go and attack her, and opens the
| door to much more violence in the future.
|
| Now instead of 1 predator knowing where she lives there are a
| million. Is that good?
|
| Transcripts should redact addresses and contact information.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I do not know if you know this, but back in the day, we
| used to publish entire doxxing books, listing everyone's
| address and home phone number. It was opt-out, and almost
| nobody did.
|
| Why are people today suddenly so worried about that?
| dheera wrote:
| Just because it happened in the past doesn't make it
| right.
|
| Lots of very grave things were done in history that we
| now know to be mistakes.
|
| Also, I always opted out in those days. I should still be
| able to do that today.
| beervirus wrote:
| Yes, phone books are murder.
| macintux wrote:
| Technology has made it far more dangerous. Swatting.
| Identity theft.
|
| It wasn't terribly practical for, say, a random person in
| Spain to harass, steal from, or cause the death of
| someone in the U.S. 20-30 years ago. Everything is global
| now.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Those things were printed at most once per year. Lots of
| information can change in a year. Online data can be as
| close to realtime as it gets. There's a large chasm of
| difference in MaBell's book and the internet. MaBell also
| would charge you to be unlisted, but you could provided
| fake names/info that would be printed in the book
| instead.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Your thought process is wild. I honestly cannot see where
| you're coming from.
| leephillips wrote:
| I'm baffled, myself. Everyone lives somewhere. I don't
| see how knowing someone's address creates a hazard _from
| random people_. If a lunatic wants to assault someone he
| can kick in a random door. In the case of someone, say,
| testifying against the mob or against a violent person
| who doesn't already know where she lives, sure.
| dheera wrote:
| That just means that you're lucky to not have been at the
| receiving end of this.
|
| "Lunatics" don't usually kick down random doors, in the
| vast majority of cases. They usually have a targeted
| person in mind, and they stalk that target. They may even
| be associated with a former perpetrator that is already
| behind bars. Courts posting the victim's residential
| address on the internet is not helpful to their safety,
| yet the law's biggest responsibility should be to keep
| innocent people safe.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| You underestimate the amount of crazy living on the
| internet.
|
| There are a lot of misogynistic incels that think most
| women claiming to be abused are lying. I could easily see
| one of them being crazy enough to SWAT her in
| retaliation.
|
| Is it likely? Probably not. But considering we've had
| mass shooters who have cited their inceldom as their
| motive, it's certainly not outside the realm of
| possibility.
| leephillips wrote:
| Your scenario had occurred to me, and it's not wildly
| improbable. But I don't think we should form public
| policy, especially if our adjustments might be
| disharmonious with the Constitution, on the basis of any
| scenarios that we can dream up. In this case the accused
| already knows where she lives, and any imagined affect on
| her security by publishing her address depends on
| supposition.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| We should form public policy on the basis of evidence -
| that is to say, models that have high explanatory power
| and confidently predict reality correctly.
|
| We have policy around nuclear attacks that _aren 't_
| based on actual nuclear attacks. There are policies
| around preventing certain people from being assassinated
| even if nobody's assassinated them yet. If "swatting" is
| something that we know happens in this _sort_ of case, we
| should review our procedures around preventing it if
| circumstances change in a way that we could reasonably
| expect would increase swatting.
| dheera wrote:
| The accused isn't always the only threat to the victim;
| even if they are put behind bars, they may often have
| associations to other perpetrators yet to be found.
|
| In any case, this logic is tantamount to:
|
| "We don't see any immediate threat to posting the first 3
| digits of victim's SSN in the transcript, and they don't
| have any ID theft criminals yet, so let's just post the
| first 3 digits for the hell of it."
|
| Residential address is equally unnecessary. No need to
| post their address for the hell of it.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| I am not sure if you are that sheltered. It is within the
| realm of possibility, it would be possible to believe
| that humankind are collected and knowing their
| boundaries. Until recently (last year or pre-pandemic) it
| become transparent that we are, in fact, stupid. The
| thought process is valid because it is possible for that
| to happen. This thought process will be very outlandish
| 10 years ago which I can agree with you. But now... it is
| not impossible to think it can happens.
| kryogen1c wrote:
| you're just ignorant. this is something all famous people
| and public figures understand. once you hit a certain
| threshold for volume of people, some of them are
| guaranteed to be aberrant, violent, and/or unstable. it
| doesnt have anything to do with who you are or what
| you've done (although you can certainly attract more if
| you try) - at least 1 person has a serious problem with
| you.
|
| the specifics here matter too. court cases are
| adversarial and high-stakes. the court-going population
| isnt as stable as the general population.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Did you see where a GitHub project was forked, and the
| maintainer of the fork had people at his place of
| residence threatening physical violence? This shit sounds
| made up, but craycray is rampant on the internet.
| willcipriano wrote:
| It's a harder problem that. Secrecy in courts is a tool
| often used by totalitarian dictatorships, a blanket
| objection to that sort of thing may actually do more good
| than harm. In a practical sense I totally agree with
| omitting addresses specifically but I also understand the
| skepticism of any reduction of transparency in the courts.
| dheera wrote:
| It's not secrecy, you can be totally transparent about
| who is involved without revealing their residential
| address.
|
| Courts don't post SSNs and bank account numbers in their
| transcripts, and residential addresses should be treated
| with the same level of privacy.
| dahfizz wrote:
| According to [1], you can request a transcript be
| redacted if it contains "the home address of an
| individual (applicable to criminal cases only)".
|
| It also looks like the onus is on you (or your attorney)
| to request the redaction. I think its highly likely that
| she didn't care in this case - people don't really care
| about privacy as much as HN does. Her abuser went to
| jail. Worrying that some rando will start harassing her
| because of this court proceeding (and not from her
| Facebook, or a phone book, etc etc) is bordering on
| paranoia.
|
| [1] https://www.ned.uscourts.gov/internetDocs/pom/tran_re
| daction...
| [deleted]
| imglorp wrote:
| This was an ok amount of anonymity under Old School journalism
| with paper phonebooks but not after the internet. Seems they
| need to update their standards.
| georgecmu wrote:
| Several cuts of the video are available here:
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zoom+hearing+co...
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Anyone with a law license have insight as to Zoom and other
| teleconferencing violating habeas corpus? Without physically
| seeing the person, it is much easier to hand out punishments.
| vnchr wrote:
| Either zoom has an opportunity to add a location-verification
| privacy nightmare of a feature, or a startup can make a zoom
| replacement for the unique needs of a remote justice system.
| inetknght wrote:
| No. The court handled this quickly and appropriately. I don't
| see a reason to lose one's privacy.
| regulation_d wrote:
| obviously the question is, are there cases of witness
| intimidation that aren't being caught?
| inetknght wrote:
| Any information provided over Zoom can be falsified. Any
| future court which has concerns about witness intimidation
| should follow a similar procedure that this court already
| performed.
|
| There is no reason to lose your privacy over this.
| dylan604 wrote:
| short answer, yes. as long as there are "bad guys" willing
| to do anything to stay out of jail, witness intimidation
| will occur as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The court discovered the problem _in this instance_. Further,
| the parent provided an alternative suggestion. Another
| commenter elaborated on that "dedicated platform" idea: A
| dedicated device.
| cameron_b wrote:
| Zoom is new in courtrooms, but videoconferencing is not. it
| used to be done on dedicated devices and could in the
| future as well. Cisco and Poly ( formerly Polycom ) were
| loved for their security and management functions. Put a
| defendant in the "Video" room at the jail and have an
| arraignment with zero physical interaction, threat to court
| staff, or transport costs and risks [and the jail staff
| just need to make sure the thing is plugged in to the wall,
| the rest was automated]. This was the model when I
| installed the stuff 10 years ago ( in a mostly rural county
| in South Carolina, at that )
|
| Zoom is blowing the doors off access, but there is appetite
| for specialization.
| dheera wrote:
| There is no way to "verify location" on a device that I own. My
| device can always spoof its location, _does_ spoof location by
| default, and my device can run Zoom 's code in an altered way.
|
| IMO the best way to facilitate this is for the courthouse to
| deliver an officially-sanctioned device on the date of the
| trial to everyone involved (defendants, attackers, witnesses,
| jurors, judges, lawyers), that device come with its own LTE
| connection, and it be a federal violation to modify _that_
| device.
|
| In addition, the courts should NEVER divulge the location of
| the participants in a trial or put it into any document, as
| that might put violence victims at further risk.
| robrenaud wrote:
| Making courts cases slower, more expensive, and more
| cumbersome is probably not a net benefit to victims of
| violence. It is not as though the woman was was testifying
| against organized crime.
|
| Muting or pausing the recordings during testimony of private
| information, or redacting them from the recording might be a
| good compromise.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Remote proctored exams have already put in place measures (both
| process and technical) to address a number of these issues.
| worker767424 wrote:
| > [Judge] Middleton then asked Harris to divulge the address
| where he was. Harris gave a house number on East Lafayette
| Street.
|
| Is this bordering on a Fifth Amendment violation since the judge
| asked this or a future mistrial since the defense attorney didn't
| try to stop it?
| kevingadd wrote:
| Harris could have refused
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| How is asking a question in a court proceeding a violation?
| That's the point of the proceeding, no? Did the judge threaten
| to hold him in contempt for not answering?
| mabbo wrote:
| Two weeks later:
|
| > "I'd like to fire my attorney and represent myself for the rest
| of this case, please, because he hasn't done anything that I've
| asked him," Harris said. "I asked, I sent him a whole paper of
| questions to ask her and I asked him to come see me before this
| court date. He hasn't. Paul Gipson's a bum a* dude, and he should
| not practice this profession 'cause he's not doing anything for
| -"
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/now/defendant-viral-michigan-assault-h...
|
| I get the feeling this person is going to be spending an extended
| period of time in jail.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Relevant despite cartoon overlay. State of Georgia Vs. Denver
| Fenton Allen. The transcript is pretty bananas.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vN_PEmeKb0
| inportb wrote:
| The video is no longer available at the original link
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210311055900/https://www.youtu...
| jjulius wrote:
| This is the same judge who had a defendant join a Zoom hearing
| using the name, "Buttfucker 3000".
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/88ng9g/judge-has-no-patience...
| Fezzik wrote:
| and for those that think this is an anomaly (one judge getting
| these odd/crazy cases...) this is what trial court is actually
| like (nearly) all day every day.
| tobr wrote:
| Genuinely, why does it matter? Why should the judge waste any
| attention on things like that, things that have zero
| significance to the matter at hand?
| Bud wrote:
| Is it that hard to figure out? Choosing a name like that, on
| purpose, obviously connotes a certain innate disrespect for
| the judicial process.
|
| That kind of obvious, blatant disrespect would not be
| tolerated in a traditional court proceeding. And it shouldn't
| be tolerated in an online proceeding, either.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| It does matter. These are serious matters and judges need
| respect for the court and the proceedings.
| tobr wrote:
| The judge is the one who is obstructing the proceedings by
| needlessly scolding the defendant and bringing attention to
| an embarrassing mistake.
| jjulius wrote:
| Mistakes like this happen frequently whether the
| proceedings take place over Zoom, or in person in a
| courthouse. As multiple comments have pointed out, it's
| about showing a basic level of respect and awareness of
| your situation.
|
| This would be akin to accidentally showing up to a
| courtroom in a suit and forgetting that there's a
| decorative penis pin on your jacket because the last time
| you wore it you were at some sort of party. You clearly
| didn't care enough about your situation to dot your i's
| and cross your t's, and it suggests to the judge that you
| think this is a farce, mistake or not.
| kempbellt wrote:
| It's very easy to click a link and join a Zoom meeting
| without knowing what your screen name is set to ahead of
| time.
|
| HN is an echo chamber of tech-savvy people (myself
| included), but for anyone who's job _isn 't_ to work on a
| computer for 8 hours a day, this type of mistake can
| happen completely without intent.
|
| In regards to the "decorative penis pin" scenario.
| Benefit-of-the-doubt is a basic principle of the judicial
| system. It is _completely_ feasible to do something like
| this unintentionally. A good judge should ask the pin be
| removed, and move on. If the defendant refuses to remove
| it, handle _that_ situation appropriately.
|
| In this same video, the judge asked someone to remove
| their hat. The hat was removed, and everyone moved on.
| This is how professionals do their jobs.
| tobr wrote:
| Sorry, but I still don't see how it's relevant. What's
| the problem with having a decorative penis pin on your
| jacket? If that's the way you like to dress, enjoy
| yourself! Why should we accept that a judge is letting
| themselves be so provoked by these insignificant things?
| That doesn't sound to me like a person who is able to
| impartially evaluate the case based on the law.
| jjulius wrote:
| Five responses to your question have all said it shows a
| lack of respect for the judicial system and the situation
| one is in, and you are essentially spitting in the face
| of the judge. I truly don't know how to make it any
| clearer to you than that.
|
| But I must ask again; would you show up to any kind of
| disciplinary hearing for yourself with "Buttfucker 3000"
| showing on your name badge?
| tobr wrote:
| You really don't have to ask, because what I personally
| would it wouldn't do in various situations has nothing to
| do with what's an appropriate response for someone who's
| job it is to impartially evaluate evidence.
|
| Even if the defendant _literally_ did spit in the face of
| the judge, a good judge should not react in a way that
| would give anyone reason to think they let that affect
| their ruling.
| tester756 wrote:
| >Even if the defendant literally did spit in the face of
| the judge, a good judge should not react in a way that
| would give anyone reason to think they let that affect
| their ruling.
|
| uhh, depends on the case?
| kempbellt wrote:
| Can't help but agree.
|
| There is no way to know that the defendant's Zoom screen-
| name was set intentionally, or even with his knowledge.
| Prior to showing up on the screen the judge was already
| leaking bias - "Then we'll bring this...fool in".
|
| While I am inclined to "assume" that it was done
| intentionally, assumptions is not what the judicial
| system is about.
|
| "Your name isn't Buttfucker 3000, you yol-hole" along
| with the initial remark are both incredibly
| unprofessional (and worrying) things to hear from a
| person who's literal job is to pass unbiased judgement.
| Name calling from a judge, really?
|
| Yes, the dude was _probably_ being an ass, but it doesn
| 't matter. The judge judged the guy without concrete
| evidence and displayed a ton of personal distaste and
| bias against the defendant over the following minutes. He
| should asked the defendant to fix his screen name and
| moved on. This is not the kind of behavior you want to
| see in a judge who presides over cases of any real
| meaning.
| DFHippie wrote:
| You are focusing too much on the immediate context. Yes,
| the judge must remain impartial and resist being
| provoked, but the judicial system depends on people's
| respect. This being this case, their behavior isn't the
| only thing they must take into consideration. They must
| consider how this behavior will be interpreted by others.
| If they are the platonic ideal of impartiality but they
| are perceived as fools, this weakens the influence of
| their decisions. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not omniscient,
| so I'm not sure how accurate their assessment of things
| is, but this is certainly the reasoning. They need the
| court to be treated with respect, _and to be perceived as
| respected and worthy of respect_ , so they don't brook
| people appearing before the court behaving in a way that
| they believe will be perceived as making fools of them.
|
| The trial before them is not their only concern.
| kempbellt wrote:
| You're making the judge sound like an abusive spouse.
| _Must be treated with respect!_
|
| Respect is earned, regardless of statute.
|
| The judge could have simply asked the defendant to fix
| his screen name and moved on, and he would have had my
| respect for the professionalism. Instead, respect has
| been lost.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| Perhaps for the exact reason you are implying - lack of
| respect for the judge and/or process.
|
| People don't go to court because they "respect" the
| judicial process or the judge - they go because they are
| compelled by force or threats of force/imprisonment.
|
| That said... it seems foolish to disrespect the judge,
| not because he/she deserves respect, but because they can
| abuse their power and punish you over slights to their
| ego. It's the same reason you don't run your mouth at a
| cop during a traffic stop - they would likely wield their
| small authority over you in a way that you found
| unpleasant.
| jjulius wrote:
| If you knew you were in trouble at work, would you show up to
| your disciplinary hearing/meeting/whathaveyou with
| "Buttfucker 3000" written over your name on your badge in
| plain sight?
|
| The same thing generally applies to the courtroom - it's
| showing a lack of respect for, and understanding of, the
| situation one is in. Were a judge to think they may want to
| give an individual a lenient sentence, they may change their
| mind were they to find out that that individual is basically
| saying, "Fuck you and fuck all of this, I don't care."
| quantumBerry wrote:
| The charge was for drug paraphernalia. There should be no
| respect at all of a tyrant enforcing such laws.
| jjulius wrote:
| I don't disagree with you in regards to the need to
| greatly reform how we handle and prosecute (or don't
| prosecute) drug-related crimes, but having said that,
| what is the judge to do? Ignore a law and sentencing
| guidelines entirely?
| quantumBerry wrote:
| Due process requires judges to recuse themselves when
| there is a strong possibility they will be biased (such
| as believing it is a BS law that requires no punishment).
| If every single judge does this, eventually the state is
| going to run out of resources to try the case.
|
| A nice start would be to recognize having "buttfucker
| 3000" in your name might simply be an acknowledgement of
| the unjust law and probably circumstances (found in
| traffic stop, likely questionable 4A grounds) (although
| the article states that he stated it was unintentional.)
| So the easiest thing would have been just to let it slide
| and continue on like it doesn't exist.
|
| Judge could also instruct jurors on "jury nullification"
| or make the prosecutor's life hell in other ways if they
| bring about these cases.
|
| Yes I think there is a moral duty to ignore an unjust
| law, even if it is illegal to do so.
| gsk22 wrote:
| What are the limits to your proposed recognition of his
| frustration? Is the name "fuckthelaw" ok? How about
| "judgefucker 3000"? What if they include the name of a
| witness or victim in their name ("fuck <witness>")? What
| if it contains a racial, ethnic or religious slur?
|
| Court isn't an MMO; you don't get to choose a pithy
| username. You use your legal name, and the judge is right
| to enforce that.
| quantumBerry wrote:
| Well when you're there for a victimless crime of some cop
| searched your car during a traffic stop and found a
| syringe, I'd say "fuck the state, the judge, and the cop
| witness" probably wouldn't be going to far. You're the
| one wanting to judge people's speech, not I.
| ebeip90 wrote:
| Yes.
| Sargos wrote:
| If they had any morals yes. The fact that they sentence
| people to be held in cages for victimless crimes means
| they don't deserve the respect they needlessly demand
| from others.
| quantumBerry wrote:
| It's pretty clear HN isn't in support of even the notion
| that enforcement of victimless drug laws is tyrannical.
| This is a terrifying but accurate view of our current
| society.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jjulius wrote:
| _Woosh_.
| quantumBerry wrote:
| aye.
| saurik wrote:
| > If you knew you were in trouble at work, would you show
| up to your disciplinary hearing/meeting/whathaveyou with
| "Buttfucker 3000" written over your name on your badge in
| plain sight?
|
| > The same thing generally applies to the courtroom - it's
| showing a lack of respect for, and understanding of, the
| situation one is in.
|
| Others have said this, but I want to underscore it with
| different phrasing: you seem to not understand the
| difference between "fear" and "respect".
|
| > Were a judge to think they may want to give an individual
| a lenient sentence, they may change their mind were they to
| find out that that individual is basically saying, "Fuck
| you and fuck all of this, I don't care."
|
| Justice should not depend on how good you make a judge feel
| about themselves or how fearful you show yourself to be of
| the system; justice should look only at the facts of the
| case and be blind to these unrelated details, no matter how
| much they make the judge personally feel bad.
|
| I appreciate it _isn 't_ like that: justice is not blind,
| and is in fact horribly unfair. And this means we tend to
| leave laws on the books that disproportionately affect
| certain groups of people because we let law enforcement and
| judgement proceedings favor use "discretion" to
| "discriminate" (note the relationship between these words).
|
| But that someone knows this to be true and thereby chooses
| a strategy to play that maximizes their benefit, has
| nothing to do with "respect": it is out of "fear" of what
| the system will do to you if you don't put on the outward
| appearance of "respect", even if--entirely internally--you
| are feeling nothing but "contempt" (a feeling that I
| personally couldn't blame anyone for having).
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| When it comes to determining guilt, yes, justice should
| be blind. When it comes to sentencing, judges take all
| kinds of things into account. If I were a defendant, I'd
| want to keep that firmly in mind.
| psychlops wrote:
| It doesn't matter. And you can see the judge simply had him
| correct the mistake and proceedings moved on. It has nothing
| to do with respect, judges do not need to rely on soft power
| like that. But might impact everyone in the process and lead
| to a negative outcome.
| gpm wrote:
| Consider that the only power a judge has is to say things,
| and write things. The legal system only works if enough
| people respect it and do things just because the judge said
| to do the thing. Our society only works if the legal system
| keeps working.
|
| Insisting that people respect the court is a large part of
| why this works. Even if maybe in some particular instance you
| could get away with not insisting on that, that's a dangerous
| experiment to run.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| s/legal/social/
|
| The legal system is just a buttress for social norms and
| conventions; and if the latter break down, there's not much
| hope for the former.
|
| Of course, there are many legal issues that genuinely need
| lawyers and courts - for example, where there is real
| disagreement as to the meaning of a legal text such as a
| contract. But on the whole, the role of courts and lawyers
| is to tidy-up around the edges; if society only worked
| because of courts and lawyers, then it wouldn't really be
| working at all.
| quantumBerry wrote:
| Our society would keep on working just fine if everyone
| disrespected judges who assist in the process of trying
| someone for the completely victimless crime of owning a
| syringe. I very much hope that part of the legal system
| collapses from lack of respect, if not by other means.
| gameshot911 wrote:
| I'd say the only important power is the ability to enforce
| their decisions. Respect makes things smoother, but is not
| necessary. And power alone will naturally command respect
| from most people.
| rurp wrote:
| Do you think that all courtroom rules of decorum are wasteful
| or just Zoom screen names? Like, if someone showed up to an
| in-person hearing wearing assless chaps and a beer straw hat,
| would that be fine?
|
| I'm not big on formality in general but I think that there
| are times when it makes sense to expect people to present
| themselves with a basic level of respect.
| h2odragon wrote:
| The run the air conditioning in those courtrooms at Arctic
| levels. the person in the assless chaps would freeze to the
| seats.
|
| So far as I've seen hats aren't allowed either. I'd be
| willing to claim it as a religious necessity.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up
| video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper
| and is put on mute. You can see from his body language how
| distressed he is. It disturbed me greatly.
|
| This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very
| quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of
| environment that helps create a person like that... It is so sad.
| SamBam wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id6q1q-r-Sw
|
| The compilation starts briefly from the later jail incident.
| The part depicted in the article (edited) starts at 0:34.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very
| quickly with little self control.
|
| Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse
| control seems like the single common denominator among a whole
| load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble
| (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From
| crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing
| up" on people in public or private, to impulse shopping, to
| road rage, to everything you see on r/PublicFreakout, and so
| on. Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of
| their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of
| their lives.
|
| EDIT: This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered
| there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much
| food for thought!
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of
| their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest
| of their lives.
|
| ...and make things worse for the rest of us; but god forbid
| the state do anything about it with proactive evidence-based
| early-interventions or treat the perpetrators of crime with
| compassion and understanding too - otherwise it's called
| being soft-on-crime or worse: "liberal".
| whatthesmack wrote:
| I wouldn't say that only the state is capable of helping.
| Most organizations that help in these situations currently
| in the US are private, often faith-based, and non-profit.
|
| Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's
| behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would
| consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and
| progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on
| crime"), especially minorities, in the past. The last
| president (who many would consider more to the right of the
| political spectrum) actually did a lot to reform and fix
| that, especially for minorities.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think you're giving Trump too much credit. Trump's
| support of the First Step Act was widely attributed to
| doing a favor for Kushner, and is seen as an anomaly
| against his broader "tough on crime" theme, which he
| doubled down on in the run-up to the 2020 election. (I
| mean, he literally tweeted "LAW & ORDER!" with no other
| context several times.)
|
| It's hard to take Trump seriously in the realm of
| criminal justice reform when considering -- for example
| -- his reaction to the aftermath of the murder of George
| Floyd. And that's just one example among many. I won't
| claim that Biden is a saint here, but painting Trump as a
| criminal justice reformer is a bit absurd.
|
| Regardless, incarceration isn't really something that
| changes a lot based on federal-level action, as federal
| prisoners account for less than 10% of the prison
| population (the rest are incarcerated at the state
| level).
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I'd actually be really interested in what reformations
| could be attributed to the Trump administration when it
| comes to aspects of the justice system that
| disproportionately target minorities. I'm not very
| educated on the subject so I'd love some analysis
| available for a layman if possible. If not, a specialized
| analysis is fine and I'll just glean what I can glean.
| nradov wrote:
| It was primarily the First Step Act, which President
| Trump signed in 2018. It eliminated some sentencing
| disparities which had disproportionately targeted
| minorities.
|
| https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp
|
| (I'm not taking a position on which president was better
| or worse on this issue.)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about
| who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who
| many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great
| efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people
| ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past.
|
| Biden has never been a leftist (not even in the extremely
| loose sense that the progressive wing of the Democratic
| Party might be considered "leftist"), he's always been
| associated with the centrist/conservative wing of the
| Party, and that was even more true in the 1990s (when he
| was involved in the crime legislation you are talking
| about) then in his post-Senate career (where he has been
| involved in national campaigns where the centrist faction
| is weaker within the party than it was in the mid-late
| 1990s, which were pretty much the peak of its dominance.)
|
| > The last president (who many would consider more to the
| right of the political spectrum)
|
| I think "corrupt authoritarian opportunist who seized on
| a perceived opportunity in the more right-leaning party,
| and particularly with mobilizing its extremist fringes"
| than describing Trump actually being ideologically to the
| right in some kind of coherent way that motivates policy
| over more immediate calculations of personal gain and
| opportunism.
| notafraudster wrote:
| The current US president, who anyone that isn't raised on
| a diet of right-wing talk radio would consider a moderate
| Democrat (not from the left or progressive wing of the
| party at all), locked up lots of people in the 1990s, a
| period where there was general social and political
| appetite for widespread incarceration. At approximately
| the same time, a few years earlier, the last president
| you mention (then a private citizen) was using his money
| to take out ads in the newspaper calling for the
| execution of proven innocent black men.
|
| Later, after being elected president, that president (who
| most would consider pretty politically incoherent on
| traditional ideological divides, and animated almost
| entirely on the single issue of defending the American
| ethnic against "others" without and within, and who spent
| most of his presidency calling for the broader use of
| violence against perceived criminals, oversaw a record
| return to federal capital punishment, expanded the use of
| paramilitary law enforcement, and directly assumed
| control of law enforcement using loopholes in the
| executive branch's authority to do so) signed a
| bipartisan crime reform bill he had nothing to do with at
| the urging of a reality tv star who is pretending to
| become a lawyer and who was briefly married to a mentally
| ill rapper who for some reason endorsed the president.
|
| If we're looking to ascribe an ideological dimension to
| crime politics in the US, it would be easy: during the
| entire modern party system, Republicans have consistently
| been to the right of Democrats on crime (even in periods
| where Democrats have been, in a global sense, to the
| right of the median). The bulk of major crime bills have
| been nearly unanimous consent, including both the 1994
| Crime bill and the First Step Act, but the contents of
| those bills have compromises where the right seeks
| "tougher" provisions and the left seeks more conciliatory
| provisions.
|
| Court politics has been even more obviously partisan. Of
| the current Supreme Court justices, Thomas and Alito
| favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment
| and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to
| undermine the justice system; Breyer and Sotomayor have
| signalled they believe the constitution more or less
| mandates abolition. It's a clear as day divide. Most
| other criminal justice issues have the same dimensions in
| the courts, and even lower in the circuit courts as well.
| corin_ wrote:
| > _Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of
| capital punishment and view most litigation related to it
| a liberal plot to undermine the justice system_
|
| Have they talked/written about it being a "liberal plot"
| or is that just a (quite possibly entirely accurate)
| description of a belief that would explain their actions
| without their having come out and said that?
|
| I'd be interested to learn more if you have any suggested
| reading on the current members of the SC (not an area I
| know a huge amount about).
| rbanffy wrote:
| > This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered
| there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much
| food for thought!
|
| Since nobody mentioned it, I'll add that toxoplasmosis seems
| to reduce the ability to control impulses in humans.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579228/
|
| Patients with latent toxoplasma have a higher chance to get
| involved in car accidents.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _poor impulse control_
|
| This can be due to an old head injury. Head injury syndrome
| is a thing and one study found that upwards of 90 percent of
| people on Death Row had a history of head injury so severe
| that you could find evidence of it with an x-ray machine if
| there were no medical records.
|
| In other words the skull still bore the scars. So it went
| well beyond just a concussion.
| moistly wrote:
| Can also be due to hormonal issues, which in turn may be
| exacerbated by gut micro biome issues.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm sure there are many factors. At one point while very
| sick and homeless, I was coming across like a bipolar
| person to some degree. I did some research and adjusted
| my diet to shut that down.
|
| I imagine that poverty and poor diet do all kinds of bad
| things to the populations that tend to be most at risk of
| ending up in jail in the US. I have at times fantasized
| about trying to do something about nutrition in the US
| prison system as a means of trying to break the cycle,
| but I'm probably never going to be in a position to do
| that.
|
| Even the Bible posits that feeding people is the way to
| promote the peace, basically. Psychological research and
| firsthand experience suggest that's pretty sound as an
| approach.
|
| Edit: See discussion here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867
| jandrese wrote:
| It's an interesting correlation. It should be remembered
| that people with poor impulse control are more likely to
| find themselves in situations where several cranial injury
| is likely to occur. It may even be a vicious cycle.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I think it's worse than that. I think some of them take
| illicit drugs because they hate being that way and are
| trying to control it in the absence of a proper diagnosis
| and proper intervention. And then they get vilified as
| "addicts" for self medicating to keep themselves chilled
| out.
|
| Edit: And of course there will always be the assholes
| with an excuse for their intentionally malicious
| behavior, which complicates the hell out of finding good
| solutions.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| Do you have a recent source on the head injury / death row
| connection? I am not doubting you but curious. I can find a
| study of 15 people from the early 2000's but is there
| anything more recent and with a larger sample size?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm old. That old study you found might be the one I'm
| thinking of.
|
| I don't have any other sources at my fingertips that
| wouldn't involve just doing a search myself.
| markstos wrote:
| Studies of identical twins with different upbringing has
| found that outcomes are like 70% genetic and 30% environment.
|
| Anecdotally, I grew up an environment with good parents and
| siblings with different genetic parents. One of us had been
| in jail and juvy several times by age 18 due in part to
| impulse-control related problems.
|
| Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given.
| Then it was not as well understood.
| cryptnotic wrote:
| > Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been
| given.
|
| The hyperactivity component of ADHD is often expressed as
| impulsivity, so that fits.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Emotional disregulation seems to be correlated with ADHD.
| I'm not sure if it's used as a diagnostic criteria, but
| people with ADHD discuss it frequently.
|
| https://www.verywellmind.com/sensitivities-and-adhd-20473
| tclancy wrote:
| >Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their
| upbringing
|
| I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe
| beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the
| same. It's a cycle/ disease. "My parents hit me and I turned
| out fine" is often a revealing statement. And a defense of
| parents who may not deserve it but coping with that is
| harder.
| moistly wrote:
| > It's a cycle/ disease.
|
| It is only recently that we've (in the West) had a
| generation or two of the majority of us being raised
| without suffering direct experience of war.
|
| Just as children who are abused often go on to be abusers
| in adulthood, I suspect societies that suffer war often
| become abusive post-war.
| tclancy wrote:
| For sure. My feeling is that the root/ meta cause is
| anything where the illusion of control over your own
| destiny is taken away. A parent can beat a young child no
| matter what the child thinks about it; a bomb can blow
| your life apart no matter what you think about it. Having
| a feeling of agency is incredibly important to feeling
| part of society.
| moistly wrote:
| I expect a lot of the oppositional behaviour re: covid
| we've recently witnessed, have their roots in a need to
| assert an illusion of control, in much the same way
| toddlers assert control by refusing food or holding their
| bodily functions.
| yomly wrote:
| My parents did hit me and I did turn out fine.
|
| They did their best with the tools and knowledge they had
| available to them.
|
| Would I hit my kids? Probably not, I can see some value in
| it, but I think ultimately your parenting style shouldn't
| deviate too much from their own surroundings - that is what
| causes more harm IMO.
|
| YMMV
|
| So what does this statement reveal about me?
| tclancy wrote:
| What value do you see in it as a long-term teaching tool?
| Whenever I have caught myself feeling that way it's
| because they've done something risky that has scared me
| at a subconscious level and I want to lash out. I've
| never once had a rational reason for feeling that way.
| yomly wrote:
| I guess the two values I see are having an extra level in
| your varieties of punishment - a "nuclear option"
| perhaps.
|
| The other is softer - I am curious how normalising pain
| may positively benefit a developing child. Could it build
| toughness? Might my child be more likely to stand up to a
| bully?
|
| From a self defence perspective, a big part of personal
| development is overcoming aversion to pain - eg not
| flinching in boxing/mma.
|
| In any case I think there are alternatives to learning
| these lessons and disciplining your children and I think
| in our environment it would do a lot of emotional damage
| that isn't worth the benefits - hence why I probably
| won't hit my children.
|
| That said, I find it curious that only one to two
| generations ago it was fully the norm.
| elzbardico wrote:
| My mother hit me, I end up turning out fine but I don't
| physically discipline my son and I think my way is better
| than my mother's. Of course I know that I have the
| advantage of being a male, a big and strong male with a
| deep voice, but my wife also doesn't have any big
| discipline issue with our kids when she is alone with
| them for one or two weeks, and she also don't use
| physical punishment.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Well, my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional
| physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a
| child has done something life-endangering." What this
| specifically reveals is some level of naive obliviousness
| to the extant patterns of violence, both physical and
| emotional, which abusive parents apply to their kids in
| practice, and the emotional harms that many children will
| suffer under such disciplinary regime.
| perl4ever wrote:
| >my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical
| punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has
| done something life-endangering."
|
| I mean, you can let someone touch a hot stove, or not. Is
| letting them learn for themselves abusive? I believe that
| was how I learned that specific lesson, not by being hit
| when I reached.
|
| On the other hand, there are things that you can't let
| someone learn for themselves because they won't live
| through it.
|
| And what about hurting other people? Is it possible that
| there is an empathy circuit that doesn't necessarily get
| wired properly if early on, pain isn't connected to
| hurting others?
|
| This doesn't have to be applied by humans in all cases.
| You bother the cat, it slaps you.
|
| If physical punishment is unacceptable, does that mean
| the cat should be declawed so it can't do that?
| [deleted]
| Aerroon wrote:
| > _I think it 's worse than that: they get too much shock
| and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were
| raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease._
|
| Maybe it's not a cycle, but genetic instead. It would
| appear like a cycle because the children will end up doing
| what the parents did, but they might simply be predisposed
| to it.
| tclancy wrote:
| Maaaayybe. But I would guess any number of twins/
| adoption studies suggest otherwise. Blaming it on
| something uncontrollable is worse because it suggests
| there is no reason to try to do better.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I see constantly lots of parents that use physical
| punishment with their kids with lousy results. Violence
| delegitimize authority. You think your kids respect you,
| but they fear you. Like the subjects of a dictatorship they
| will be role model citizens under your eyes, and run all
| kind of "illegal activities" and you are not close. I know
| because my mom beat me. Yes, I ended up fine, DESPITE it,
| NOT BECAUSE of it.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Why do you assume it's the upbringing? It could be any kind
| of brain injury, in utero or post birth, heavy metal
| poisoning or simply genetic. This kind of behavior does not
| strike me as learned but rather as a deficiency. On top of
| that the defendant looks rather dumb.
| jyrkesh wrote:
| I would assume it's the upbringing because I don't think
| impulse control is actually a very natural behavior.
| There's a reason it's called "primal rage".
|
| On the flip side, self-control, impulse control, being able
| to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills
| that are learned, honed, and mastered. Sure, many people
| learn them through other means than from their parents,
| often as a survival necessity in their environments, but I
| don't think that e.g. the people who fly off the handle and
| get into a bar fight when someone's hitting on their
| girlfriend, are doing so because of heavy metal poisoning
| or genetics.
| himinlomax wrote:
| It's part of social functioning, and we obviously have
| genes for that purpose. Other social animals have
| comparable instincts, such as respect for dominance
| hierarchies among others.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > and we obviously have genes for that purpose
|
| That's far from obvious. You can't just observe some
| trait in an organism, and conclude "that must have
| genetic origins".
| navjack27 wrote:
| > self-control, impulse control, being able to manage
| your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are
| learned, honed, and mastered.
|
| I got news for ya bub. They aren't learned. They can be
| honed to a small degree. They cannot be mastered.
|
| When you have ADHD you realize this.
|
| And to your last thing. Not in all cases but in some.
| codyswann wrote:
| Only on HN could we diagnosis someone with impulse control from
| less than 8 minutes of video.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| I tried to be careful with my observations. "It appears
| like..."
|
| I recognize that this incident is a microscope's view of this
| young man's life painting.
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