[HN Gopher] After 20 Years as a Prosecutor in Illinois, I Quit
___________________________________________________________________
After 20 Years as a Prosecutor in Illinois, I Quit
Author : baremetal
Score : 138 points
Date : 2023-05-12 11:59 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.realclearwire.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.realclearwire.com)
| the_absurdist wrote:
| Challenge:
|
| Let's see if anyone with a username linked to their true identity
| can figure out a way to speak honestly about this without tanking
| their career.
| plagiarist wrote:
| What is the agreement or disagreement you are having with that
| content which would get you fired?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Can't say what the effects will be on my career but I doubt
| there will be any.
|
| There's not much content here. The author is a prosecutor who
| is upset that policies have been introduced that put fewer
| people behind bars. They think that we need "tough on crime"
| laws that keep their kids safe. I am not surprised in the
| least.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| They always say this and whine when they don't get their way.
| tupshin wrote:
| Challenge accepted. This article is an emotional rant (true or
| false) is not well grounded in facts and causality. There
| fundamental claim is that
|
| > The simple fact is that this State and County have set
| themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that
| the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy
| change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more
| crime and more people getting hurt.
|
| So the claim is that his state, county, and agency are all
| backing policies that predictably lead to more crime.
|
| Those policies are then characterized as:
|
| * bond/bail reform * reduced parole and sentences in some cases
| * "malicious" prosecution of law officers * not prosecuting
| some crimes that are on the books
|
| Unfortunately the author makes zero references, citations, or
| arguments for why these policies are harmful, as enacted, and
| why they might have led to the negative experiences of their
| family.
|
| So it's an emotional content (nearly) free emotional rant that
| doesn't move the discussion forward in any helpful way.
|
| Analysis that showed even correlation would be
| interesting/useful. This is not.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| But he hears gun shots sometimes and saw a drug dealer. That
| surely proves everything has gotten out of hand. Time to lock
| people up before they're proven guilty of committing any
| crimes, put non-violent criminals in cages, and permanently
| ruin peoples lives, preventing them from gainful employment!
| barbazoo wrote:
| And don't forget about the
|
| > malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement
| officers
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Oh no, the poor fascists that hurt the community, and
| ruin innocent lives to protect their egos. Who will be
| left to fire teargas at peaceful protestors and lock them
| up on false charges?
| the_absurd wrote:
| [dead]
| jeswin wrote:
| Most people I know would bracket you as right-leaning if you
| attack a left-wing position without balancing it by
| simultaneously attacking a right-wing position. It is usually
| acceptable to attack right-wing issues without a balancing act.
|
| I find it quite troubling, but that's where we are. I don't
| care about my reputation.
| the_absurd wrote:
| [dead]
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| This is a strange letter. It claims specific policies have a
| direct causal relationship with crime and gun prevalence, and
| therefore the entire state of Illinois is unsafe. Do we actually
| have evidence that proves this out? (Edited to add: I'm admitting
| ignorance here, not trying to say the above is false! I am very
| good faith behavior here.)
|
| I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders
| and prosecutors are on even footing. It's been well known public
| defenders are forced to take up an unreasonable number of cases
| where the prosecution decides to hand over the evidence to be
| debated about-- the prosecution is supposed to hand over
| everything, but there's been multiple cases of prosecutors
| happenstancely not handing over evidence that would prove
| innocence and then not losing their jobs for doing so!
| crumpusBaggins wrote:
| i think the obvious policy he the former attorney lists as
| causing more crime:
|
| "Bond reform so no one stays in jail"
|
| if every american suspected of shooting someone is held in jail
| rather than released, we have just removed the most likely
| population of people who cause future shootings. from the
| safety of the publics perspective, now the surviving
| victims/witnesses are more likely to be victims of more crimes
| because the suspected violent attackers are back on the street.
|
| i dont really think there is room for debate on the
| "truthyness" of his statement, as if we kept more people in
| jail, less people would be out in public able to commit crime.
| how much is a good question tho.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| The vast majority of people in jail before trial are not
| suspected of shooting anyone. Many are low-level offenders
| waiting in jail for months despite still having the
| presumption of innocence. Often the time they spend in jail
| before trial exceeds the length of the sentence they would
| get if convicted. This can pressure people to falsely plead
| guilty since it's actually the fastest way to get out of
| jail.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| The policies implemented in Chicago weren't exactly
| targeting jaywalkers - some 10 people get shot in Chicago
| every weekend for about a decade now with a huge asymmetry
| of how the justice system deals with people that shot and
| missed.
| boplicity wrote:
| The bond reform statement really doesn't line up with the
| facts. They're no longer requesting pre-trial detention of
| those charged with low-level nonviolent offense. [1] That
| just doesn't line up with the claims being presented.
|
| [1] https://theappeal.org/bail-reform-embraced-by-cook-
| county-st...
| sct202 wrote:
| So it's a little more complicated than that with the
| electronic monitoring program where people charged with
| violent crimes can be electronically monitored at home. For
| example early last year, ~100 people charged with murder in
| Cook Country (where the prosecutor in the letter worked)
| were at home monitored.
| https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cook-county-sheriff-
| tom...
| crumpusBaggins wrote:
| my understanding is most cities lack resources to
| actually monitor the electronic things,
|
| so usually its after a new crime is commited, the police
| stories read like:
|
| "X suspected of serious crime violated his electoronic
| home monitoring Y amount of times, we rearrested him
| during the act of a seperate crime"
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Is the cost of monitoring an inmate more, or less than
| the cost to monitor the electronic things?
| crumpusBaggins wrote:
| i would assume tracking the electronic devices are
| cheaper
|
| if both options arent funded/run appropriatly public
| safety is harmed either way
| plagiarist wrote:
| You have to consider the effects of allowing the state to
| hold whomever they want without a trial. States will lock
| kids up for years without trial on suspicion of stealing a
| backpack. That should never happen.
| fatnoah wrote:
| > I am immediately questioning this depiction that public
| defenders and prosecutors are on even footing.
|
| I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has
| an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower.
|
| From the letter:
|
| > we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal
| justice processes I've also assumed that our system of
| government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also
| designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the
| defendant.
|
| Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway
| assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much
| higher burden of than the defense.
| enkid wrote:
| Yes, that's explicitly the purpose. It's intended to be much
| more likely a guilty person is released than an innocent is
| imprisoned.
| DicIfTEx wrote:
| This principle is known as Blackstone's ratio:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
| setgree wrote:
| So I'm not the OP, but I found this letter interesting because
| I think it's a nice illustration of ways in which so-called
| 'liberal' policies drive some people to become more
| conservative.
|
| Politics is about perception, and whether or not a well-
| identified paper finds a causal link from bond policies to
| crime is kind of neither here nor there. His anecdotal evidence
| (gunfire within earshot, drug-dealing behind his house)
| suffices for him. It's really hard to argue with that kind of
| reasoning by pointing to abstractions, i.e. a statistical
| model.
|
| Basically when I see even faint signs of folks' favoring more
| authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I want us
| to notice those signs, and think hard about how to keep that
| instinct from getting a full head of steam.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _Basically when I see even faint signs of folks ' favoring
| more authoritarian policies (e.g. being "tough on crime,") I
| want us to notice those signs, and think hard about how to
| keep that instinct from getting a full head of steam._
|
| If there's a workable progressive solution to degraded
| qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime--
| where is it working? SF? Portland? Chicago? DC? NYC?
|
| It's not like there are republicans in any of these places,
| so what's the issue?
|
| The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
| jkestner wrote:
| The issue is that the people in power are not progressives,
| or have not gotten full support and the time needed to
| enact change. Establishment Democrats are just as pro-
| punishment as Republicans; take the President's history as
| a legislator. NYC is literally run by a cop. Trolls started
| blaming the progressive mayor of Chicago for crime before
| he even took office. LAPD contains a literal gang. The
| system progressives want to change is too deeply rooted to
| change in just an election.
|
| I don't know if progressive policies are the answer to
| everything, but we've steadily been throwing money in the
| other direction so consider whether that strategy is a
| failure.
| jkestner wrote:
| Reply to sibling: lol, Lightfoot is not a progressive.
| Toni Preckwinkle was the progressive candidate. Anyone
| can claim the label, but if the teacher's union hates you
| and you're a former prosecutor, you might not be a
| progressive.
|
| I specifically did not say to vote more, but that an
| election is not enough. It takes constant public
| pressure, and of course good strategy to effect change.
| Even if Lightfoot really did want to reform the CPD, it's
| too powerful to face without a collective effort focused
| on small, achievable policy to start. I respect the
| outsiders, but she was not very political. Maybe Johnson,
| as a former organizer, will do better.
| [deleted]
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Was Lori Lightfoot not a progressive? How long are we
| going to have to just vote harder before we start seeing
| some results, somewhere?
| user3939382 wrote:
| > If there's a workable progressive solution to degraded
| qualify of life due to crime, including nonviolent crime
|
| Here's a workable solution: stop spending over 3x what
| China does on "defense" and maintaining military bases all
| over the world and spend that money on homelessness,
| education, infrastructure, and jobs programs to get our
| middle class back.
| sharemywin wrote:
| I always found this chart interesting:
|
| https://www.longtermtrends.net/us-debt-to-gdp/
|
| especially when you look at it from the perspective of
| the drastically lower taxes rates of the 80s.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| So you're saying is that progressives mayors have no
| ability to effect positive change and if we want livable
| cities we shouldn't bother voting for them?
| sharemywin wrote:
| this pudding?
|
| https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-two-decade-red-state-
| mur...
| bradleyjg wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35915958
| sharemywin wrote:
| not saying things don't need fixing, but the idea there's
| a blue solution or a red solution flies in the face of
| history and data.
|
| One problem is the richer you are the easier it is to
| flee the problems and let someone else clean up the mess.
| But it cant be government or cost any taxes...
| disantlor wrote:
| aka squeaky wheel gets the grease
| bluescrn wrote:
| We're stuck with a bad choice between authoritarian right and
| authoritarian left these days.
|
| One side is 'tough on crime', the other is 'tough on speech'.
| As a disillusioned lefty, and thankfully not in the US, one
| of these scares me more than the other.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I agree on the causation. During the same time hasn't the US
| had a major drug crisis across the country? He might be right
| but he is not showing much evidence (ironically) of it.
|
| PS Very cute username!
| pookha wrote:
| Here's a data point...Harris county TX let a capital murder
| suspect out on some ludicrously low bond (9K, which meant he
| only spent 900 dollars to get out). Here's a description of
| the suspects:
|
| "They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young
| mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as
| well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers.
|
| Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple
| capital murders and bonded out each time:
|
| https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-
| suspe...
|
| That is psychopathy in the justice system.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple
| capital murders and bonded out each time:
|
| Your implied timeline is wrong here. The two (alleged)
| murders happened in May and June 2021. He was arrested for
| the first in October 2021 and posted bond in November 2021.
| Then he was arrested for the second - which happened before
| the first bond, remember - in December 2021 and posted the
| bond for that in March 2022. At no time (that we know of)
| did he commit murder whilst out on bond.
| masklinn wrote:
| This has nothing to do with bail though? The point of bail
| is to ensure the suspect shows up to court appearances. The
| use of bail as a way to force remanding is essentially a
| multi-pronged tax on poorer defendants (as they either need
| a loan to post bail, or have to suffer the loss of income
| and psychological damage from detention).
|
| If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to
| society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds,
| not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the
| accused's likelihood of showing up.
| manquer wrote:
| Your language assumes guilt first , He is a murder suspect
| and alleged to have committed murders[1] until is proven
| guilty that distinction is important .
|
| The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he was
| further threat to society or a flight risk not because the
| crimes were heinous, if they failed to prove it, that is on
| them.
|
| Far too easily we judge people as a society quickly and
| usually with strong racial bias.
|
| 1% of America is incarcerated far higher than any other
| developed economy. I don't think we are predisposed to
| crime more than others perhaps we need to think how we
| ended up here ?
|
| [1] he probably did I am not arguing the facts of the case,
| keep in mind unlike civil cases where balance of
| probabilities is the deciding factor in criminal cases
| beyond reasonable doubt
| iudqnolq wrote:
| > The prosecution should have asked for higher bail if he
| was further threat to society
|
| If he is a risk to society that won't change however much
| money he pays. A millionaire murderer isn't less
| dangerous than a minimum wage one.
|
| Judges are allowed to deny bail based on dangerousness.
| That's the appropriate tool here, not setting a high
| dollar number.
| [deleted]
| dubcanada wrote:
| Taking a look at the data up till 2019 it appears to be a bell
| curve with a increase into the 1980s followed by a decrease
| into 2019. I do wonder if this is more of a being involved in
| it for 20 years has just mentally drained this person.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I think most of the rise is in the last few years. I don't
| know about the whole of Illinois but Chicago (in which county
| this prosecutor seemed to be based), crime rate seems to have
| risen back to 1980s level.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago
|
| https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-
| chicago/c...
| thebooktocome wrote:
| The Wikipedia numbers are reported by the CPD and are
| therefore skewed by their political objectives.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| This may be relevant - stats for offenses while on electronic
| monitoring: https://scontent-
| lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/250436168...
| tedivm wrote:
| >stats for offenses while on electronic monitoring
|
| That wording implies that these were crimes committed while
| electronic monitoring was in place. However, you shared a
| graphic that shows that more people who already committed
| crimes were being given electronic monitoring. Nothing you
| posted supports the idea that people on monitoring are
| committing crimes.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Apologies, that is indeed the distribution of offenses for
| people on electronic monitoring.
| chefandy wrote:
| Crime is a complex problem. Blaming prosecutorial policy is an
| odd, and likely deliberate choice. Talking about cities,
| Chicago has a crime rate in between Jacksonville FL and
| Oklahoma City OK, which are both very conservative cities.
| Among the highest crime states, conservative ones are _very
| well represented._
|
| To me, this sounds like the precursor for a planned political
| career wherever he's moving to. Chicago is the icon for
| terrible awful no-good very bad liberal crime policies in
| popular conservative politics and an Illinois prosecutor who's
| moving because they _just can 't take it anymore_ would be
| optimally positioned to capitalize on that. Ah, politics.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| This is an important point. Conservatives seem to _love_
| ranting about how rampant crime is in blue cities but when
| you do per capita comparisons of violent crime, especially
| involving guns, you see that conservative areas are far more
| crime ridden
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| At the city level? No.
|
| You can look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unite
| d_States_cities_b..., sort by the homicide rate and almost
| all of the top 50 voted Democrat in the 2020 election. Not
| Tulsa or Oklahoma City, not Mobile. Eyeballing it, I don't
| see any other cities that voted Republican.
|
| High homicide rates are a blue city thing, almost
| exclusively.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Remember that cities have limited autonomy in the
| American system. A blue city in a red state has red laws.
| boomersooner wrote:
| Ah, statistics. Violent crime is 8.7 in Chicago, vs 6.3 and
| 6.9 for the other two cities. Property crime is higher
| though.
|
| [https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ok/oklahoma-city/crime]
| dublinben wrote:
| When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
|
| Of course a career prosecutor would see a 'crime problem' as
| a result of insufficient prosecution.
|
| Crime is complex, but largely related to poverty and economic
| opportunity. The interventions that are likely to matter most
| are so far outside this person's perspective, that they are
| unable to see how modest judicial reform is merely the
| nearest corner of the iceberg.
| chefandy wrote:
| Or, someone looking to get into hammer manufacturing might
| try to convince everybody else that everything is a nail.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| He's going to run for office or try to parlay his experience
| into a political role, that's obvious.
| Convolutional wrote:
| There is the war on drugs, locking people in prison due to
| marijuana transactions.
|
| With all the talk of China being a police state, the US has more
| people incarcerated than China - and China's population is more
| than four times that of the US.
|
| European countries don't have these problems, like the rash of
| mass shootings we have had in the past few weeks in just Texas.
|
| Also these prisons are a sop to rural communities for money and
| jobs, with prisoners from the cities. The prisoners also count
| for congressional districts going to these areas but can not
| vote.
|
| Of course there is also the profit making of private prisons.
| Judges have been found sending innocent people to jail for
| kickbacks.
|
| It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one step
| is incarceration going down to three times the rate of China, as
| opposed to over four times.
| morning-coffee wrote:
| > It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one
| step is incarceration going down to three times the rate of
| China, as opposed to over four times.
|
| But correlation does not imply causation, right? I don't
| understand how it follows from noting our incarceration rate
| being higher than another place with less crime, and then
| reaching the seeming conclusion that the answer, therefore, is
| to stop putting people in jail.
| mantas wrote:
| ,,European" policy has caveats too. What you call ,,european"
| policy is mostly West europe. That had pretty good cultural
| hold on crimes. for a while. This method does work for it.
|
| But when here in eastern europe got same policies forced down
| our throats... Here culture is slightly different and many
| criminals are career criminals and take pride their... line of
| work. So we get routine re-offenses. Or people commit new
| crimes while waiting for trial. West seems to have issues with
| certain parts of their societies that ain't culturally trained
| to behave too.
|
| This doesn't work well if society accepts crime as a
| respectable line of work. E.g. glorifying criminal
| ,,subculture" and normalising that.
| intrasight wrote:
| > the US has more people incarcerated than China
|
| Summary execution keeps incarceration rates down. It also
| disincentivizes crime.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Human rights groups estimates of Chinese executions are too
| low to close the gap. Deterrence is not supported by sound
| research.
| wffurr wrote:
| There was an earlier comment wondering where the letters author
| might move to, since Illinois is an average state in terms of
| violence and crime.
|
| Ironically?, Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in
| the country for him to move to if he's concerned about gun
| violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded
| prosecutors that he thinks are the problem.
| ap99 wrote:
| Culture and wealth levels have a bigger impact on crime, in my
| opinion, than progressive or conservative local politics.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the
| country for him to move to if he's concerned about gun
| violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded
| prosecutors that he thinks are the problem.
|
| Utah looks better [0]. Higher gun ownership %, but lower gun
| death rate than Massachusetts.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Strange, the CDC has Massachusetts as having lower gun death
| than Utah. The lowest in fact: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/press
| room/sosmap/firearm_mortality/...
|
| Utah is ranked just ahead of Florida.
|
| Oh, I see, your numbers don't include suicides, which is the
| majority of gun deaths.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the
| country for him to move to if he's concerned about gun
| violence
|
| It would be very odd indeed to include suicides in stats of
| how dangerous it is to live in a state.
| plagiarist wrote:
| If he goes to Texas it would confirm the impression I got from
| reading that.
| bedhead wrote:
| Former Chicagoan here. Grew up there, lived there most of my
| adult life, raised kids there, and finally, thankfully, moved to
| another state three years ago. It's easy to pile on, but one of
| the main things that did it for me was sorta this realization
| that Chicago is more or less hopeless. There's no willingness to
| even discuss Chicago's problems honestly, let alone do something
| about them. The culture there is just too far gone - it's
| depressing. Was I worried that violent crime was going to
| imminently find its way to my doorstep? No, not really. But with
| three kids in Chicago Public Schools (no more dysfunctional,
| shameful organization exists in this country than CPS) I turned
| to my wife one day and said, "You know, we don't have to live
| like this." So we left.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| CPS has all the best schools in the state. The education they
| provide poor students is disgraceful, but if you can afford the
| wealthy brown line neighborhoods your children will receive a
| good education.
| one_level_deep wrote:
| ==no more dysfunctional, shameful organization exists in this
| country than CPS==
|
| Are you not familiar with the CPD (Chicago Police Department)?
| The police probably have more of an impact on the topic at hand
| (crime and violence) than CPS.
|
| They are far more shameful, dysfunctional, and incompetent than
| CPS. From forced confessions [1] to planting drugs [2] to
| electing radical leaders [3]. They are on a Federal consent
| decree because of their ineptitude and violations of civil
| rights [4].
|
| [1] https://news.wttw.com/2017/09/22/chicago-really-false-
| confes...
|
| [2] https://news.wttw.com/2021/11/04/judge-tosses-5-more-
| convict...
|
| [3] https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/4/21/23036206/fop-
| fraterna...
|
| [4] http://chicagopoliceconsentdecree.org/
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| Just know that your limited examples are only fooling the
| fools.
|
| You have cried wolf too many times and now no one believes
| you.
|
| Normal people have completely soured on the idea that we can
| hug our way out of these areas completely overrun with crime.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| CPD's incompetence and malice is the reason tough on crime
| policy is unpopular in Chicago. If voters had even a shred
| of respect for police here no one would be proposing that
| we "hug our way out" of the problem. Instead most people
| are more scared of the police than the criminals.
| one_level_deep wrote:
| ==Normal people have completely soured on the idea that we
| can hug our way out of these areas completely overrun with
| crime.==
|
| Complete strawman, arguing against a policy that nobody has
| ever proposed. It seems you are the one crying wolf while
| pointing at everyone else.
|
| Limited examples? The consent decree alone comes from
| decades of datapoints collected by the Federal government.
| You should read it.
| drewbug01 wrote:
| I live in Chicago, I'm married to a teacher here, and we're
| planning on having kids here soon.
|
| There are certainly problems, but the good far outweighs the
| bad. We discuss Chicago's problems openly all the time (and
| certainly randos here on HN seem very excited to discuss it,
| frequently).
|
| What, exactly, do you think the problems and solutions are?
| Let's discuss them openly.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Read the comments on this post. No one here wants to hear it.
| People in Europe, SV, god-knows-where have all kinds of facts
| and figures they just spent two minutes googling that prove
| there's nothing to see here and Chicago is fine.
| one_level_deep wrote:
| I live in Chicago and have no idea what you are talking
| about. The local newspapers and tv are constantly talking
| about these issues. Crime and CPS were by far the primary
| discussions in the recent election. Who and where are these
| people refusing to talk about them?
| djfobbz wrote:
| Love your comment. Being from the Midwest, I'm in complete
| disbelief reading some of these comments. They seem to be
| completely out of touch with reality!
| commandlinefan wrote:
| There's a comment upstream that says "this person's opinions
| are similar to those of Fox News and the NY Post, so it
| should be ignored". That doesn't bode well for the actual
| people who have to live in Chicago.
| one_level_deep wrote:
| Or maybe we can see through the national news' political
| agenda and sensationalism.
|
| The people who actually live in Chicago just elected a
| progressive mayor who ran against a "tough-on-crime"
| candidate. Maybe those people (the ones living in the city)
| see things differently than you (someone not living in the
| city).
| Izkata wrote:
| The vote was 49% to 51% when he conceded, and he really
| shouldn't have - the uncounted mail-in ballots were 3x
| the gap in the counted votes. Also that race was far
| _far_ closer than normal with tough-on-crime-vs-
| progressive usually is around here.
|
| Sentiment here is definitely shifting in favor of tough-
| on-crime.
| sylens wrote:
| You replace 'Chicago' with 'Philadelphia' in that comment and
| it would be no less accurate. Culture and inertia is hard to
| change
| 2devnull wrote:
| If public defenders had the same resources as the persecution,
| Sam Bankman-Fried wouldn't need to spend a cent on his defense. I
| am sure that's not what we want. We want defenders to have a
| possibility of winning, not guaranteed success. Most of the
| defendants are guilty after all.
| lowmagnet wrote:
| This is the "I paid for college so why should education be
| free" argument.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| This reads like a political statement. No figures, facts, or
| reasoning.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > [Public Defenders'] work is as noble as ours. But we have an
| obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should
| go without saying that this must be done ethically and
| evenhandedly.
|
| I was on Jury Duty last year and every day I had to walk past a
| tiny decrepit Public Defender office and then past sprawling,
| spotless floors of Attorney General offices. I probably have the
| wrong terms, the specifics are fading, but the general meaning of
| the signs seemed clear enough. What a shameful disgrace. Society
| doesn't have a thumb on the scale, it has a foot on the scale.
|
| No, I don't think shifting the extreme imbalance even further
| towards Prosecution is going to fix crime.
|
| Maybe things are different in Chicago, but I'd want to hear from
| Defense before just believing a rant from Prosecution.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Then fund public defenders better, this has nothing to do with
| abolishing bail or releasing people who need to be locked up
| for a good reason. Free representation may be important for
| individual justice, but impact on public safety is not huge.
| Vast majority of those arrested are guilty of _something_ ,
| what some deserve is reduced charges that indicate what they
| have actually done, not what can be pinned on them without a
| good lawyer.
| soderfoo wrote:
| Worked at the public defender's office prior to working as a
| developer.
|
| Despite the salary schedules being the same (or similar), the
| State will always have more resources; they have forensic labs,
| and an army of investigators. The multifaceted mission of a
| prosecutor's office necessitates the resource disparity.
|
| The Public Defender's priorities are much more focused; (1)
| provide criminal defense services for those in need, mainly the
| indigent, (2) influence criminal justice policy through by
| identifying judiciable appellate matters; and, (3) working with
| private defense attorneys to challenge prosecutorial policy on
| a broader level.
|
| With offers from various state attorneys general and public
| defender offices, I selected the latter for the more focused
| mission. Yes, resources were scarce, dollars had to be
| selectively spent on experts to get the most bang for our buck.
| But you would be surprised at what a feisty PD can do with a
| handful of retired state police investigators to assist.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > The Public Defender's priorities are much more focused; (1)
| provide criminal defense services for those in need, mainly
| the indigent, (2) influence criminal justice policy through
| by identifying judiciable appellate matters; and, (3) working
| with private defense attorneys to challenge prosecutorial
| policy on a broader level.
|
| I would call this broad. How is the prosecutor's mission more
| multifaceted?
| ddingus wrote:
| Yup. Anyone charged with a crime would be well advised to do
| whatever it takes to seek council directly, as in finding a way
| to pay for it.
|
| Public defenders are doing noble work. They are also denied the
| resources necessary to perform that work with the same zeal
| seen in the prosecution side of the justice system.
| [deleted]
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Not necessarily. A PD might well be much better than an
| affordable private counsel. It's definitely better to go
| private if you're rich, it depends on specifics if you
| aren't.
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| No, we are not. I've worked as a defense attorney. It is was
| terrifying to see how much leeway and how many extra chances
| were given to violent criminals. The DAs job is impossible.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Maybe you should try being a defendant to actually get a
| balanced perspective (a good thing to try would be to get
| yourself arrested for something that you didn't do but is
| just your word against theirs). For extra experience try
| doing that whilst being black.
|
| For reference, I have being on the receiving end of an
| entirely unwarranted accusation for a trivial crime in the
| UK (which is often held up as being a good example of a
| fair system). It occupied an unbelievable amount of
| headspace and was hugely stressful. I'm educated,
| reasonably well off and white. The system felt very very
| powerful and unpredictable from my position and I was never
| even arrested (just accused, which is enough for the police
| to treat you as a perpetrator). If the prosecution had
| happened and had gone anywhere (it didn't) and I'd been
| convicted I would have got a small fine, but I was still
| far too worried that my innocence was insufficient to
| protect me. All the way through you're treated as though
| you are guilty, and the accuser is the "victim". Honestly,
| the only victim in the whole sorry affair was me.
|
| I can't imagine what it must feel like if you're on the
| receiving end of an unwarranted accusation for a more
| serious crime. Especially if everyone thinks you're guilty
| because your have priors and "look guilty".
| 93po wrote:
| People who commit violent crimes are almost always a victim
| of a fucked up system themselves that led them to those
| actions. Putting them in prison perpetuates and worsens the
| cycle. It is still less harm on the whole to give them
| leeway and extra chances.
|
| The solution is fixing the social safety net for the poor
| and disadvantaged. Not throwing people in prison for trying
| to survive and making mistakes along the way.
| DanHulton wrote:
| I agree with this 100%, but the last paragraph is worded
| poorly, and almost guaranteed to attract debate from both
| honest and bad-faith dissenters.
|
| Restated:
|
| Throwing people in prison does not fix the problem. We
| have tried it for a long time at various levels of
| intensity and it has provably not worked, and no
| additional level of intensity has improved things. We
| can't _just keep doing this_ and expect that at some
| point things will get better.
|
| We need to address the root causes that lead so many
| people into situations where they find it reasonable or
| are desperate enough to commit those crimes. That's how
| you make a dent in this problem, and that's what we
| should work on transitioning to. Fix the top of the
| funnel, and you won't have nearly as many concentrated
| violent problems down at the bottom of it to deal with.
| ggariepy wrote:
| Some percentage of the population is comprised of violent
| sociopaths. Those people need to be locked up for the
| safety of the rest of us. People who have committed
| victimless crimes, like minor drug use, should almost
| never be incarcerated. People who have defrauded other
| people in some way, including petty larceny, should be
| punished by some means other than incarceration.
|
| Pretty much what I'm saying is that jail time should be
| reserved solely for the violent.
| DanHulton wrote:
| A very, very, very small percentage of the population is
| "violent sociopaths", though, and optimizing your society
| for solving that problem incurs huge amounts of waste.
|
| Which isn't to say there should be _no_ answer to that
| question, but more that the answer to that question
| shouldn't also be the answer to all the other crime
| encountered. Not even all the violent crime, which is
| frequently a product not of the individual, but of the
| situation that individual is placed in.
| anthony_d wrote:
| That looks a lot like satire but I can't quite tell.
|
| So, to clarify: if someone is clearly a violent criminal,
| are you really saying we should feel bad for them and
| assume they are a victim of "the system"? Do we drop
| charges? What's the actionable plan for reducing violent
| crime?
| kevviiinn wrote:
| How about fixing the system.
|
| Why do people have such a tiny, narrow view of life?
| akhosravian wrote:
| What does that mean, specifically? What policy changes
| need to be enacted to fix the system, and how do we
| verify they worked?
| kevviiinn wrote:
| Expand social safety nets including single payer
| healthcare and remove laws targeting victimless crimes
| such as drug possession
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| That approach is obviously equally unproductive.
|
| The approach is to try to reform them. Get them
| psychiatric help if that's what's needed. Put them in a
| prison that doesn't just punish them, but also teaches
| them how to be useful members of society.
|
| On the other end, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
| of cure.
|
| Well before that point, make sure everyone has equal
| opportunities while growing up. Ensure all citizens get
| taught how to be responsible with money and how to make
| intelligent life decisions in school. This helps a lot by
| itself.
|
| Despite the above, some people may still fail, due to bad
| luck or due to actually not being great students. For
| these, institute a "poverty floor" below which no one may
| fall. People who are not desperately poor are less likely
| to commit crimes.
|
| Of course, yes some people are lazy. That's unfortunate.
| Lazy people should still get some money, for the simple
| reason that it's a lot cheaper than dealing with
| criminals and crime. Obviously we shouldn't give them
| _too_ much, since then they stay lazy and /or it just
| drains our coffers dry.
|
| Worse, some people are just plain bad. That's when you
| put them in prison. But even there you can attempt to
| reform them. Those who don't reform stay in prison or get
| rearrested soon enough. Those who do reform can get out
| and have a second chance.
|
| If you think all the above is hypothetical, it's not.
| Many western countries apply (at least some subset of)
| the above policies. This is a of course a very short
| summary of a very large and nuanced topic.
| giantg2 wrote:
| With conviction rates being about 75% depending on
| jurisdiction and grading, I'd say it doesn't seem so
| impossible.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Maybe things are different in Chicago, but I'd want to hear
| from Defense before just believing a rant from Prosecution.
|
| Given the contents of the rant, especially as it pertains to
| bail reform, I don't think it is.
| whartung wrote:
| The applicable quote I heard once is "while you are presumed
| innocent, the system is designed to convict you". I think I
| heard that on some random YT video I've seen through the years.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Given that 90+% of criminal cases result in plea bargains
| (exact number varies by source), I think the quote should be
| "the system is designed to force you to accept a plea deal
| and allow us to lock you up without actually having to
| convict you, and without any avenues for appeal."
| bradleyjg wrote:
| As purely factual matter do you believe that most people
| arrested have or haven't actually committed a crime?
| giantg2 wrote:
| How does that apply?
|
| I don't think there's a good way to measure that. If you go
| by conviction rate, it's something like 75% +/-10%
| depending on jurisdiction and grading. Then you'd have to
| adjust for the 2-10% of wrongful convictions for the
| incarcerated. Then adjust for the people who commited a
| crime but were not convicted, but I haven't seen stats on
| that.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| You can't use the results of the system to validate the
| system.
|
| Your 2-10% wrongful conviction rate matches the rate
| capital defendants are legally found to have been
| wrongfully convicted[3]. They're a good subset to focus
| on because they're the cases get the most resources and
| attention, and are the only category of defendants who
| regularly get volunteer lawyers for postconviction
| review.
|
| But that can't prove that the system doesn't wrongfully
| convict at a higher rate. If public defenders are
| underfunded that will reduce their ability to prove
| wrongful convictions, for example. Note that a successful
| postconviction petition is much harder without a good
| record established by the original trial counsel. The
| Glossip case is a good example of how "innocence is not
| enough" to get exoneration.
|
| (Your stats are also off by a bit. The average state
| conviction rate is around 80%, but there's way more than
| 10% variance. California is up at 94% while Florida is at
| 55%. [1] Meanwhile the feds are all the way up at 99.6%.
| [2]
|
| [1]: Table B-1 on
| https://www.paperprisons.org/statistics.html
|
| [2]: https://www.doarlaw.com/blog/2021/04/what-you-
| should-know-ab...
|
| [3]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1306417111
|
| Edit: I forgot cite 3
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Innocence is not enough to get a conviction overturned
| but it also isn't necessary to get a conviction
| overturned. Procedural flaws are far and away the most
| common reason. So the overturned rate, in capital cases
| or elsewhere, doesn't tell us much about the true facts
| of the matter---not even as a floor.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Edit: I realized writing this response that I forgot to
| link my citation 3. I also wasn't clear what it was
| measuring. But to clarify that number is exonerations
| only, which requires innocence. A legal finding of
| significant procedural flaws might lead to a reduction to
| life in prison or a new trial and wouldn't be counted as
| an exoneration.
|
| Getting a verdict overturned based on procedural issues
| isn't as easy as popular culture makes out. You have to
| show both that your rights were violated and that no
| reasonable jury could have possibly found you guilty if
| your rights weren't violated. Simply having signed
| statements from your jurors that they wouldn't have found
| you guilty if they knew what the prosecutors covered up
| isn't sufficient, for example.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _How does that apply?_
|
| Even if we all agree that minimizing type I errors (false
| positives) is of paramount importance, the optimal design
| of the system depends heavily on the true positive rate
| at the top of the funnel.
| giantg2 wrote:
| But then you need to go a step higher and look at how
| many crimes have been cleared. Even if we have a high
| true positive rate at the arrest stage, the system may
| not be working well if the overall clearance rate is low.
| akhosravian wrote:
| Some related questions also worth considering: are most
| people who have actually committed a crime arrested?
|
| In what circumstances is arresting someone necessary or
| even beneficial for society on the whole? There are costs
| both to the people in terms of booking & housing someone in
| jail, and to the individual as for most folks not regularly
| dealing with law enforcement being arrested is at least
| somewhat traumatic.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I would guess "haven't", based on how many arrests do not
| even result in a case being referred to prosecutors.
| Certainly there is some portion of those cases who did
| commit the crime but the state lacks evidence, but my hunch
| is that this is not enough to tip the scales in the other
| direction.
| djha-skin wrote:
| I wouldn't call this well thought out letter a rant. Further he
| is putting his money where his mouth is: he is leaving so that
| his son can live in a safer situation.
|
| Your experience about jury duty is important, but it was not in
| Chicago. I grew up there. I get what he's talking about.
|
| Depending on the neighborhood, things can get very unsafe very
| quickly. No one talks about "what a disgrace" when they can
| hear gunfire three blocks away.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I would be interested to hear where he is moving to, and how
| the safety of Chicago compares.
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| anovikov wrote:
| Real solution depends on increasing jail and prison capacity. Why
| are massive, state-run, gulag-style camps are not in the books?
| With spare capacity so that every would-be criminal knows there's
| space for everyone, further deterring them? It must also instill
| fear and terror in every criminal, including those born and
| raised in most terrible conditions.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Doesn't the US already have the world biggest prison system and
| the most people in jail/prison. I think the whole concept of it
| being a deterrent has been debunked.
| anovikov wrote:
| Even if it's not a good deterrent, it may solve the problem
| directly: incarcerate these people and make sure they are too
| old and sick when they get out, to still be a big problem.
|
| Sure US has an overly large prison population but no other
| developed country is as diverse, it also doesn't have a wide
| social safety net that works around the problem at the cost
| of blocking development with insane taxes.
|
| It's a country where you either win, or you lose, and the
| system must ensure that those who lost don't get in the way
| of those still running.
| DerpyBaby123 wrote:
| I think the comment you replied to was being facetious
| giantg2 wrote:
| Wow, bias much?
|
| How does this lawyer, who is supposed to be trained in logic, not
| see the doublespeak here. On one hand they say there are needless
| prosecutions of police, but then laments the discretion to not
| prosecute some crimes. Which do you want - to vigorously pursue
| crimes, or to use discretion? It seems they want discretion, but
| to only use it with police. It's laughable they think the
| defenders have an fair chance and even resources (as implied in
| their mention of the adversarial system and respect for them).
|
| I agree that some of the policies listed are problematic. One
| thing this guy completely misses is that crime is primarily
| driven by socioeconomic issues. Did the policies in place
| exacerbate crime? Many likely did. But the majority of the
| increase in the past few years has been driven by the pandemic
| and policies around that.
| fnord77 wrote:
| activist DA campaigns are being funded by unaccountable
| billionaires, and while their intent seems good the results are
| disastrous, at least in my area:
|
| Chesa Boudin and Priscilla Price
| nness wrote:
| So, I know nothing of Illinois or State Attorney Kim Foxx, but I
| do have a litmus test where I search the author/person in focus
| and note the top results who are sharing the story -- New York
| Post, Daily Mail, Fox News, etc.
|
| Does such things invalidate the points made in the article? No.
| But it helps me judge the level of scrutiny I need to apply.
| gadders wrote:
| "Does it fit the narrative?"
| jen20 wrote:
| "Is it sensationalised trash designed for boomers who are not
| capable of reading on a topic unless there are intensifiers
| before every keyword?" is generally the hallmark of those
| publications.
|
| If it were the WSJ, Telegraph or Times (London) publishing it
| too, your concern would be more justified.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The Murdoch narrative? It certainly appears to.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| You (or any user) posting that sort of detail helps me figure
| out how to frame loaded commentary. I want take a thoughtful
| step back if I run into a challenge to my worldview but I don't
| have limitless energy to do so. I need to pick healthy and
| worthwhile challenges.
| ap99 wrote:
| Both sides have a narrative.
|
| The news CNN or NYTimes night carry is often ignored by NYPost
| or Fox and vice versa because it doesn't fit their narratives.
|
| Having a narrative on either side doesn't mean the things being
| reported on are incorrect or even embellished.
|
| But yes, you do need to be aware of the narrative so you can
| place different weights on news items.
|
| Or... Find better news sources.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Not on this subject. The NYTimes is heavily conservative when
| it comes to the criminal judicial system. They've written
| articles espousing essentially the same positions as this
| one. They've led the charge to kill bail reform in New York.
| japhib wrote:
| Where are these legendary non-political news sources you
| speak of? If such news sources exist, I would love to hear
| what they are.
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| [dead]
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| My estimation of the typical prosecutor or DA was quite low. Then
| I sat on the grand jury.
|
| Before we ever started, he told us that if our hearts saw no
| crime, we had the discretion to not indict. This was strange, I
| was of the opinion they wanted to keep such things secret, after
| all. But he told us the story of a little old grandma, 90 years
| old, going to the airport and forgetting a Derringer in her
| purse.
|
| They were so fucking lazy. I know what you see on TV, but our
| grand jury consisted of another on the DA team coming in, giving
| a 30 second summary of the crimes of the accused, showing us no
| evidence whatsoever, and then moving on to the next. Probably 25
| or 30 of these minimum, before lunch rolled around. We were
| allowed to ask questions, for which there was always a smarmy
| answer.
|
| "Oh, if you can't make it in, just call, a quorum's 9 so we
| probably won't even need to bring in an alternate".
|
| They did discover a need to bring in an alternate, the morning
| only 9 of us showed up. I had veto power. Every drug case that
| they made no claim of violence or gross negligence... no bill.
| Then I heard the "This isn't justice! You're all temporarily
| dismissed, until we can get an alternate in here later this
| afternoon"
|
| All because they had a hard-on for some college-aged kids selling
| weed. I think there was a sizable cash confiscation, but my
| understanding is that they got to keep the free money anyway.
| Even if not, I think the legal term is collateral estoppel, that
| is if they managed to "find" some new evidence they just
| introduced the case to a new grand jury when our term was up. I
| didn't really save anyone from anything, unless the prosecutors
| were truly as lazy as I believed them to be.
|
| On another day where it was slow, he sat there bragging about (at
| least before covid) they'd have 4000 cases a year... and do 30
| trials. "We like the trials, they're so fun, it breaks up the
| monotony". They didn't like trials enough to give them to the
| other 3970 defendants they charged. Nor were they even clever
| enough to recognize that the nature of plea deals coerces those
| defendants to waive their rights to a trial. None of people on
| his team ever scored 99th percentile on a standardized test while
| in elementary school, I'd bet money on it.
|
| Though there was never an opportunity to ask, I often wondered if
| it clicked for him that his excuses for prosecuting crimes that
| shouldn't be crimes sounds an awful lot like the defense of those
| at Nuremberg.
|
| It may be impossible to find justice in our world, but if it is
| to be found, it must be in the opposite direction of where these
| people live and work. Deep space, the edge of the visible
| universe, it's probably not feasible to go far enough away from
| them to find it.
|
| Despite all of this, I have little doubt that if one of them were
| to quit, they could easily have written an article just like this
| one. Self-righteous, blind to the fact that they were if not the
| cause of these problems, then the biggest factor aggravating
| them. Remember, at the end of the day these assholes won't even
| do their job, they actively avoid trying to take each case to
| trial. If pleas aren't forthcoming and a two year stint in county
| waiting on a date won't cause the accused to budge, they're just
| as likely to drop it than push forward. They regularly pervert
| the bail process. They're complicit in turning it into a system
| of pre-conviction fines.
|
| Fuck'em all.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I'm from the distant suburbs of Chicago, in a different county,
| and I believe the author is alluding to frustration about crime
| and corruption possibly correlated with this person below.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Foxx
| Izkata wrote:
| Specifically see under "Reduction in incarceration rates": She
| just lets criminals go free.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Sure, lets take a look at that section.
|
| > Foxx has directed her office to not prosecute shoplifting
| cases under $1,000 as felonies.
|
| I mean you can still prosecute them as anything else i.e.
| misdemeanor. Personally, I'm not sure that stealing a
| backpack with a laptop should count as a felony.
|
| If not getting to put somebody away for a decades for
| stealing an iPhone makes you quit your job; maybe you're not
| in it to protect and to serve.
|
| > declining to prosecute low-level shoplifting and drug
| offenses and by diverting more cases to alternative treatment
| programs.
|
| So instead of sending people to jail she's sending them to
| rehab. I'd personally say a very short prison sentence
| followed by rehab is probably most effective (I mean look at
| how hard white collar criminals try to avoid prison; it has a
| powerful effect even if its for <7d). But unless he's going
| to show that the people in rehab instead of prison are
| committing these crimes (which it almost always isn't; plenty
| of fresh criminals available) it's an argument without any
| evidence.
|
| I also don't think firing gunshots in a playground (his
| actual complain) counts as "low-level shoplifting" as well as
| crime is increasing everywhere including non-democratic
| states/counties. She'd never get elected in the bible belt so
| many he should consider employment there. (note: bible belt
| has the highest homicide rate [1]).
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_te
| rrit...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I'm not sure you are aware of the other famous / infamous
| case that relates to the person, but it was national level
| news for months in the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussie_Smollett_hate_crime_ho
| a...
| lesuorac wrote:
| I mean thats the "Jussie Smollett case" section and not
| the "Reduction in incarceration rates" section (which is
| what Izkata said to look at).
|
| His primary reason (as given by him) is gunshots in the
| playground and Smollett's case involves neither non-drawn
| firearms nor sounds of gunshots. As well as Smollett did
| not commit any more crimes while before the trial
| ultimately found him guilty (so bail-reform probably
| doesn't apply).
| zdragnar wrote:
| I'm from much farther away, and thought it was rather blatant,
| given that she is the State's Attorney.
| vonwoodson wrote:
| Bye Felicia.
|
| I'll never understand these kinds of letters, especially from
| public servants. If you don't support your elected oversight, too
| bad! Nobody cares what you think, and letters like this show
| exactly why these policies are being enacted.
|
| So, please, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
| Empact wrote:
| > I'll never understand
|
| In activism, people have the capacity for voice and exit. He
| apparently is exercising both.
|
| > Nobody cares what you think
|
| The letter being discussed here seems rather to confirm that
| people do care.
| almost_usual wrote:
| How is this tech related?
| timbit42 wrote:
| Not all hackers hack tech.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| > Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while
| their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more
| criminals on the streets,
|
| At the time you make bond, you have merely been charged with a
| crime--you are not a criminal. I'm sure a prosecutor does get
| tired of having to argue cases against defendants who were able,
| by virtue of habeas corpus, to prepare a defense.
|
| > shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders,
|
| Things that mitigate real inequities present when the justice
| system interacts with poor people.
|
| > the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement
| officers,
|
| This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police officers
| have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal defenses that
| protect them from almost every form of wrongdoing.
|
| > overuse of diversion programs,
|
| The United States already incarcerates a relatively large
| fraction of the world's children. He would prefer incarcerating
| more.
|
| > intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on
| the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a
| governor,
|
| This prosecutor has had this power for twenty years, and I'm
| certain he's used it freely. He's likely used it to protect
| people he feels sympathy toward, and refrained from using it to
| protect people he feels no sympathy toward. He's likely used it
| because he feels overworked or under-appreciated.
|
| > all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative
| impact, with consequences that will last for a generation.
|
| As a prosecutor, he had wide-reaching legal power to make his
| community a better place. What did he do instead? To hear him
| tell it, he was the one in prison for twenty years.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| >This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police
| officers have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal
| defenses that protect them from almost every form of
| wrongdoing.
|
| Yeah, the author lost me here. I'm all for law and order when
| it comes to catching and prosecuting murderers, rapists,
| kidnappers, armed robbers, etc. However, I've seen FAR too many
| videos of situations where there was no crime that had been
| committed and no threat to public safety when a police officer
| showed up and escalated a non-issue into a serious situation
| that resulted in someone being killed, beaten, and/or arrested
| for no real reason. There has to be some sort of middle ground.
| plagiarist wrote:
| There is no malicious or unnecessary prosecution of police in
| the entire country that I am aware of. There's some grudging
| prosecution when they do something so egregious and so public
| that it horrifies the nation.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Agree on every one of your points. This is a truly sickening
| thing to read on HN.
| jfengel wrote:
| _It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and
| evenhandedly._
|
| I don't think it "goes without saying" at all. We have an
| adversarial system. They make it very explicit that neither
| ethics nor honesty are required.
|
| Every lawyer will be very clear that you absolutely, positively
| need a lawyer for any interaction with the legal system. You
| cannot assume that the other people will be "evenhanded". It's
| your lawyer's job to force ethics on them. Without that, it goes
| without saying that they can get away with behaving unethically.
|
| To have it "go without saying that this must be done ethically
| and evenhandedly" would require a completely different legal
| system than the one we have. Our current one says exactly the
| opposite, by design.
|
| I spoke to a prosecutor recently that in his office, it _was_
| spoken out loud that they were to be ethical and evenhanded. But
| that was not a requirement, and other prosecutor 's offices did
| not follow it. Their job was to be zealous in prosecution, just
| as the defense's job was to be zealous in defense, and everybody
| hoped that "justice" would emerge from that somehow.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| You don't fix this at the jail level. You don't fix this at the
| court level. You don't fix this at the police level.
|
| This is a society problem. You want gun toting thugs shooting
| shit up? Treat people like gun toting thugs!
|
| Fix society. Give people a way out of this shit.
|
| But no. That's too hard. That takes empathy. And empathy is
| "woke".
| ab_goat wrote:
| The key issue here is the difficult choice between:
|
| a. Incorrectly and significantly disrupting people's lives by
| locking them up pre-trial when many cases up getting acquitted.
| This can often sink folk into much worse situations than they
| were before, creating an endless cycle
|
| b. Potentially releasing some dangerous criminals back into
| society while they wait their trials
|
| edit: to be clear, I think the likelihood * impact of false
| positives is way worse than the false negatives
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Don't fall into the trap of already thinking of the accused is
| guilty. Also, framing this as an a or b choice is a false
| dichotomy. There are other outcomes, and they largely depend on
| the factors involved - prosecutors have the option to prove the
| accused is a danger to society, and if they can, they won't go
| back.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| One thing with the bail reform movement is that the voters who
| are asked whether they support it don't necessarily understand
| the seemingly obvious, but technically non-obvious terms being
| used.
|
| For example in NY, it was sold as only applying to non-violent
| crimes. So one might say - sure this sound great, obviously we
| don't need to pre-trial hold non-violent criminals!
|
| However technically, as defined in law, theres a lot of things
| that "sound violent" but are considered non-violent felonies.
| Second degree manslaughter (125.15) is, for the purposes of NY
| State law, a non-violent felony.
|
| So the next question - what might get a person charged with
| second degree manslaughter? * Well, a guy recently chocked an
| erratic mentally ill homeless man to death on the subway was
| charged with second degree manslaughter only
|
| Other historical examples just to name a few-
|
| * Speeding 55mph in a 25mph local road (Delancey), killing a
| pedestrian and fleeing the scene
|
| * Guy accidentally shooting a friend with an unregistered gun
| while playing video games
|
| * DUI with kids in the car so badly you flip the car, killing
| one child
|
| * Drunken stealing a truck, driving up 7th Ave and hitting a
| Bus so fast they killed the driver
|
| * Guy overdosing his 10 month old on fentanyl somehow
|
| * Cop accidentally shoots a guy in the stairway of a housing
| project, proceeds to leave and call union rep rather than
| render assistance, while arguing with his partner not to report
| the shooting
|
| * Drunk driving 90mph in a 25mph, crashing into another drunk
| driver who was on a suspended license, killing a passenger in
| the back, and the most either of them got charged with was
| again, second degree manslaughter
| [deleted]
| Izkata wrote:
| > * Well, a guy recently chocked an erratic mentally ill
| homeless man to death on the subway was charged with second
| degree manslaughter only
|
| He and two others were subduing the homeless man to protect
| other passengers (there were _five_ 911 calls), then tried to
| help the homeless man after he went unconscious.
| oerpli wrote:
| I don't see how any of these cases prove your point. None of
| these offenders seem to fit a profile of someone that is a
| threat to public safety.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Recklessly driving 90mph drunk in a 25mph zone / owning an
| illegal firearm and waving it around such that it kills
| someone, these aren't like.. random fluke "they just did it
| once" kind of things.
|
| Did they intend to kill? No.
|
| But what did they think was going to happen when they drove
| drunk 90mph / acquired an illegal firearm and used it
| recklessly?
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Fatal reckless driving is not a threat to public safety?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I'll add that the #1 thing we heard over and over for bail
| reform advocates was - it's all these nonviolent drug
| offenders being locked up for using or selling a little bit
| of drugs!
|
| But there are clearly many classes of "non violent" crimes
| which seem violent enough, and/or result in death. And as a
| lay person it's a bit opaque.
|
| Given prosecutorial discretion in charging, there are
| things that could be murder or manslaughter, and therefore
| the same crime can be "violent" or "nonviolent" depending
| on some 50/50 charging choices by the DA... sometimes those
| choices being driven by what they think they can get a
| conviction on with a jury, not what they think the crime
| actually merits.
| masklinn wrote:
| It is not a choice, (b) is not and has never been what bail was
| _supposed_ to be about. If your prosecutors were using it that
| way, it was very much a misuse, at the very least out of sheer
| laziness (because getting insane bail amounts was easier than
| actually demonstrating a need for remanding) and most likely
| racist and / or classist.
| masklinn wrote:
| Probably corrupt as well now that I think about it, how many
| have financial interest in bonds through kickbacks, campaign
| contributions, etc...?
| djha-skin wrote:
| > I will not raise my son here.
|
| Whenever we look at these situations as HNers there is often
| armchair reasoning about the situation. The author is not
| reasoning from an armchair. This is visceral to him. Whether he
| is right or wrong, we should do him the courtesy of acknowledging
| his feelings and believing him when he is there and we are not.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > This is visceral to him.
|
| It may also just be that, as his LinkedIn shows him now working
| for a fancy law firm in Wisconsin, the amount of money dangled
| in front of him was "visceral" and this letter is just an easy
| cheap shot when he's already out the door.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| 5 million people happily live in Cook county. His feelings are
| misguided and his opinions largely irrelevant.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| What I don't understand about the opponents of things like bail
| reform is that very few other countries have a similar system to
| the USA at all. A determination is made about whether the person
| charged is a flight risk, a danger to the public, etc. If they
| are determined to meet those criteria, they are remanded. If they
| don't, they are bailed. Why does money have to have anything to
| do with it?
| jason-phillips wrote:
| Unfortunately everything in the USA is underlain with financial
| cost and incentive. It is a hardscrabble life for those who
| live hand-to-mouth and extremely easy to game for those with
| means.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Why does money have to have anything to do with it?
|
| Short answer: Bounty hunters.
|
| If you jump bail, they get part of the bail payment for
| capturing you. It's a long standing privatization of law
| enforcement in the US.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Also bail bondsman. They provide the bail bond for people who
| can't afford to pay (which surprise is the majority of
| people). For a % of course.
|
| It's all a bit...predatory.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| I think this is the part of the system that I find the most
| distasteful. If you're charged with a crime, you do
| everything right, you get bailed, you get found not guilty
| or the charges are dropped, you don't get the money you
| paid the bondsman back. It's horrifying.
| ddingus wrote:
| What one can do is pay for their own representation and
| when acquitted, file a tort to recover financial damages
| from the entity who picked the fight.
|
| That is what I did when I faced this scenario.
|
| Takes a long time. Speedy trials suddenly slow down.
| Pressure to get a person on more charges goes up. Offers
| get better. Requests for court appearances increase in
| frequency and more.
| plagiarist wrote:
| And for Americans living paycheck to paycheck they don't
| have the option to wait it out. They have to get back to
| work or be homeless.
| eschulz wrote:
| Illinois, and several other states, do not allow bail
| bondsmen. I understand why people would want to prevent
| this predatory business, but then there's also the concern
| that a larger percentage of felony defendants fail to
| appear in court after being released on bond.
| revscat wrote:
| This isn't entirely correct. Generally American policy tends
| towards increasing financial suffering on the poor and middle
| classes. Paid bail is another in a long line of such.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Why does money have to have anything to do with it?_
|
| There are two justice systems in the US, one for the rich and
| one for the others. In effect, this is one cog in the machine
| of systemic racism, as minorities tend to not be part of the
| rich class.
| hikawaii wrote:
| It's the same justice system.
|
| The unfortunate fact is that as the prosecutor in the OP lays
| out, it is not State's job to make sure every single legal
| advantage is pressed to the fullest.
|
| Acquiring solid legal representation is a big financial
| barrier, but that's something we do help with as a society -
| there's public defenders, then there are civil programs for
| people up to 400% of the poverty line.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Not to mention most jurors have very little understanding of
| the law, even if the law is explained to them, then bias
| kicks in. Yes, we are all human, but the rules of evidence
| must be followed, not the rule of bias.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Bail lets you out if can get _anyone_ , relative or a bail
| bondsman, to vouch for you in a material way. Under other
| systems, same guys who are prosecuting you decide if they feel
| like letting you out. In US, you can still be released on your
| own recognizance if the system believes you are not a flight
| risk. But even for substantial crimes like robbery, where there
| are reasons to believe you a flight risk, you still can be let
| out if someone trusts you enough to lend bail money.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| No, defendants who are deemed a flight risk or danger are not
| offered bail.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Danger yes, flight risk no. If you have a pending drunk
| driving charge, you might skip state. But if your brother
| puts up a bond, it's less likely that you will let him down
| to escape relatively minor penalties. Or a bail bondsman
| can verify that you have a job / sufficient local ties to
| take a risk on you.
| aqme28 wrote:
| I don't know where exactly in Illinois they live, but violent
| crime has generally fallen in the state, and is almost certainly
| much lower than when they moved there. Some local exceptions
| exist in Chicago, but they keep calling themselves an "Illinois"
| prosecutor and do not mention the city.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Agreed he could have been more specific but a Google search
| confirms his territory is Chicago.
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/longtime-chicago-prosec...
| 1123581321 wrote:
| In parts of IL the violent crime trend has reversed since
| 2019-2020, including parts of Chicago (city where the author
| practiced.)
| kyrra wrote:
| Chicago is Illinois, you should know that if you live there.
| The rest of the state doesn't really exist.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Then that kind of reinforces my point that Illinois crime
| statistics are way down
| unregistereddev wrote:
| From an editor's note, the author is a Cook County prosecutor.
| As a former Illinois resident, I can tell you Cook County means
| Chicago and a cluster of close suburbs.
| mchannon wrote:
| After being railroaded by a dirty prosecutor, I'd like to dispel
| one trope:
|
| Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle,
| states that it takes 10x the effort to dispel bullshit as it
| takes to make it. Therefore, every set of bullshit charges takes
| a public defender 10x the resources to counteract. Any fair
| system, every fair system, would have public defenders
| substantially _better_ funded than prosecutors.
|
| I think I speak for a good number of Cook county residents when I
| say: Bye Felicia.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Aren't you reinforcing the trope instead of dispelling it?
| mchannon wrote:
| The trope is that public defenders _should be_ and _are_
| funded equivalent to prosecutors' offices. It's less untrue
| in IL than in, say, Louisiana, but it's still untrue.
|
| Prosecutors suffer a self-serving delusion: they're born on
| third base thinking they hit a triple.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Literally nobody thinks that. This whole thread is evidence
| that this is well known disparity, and one which many
| people feel strongly about but are unable to correct. I'd
| argue it's not correctable: we can't as a society with lots
| of crime devote as much money to thwarting prosecutions as
| we do on apprehension, detention, prosecution etc... The
| focus should be on crime prevention which can include
| better education, less restrictive laws, improved policing
| and crime research.
| masklinn wrote:
| Does anyone except crazy prosecutor believe public
| defenders are funded to any sort of suitable level?
| just3ws wrote:
| This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last
| gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized
| the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly
| impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in
| the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between
| McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the
| election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith.
| This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is
| promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do
| not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN,
| this is something else.
| just3ws wrote:
| This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last
| gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized
| the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly
| impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in
| the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between
| McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the
| election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith.
| This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is
| promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do
| not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN,
| this is something else.
| lowmagnet wrote:
| Real Clear Politics is a project of The Federalist, funded by
| Donor's Trust and Richard Uihlein. Do not believe everything they
| publish.
| ProAm wrote:
| This has been posted all over. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/departing-cook-
| county...
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