A boy was accused of taking a backpack. The courts took the next three years of his life.

[Anti Federalist]

Story told a million times in the land of the free: innocent man accused and refuses to plea deal and ends up spending three years in prison with no trial.

It is stories like this that made me no longer support capital punishment and why I maintain that roughly 30 percent of all prison inmates are actually innocent of committing any crime.

I am truly coming to phill4paul's way of thinking on this: I will resist with everything I have before the state's enforcers drag me off to one of theire gulags.



Too long to copypasta but worth the read:

Before the Law

A boy was accused of taking a backpack. The courts took the next three years of his life.

By Jennifer Gonnerman

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/law-3

...

Browder told me that, one night soon after he arrived, a group of guards lined him and several other inmates up against a wall, trying to figure out who had been responsible for an earlier fight. “They’re talking to us about why did we jump these guys,” he said. “And as they’re talking they’re punching us one by one.” Browder said that he had nothing to do with the fight, but still the officers beat him; the other inmates endured much worse. “Their noses were leaking, their faces were bloody, their eyes were swollen,” he said. Afterward, the officers gave the teens a choice: go to the medical clinic or go back to bed. But they made it clear that, if the inmates went to the clinic and told the medical staff what had happened, they would write up charges against them, and get them sent to solitary confinement. “I just told them I’ll act like nothing happened,” Browder said. “So they didn’t send us to the clinic; they didn’t write anything up; they just sent us back.” The Department of Correction refused to respond to these allegations, or to answer any questions about Browder’s stay on Rikers. But the recent U.S. Attorney’s report about R.N.D.C. recounts many instances in which officers pressured inmates not to report beatings—to “hold it down,” in Rikers parlance.

...

[jmdrake]

You may be presumed innocent until proven guilty but you will be treated as you are guilty until you are proven innocent. Even people who are out on bond still have to deal with the negative effects of a criminal charge hanging over their heads. Often prospective employers will say "Talk to me once you no longer have this charge pending." Sometimes the deal is expungible probation. So do you fight the case which could take a while? Or do you cop a plea knowing that it will be off your record in X number of months? Really, the law should be that until you're found guilty of something, the general public doesn't have the right to know about it.

[Anti Federalist]

You may be presumed innocent until proven guilty but you will be treated as you are guilty until you are proven innocent. Even people who are out on bond still have to deal with the negative effects of a criminal charge hanging over their heads. Often prospective employers will say "Talk to me once you no longer have this charge pending." Sometimes the deal is expungible probation. So do you fight the case which could take a while? Or do you cop a plea knowing that it will be off your record in X number of months? Really, the law should be that until you're found guilty of something, the general public doesn't have the right to know about it.

I agree.

Just an arrest will foul you up wrt to employment.

[acptulsa]

Really, the law should be that until you're found guilty of something, the general public doesn't have the right to know about it.

It was, forty years ago.

It wasn't broke so they fixed it.

This reminds me of Stalin's compulsive need for confessions. People who confessed to things they didn't do could survive an arrest by the Cheka, and so might their families. Those who wouldn't, or took too long about it, on the other hand, tied up tens of millions of the torturers' manhours.

Which, in turn, reminds me of the fact that the only survivors of the Salem witch trials also confessed.

Is the risk of trials revealing truth so frightening to these characters? Or are they craving legitimacy? Or is it merely a loyalty test--a way of culling the wolves and sparing the sheep, as it seemed to be when Stalin had the wives and lovers of his own 'cabinet members' (not the Soviet term, but a proper description nonetheless) arrested and shot?

Are these sociopaths so obsessed with honor and idealism and love, and other concepts alien to them, that they feel compelled to see what it takes to destroy them? Is it not sufficient to kill human beings? Is it really necessary to destroy their humanity first? Are these psychos so jealous of genuine human feeling that they really need to eradicate it before they dispose of the person formerly capable of it?

Maybe they merely hate real men because they acutely feel how much they suffer in the comparison...

[Christian Liberty]

It is stories like this that made me no longer support capital punishment

Here's my problem, I think capital punishment is commanded Biblically by Genesis 9:6. At the same time, I don't actually trust the State to implement it. I'm opposed to this government doing it but I'm not opposed to it on principle.

[Anti Federalist]

Here's my problem, I think capital punishment is commanded Biblically by Genesis 9:6. At the same time, I don't actually trust the State to implement it. I'm opposed to this government doing it but I'm not opposed to it on principle.

Well, then you are opposed, regardless, because for the near term, there is no "alternative" means by which to kill somebody for a crime, outside of the corrupt state.

[Christian Liberty]

Well, then you are opposed, regardless, because for the near term, there is no "alternative" means by which to kill somebody for a crime, outside of the corrupt state.

I guess so in the short term, but convicted murderers being executed is hardly my biggest issue with this government. I'm far more focused on condemning the arrests of people I KNOW aren't guilty, drug users, gun owners, and so forth.

That said, one thing I will absolutely stand on, no death penalties exclusively aimed at cop-killers. If you can't die for killing a so-called "mundane" you shouldn't be able to die for killing a cop, even in the rare event where the cop wasn't actually doing anything wrong.

[Constitutional Paulicy]

[Spikender]

Adding this one to my pile of stories about this.

This one made me feel empty inside.

Not a damn person except Browder suffered for this.

How I wish I could line up the DA, the police officers, the witness, the guards, and the city officials and just beat all of their asses.

And this is just one man.

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

I agree.

Just an arrest will foul you up wrt to employment.

unless you work for yourself

[Anti Federalist]

unless you work for yourself

In my line of work, even if you are a one man, self employed tech service, you must comply with the customer's drug, safety and arrest policies or GTFO.

[Mani]

What an awful awful story.


"...Even with his friends, things aren’t the same. “I’m trying to break out of my shell, but I guess there is no shell. I guess this is just how I am—I’m just quiet and distant,” he says. “I don’t like being this way, but it’s just natural to me now.” Every night before he goes to sleep, he checks that every window in the house is locked. When he rides the subway, he often feels terrified. “I might be attacked; I might be robbed,” he says. “Because, believe me, in jail you know there’s all type of criminal stuff that goes on.” No matter how hard he tries, he cannot forget what he saw: inmates stealing from each other, officers attacking teens, blood on the dayroom floor. “Before I went to jail, I didn’t know about a lot of stuff, and, now that I’m aware, I’m paranoid,” he says. “I feel like I was robbed of my happiness.”

[TheTexan]

There weren’t hours of wiretaps or piles of complicated evidence to sift through; there was just the memory of one alleged victim.

Poor guy had his backpack stolen. Fortunately, he had the strength -- and the courage -- to go against all odds to uphold the rule of law.

Thanks to this brave man's actions, justice prevailed.