There's an inmate in LA County jail who has been there 9 years awaiting trial on attempted murder. He is completely and totally institutionalized. A very nice guy but intimidating.
Cops can arrest you for any reason, and if you can't make bail, then they place you in jails with convicted violent felons, some on murder trials.
In LA jails, you have to be racist. Depending on your pod and program, you have special requirements.
You often have to fight, especially if you are black or Hispanic. If there's a brawl inside the pod, you have to fight other races or you will be beaten by your own.
I sat in a tiny room for 11 hours with 50 inmates, half of which had face tattoos and were gang members. A room where inmates had been beaten to death and the others just cover up the cameras.
Multiple times I wasn't called to court, they were "dry runs". Mental torture and real risk required just for due process.
These types of systems only create more criminals.
The deputies act like psychopaths, taunting and roughing up inmates. But not as bad since now the FBI has cameras watching them.
The person who interceded in my misdemeanor case and put me in jail was the former head of California Homeland Security.
His lawyer, also a former federal prosecutor, was in every court appearance lobbying the prosecutor. He also represented the Chief of Police, the City Council and the Sheriff.
Their boss is a secretive billionaire whose former lawyer became the new Supreme Court Justice this year after he lobbied He is a very powerful person who hires former federal officials as political mercenaries.
This all happened because they wanted to protect a wealthy sex predator. In 2-weeks, the Homeland official is actually testifying for the sex predator for his civil trial. He is presumably testifying against my credibility.
We have no rehabilitation or actual corrections when you are essentially sent to a crime university and network with criminals.
I'll never understand why when you are kids and get in trouble, they separate you. When you are an adult criminal, they put you in with other criminals and create more criminals.
Recidivism is high in those types of situations, in addition to how records are never cleared for good behavior. We have a serious corrections problem that does little in the way of correcting by grouping everyone so tight.
Sincere question -- how do we spot things like this?
Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a relatively competent programmer with small amounts of disposable income to spend on hobbies, such as running algorithms over government datasets. (Okay, that's a weird one -- but I think it's good to apply my craft towards politics.) I know a lot about making computers scan through large sets of data looking for patterns, and some about making websites and whatnot.
I normally don't think technology does much for political problems, but this one legitimately sounds like we should be applying fraud-detection style algorithms to the names that appear in court records, looking for abnormalities. (Heck, we should probably look for all kinds of irregularities, not just in the pattern of names.)
Identifying the problem doesn't magically solve it, but it sounds like being able to assemble subtle cases out of thousands of documents across hundreds of jurisdictions actually would provide utility towards addressing this.
It doesn't stop the corruption directly, but it shines a pretty bright light on it. And it allows groups looking to tackle it head on to focus their efforts on litigating, instead of document finding or figuring out who the culprits are.
There's an inmate in LA County jail who has been there 9 years awaiting trial on attempted murder. He is completely and totally institutionalized. A very nice guy but intimidating.
If he didn't go in a killer, he sure as hell should be ready to take a life by now. If someone robbed me of 9 years of my life, I'd make it my mission to rob them of any joy in their life.
Hi, four-month felony pretrial inmate who is proudly defying recidivism here. I’m the kind of guy who thinks load balancing is a fun topic of discussion — ask anyone who knows me how incredibly unfit for jail I am — and I survived just fine. You seem to have had the shit scared out of you, and I wanted to clarify a few things for you.
You don’t have to be racist to survive county. You simply stick with your race. There’s a distinction. Yes, if shit pops off and you’re not sticking up for your race, you can get called out. But nobody is asking the 70-year-old with a limp to roll heavy with the woods/kinfolk/whatever. There’s more an element here of getting marked as a bitch: prison, and to a lesser extent county, is a game of respect. Run store and someone steals from you? Handle it or it will be repeated, because they notice you don’t stick up for yourself. The smart ones watch. But the woods weren’t eyeing me when I played my daily game of spades with a kinfolk partner (and still friend). It’s not like that in county. Prison, maybe.
DO behavior is intentional. County belongs to them. Prison belongs to the inmates. This was explained to me as “this is their house. Prison is ours.” The person explaining, our head wood, was looking forward to prison. Life is way different in prison, with mutual respect — again, I’m told. Jail sucks on purpose. If it didn’t suck nobody would care that they ended up there. This is the American approach to corrections, that of deterrence; in other places there is more of a focus on rehabilitation, and you’ll find a much different jail experience.
Jail is a lot more fun when you make it abundantly clear to the DOs that you see through their psychopathy. It’s a control mechanism for those who don’t. Once they figure out it doesn’t work on you and you’ll play their game anyway, you can actually develop a decent rapport with DOs. Just never, ever, ever trust them. I grieved one and he used to pull tricks like calling me out right after a race meeting to make it look like I was a snitch (don’t even THINK about snitching, or enjoy PC). They know the game better than you do, and they’re paid to do it.
Those dry runs were actually nice, I found, because it was a nice break outside. My cell was way better than transfer cells, though, and breaking routine sucks. Doing time is all about routine. By 30 days in, I had a schedule. The next 100 flew. Just keep to yourself, improve yourself during the downtime, get on a schedule, and play the respect game carefully and you’ll be fine. I got marked quickly as the computer nerd, but that also meant I could help people out with their legal stuff. Find a purpose and become useful, and stand up for yourself when needed. Lead with your shoulder and pivot, if it comes to that — I’ve fought more outside than in, though, and most of the violence I experienced was from DOs (tased once because I couldn’t hear orders in the shower, pepper sprayed twice). Help the right people and you’ll have the right friends, which is a big part of survival.
Some parts of your comment confused me, so maybe you can clarify. Murder trial inmates are almost always confined in maximum. Medium is a larger cross section of crimes and classification, and most places call medium “gladiator school” or “gladiator academy” because there’s a lot more freedom than maximum and still some hard hitters. Minimum is like summer camp that you can’t leave, with everybody sitting for DUI or check fraud. Transfer cells mix this classification up, which is probably where you landed with the heavy hitters in that 11 hour room (that sounds like transfer), but a misdemeanor rap almost guarantees you were in minimum. Am I right? Or did you get classified as a hitter and thrown in school?
The US isn't known for an excellent prison system, but it is known for having a pretty good way for citizens to sue the government if they are mistreated.
I was abused in prison I'd expect to be able to sue the state for damages. Is there a general exception to the expectation of security for prisoners that means they can't expect the state to protect their well being in there?
There are many cases of defendants' right to a speedy trial being trampled. I'm not completely convinced this is a particularly great example of that.
He was arrested while on parole, which is why he didn't get out on bail. Many of the delays came from his side. If it had gone to trial, the prosecution would have only had to prove he was guilty by a preponderance of the evidence. So the long time in detention could have just been a strategy.
> Many of the delays came from his side. If it had gone to trial, the prosecution would have only had to prove he was guilty by a preponderance of the evidence
No, that would be true if it was just revoking parole on the prior charge (it's kind of odd that that didn't happen, but it's possible that the original sentence ended to soon after the arrest to bother), but this was a new criminal charge which would have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
It seems pretty unfair to reset the time limit when they dropped the original charges and recharged him the next day (the article is unclear on what the charges were, and how they differed if they differed at all)
Same for giving a whole new two years after Hurricane Issac.
At some point, particularly for non-violent charges, surely they should have to at least release him until the trial.
While I agree it's unconstitutional to park someone in jail for eight years without bail or a trial, this particular guy is probably ecstatic at how it all worked out:
>As a parolee with a previous drug charge to his name, Smith was looking at a sentence of 20 years to life if convicted as a habitual offender, according to one of his lawyers.
Previous drug charge? Does that mean that he wasn't convicted the first time, either? The only thing "habitual" there, then, would be the police's desire to arrest him.
From the article, he potentially had a plea deal to get out in 2015, but turned it down.
>
“He could have come home as early as January of 2015,” said defense attorney Martin Regan, whose firm handled the case from the start. “There’s a man who just steadfastly said, 'I don’t care, you can keep me. I’m not guilty, I want a trial.' ”
I am thinking it was strategy to wait it out, perhaps not initially.
Or thinking about how he's gonna become a millionaire after suing because of the delays/ loss of right to speedy trial
Uhhh what ever happened to Innocent until proven guilty? The case never went to trial so he was never even proved as guilty - for all you know he could be completely innocent regardless of his past convictions.
The article doesn't provide a lot of information about why he was charged, just
Smith’s saga behind bars began on Feb. 11, 2010, when State Police and federal drug agents said they discovered baggies of crack cocaine inside a safe in his Carrollton residence.
To me that sounds like he was at the customer end of the distribution, dealing on the street. A potential life sentence for that is bonkers.
I would hope that these days no rational individual could support jail time for any non-violent drug crime, with the possible exception of cross-border smuggling, which treads on some different areas of the law.
Hmm, I’m not so sure we should allow people to sell fentanyl pops or cocaine to kids without going to prison. Not arguing against your point broadly, but that’s exactly the type of response that would sink an effort to remove imprisonment for non violent drug crimes.
As I see it, we need both a propaganda campaign pointing out how nuts the drug laws are in addition to some recognizable way of incrementally easing the laws and adjusting to it. That’s the rational thing an individual would do anyway; i am more aware than ever you need to parcel these things into 2 year steps for american power transfers between parties.
To the person who downvoted me, this is distinctly less useful than contributing the conversation in a meaningul manner.
Crime of consumption or mere possession, I fully agree. Even distribution of something like pot, sure. But at the same time, I'm not sure that a rational individual has to agree with the proposition that somebody who's peddling fentanyl should not be put in jail.
(I don't think, from what I know, that distribution of crack would be in that latter group.)
I live in New Orleans. The judge, Flemings-Davillier, is well known as a tool of the district attorney, Canizzaro, who employs dirty tactics like fake subpoenas.
For more on Orleans Parish justice, google "Give me a lawyer dog"
It's pretty obvious what happened here. Everyone involved basically assumed he was or would be found guilty and didn't see an issue with him sitting in a cell for "just a few more months"
The government should pay back-salary to anyone with a case dismissed in this manner. This would cause queue back-pressure that would focus the system on high-value targets at the front of the queue.
> The government should pay back-salary to anyone with a case dismissed in this manner.
The "government" is the taxpayers, basically. I'd rather have all folks involved in ruining that man's life being sued like they should, and having to repay him for the opportunity loss. Taxpayers represent an infinite pocket to steal from, but private citizens don't have as much resources and should be held responsible for their decisions.
If you have so many people in jail awaiting trial that judges have multi-year backlogs to try cases, that says a lot about the justice system... but more importantly, what does it say about the laws themselves?
I think we have to be careful given the article only looks at one side. While in this case it took an absurd turn and is a clear case of "lock this dude behind bars: we don't like him", it is not always that simple.
I would give as an example the patent trolls. They abuse of the court and fill motions after motions (or dismiss early) for the sole purpose of making their case expansive to defend against. A knowledgeable inmate or greedy public defendant could use the same tactics and delay the case only for the deadline to pass. If it can turn a life sentence into a 24 months one, then procrastination and delays are the quickest way out of jail.
That being said, for recurrent inmates, the failure of the system is definitely in the rehab process. In some US states, it seems like the legal system exists only to sustain itself, its elected officials and the industries (lawyers, penitentiary, investigators, forensic) that runs it. This case is apparently a blatant example of bureaucracy indifference. If the fact were shown in their face, they would blame the weather or the defendant own motions to have his rights taken into account. I am not a socialist, far from it. However when it comes to absurdities such as this, it is a clear sign that a proper social net is necessary to avoid a slippery slopes where the incarcerated population will grow and grow and grow. So do the expanses associated with it. Better solve the problem instead of the consequences.
[+] [-] flightrisk|8 years ago|reply
Cops can arrest you for any reason, and if you can't make bail, then they place you in jails with convicted violent felons, some on murder trials.
In LA jails, you have to be racist. Depending on your pod and program, you have special requirements.
You often have to fight, especially if you are black or Hispanic. If there's a brawl inside the pod, you have to fight other races or you will be beaten by your own.
I sat in a tiny room for 11 hours with 50 inmates, half of which had face tattoos and were gang members. A room where inmates had been beaten to death and the others just cover up the cameras.
Multiple times I wasn't called to court, they were "dry runs". Mental torture and real risk required just for due process.
These types of systems only create more criminals.
The deputies act like psychopaths, taunting and roughing up inmates. But not as bad since now the FBI has cameras watching them.
The person who interceded in my misdemeanor case and put me in jail was the former head of California Homeland Security.
His lawyer, also a former federal prosecutor, was in every court appearance lobbying the prosecutor. He also represented the Chief of Police, the City Council and the Sheriff.
Their boss is a secretive billionaire whose former lawyer became the new Supreme Court Justice this year after he lobbied He is a very powerful person who hires former federal officials as political mercenaries.
This all happened because they wanted to protect a wealthy sex predator. In 2-weeks, the Homeland official is actually testifying for the sex predator for his civil trial. He is presumably testifying against my credibility.
[+] [-] drawkbox|8 years ago|reply
I'll never understand why when you are kids and get in trouble, they separate you. When you are an adult criminal, they put you in with other criminals and create more criminals.
Recidivism is high in those types of situations, in addition to how records are never cleared for good behavior. We have a serious corrections problem that does little in the way of correcting by grouping everyone so tight.
[+] [-] SomeStupidPoint|8 years ago|reply
Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a relatively competent programmer with small amounts of disposable income to spend on hobbies, such as running algorithms over government datasets. (Okay, that's a weird one -- but I think it's good to apply my craft towards politics.) I know a lot about making computers scan through large sets of data looking for patterns, and some about making websites and whatnot.
I normally don't think technology does much for political problems, but this one legitimately sounds like we should be applying fraud-detection style algorithms to the names that appear in court records, looking for abnormalities. (Heck, we should probably look for all kinds of irregularities, not just in the pattern of names.)
Identifying the problem doesn't magically solve it, but it sounds like being able to assemble subtle cases out of thousands of documents across hundreds of jurisdictions actually would provide utility towards addressing this.
It doesn't stop the corruption directly, but it shines a pretty bright light on it. And it allows groups looking to tackle it head on to focus their efforts on litigating, instead of document finding or figuring out who the culprits are.
[+] [-] dleslie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] QAPereo|8 years ago|reply
If he didn't go in a killer, he sure as hell should be ready to take a life by now. If someone robbed me of 9 years of my life, I'd make it my mission to rob them of any joy in their life.
[+] [-] jsmthrowaway|8 years ago|reply
You don’t have to be racist to survive county. You simply stick with your race. There’s a distinction. Yes, if shit pops off and you’re not sticking up for your race, you can get called out. But nobody is asking the 70-year-old with a limp to roll heavy with the woods/kinfolk/whatever. There’s more an element here of getting marked as a bitch: prison, and to a lesser extent county, is a game of respect. Run store and someone steals from you? Handle it or it will be repeated, because they notice you don’t stick up for yourself. The smart ones watch. But the woods weren’t eyeing me when I played my daily game of spades with a kinfolk partner (and still friend). It’s not like that in county. Prison, maybe.
DO behavior is intentional. County belongs to them. Prison belongs to the inmates. This was explained to me as “this is their house. Prison is ours.” The person explaining, our head wood, was looking forward to prison. Life is way different in prison, with mutual respect — again, I’m told. Jail sucks on purpose. If it didn’t suck nobody would care that they ended up there. This is the American approach to corrections, that of deterrence; in other places there is more of a focus on rehabilitation, and you’ll find a much different jail experience.
Jail is a lot more fun when you make it abundantly clear to the DOs that you see through their psychopathy. It’s a control mechanism for those who don’t. Once they figure out it doesn’t work on you and you’ll play their game anyway, you can actually develop a decent rapport with DOs. Just never, ever, ever trust them. I grieved one and he used to pull tricks like calling me out right after a race meeting to make it look like I was a snitch (don’t even THINK about snitching, or enjoy PC). They know the game better than you do, and they’re paid to do it.
Those dry runs were actually nice, I found, because it was a nice break outside. My cell was way better than transfer cells, though, and breaking routine sucks. Doing time is all about routine. By 30 days in, I had a schedule. The next 100 flew. Just keep to yourself, improve yourself during the downtime, get on a schedule, and play the respect game carefully and you’ll be fine. I got marked quickly as the computer nerd, but that also meant I could help people out with their legal stuff. Find a purpose and become useful, and stand up for yourself when needed. Lead with your shoulder and pivot, if it comes to that — I’ve fought more outside than in, though, and most of the violence I experienced was from DOs (tased once because I couldn’t hear orders in the shower, pepper sprayed twice). Help the right people and you’ll have the right friends, which is a big part of survival.
Some parts of your comment confused me, so maybe you can clarify. Murder trial inmates are almost always confined in maximum. Medium is a larger cross section of crimes and classification, and most places call medium “gladiator school” or “gladiator academy” because there’s a lot more freedom than maximum and still some hard hitters. Minimum is like summer camp that you can’t leave, with everybody sitting for DUI or check fraud. Transfer cells mix this classification up, which is probably where you landed with the heavy hitters in that 11 hour room (that sounds like transfer), but a misdemeanor rap almost guarantees you were in minimum. Am I right? Or did you get classified as a hitter and thrown in school?
I can’t speak to the rest of your comment.
[+] [-] skc|8 years ago|reply
And I'm willing to bet anything that there is no evidence that prisons actually achieve their stated purpose.
[+] [-] alkonaut|8 years ago|reply
I was abused in prison I'd expect to be able to sue the state for damages. Is there a general exception to the expectation of security for prisoners that means they can't expect the state to protect their well being in there?
[+] [-] sevenfive|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pers0n|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gok|8 years ago|reply
He was arrested while on parole, which is why he didn't get out on bail. Many of the delays came from his side. If it had gone to trial, the prosecution would have only had to prove he was guilty by a preponderance of the evidence. So the long time in detention could have just been a strategy.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
No, that would be true if it was just revoking parole on the prior charge (it's kind of odd that that didn't happen, but it's possible that the original sentence ended to soon after the arrest to bother), but this was a new criminal charge which would have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
[+] [-] nebulous1|8 years ago|reply
Same for giving a whole new two years after Hurricane Issac.
At some point, particularly for non-violent charges, surely they should have to at least release him until the trial.
[+] [-] tyingq|8 years ago|reply
The pipeline is based on plea bargains. Wanting a trial shouldn't take 8 years, ever.
[+] [-] gozur88|8 years ago|reply
>As a parolee with a previous drug charge to his name, Smith was looking at a sentence of 20 years to life if convicted as a habitual offender, according to one of his lawyers.
[+] [-] derefr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sergers|8 years ago|reply
> “He could have come home as early as January of 2015,” said defense attorney Martin Regan, whose firm handled the case from the start. “There’s a man who just steadfastly said, 'I don’t care, you can keep me. I’m not guilty, I want a trial.' ”
I am thinking it was strategy to wait it out, perhaps not initially. Or thinking about how he's gonna become a millionaire after suing because of the delays/ loss of right to speedy trial
[+] [-] Zaheer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|8 years ago|reply
Smith’s saga behind bars began on Feb. 11, 2010, when State Police and federal drug agents said they discovered baggies of crack cocaine inside a safe in his Carrollton residence.
To me that sounds like he was at the customer end of the distribution, dealing on the street. A potential life sentence for that is bonkers.
[+] [-] phil248|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retailbuyout|8 years ago|reply
As I see it, we need both a propaganda campaign pointing out how nuts the drug laws are in addition to some recognizable way of incrementally easing the laws and adjusting to it. That’s the rational thing an individual would do anyway; i am more aware than ever you need to parcel these things into 2 year steps for american power transfers between parties.
To the person who downvoted me, this is distinctly less useful than contributing the conversation in a meaningul manner.
[+] [-] jopsen|8 years ago|reply
Even the most invasive surveillance system is more humane that the US prison system.
[+] [-] kelnos|8 years ago|reply
Pretty sure branding half the US population as irrational isn't going to win you much consensus.
[+] [-] eropple|8 years ago|reply
(I don't think, from what I know, that distribution of crack would be in that latter group.)
[+] [-] robotresearcher|8 years ago|reply
That's no excuse for further delay, but explains why he was locked up in the first place.
[+] [-] leesalminen|8 years ago|reply
They have 2 options: RoR (release on your own recognizance) and hold until trial.
Although not perfect, this is much better than a bail system.
[+] [-] jopsen|8 years ago|reply
I thought that was intentional :) afaik bail isn't used much outside the US, Canada and UK.
The US for-profit bail industry is the usual case of Americans taking a bad idea to the extreme in the search of a little profit.
[+] [-] selimthegrim|8 years ago|reply
For more on Orleans Parish justice, google "Give me a lawyer dog"
[+] [-] tcarn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skbohra123|8 years ago|reply
There are just 15 judges per million people in India as compared to around 110 judges per million in US.
----
[1] http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/38-years-in-jail-without...
[+] [-] nickthemagicman|8 years ago|reply
Theres a very simple solution here.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bdamm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warent|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clord|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loeg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|8 years ago|reply
The "government" is the taxpayers, basically. I'd rather have all folks involved in ruining that man's life being sued like they should, and having to repay him for the opportunity loss. Taxpayers represent an infinite pocket to steal from, but private citizens don't have as much resources and should be held responsible for their decisions.
[+] [-] int_19h|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Feniks|8 years ago|reply
Because you can go back in time 30 years and find articles like this or fast forward 30 years and find articles like this. Its not going to change.
[+] [-] petre|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bibbbe|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Elv13|8 years ago|reply
I would give as an example the patent trolls. They abuse of the court and fill motions after motions (or dismiss early) for the sole purpose of making their case expansive to defend against. A knowledgeable inmate or greedy public defendant could use the same tactics and delay the case only for the deadline to pass. If it can turn a life sentence into a 24 months one, then procrastination and delays are the quickest way out of jail.
That being said, for recurrent inmates, the failure of the system is definitely in the rehab process. In some US states, it seems like the legal system exists only to sustain itself, its elected officials and the industries (lawyers, penitentiary, investigators, forensic) that runs it. This case is apparently a blatant example of bureaucracy indifference. If the fact were shown in their face, they would blame the weather or the defendant own motions to have his rights taken into account. I am not a socialist, far from it. However when it comes to absurdities such as this, it is a clear sign that a proper social net is necessary to avoid a slippery slopes where the incarcerated population will grow and grow and grow. So do the expanses associated with it. Better solve the problem instead of the consequences.