The amount of Type I errors that get made (that we know about) in our (USA) justice system is really wild when you truly consider the consequences.
The Innocent Project estimates that 1% of all prisoners are innocent. Hard to say if that number is accurate, but go ahead and cut it in half if you like. 0.5%. Doesn't seem like a lot in percentage terms. But of the 850 people in the jail system that the EFF is talking about here, that means at least 4 people are innocent and can't even receive a letter. Imagine if that was you. Man, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to even imagine.
"Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated in county jails like the one in Redwood City, 427,000 of whom have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial." Apply that same 0.5% here, and that's 2,135 people. There are literally thousands of innocent people in the prison system. Thousands. A bus seats like 50 people. Imagine 40 buses full of innocent people going to jail, and that's the reality we live in.
> "Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated in county jails like the one in Redwood City, 427,000 of whom have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial." Apply that same 0.5% here, and that's 2,135 people. There are literally thousands of innocent people in the prison system. Thousands. A bus seats like 50 people. Imagine 40 buses full of innocent people going to jail, and that's the reality we live in.
Nitpick: that's 427,000 innocent people incarcerated, not 2,135. They all deserve the presumption of innocence.
The decision to grant bail is in part based on the strength of the evidence and the danger to the community calculation is also in part based off past convictions. Not saying that is entirely fair, but the truth is most people in jail really are guilty which is the reason voters either don't care about this issue or even want to make the system more stacked against defendants.
That’s not the truth at all. In fact, when community funds start paying bail for those who couldn’t afford it, the majority end up having the case dismissed, because there never was any evidence - there was just the threat to let them sit in jail until they plead guilty.
Nope. The majority of people arrested are not guilty of a crime. Those similar people who were released without paying bail are also likely to be innocent, so I don’t know how you think that opposes my point.
> But even worse, we're talking about many of people who are still awaiting trial-- presumably they are innocent at a greater rate than those convicted.
"Awaiting trial" or even "Awaiting details of the charges to be hammered out" seem to be depressingly time unrestricted. I sat in on some of the hearings, and there was a lot of "Well, we're not ready, can we push this out for 2 weeks?" sort of scheduling going on.
The person I'm familiar with this from basically spent 2 months in jail (not prison, apparently the difference is that prison is nicer, jail is really just a holding tank) on false charges that were then dropped as they were "literally impossible." He wasn't in the state when the claimed events happened.
Kalief Browder. Was awaiting trial at Rikers for years before charges were eventually dropped. In total he spent over two years in solitary confinement while never being tried for the petty robbery he was falsely accused of. Killed himself when he got out.
> People tell me because I have this case against the city I'm all right. But I'm not all right. I'm messed up. I know that I might see some money from this case, but that's not going to help me mentally. I'm mentally scarred right now. That's how I feel. [There] are certain things that changed about me[,] and they might not [change] back. ... Before I went to jail, I didn't know about a lot of stuff, and, now that I'm aware, I'm paranoid. I feel like I was robbed of my happiness.
I participated in the exoneration effort for a kid who was arrested at 15 and didn’t even go to trial at all until age 19. At the trial the judge denied him the right to call expert witnesses that led to a successful appeal, and then finally after 8 years of his prime youth lost to incarceration the charges were all dropped.
Some countries like El Salvador require court dates and evidence of a crime to be submitted within a fixed period of time (2-4 weeks?), or a suspect has to be released. Perhaps this kind of system will help US courts with their priorities.
Finally think of the large number of people imprisoned for violation of laws which ultimately don't matter, like all the people in prison for lower level drug related offenses. One of my favorite authors, Peter McWilliams, died while facing federal charges. I spoke to his mother once and she said that during this time they denied him access to vital medication, and she believes this led to his death. His crime was providing marijuana to cancer patients, something which had been legalized in CA at the time!
I just read about a guy that was jailed for 30 years with a sentence of 400+ years because the 800 years that the prosecutors wanted were too harsh so the judge decided to make the sentence 400ish years to be "fair". the crime this innocent man did that put him in jail for 30 years before being released was driving a getaway car while two other men robbed someone at gunpoint. nobody died to my knowledge. he couldn't give up the information because he was innocent so the prosecutors asked for that because he wasn't telling them what he couldn't know. crazy travesty of justice there. I'm sure there are tons more like this.
There's probably also a fair amount of "guilty of a lesser crime, but pressured by the plea bargain system to plea to a greater crime".
And, of course, innocent or not, there's merit in the argument of whether they should be able to receive mail, have actual physical books in their possession, and so on.
> There's probably also a fair amount of "guilty of a lesser crime, but pressured by the plea bargain system to plea to a greater crime".
"You're a hick and this is Berkley California. Are you stupid? Take the deal. It doesn't matter that your offense is technically the lesser one and not the one they're charging you with. A jury trial would not go well for you here."
> The Innocence Project estimates 2-10% of convictions are wrongful
This is exactly why I find the death penalty unconscionable. 1,567 people have been executed in the US since the 1970s (https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview). How many of them were wrongfully convicted? If someone is wrongfully imprisoned, at least we can let them out when they are exonerated - damaged, but with a chance to rejoin society. That's not the case with the death penalty. Without a perfect justice system, which is unattainable, the death penalty will take the lives of innocent people.
> have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial
PIMA had an interview with a sheriff recently. The figure that stood out to me was when he said it takes an average of 1.8 years for people in his jail to finally get to trial.
1.8 years in jail before they even decide if you're guilty. Hard to even imagine.
Not just common law. In the US, it is spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, the legal system has so distorted the plain meaning of "speedy trial" that we end up with insane, but "Constitutional" situations.
I believe this distortion is largely the product of the fact that the justice system has simply not grown in order to keep up with the growth of the U.S. population over time nor has it modernized practices sufficiently to mitigate this disparity.
For example, many matters which would've been settled rapidly 50 years ago are delayed because each time the judge schedules a subsequent hearing, it is put at the end of an already extensive schedule. Because the docket of each judge is so full, a follow-up hearing for a respondant which would've come 3-4 days or maybe a week later in the past is now booked weeks or months down the road. I don't refer to the time delays which are intended to accommodate preparation of defense or to provide discovery. Totally perfunctory appearances can be spread out over weeks or months.
The system has also failed to grown or adapt to accommodate the significant growth in chargeable offenses. Many more things are a criminal matter now than were 70 years ago.
You mentioned this only briefly: Population is not the only thing that has grown the count of trials.
Law itself has expanded significantly. There are now many more crimes a person can be accused of.
This is particularly evident in drug prohibition: possibly being in possession of a very small object (that isn't claimed by another person to be missing or stolen) is an incredibly low bar for crime accusation. An accusation of "sale or distribution" is even easier to construct!
And we can see the result: 26% of arrests are for drug related crimes[1]. These cases aren't just being thrown out, either: 46% of prisoners in federal prison are there for drug related crimes[1]. That means their cases must have added to the number of trials other prisoners have to wait in line for. A high conviction rate also motivates law enforcement to pursue more of these arrests.
By decriminalizing drug use, we could factor out a quarter of all arrests! That would surely present a significant decrease in wait times for trial.
Are drug related crimes really so serious that we should continue to pursue them, even when that pursuit overwhelms the entire justice system? That seems incredibly irresponsible to me.
> I believe this distortion is largely the product of the fact that the justice system has simply not grown in order to keep up with the growth of the U.S. population
I believe this distortion is because small crimes like being caught with a joint are causing our jails and legal systems to become overloaded. The solution is not to grow the justice system but rather to make sure we don't overload it with laws & violations that are unimportant.
Iteresting episode of Bruce Carlson's 'My History Can Beatup Your Politics' where he goes over the history of house size. Hopefully this link works for the non-subs.
My understanding is that most people opt to waive their right to a speedy trial after consulting with a lawyer. The reason is invoking the right guarantees the prosecutor will go hard in the paint pressing the maximum possible charges and generally making the defendant's life as unpleasant as possible.
That’s how the right to a jury of peers works now too - you’re expected to take a plea deal, and prosecutors threaten more charges and ask for longer sentences if someone won’t take a deal.
The 6th only covers situations where you explicitly object to a delay in your speedy trial right. Often it's in the interest of the defense to delay a trial as a tactic in preventing a conviction (e.g. by introducing a defense that the victim doesn't recall exactly). Also stupid shit like the prosecution withholding or delaying evidence that would tend to exonerate the defendant happens. What tends to happen is that the prosecution and the defendants lawyer agree to continuance after continuance. (Source: been there done that, had an open and shut self defense case that took about a year to go to trial)
Then those 366 shouldn't be in jail. They're innocent people. The idea that we lock people up pre-trial is absolutely bonkers. Bail should be granted in all but the most extreme cases, and for any who aren't granted bail they should be at trial ASAP.
Yah I should have clarified - 'bail should be granted' meaning people being released without cash bail - a promise to appear, holding passports, maybe other restrictions, I think those are pretty reasonable.
They're not technically innocent. Nor are they technically guilty. Their status is in question.
And yes, the entire system is messed up. These people are being treated as definitely guilty when their status is in question. Sometimes for offenses that would not even require the level of incarceration they are at. You'll spend 15 months in jail awaiting trial for an offense that carries a 6 month maximum sentence. And even if they release you after 6 months because it would be cruel to incarcerate you "temporarily" for longer than the sentence to determine if you should even be incarcerated, it's not like you can get that 6 months back if you're not proven guilty. (Because the court doesn't prove you're innocent, just that it can't prove you're guilty, which is different.)
But your last sentence comes back around to the problem of there not being enough capacity for these people. ASAP could very well be a year and a half.
The system defers to assuming guilt because of fear. If you defer to assuming no guilt and you're wrong, you could be wrong in a very bad way. If you lock up an innocent man for 10 years, people will shake their heads and say "What a shame." If you let a murderer free while awaiting trial and they kill someone else, you are going to get absolutely fucked.
And while the chance of the second is pretty low, it's not a chance any of them want to take. It's Pascal wager, but for crime. And we know crime and criminals exist.
>>>They're not technically innocent. Nor are they technically guilty. Their status is in question.
They are technically innocent. That is the central assumption in any good justice system.
>>>But your last sentence comes back around to the problem of there not being enough capacity for these people. ASAP could very well be a year and a half.
I don't think anyone would consider that reasonable if they were in custody. Let's say you were charged with something (that you didn't do, let's say) - what would you consider a fair amount of time before a trial?
You do understand I'm describing the problem, not advocating for the system, right?
And presumption of innocence is a matter during the trial.
Police can and have diverted, detained, and otherwise interfered with people who have committed no crime. All I will say is that it's a complex situation and that while keeping people in jail for over a year before we even get to the trial to determine their status is not what we should be doing, the complete opposite of not detaining anyone seems equally bad in a completely different way.
I do understand that, but it's a very pernicious problem, and the idea that "innocent until proven guilty" is just some legal idea we eye-roll at and don't actually believe is at the root of it.
It should not be just a matter for the trial! It should be treated as actually true from the first time an officer interacts with a suspect.
>>Police can and have diverted, detained, and otherwise interfered with people who have committed no crime
Yep, and we need to push back against that in a much stronger way, police have far too broad powers to detain with no consequences.
The diversion/detention can be as innocuous as blocking off a road for a parade or preventing people from walking into an area with an active shooter.
In both cases, I'd be prevented from executing perfectly legal actions even though I've personally committed on crime. Because ultimately, the difference between that and being jailed awaiting a trial is a matter of degree.
And most of our ideals are far loftier than the reality of how we implement them.
And I think they should be. We should aspire to be better and to look for ways to be better. But we must also contend with reality. And when ideals and reality are in conflict, reality is going to win. Until we find out how to better adapt to reality or to adapt our ideals to reality.
They're not infinite, but I can't think of a concrete reason judges, lawyers, and juries aren't scalable to population. I can think of systemic limits, but none of them feel immutable.
You have issues with training and promotion in the cases of judges and lawyers. Not insurmountable, but there will be a lag if we were to say "We need X% more lawyers now".
You also have the issue that in order to guarantee a trial as soon as all non-people concerns are resolved, you'll need judges and lawyers doing nothing. Once you're at 100% capacity, any additional case has to wait. And the length of the wait is indeterminate.
The real problem, people-wise, is juries. Juries are selected from the community at large. They're vetted and questioned. This takes time. And not for the criminals, but for the juries themselves. You could easily wind up with essentially professional juries, which runs counter to the idea of "jury of your peers".
And beyond that, all these cases need to be tried somewhere.
This is actually more of a funding problem than a supply problem. In many jurisdictions, the criminal justice system is expected to pay for itself, in part or nearly in total.
If we’re talking supply and demand, reducing the supply of prosecutions for victimlesss crimes stuff like drug use and possession, reproductive decisions, and etc. might help alleviate the demand at courthouses.
This is what I assume as well. But this is just an assumption I have. I don't even know exactly where it comes from. Is it correct? I just assume I can pay my way out… but what if I can't? I would think it really depends what you are accused of. I really don't know what I'd be able to afford.
And it's even more bizarre to think that's just how it works.
A lot of it depends on how often the prosecutor and the judge go to social events and golfing. Most defense attorneys can not beat the corrupt system and aren't willing to risk their career for one client.
> But of the 850 people in the jail system that the EFF is talking about here, that means at least 4 people are innocent
Saying "at least 4" is pretty misleading here, since you're assuming the 0.5% is perfectly distributed. That estimate could be accurate without a single innocent in these specific 850.
It's not that misleading even if the distribution is not perfect. It would be extremely unlikely that not a single person is innocent.
Given that this is a jail and not a prison, these people are mostly awaiting trial. From a certain point of view (innocent until proven guilty), most of these people are innocent and they can't even get a letter.
True, but I think that misses the point. I think the comment was an attempt at facilitating empathy for the incarcerated who are in this situation since for most people they don't see themselves as criminals (even those who are in fact criminals) and it is harder to empathize with those who you see as being part of a different tribe/group/class.
The fact is that these are fellow humans who are suffering, not because we decided as a society that this was what justice means, nor because this was the result of some study that figured out this would decrease recidivism, but just because some for profit institution decided they wanted to do something that would directly result in them suffering. That is enough for me to support this lawsuit.
The Innocent Project estimates that 1% of all prisoners are innocent. Hard to say if that number is accurate, but go ahead and cut it in half if you like. 0.5%. Doesn't seem like a lot in percentage terms. But of the 850 people in the jail system that the EFF is talking about here, that means at least 4 people are innocent and can't even receive a letter. Imagine if that was you. Man, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to even imagine.
"Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated in county jails like the one in Redwood City, 427,000 of whom have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial." Apply that same 0.5% here, and that's 2,135 people. There are literally thousands of innocent people in the prison system. Thousands. A bus seats like 50 people. Imagine 40 buses full of innocent people going to jail, and that's the reality we live in.