Either zoom has an opportunity to add a location-verification privacy nightmare of a feature, or a startup can make a zoom replacement for the unique needs of a remote justice system.
Any information provided over Zoom can be falsified. Any future court which has concerns about witness intimidation should follow a similar procedure that this court already performed.
There is no reason to lose your privacy over this.
short answer, yes. as long as there are "bad guys" willing to do anything to stay out of jail, witness intimidation will occur as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.
The court discovered the problem in this instance. Further, the parent provided an alternative suggestion. Another commenter elaborated on that "dedicated platform" idea: A dedicated device.
Zoom is new in courtrooms, but videoconferencing is not. it used to be done on dedicated devices and could in the future as well. Cisco and Poly ( formerly Polycom ) were loved for their security and management functions. Put a defendant in the "Video" room at the jail and have an arraignment with zero physical interaction, threat to court staff, or transport costs and risks [and the jail staff just need to make sure the thing is plugged in to the wall, the rest was automated]. This was the model when I installed the stuff 10 years ago ( in a mostly rural county in South Carolina, at that )
Zoom is blowing the doors off access, but there is appetite for specialization.
There is no way to "verify location" on a device that I own. My device can always spoof its location, does spoof location by default, and my device can run Zoom's code in an altered way.
IMO the best way to facilitate this is for the courthouse to deliver an officially-sanctioned device on the date of the trial to everyone involved (defendants, attackers, witnesses, jurors, judges, lawyers), that device come with its own LTE connection, and it be a federal violation to modify that device.
In addition, the courts should NEVER divulge the location of the participants in a trial or put it into any document, as that might put violence victims at further risk.
Making courts cases slower, more expensive, and more cumbersome is probably not a net benefit to victims of violence. It is not as though the woman was was testifying against organized crime.
Muting or pausing the recordings during testimony of private information, or redacting them from the recording might be a good compromise.
and for those that think this is an anomaly (one judge getting these odd/crazy cases…) this is what trial court is actually like (nearly) all day every day.
Mistakes like this happen frequently whether the proceedings take place over Zoom, or in person in a courthouse. As multiple comments have pointed out, it's about showing a basic level of respect and awareness of your situation.
This would be akin to accidentally showing up to a courtroom in a suit and forgetting that there's a decorative penis pin on your jacket because the last time you wore it you were at some sort of party. You clearly didn't care enough about your situation to dot your i's and cross your t's, and it suggests to the judge that you think this is a farce, mistake or not.
Sorry, but I still don’t see how it’s relevant. What’s the problem with having a decorative penis pin on your jacket? If that’s the way you like to dress, enjoy yourself! Why should we accept that a judge is letting themselves be so provoked by these insignificant things? That doesn’t sound to me like a person who is able to impartially evaluate the case based on the law.
Five responses to your question have all said it shows a lack of respect for the judicial system and the situation one is in, and you are essentially spitting in the face of the judge. I truly don't know how to make it any clearer to you than that.
But I must ask again; would you show up to any kind of disciplinary hearing for yourself with "Buttfucker 3000" showing on your name badge?
You really don’t have to ask, because what I personally would it wouldn’t do in various situations has nothing to do with what’s an appropriate response for someone who’s job it is to impartially evaluate evidence.
Even if the defendant literally did spit in the face of the judge, a good judge should not react in a way that would give anyone reason to think they let that affect their ruling.
>Even if the defendant literally did spit in the face of the judge, a good judge should not react in a way that would give anyone reason to think they let that affect their ruling.
There is no way to know that the defendant's Zoom screen-name was set intentionally, or even with his knowledge. Prior to showing up on the screen the judge was already leaking bias - "Then we'll bring this...fool in".
While I am inclined to "assume" that it was done intentionally, assumptions is not what the judicial system is about.
"Your name isn't Buttfucker 3000, you yol-hole" along with the initial remark are both incredibly unprofessional (and worrying) things to hear from a person who's literal job is to pass unbiased judgement. Name calling from a judge, really?
Yes, the dude was probably being an ass, but it doesn't matter. The judge judged the guy without concrete evidence and displayed a ton of personal distaste and bias against the defendant over the following minutes. He should asked the defendant to fix his screen name and moved on. This is not the kind of behavior you want to see in a judge who presides over cases of any real meaning.
You are focusing too much on the immediate context. Yes, the judge must remain impartial and resist being provoked, but the judicial system depends on people's respect. This being this case, their behavior isn't the only thing they must take into consideration. They must consider how this behavior will be interpreted by others. If they are the platonic ideal of impartiality but they are perceived as fools, this weakens the influence of their decisions. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not omniscient, so I'm not sure how accurate their assessment of things is, but this is certainly the reasoning. They need the court to be treated with respect, and to be perceived as respected and worthy of respect, so they don't brook people appearing before the court behaving in a way that they believe will be perceived as making fools of them.
You're making the judge sound like an abusive spouse. Must be treated with respect!
Respect is earned, regardless of statute.
The judge could have simply asked the defendant to fix his screen name and moved on, and he would have had my respect for the professionalism. Instead, respect has been lost.
>If they are the platonic ideal of impartiality but they are perceived as fools, this weakens the influence of their decisions.
The charge is for a syringe found by some cop rifling around this guy's person/vehicle during a traffic stop.
They are not only perceived as fools but they are fools, for facilitating the trying of this individual for such an unjust law for which there is no victim. The only lesson this man could possible learn from this judge sentencing him is to toss the syringe in a playground or something before driving off in his vehicle, since apparently having it in your car instead of wherever you used it is a big problem.
These tyrants deserve no respect, and I hope the entire system of trying people for the crime of owning an inanimate syringe collapses. The sooner we lose respect for all judges sentencing people for these crimes the better.
Perhaps for the exact reason you are implying - lack of respect for the judge and/or process.
People don't go to court because they "respect" the judicial process or the judge - they go because they are compelled by force or threats of force/imprisonment.
That said... it seems foolish to disrespect the judge, not because he/she deserves respect, but because they can abuse their power and punish you over slights to their ego. It's the same reason you don't run your mouth at a cop during a traffic stop - they would likely wield their small authority over you in a way that you found unpleasant.
It's very easy to click a link and join a Zoom meeting without knowing what your screen name is set to ahead of time.
HN is an echo chamber of tech-savvy people (myself included), but for anyone who's job isn't to work on a computer for 8 hours a day, this type of mistake can happen completely without intent.
In regards to the "decorative penis pin" scenario. Benefit-of-the-doubt is a basic principle of the judicial system. It is completely feasible to do something like this unintentionally. A good judge should ask the pin be removed, and move on. If the defendant refuses to remove it, handle that situation appropriately.
In this same video, the judge asked someone to remove their hat. The hat was removed, and everyone moved on. This is how professionals do their jobs.
If you knew you were in trouble at work, would you show up to your disciplinary hearing/meeting/whathaveyou with "Buttfucker 3000" written over your name on your badge in plain sight?
The same thing generally applies to the courtroom - it's showing a lack of respect for, and understanding of, the situation one is in. Were a judge to think they may want to give an individual a lenient sentence, they may change their mind were they to find out that that individual is basically saying, "Fuck you and fuck all of this, I don't care."
I don't disagree with you in regards to the need to greatly reform how we handle and prosecute (or don't prosecute) drug-related crimes, but having said that, what is the judge to do? Ignore a law and sentencing guidelines entirely?
If they had any morals yes. The fact that they sentence people to be held in cages for victimless crimes means they don't deserve the respect they needlessly demand from others.
It's pretty clear HN isn't in support of even the notion that enforcement of victimless drug laws is tyrannical. This is a terrifying but accurate view of our current society.
Due process requires judges to recuse themselves when there is a strong possibility they will be biased (such as believing it is a BS law that requires no punishment). If every single judge does this, eventually the state is going to run out of resources to try the case.
A nice start would be to recognize having "buttfucker 3000" in your name might simply be an acknowledgement of the unjust law and probably circumstances (found in traffic stop, likely questionable 4A grounds) (although the article states that he stated it was unintentional.) So the easiest thing would have been just to let it slide and continue on like it doesn't exist.
Judge could also instruct jurors on "jury nullification" or make the prosecutor's life hell in other ways if they bring about these cases.
Yes I think there is a moral duty to ignore an unjust law, even if it is illegal to do so.
What are the limits to your proposed recognition of his frustration? Is the name "fuckthelaw" ok? How about "judgefucker 3000"? What if they include the name of a witness or victim in their name ("fuck <witness>")? What if it contains a racial, ethnic or religious slur?
Court isn't an MMO; you don't get to choose a pithy username. You use your legal name, and the judge is right to enforce that.
Well when you're there for a victimless crime of some cop searched your car during a traffic stop and found a syringe, I'd say "fuck the state, the judge, and the cop witness" probably wouldn't be going to far. You're the one wanting to judge people's speech, not I.
> If you knew you were in trouble at work, would you show up to your disciplinary hearing/meeting/whathaveyou with "Buttfucker 3000" written over your name on your badge in plain sight?
> The same thing generally applies to the courtroom - it's showing a lack of respect for, and understanding of, the situation one is in.
Others have said this, but I want to underscore it with different phrasing: you seem to not understand the difference between "fear" and "respect".
> Were a judge to think they may want to give an individual a lenient sentence, they may change their mind were they to find out that that individual is basically saying, "Fuck you and fuck all of this, I don't care."
Justice should not depend on how good you make a judge feel about themselves or how fearful you show yourself to be of the system; justice should look only at the facts of the case and be blind to these unrelated details, no matter how much they make the judge personally feel bad.
I appreciate it isn't like that: justice is not blind, and is in fact horribly unfair. And this means we tend to leave laws on the books that disproportionately affect certain groups of people because we let law enforcement and judgement proceedings favor use "discretion" to "discriminate" (note the relationship between these words).
But that someone knows this to be true and thereby chooses a strategy to play that maximizes their benefit, has nothing to do with "respect": it is out of "fear" of what the system will do to you if you don't put on the outward appearance of "respect", even if--entirely internally--you are feeling nothing but "contempt" (a feeling that I personally couldn't blame anyone for having).
When it comes to determining guilt, yes, justice should be blind. When it comes to sentencing, judges take all kinds of things into account. If I were a defendant, I'd want to keep that firmly in mind.
Consider that the only power a judge has is to say things, and write things. The legal system only works if enough people respect it and do things just because the judge said to do the thing. Our society only works if the legal system keeps working.
Insisting that people respect the court is a large part of why this works. Even if maybe in some particular instance you could get away with not insisting on that, that's a dangerous experiment to run.
Our society would keep on working just fine if everyone disrespected judges who assist in the process of trying someone for the completely victimless crime of owning a syringe. I very much hope that part of the legal system collapses from lack of respect, if not by other means.
I'd say the only important power is the ability to enforce their decisions. Respect makes things smoother, but is not necessary. And power alone will naturally command respect from most people.
The legal system is just a buttress for social norms and conventions; and if the latter break down, there's not much hope for the former.
Of course, there are many legal issues that genuinely need lawyers and courts - for example, where there is real disagreement as to the meaning of a legal text such as a contract. But on the whole, the role of courts and lawyers is to tidy-up around the edges; if society only worked because of courts and lawyers, then it wouldn't really be working at all.
Do you think that all courtroom rules of decorum are wasteful or just Zoom screen names? Like, if someone showed up to an in-person hearing wearing assless chaps and a beer straw hat, would that be fine?
I'm not big on formality in general but I think that there are times when it makes sense to expect people to present themselves with a basic level of respect.
Is it that hard to figure out? Choosing a name like that, on purpose, obviously connotes a certain innate disrespect for the judicial process.
That kind of obvious, blatant disrespect would not be tolerated in a traditional court proceeding. And it shouldn't be tolerated in an online proceeding, either.
It doesn't matter. And you can see the judge simply had him correct the mistake and proceedings moved on. It has nothing to do with respect, judges do not need to rely on soft power like that. But might impact everyone in the process and lead to a negative outcome.
> “Um, I’m at a house,” [NAME] said, with hesitation, giving a [STREET NAME] address in [CITY].
This should NOT have been publicized. There is enough information in the above sentence that I was able to Google for her exact address. This is a gross danger to violence victims.
This was an ok amount of anonymity under Old School journalism with paper phonebooks but not after the internet. Seems they need to update their standards.
The other solution seems to be endangering the general public by opening the courts in a pandemic or to start having secret courts. Neither are particularly compelling. Far less people were assaulted in the US than died of coronavirus, and even fewer were assaulted for witness intimidation. And a secret court is obviously bad for a rules based democracy.
You can have remote trials but just don't put personal information in records, and prohibit unauthorized recording. Have one official recording that redacts personal addresses and contact information.
I disagree. I strongly think the justice system should be first and foremost protecting victims and not exposing them to more harm.
That would encourage victims to not bring wrongdoings to trial in fear of their personal info being exposed.
If someone is convicted, then yeah, go ahead and put them on a sex offender registry with their address. Loss of privacy is a consequence of their actions. That's justice.
But goddamn no don't put the victim's address in public view.
Well yes, so you start out by not publishing either party's address. If and when someone is convicted as a sex offender, it's reasonable to publish their address at that point, and continue to protect the victim's identity.
You can censor live events for nuisances like strong language or nudity, but you can't protect the privacy of victims? You would be absolutely astonished, how many women are intimidated/assaulted each year. The infection rates of covid pale against that.
Roughly 300,000 people were assaulted in 2019 (last year of uniform crime stats from the FBI). The annualized amount of COVID-19 death is about 400,000.
I am not sure if you are that sheltered. It is within the realm of possibility, it would be possible to believe that humankind are collected and knowing their boundaries. Until recently (last year or pre-pandemic) it become transparent that we are, in fact, stupid. The thought process is valid because it is possible for that to happen. This thought process will be very outlandish 10 years ago which I can agree with you. But now... it is not impossible to think it can happens.
Did you see where a GitHub project was forked, and the maintainer of the fork had people at his place of residence threatening physical violence? This shit sounds made up, but craycray is rampant on the internet.
I’m baffled, myself. Everyone lives somewhere. I don’t see how knowing someone’s address creates a hazard from random people. If a lunatic wants to assault someone he can kick in a random door. In the case of someone, say, testifying against the mob or against a violent person who doesn’t already know where she lives, sure.
That just means that you're lucky to not have been at the receiving end of this.
"Lunatics" don't usually kick down random doors, in the vast majority of cases. They usually have a targeted person in mind, and they stalk that target. They may even be associated with a former perpetrator that is already behind bars. Courts posting the victim's residential address on the internet is not helpful to their safety, yet the law's biggest responsibility should be to keep innocent people safe.
You underestimate the amount of crazy living on the internet.
There are a lot of misogynistic incels that think most women claiming to be abused are lying. I could easily see one of them being crazy enough to SWAT her in retaliation.
Is it likely? Probably not. But considering we've had mass shooters who have cited their inceldom as their motive, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
Your scenario had occurred to me, and it’s not wildly improbable. But I don’t think we should form public policy, especially if our adjustments might be disharmonious with the Constitution, on the basis of any scenarios that we can dream up. In this case the accused already knows where she lives, and any imagined affect on her security by publishing her address depends on supposition.
We should form public policy on the basis of evidence – that is to say, models that have high explanatory power and confidently predict reality correctly.
We have policy around nuclear attacks that aren't based on actual nuclear attacks. There are policies around preventing certain people from being assassinated even if nobody's assassinated them yet. If “swatting” is something that we know happens in this sort of case, we should review our procedures around preventing it if circumstances change in a way that we could reasonably expect would increase swatting.
The accused isn't always the only threat to the victim; even if they are put behind bars, they may often have associations to other perpetrators yet to be found.
In any case, this logic is tantamount to:
"We don't see any immediate threat to posting the first 3 digits of victim's SSN in the transcript, and they don't have any ID theft criminals yet, so let's just post the first 3 digits for the hell of it."
Residential address is equally unnecessary. No need to post their address for the hell of it.
you're just ignorant. this is something all famous people and public figures understand. once you hit a certain threshold for volume of people, some of them are guaranteed to be aberrant, violent, and/or unstable. it doesnt have anything to do with who you are or what you've done (although you can certainly attract more if you try) - at least 1 person has a serious problem with you.
the specifics here matter too. court cases are adversarial and high-stakes. the court-going population isnt as stable as the general population.
It's a harder problem that. Secrecy in courts is a tool often used by totalitarian dictatorships, a blanket objection to that sort of thing may actually do more good than harm. In a practical sense I totally agree with omitting addresses specifically but I also understand the skepticism of any reduction of transparency in the courts.
According to [1], you can request a transcript be redacted if it contains "the home address of an individual (applicable to criminal cases only)".
It also looks like the onus is on you (or your attorney) to request the redaction. I think its highly likely that she didn't care in this case - people don't really care about privacy as much as HN does. Her abuser went to jail. Worrying that some rando will start harassing her because of this court proceeding (and not from her Facebook, or a phone book, etc etc) is bordering on paranoia.
I do not know if you know this, but back in the day, we used to publish entire doxxing books, listing everyone's address and home phone number. It was opt-out, and almost nobody did.
Why are people today suddenly so worried about that?
Those things were printed at most once per year. Lots of information can change in a year. Online data can be as close to realtime as it gets. There's a large chasm of difference in MaBell's book and the internet. MaBell also would charge you to be unlisted, but you could provided fake names/info that would be printed in the book instead.
Technology has made it far more dangerous. Swatting. Identity theft.
It wasn’t terribly practical for, say, a random person in Spain to harass, steal from, or cause the death of someone in the U.S. 20-30 years ago. Everything is global now.
Addresses are still quasi-public information - they are published in all sorts of places, property transactions are published and available online. Someone's address is usually are easily found if you go looking.
There's always a price when you censor something. There's also always a price when you regulate something, too. In this particular case, the likely attacker was literally in the same house, so there's not a lot of argument to be made that the extra burden of censoring would add a similar or greater gain.
> “I’d like to fire my attorney and represent myself for the rest of this case, please, because he hasn’t done anything that I’ve asked him,” Harris said. “I asked, I sent him a whole paper of questions to ask her and I asked him to come see me before this court date. He hasn’t. Paul Gipson’s a bum a* dude, and he should not practice this profession ‘cause he’s not doing anything for –”
I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper and is put on mute. You can see from his body language how distressed he is. It disturbed me greatly.
This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of environment that helps create a person like that… It is so sad.
> This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control.
Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public or private, to impulse shopping, to road rage, to everything you see on r/PublicFreakout, and so on. Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives.
EDIT: This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much food for thought!
> Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives.
...and make things worse for the rest of us; but god forbid the state do anything about it with proactive evidence-based early-interventions or treat the perpetrators of crime with compassion and understanding too - otherwise it's called being soft-on-crime or worse: "liberal".
I wouldn't say that only the state is capable of helping. Most organizations that help in these situations currently in the US are private, often faith-based, and non-profit.
Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past. The last president (who many would consider more to the right of the political spectrum) actually did a lot to reform and fix that, especially for minorities.
I'd actually be really interested in what reformations could be attributed to the Trump administration when it comes to aspects of the justice system that disproportionately target minorities. I'm not very educated on the subject so I'd love some analysis available for a layman if possible. If not, a specialized analysis is fine and I'll just glean what I can glean.
It was primarily the First Step Act, which President Trump signed in 2018. It eliminated some sentencing disparities which had disproportionately targeted minorities.
I think you're giving Trump too much credit. Trump's support of the First Step Act was widely attributed to doing a favor for Kushner, and is seen as an anomaly against his broader "tough on crime" theme, which he doubled down on in the run-up to the 2020 election. (I mean, he literally tweeted "LAW & ORDER!" with no other context several times.)
It's hard to take Trump seriously in the realm of criminal justice reform when considering -- for example -- his reaction to the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. And that's just one example among many. I won't claim that Biden is a saint here, but painting Trump as a criminal justice reformer is a bit absurd.
Regardless, incarceration isn't really something that changes a lot based on federal-level action, as federal prisoners account for less than 10% of the prison population (the rest are incarcerated at the state level).
The current US president, who anyone that isn't raised on a diet of right-wing talk radio would consider a moderate Democrat (not from the left or progressive wing of the party at all), locked up lots of people in the 1990s, a period where there was general social and political appetite for widespread incarceration. At approximately the same time, a few years earlier, the last president you mention (then a private citizen) was using his money to take out ads in the newspaper calling for the execution of proven innocent black men.
Later, after being elected president, that president (who most would consider pretty politically incoherent on traditional ideological divides, and animated almost entirely on the single issue of defending the American ethnic against "others" without and within, and who spent most of his presidency calling for the broader use of violence against perceived criminals, oversaw a record return to federal capital punishment, expanded the use of paramilitary law enforcement, and directly assumed control of law enforcement using loopholes in the executive branch's authority to do so) signed a bipartisan crime reform bill he had nothing to do with at the urging of a reality tv star who is pretending to become a lawyer and who was briefly married to a mentally ill rapper who for some reason endorsed the president.
If we're looking to ascribe an ideological dimension to crime politics in the US, it would be easy: during the entire modern party system, Republicans have consistently been to the right of Democrats on crime (even in periods where Democrats have been, in a global sense, to the right of the median). The bulk of major crime bills have been nearly unanimous consent, including both the 1994 Crime bill and the First Step Act, but the contents of those bills have compromises where the right seeks "tougher" provisions and the left seeks more conciliatory provisions.
Court politics has been even more obviously partisan. Of the current Supreme Court justices, Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to undermine the justice system; Breyer and Sotomayor have signalled they believe the constitution more or less mandates abolition. It's a clear as day divide. Most other criminal justice issues have the same dimensions in the courts, and even lower in the circuit courts as well.
> Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to undermine the justice system
Have they talked/written about it being a "liberal plot" or is that just a (quite possibly entirely accurate) description of a belief that would explain their actions without their having come out and said that?
I'd be interested to learn more if you have any suggested reading on the current members of the SC (not an area I know a huge amount about).
The words “liberal plot” have not been written or said, as far as I know. However, Justices Thomas and Alito, more so Alito, have consistently ruled against stays of executions, have upheld shorter windows from sentencing to execution, do not find mitigating factors, racial and other biasing, ineffective counsel, or court errors to warrant execution stays. Most relevantly, they have classified many (if not most) execution stay requests as “dilatory litigation” meant to delay without merit, despite other Justices finding merit and, in some cases, granting or upholding the stay, and have given opinions that petitions on the grounds of overly painful execution methods being cruel and unusual as “guerilla war” against capital punishment. I would say it is reasonable to infer that they see “most litigation” as a tactic or “plot” and not legitimate legal concerns. See below for some excerpts, and read [4] and [5] for brief summaries of their crime related opinions.
> “Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They’re free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito [1]
> During his 15-year career on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito participated in 10 capital cases. Five were decided unanimously by three-judge panels and involved fairly straightforward issues. The other five provoked strong differences of opinion between Alito and his colleagues. In every one of the five contested cases, Alito voted against the inmate and issued an opinion. Individually and especially as a whole, these opinions show a troubling tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings.
> Although O’Connor’s approach to capital punishment has been solidly conservative, she has at times supplied a crucial vote in contentious cases in favor of greater care and fairness in the application of the death penalty. Yet it is precisely in the most contentious cases that Alito has shown an unbroken pattern of excusing errors in capital proceedings and eroding norms of basic fairness. [2]
> In Murphy’s case, Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, accused defense lawyers of “inexcusably dilatory litigation tactics” and complained that “the great majority” of applications for stays of execution “are almost all filed on or shortly before the scheduled execution date … [with] no good reason for the late filing.” Staying Murphy’s execution, Alito wrote, “countenance[es] the dilatory litigation [and], I fear, will encourage this damaging practice.” While acknowledging that “[t]he claims raised by Murphy and Ray are important and may ultimately be held to have merit,” Alito said that “[p]risoners should bring such claims well before their scheduled executions so that the courts can adjudicate them in the way that the claims require and deserve and so that States are afforded sufficient time to make any necessary modifications to their execution protocols.” [3]
> Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past.
Biden has never been a leftist (not even in the extremely loose sense that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party might be considered “leftist”), he’s always been associated with the centrist/conservative wing of the Party, and that was even more true in the 1990s (when he was involved in the crime legislation you are talking about) then in his post-Senate career (where he has been involved in national campaigns where the centrist faction is weaker within the party than it was in the mid-late 1990s, which were pretty much the peak of its dominance.)
> The last president (who many would consider more to the right of the political spectrum)
I think “corrupt authoritarian opportunist who seized on a perceived opportunity in the more right-leaning party, and particularly with mobilizing its extremist fringes” than describing Trump actually being ideologically to the right in some kind of coherent way that motivates policy over more immediate calculations of personal gain and opportunism.
>Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing
I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease. "My parents hit me and I turned out fine" is often a revealing statement. And a defense of parents who may not deserve it but coping with that is harder.
They did their best with the tools and knowledge they had available to them.
Would I hit my kids? Probably not, I can see some value in it, but I think ultimately your parenting style shouldn't deviate too much from their own surroundings - that is what causes more harm IMO.
Well, my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has done something life-endangering." What this specifically reveals is some level of naïve obliviousness to the extant patterns of violence, both physical and emotional, which abusive parents apply to their kids in practice, and the emotional harms that many children will suffer under such disciplinary regime.
>my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has done something life-endangering."
I mean, you can let someone touch a hot stove, or not. Is letting them learn for themselves abusive? I believe that was how I learned that specific lesson, not by being hit when I reached.
On the other hand, there are things that you can't let someone learn for themselves because they won't live through it.
And what about hurting other people? Is it possible that there is an empathy circuit that doesn't necessarily get wired properly if early on, pain isn't connected to hurting others?
This doesn't have to be applied by humans in all cases. You bother the cat, it slaps you.
If physical punishment is unacceptable, does that mean the cat should be declawed so it can't do that?
yeah! now you're doubling down on this defense, while the realities of problematic abuse justified with the same language continue in the background unabated
I hope you're not confusing me with another commenter.
I provided a few things that I thought were in kind of a gray area, in order that you might clarify how you categorize them and how you think such situations could be avoided or handled differently.
It seems to me that my comment was manifestly a combination of factual claims and questions about your beliefs, not justifications of anything.
My mother hit me, I end up turning out fine but I don't physically discipline my son and I think my way is better than my mother's.
Of course I know that I have the advantage of being a male, a big and strong male with a deep voice, but my wife also doesn't have any big discipline issue with our kids when she is alone with them for one or two weeks, and she also don't use physical punishment.
What value do you see in it as a long-term teaching tool? Whenever I have caught myself feeling that way it’s because they’ve done something risky that has scared me at a subconscious level and I want to lash out. I’ve never once had a rational reason for feeling that way.
I guess the two values I see are having an extra level in your varieties of punishment - a "nuclear option" perhaps.
The other is softer - I am curious how normalising pain may positively benefit a developing child. Could it build toughness? Might my child be more likely to stand up to a bully?
From a self defence perspective, a big part of personal development is overcoming aversion to pain - eg not flinching in boxing/mma.
In any case I think there are alternatives to learning these lessons and disciplining your children and I think in our environment it would do a lot of emotional damage that isn't worth the benefits - hence why I probably won't hit my children.
That said, I find it curious that only one to two generations ago it was fully the norm.
> The other is softer - I am curious how normalising pain may positively benefit a developing child. Could it build toughness? Might my child be more likely to stand up to a bully?
Aren't you worried this de-stigmatizes violence, and could lead either to adoption of violence as a problem-solving tool, or in general a society that accepts everyday violence?
I'm living in a place where I never have felt physically threatened, not at dark streets or drunk alone or whatever. I do recognize large part of this is privilege of being a male, but I've always felt my physical well-being isn't threatened. I'd never try to fight back unless that's the last option, rather de-escalate, run away, call police.
>I am curious how normalising pain may positively benefit a developing child
I feel like this is a story we were handed in prior generations (for context, I am 45) where people (specifically men) need to be "tough" but I don't think anyone really defined what that meant or why.
I'm up for debating whether hitting your children makes them tough - I'm on the fence personally.
Maybe tough is a dirty word. Not tough in the toxic masculine sense but tough as in resilient.
Being physically tough can often build a self confidence and mental strength that many people underestimate.
You'll never get me to agree that people don't need to be tough. Just as you should wear a seatbelt even if you're the safest driver in the world, you should be tough because you never know when adversity may come. Just like how you can't control for drivers around you. Maybe in a world only operating self driving cars can we stop wearing seat belts - and yet random failure will still happen. Bad weather, network failure, cosmic ray bitflips take your pick.
Given you are 45, people of your parents' generations came from truly tough times. Plenty of people I know from my parents' generation remember what was like to be truly hungry.
I've seen the UK slowly become more violent and dangerous in my own lifetime.
We're facing increasingly unequal times, geopolitical tensions are high as world powers go for hegemon. We have a displaced workforce - much like the run up to WW1. Climate change may well bring even greater hardship.
Summer lasted all of about 1.5 generations, I hope my children will be tough so that they have the resilience to face whatever the world throws at them and pick themselves up and always move forwards when they navigate the world we leave behind for them.
Just to augment my reply with a more personal and positive note on toughness. As a kid I was super active, doing lots of physical sports and training very hard.
By the time I was 18 I had that reckless abandon and confidence that only an 18 year old can have - that feeling of invincibility and that belief that anything is possible.
Fast forward 10 years later after years of working super hard and not doing much exercise and accruing postural issues, I went skiing and felt very vulnerable and mortal - a stark shift from the me of 10 years prior!
When I hit my 30s I made reacquiring that fitness again and started exercising super hard. Like 10-15 hours a week of intense physical training. To my surprise, I actually started to feel almost like an 18 year old again. I couldn't believe my subconscious outlook on life could be so malleable.
What does this have to do with hitting kids and toughness? I've digressed a bit - I guess having some of that stoic grit is worth developing in children but I am undecided whether hitting children builds it in them.
I see constantly lots of parents that use physical punishment with their kids with lousy results.
Violence delegitimize authority. You think your kids respect you, but they fear you.
Like the subjects of a dictatorship they will be role model citizens under your eyes, and run all kind of "illegal activities" and you are not close.
I know because my mom beat me. Yes, I ended up fine, DESPITE it, NOT BECAUSE of it.
For sure. My feeling is that the root/ meta cause is anything where the illusion of control over your own destiny is taken away. A parent can beat a young child no matter what the child thinks about it; a bomb can blow your life apart no matter what you think about it. Having a feeling of agency is incredibly important to feeling part of society.
I expect a lot of the oppositional behaviour re: covid we’ve recently witnessed, have their roots in a need to assert an illusion of control, in much the same way toddlers assert control by refusing food or holding their bodily functions.
>I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease.
Maybe it's not a cycle, but genetic instead. It would appear like a cycle because the children will end up doing what the parents did, but they might simply be predisposed to it.
Maaaayybe. But I would guess any number of twins/ adoption studies suggest otherwise. Blaming it on something uncontrollable is worse because it suggests there is no reason to try to do better.
Why do you assume it's the upbringing? It could be any kind of brain injury, in utero or post birth, heavy metal poisoning or simply genetic. This kind of behavior does not strike me as learned but rather as a deficiency. On top of that the defendant looks rather dumb.
I would assume it's the upbringing because I don't think impulse control is actually a very natural behavior. There's a reason it's called "primal rage".
On the flip side, self-control, impulse control, being able to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are learned, honed, and mastered. Sure, many people learn them through other means than from their parents, often as a survival necessity in their environments, but I don't think that e.g. the people who fly off the handle and get into a bar fight when someone's hitting on their girlfriend, are doing so because of heavy metal poisoning or genetics.
It's part of social functioning, and we obviously have genes for that purpose. Other social animals have comparable instincts, such as respect for dominance hierarchies among others.
Surely having ADHD would only give insight into whether it can be learned by someone with (that type of) ADHD, it doesn't speak to whether it's natural or learned for other people - just as someone who has a physical disability not being able to learn to ride a bike wouldn't prove that riding a bike can't be learned?
(I'm not arguing for or against the point that they can be learned, just against the "proof" that someone with ADHD has - and not because of ADHD specifically, but because generally speaking any argument which relies on "my experience proves X about humans" is likely to be short-sighted.)
Studies of identical twins with different upbringing has found that outcomes are like 70% genetic and 30% environment.
Anecdotally, I grew up an environment with good parents and siblings with different genetic parents. One of us had been in jail and juvy several times by age 18 due in part to impulse-control related problems.
Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given. Then it was not as well understood.
Emotional disregulation seems to be correlated with ADHD. I'm not sure if it's used as a diagnostic criteria, but people with ADHD discuss it frequently.
This can be due to an old head injury. Head injury syndrome is a thing and one study found that upwards of 90 percent of people on Death Row had a history of head injury so severe that you could find evidence of it with an x-ray machine if there were no medical records.
In other words the skull still bore the scars. So it went well beyond just a concussion.
It's an interesting correlation. It should be remembered that people with poor impulse control are more likely to find themselves in situations where several cranial injury is likely to occur. It may even be a vicious cycle.
I think it's worse than that. I think some of them take illicit drugs because they hate being that way and are trying to control it in the absence of a proper diagnosis and proper intervention. And then they get vilified as "addicts" for self medicating to keep themselves chilled out.
Edit: And of course there will always be the assholes with an excuse for their intentionally malicious behavior, which complicates the hell out of finding good solutions.
I'm sure there are many factors. At one point while very sick and homeless, I was coming across like a bipolar person to some degree. I did some research and adjusted my diet to shut that down.
I imagine that poverty and poor diet do all kinds of bad things to the populations that tend to be most at risk of ending up in jail in the US. I have at times fantasized about trying to do something about nutrition in the US prison system as a means of trying to break the cycle, but I'm probably never going to be in a position to do that.
Even the Bible posits that feeding people is the way to promote the peace, basically. Psychological research and firsthand experience suggest that's pretty sound as an approach.
Problem is, government food is junk food carbs and oils, not healthy vegetables. Getting thr government into nutrition instread of cheap carbs for prison-industrial complex corporate graft, is a tall order.
Do you have a recent source on the head injury / death row connection? I am not doubting you but curious. I can find a study of 15 people from the early 2000’s but is there anything more recent and with a larger sample size?
My summary of the thesis of the talk: Brain injury is far more common than is generally realised, contributes to many kinds of behavioural issues far more than is realised, is visible on scans, and is to some extent treatable, but it's usually not considered or examined.
My understanding is that only judges can share these recordings because it would be an ethical violation for the lawyers to do it, but I wonder, why isn't it an ethical issue for the Judge?
It varies from court to court, but in general the judge has the responsibility of evaluating whether public interest outweighs rights to privacy for any given piece of recorded court information. I'd imagine it is an ethical issue, but the judge has the authority to evaluate the ethics and reach a decision.
I would imagine it is harder for the judge to benefit from sharing recordings, where a lawyer could use a release recording to promote their practice or attempt to sway public option in the event of a mistrial.
Indeed. The adversarial court system means that every lawyer involved is on one side or the other; the judge is both neutral and in charge overall, so it makes sense for the judge to make that decision.
Well in ordinary circumstances it is often allowed for the public to be in the courtroom (not always, obviously), so I would think that the judge would apply the same criteria? IANAL.
...and with public viewing galleries in courts closed or access-limited due to covid, live-streaming over the Internet is the straightforward replacement.
Though there is a substantial difference between having an modestly-sized, in-person audience of dispassionate local journalists, plaintiffs, relatives and the occasional curious member of the public - and having potentially thousands of Internet gawkers and potential doxxers. Especially in cases like rape/sexual-assault and the like: there's definitely a public-interest (for the accused, the victim, the guilty and the innocent alike) in having a limited audience.
...can/would any judges agree to limit the public streaming audience to a smaller number in those cases?
HN often hosts discussions on things that happened long enough ago that they wouldn't fit the usual definition of news. This fact isn't news, or a problem.
I found my way to court feeds (namely Judge Middleton's[1]) during Covid. Incidentally i'm listening to Aug 19's proceedings now. Seeing these specific clips go viral feels like a microcosm of modern consumption habits.
There is so much to learn about the legal system and, more broadly, about the nature of people in trying circumstances watching court proceedings. The pureness of exchanges and the total lack of editorial bias is refreshing and too hard to find these days.
I have a theory that if more people watched court proceedings (daily misdemeanor, not just OJ/Floyd cutups), political opinions might shift toward humanizing both the accused and the victims.
>"I have a theory that if more people watched court proceedings (daily misdemeanor, not just OJ/Floyd cutups), political opinions might shift toward humanizing both the accused and the victims."
There has been a lot of work on this, showing that people's reactions to newspaper stories about court cases are polarized, but similar people on juries generally find common ground. I don't have any citations handy, but I'm sure they're easy to find.
Thanks, that's quite interesting. Video conferencing does seem to hold a lot of potential for these kinds of proceedings. I imagine it would allow for a much more efficient use of the court's time. But Zoom seems like an absolutely terrible tool and the court has been abysmally trained on it's proper use. It looks like a big missed opportunity for Zoom and a big unmet need.
The stream I watched was a landlord-tenant dispute hearing. It was sad to hear people's pretty desperate circumstances, but also fascinating to learn just how long a leash the court might give you on debt and eviction if you know how to work the system, as some tenants and the anti-homelessness orgs helping them seemed to understand. We have a pretty weird system all in all, patch after patch on this "Capitalism OS."
Anyone with a law license have insight as to Zoom and other teleconferencing violating habeas corpus? Without physically seeing the person, it is much easier to hand out punishments.
How is asking a question in a court proceeding a violation? That’s the point of the proceeding, no? Did the judge threaten to hold him in contempt for not answering?
I saw a milder version of the same thing myself a few weeks ago in a zoom traffic court. While I was waiting for my turn one of the other cases had the same thing. A guy was being charged with something about a domestic dispute, doesn't speak English very well, they ask if he has anyone that can translate, yes my wife, she leans into view, someone from the court says she's the the victim. They abort everything and schedule for some other time with some other translator.
176 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadThere is no reason to lose your privacy over this.
Zoom is blowing the doors off access, but there is appetite for specialization.
IMO the best way to facilitate this is for the courthouse to deliver an officially-sanctioned device on the date of the trial to everyone involved (defendants, attackers, witnesses, jurors, judges, lawyers), that device come with its own LTE connection, and it be a federal violation to modify that device.
In addition, the courts should NEVER divulge the location of the participants in a trial or put it into any document, as that might put violence victims at further risk.
Muting or pausing the recordings during testimony of private information, or redacting them from the recording might be a good compromise.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88ng9g/judge-has-no-patience...
This would be akin to accidentally showing up to a courtroom in a suit and forgetting that there's a decorative penis pin on your jacket because the last time you wore it you were at some sort of party. You clearly didn't care enough about your situation to dot your i's and cross your t's, and it suggests to the judge that you think this is a farce, mistake or not.
But I must ask again; would you show up to any kind of disciplinary hearing for yourself with "Buttfucker 3000" showing on your name badge?
Even if the defendant literally did spit in the face of the judge, a good judge should not react in a way that would give anyone reason to think they let that affect their ruling.
uhh, depends on the case?
There is no way to know that the defendant's Zoom screen-name was set intentionally, or even with his knowledge. Prior to showing up on the screen the judge was already leaking bias - "Then we'll bring this...fool in".
While I am inclined to "assume" that it was done intentionally, assumptions is not what the judicial system is about.
"Your name isn't Buttfucker 3000, you yol-hole" along with the initial remark are both incredibly unprofessional (and worrying) things to hear from a person who's literal job is to pass unbiased judgement. Name calling from a judge, really?
Yes, the dude was probably being an ass, but it doesn't matter. The judge judged the guy without concrete evidence and displayed a ton of personal distaste and bias against the defendant over the following minutes. He should asked the defendant to fix his screen name and moved on. This is not the kind of behavior you want to see in a judge who presides over cases of any real meaning.
The trial before them is not their only concern.
Respect is earned, regardless of statute.
The judge could have simply asked the defendant to fix his screen name and moved on, and he would have had my respect for the professionalism. Instead, respect has been lost.
The charge is for a syringe found by some cop rifling around this guy's person/vehicle during a traffic stop. They are not only perceived as fools but they are fools, for facilitating the trying of this individual for such an unjust law for which there is no victim. The only lesson this man could possible learn from this judge sentencing him is to toss the syringe in a playground or something before driving off in his vehicle, since apparently having it in your car instead of wherever you used it is a big problem.
These tyrants deserve no respect, and I hope the entire system of trying people for the crime of owning an inanimate syringe collapses. The sooner we lose respect for all judges sentencing people for these crimes the better.
People don't go to court because they "respect" the judicial process or the judge - they go because they are compelled by force or threats of force/imprisonment.
That said... it seems foolish to disrespect the judge, not because he/she deserves respect, but because they can abuse their power and punish you over slights to their ego. It's the same reason you don't run your mouth at a cop during a traffic stop - they would likely wield their small authority over you in a way that you found unpleasant.
HN is an echo chamber of tech-savvy people (myself included), but for anyone who's job isn't to work on a computer for 8 hours a day, this type of mistake can happen completely without intent.
In regards to the "decorative penis pin" scenario. Benefit-of-the-doubt is a basic principle of the judicial system. It is completely feasible to do something like this unintentionally. A good judge should ask the pin be removed, and move on. If the defendant refuses to remove it, handle that situation appropriately.
In this same video, the judge asked someone to remove their hat. The hat was removed, and everyone moved on. This is how professionals do their jobs.
The same thing generally applies to the courtroom - it's showing a lack of respect for, and understanding of, the situation one is in. Were a judge to think they may want to give an individual a lenient sentence, they may change their mind were they to find out that that individual is basically saying, "Fuck you and fuck all of this, I don't care."
A nice start would be to recognize having "buttfucker 3000" in your name might simply be an acknowledgement of the unjust law and probably circumstances (found in traffic stop, likely questionable 4A grounds) (although the article states that he stated it was unintentional.) So the easiest thing would have been just to let it slide and continue on like it doesn't exist.
Judge could also instruct jurors on "jury nullification" or make the prosecutor's life hell in other ways if they bring about these cases.
Yes I think there is a moral duty to ignore an unjust law, even if it is illegal to do so.
Court isn't an MMO; you don't get to choose a pithy username. You use your legal name, and the judge is right to enforce that.
> The same thing generally applies to the courtroom - it's showing a lack of respect for, and understanding of, the situation one is in.
Others have said this, but I want to underscore it with different phrasing: you seem to not understand the difference between "fear" and "respect".
> Were a judge to think they may want to give an individual a lenient sentence, they may change their mind were they to find out that that individual is basically saying, "Fuck you and fuck all of this, I don't care."
Justice should not depend on how good you make a judge feel about themselves or how fearful you show yourself to be of the system; justice should look only at the facts of the case and be blind to these unrelated details, no matter how much they make the judge personally feel bad.
I appreciate it isn't like that: justice is not blind, and is in fact horribly unfair. And this means we tend to leave laws on the books that disproportionately affect certain groups of people because we let law enforcement and judgement proceedings favor use "discretion" to "discriminate" (note the relationship between these words).
But that someone knows this to be true and thereby chooses a strategy to play that maximizes their benefit, has nothing to do with "respect": it is out of "fear" of what the system will do to you if you don't put on the outward appearance of "respect", even if--entirely internally--you are feeling nothing but "contempt" (a feeling that I personally couldn't blame anyone for having).
Insisting that people respect the court is a large part of why this works. Even if maybe in some particular instance you could get away with not insisting on that, that's a dangerous experiment to run.
The legal system is just a buttress for social norms and conventions; and if the latter break down, there's not much hope for the former.
Of course, there are many legal issues that genuinely need lawyers and courts - for example, where there is real disagreement as to the meaning of a legal text such as a contract. But on the whole, the role of courts and lawyers is to tidy-up around the edges; if society only worked because of courts and lawyers, then it wouldn't really be working at all.
I'm not big on formality in general but I think that there are times when it makes sense to expect people to present themselves with a basic level of respect.
So far as I've seen hats aren't allowed either. I'd be willing to claim it as a religious necessity.
That kind of obvious, blatant disrespect would not be tolerated in a traditional court proceeding. And it shouldn't be tolerated in an online proceeding, either.
This should NOT have been publicized. There is enough information in the above sentence that I was able to Google for her exact address. This is a gross danger to violence victims.
You can have remote trials but just don't put personal information in records, and prohibit unauthorized recording. Have one official recording that redacts personal addresses and contact information.
That would encourage victims to not bring wrongdoings to trial in fear of their personal info being exposed.
If someone is convicted, then yeah, go ahead and put them on a sex offender registry with their address. Loss of privacy is a consequence of their actions. That's justice.
But goddamn no don't put the victim's address in public view.
Even if we could keep the identity of witnesses secret, we don’t want to. We have the right to confront our accusers, and we don’t want secret trials.
Now instead of 1 predator knowing where she lives there are a million. Is that good?
Transcripts should redact addresses and contact information.
"Lunatics" don't usually kick down random doors, in the vast majority of cases. They usually have a targeted person in mind, and they stalk that target. They may even be associated with a former perpetrator that is already behind bars. Courts posting the victim's residential address on the internet is not helpful to their safety, yet the law's biggest responsibility should be to keep innocent people safe.
There are a lot of misogynistic incels that think most women claiming to be abused are lying. I could easily see one of them being crazy enough to SWAT her in retaliation.
Is it likely? Probably not. But considering we've had mass shooters who have cited their inceldom as their motive, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
We have policy around nuclear attacks that aren't based on actual nuclear attacks. There are policies around preventing certain people from being assassinated even if nobody's assassinated them yet. If “swatting” is something that we know happens in this sort of case, we should review our procedures around preventing it if circumstances change in a way that we could reasonably expect would increase swatting.
In any case, this logic is tantamount to:
"We don't see any immediate threat to posting the first 3 digits of victim's SSN in the transcript, and they don't have any ID theft criminals yet, so let's just post the first 3 digits for the hell of it."
Residential address is equally unnecessary. No need to post their address for the hell of it.
the specifics here matter too. court cases are adversarial and high-stakes. the court-going population isnt as stable as the general population.
Courts don't post SSNs and bank account numbers in their transcripts, and residential addresses should be treated with the same level of privacy.
It also looks like the onus is on you (or your attorney) to request the redaction. I think its highly likely that she didn't care in this case - people don't really care about privacy as much as HN does. Her abuser went to jail. Worrying that some rando will start harassing her because of this court proceeding (and not from her Facebook, or a phone book, etc etc) is bordering on paranoia.
[1] https://www.ned.uscourts.gov/internetDocs/pom/tran_redaction...
Why are people today suddenly so worried about that?
Lots of very grave things were done in history that we now know to be mistakes.
Also, I always opted out in those days. I should still be able to do that today.
It wasn’t terribly practical for, say, a random person in Spain to harass, steal from, or cause the death of someone in the U.S. 20-30 years ago. Everything is global now.
> “I’d like to fire my attorney and represent myself for the rest of this case, please, because he hasn’t done anything that I’ve asked him,” Harris said. “I asked, I sent him a whole paper of questions to ask her and I asked him to come see me before this court date. He hasn’t. Paul Gipson’s a bum a* dude, and he should not practice this profession ‘cause he’s not doing anything for –”
https://www.yahoo.com/now/defendant-viral-michigan-assault-h...
I get the feeling this person is going to be spending an extended period of time in jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vN_PEmeKb0
This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of environment that helps create a person like that… It is so sad.
The compilation starts briefly from the later jail incident. The part depicted in the article (edited) starts at 0:34.
Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public or private, to impulse shopping, to road rage, to everything you see on r/PublicFreakout, and so on. Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives.
EDIT: This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much food for thought!
...and make things worse for the rest of us; but god forbid the state do anything about it with proactive evidence-based early-interventions or treat the perpetrators of crime with compassion and understanding too - otherwise it's called being soft-on-crime or worse: "liberal".
Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past. The last president (who many would consider more to the right of the political spectrum) actually did a lot to reform and fix that, especially for minorities.
https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp
(I'm not taking a position on which president was better or worse on this issue.)
It's hard to take Trump seriously in the realm of criminal justice reform when considering -- for example -- his reaction to the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. And that's just one example among many. I won't claim that Biden is a saint here, but painting Trump as a criminal justice reformer is a bit absurd.
Regardless, incarceration isn't really something that changes a lot based on federal-level action, as federal prisoners account for less than 10% of the prison population (the rest are incarcerated at the state level).
Later, after being elected president, that president (who most would consider pretty politically incoherent on traditional ideological divides, and animated almost entirely on the single issue of defending the American ethnic against "others" without and within, and who spent most of his presidency calling for the broader use of violence against perceived criminals, oversaw a record return to federal capital punishment, expanded the use of paramilitary law enforcement, and directly assumed control of law enforcement using loopholes in the executive branch's authority to do so) signed a bipartisan crime reform bill he had nothing to do with at the urging of a reality tv star who is pretending to become a lawyer and who was briefly married to a mentally ill rapper who for some reason endorsed the president.
If we're looking to ascribe an ideological dimension to crime politics in the US, it would be easy: during the entire modern party system, Republicans have consistently been to the right of Democrats on crime (even in periods where Democrats have been, in a global sense, to the right of the median). The bulk of major crime bills have been nearly unanimous consent, including both the 1994 Crime bill and the First Step Act, but the contents of those bills have compromises where the right seeks "tougher" provisions and the left seeks more conciliatory provisions.
Court politics has been even more obviously partisan. Of the current Supreme Court justices, Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to undermine the justice system; Breyer and Sotomayor have signalled they believe the constitution more or less mandates abolition. It's a clear as day divide. Most other criminal justice issues have the same dimensions in the courts, and even lower in the circuit courts as well.
Have they talked/written about it being a "liberal plot" or is that just a (quite possibly entirely accurate) description of a belief that would explain their actions without their having come out and said that?
I'd be interested to learn more if you have any suggested reading on the current members of the SC (not an area I know a huge amount about).
> “Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They’re free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito [1]
[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alito-death-penalty-guerrilla...
> During his 15-year career on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito participated in 10 capital cases. Five were decided unanimously by three-judge panels and involved fairly straightforward issues. The other five provoked strong differences of opinion between Alito and his colleagues. In every one of the five contested cases, Alito voted against the inmate and issued an opinion. Individually and especially as a whole, these opinions show a troubling tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings.
> Although O’Connor’s approach to capital punishment has been solidly conservative, she has at times supplied a crucial vote in contentious cases in favor of greater care and fairness in the application of the death penalty. Yet it is precisely in the most contentious cases that Alito has shown an unbroken pattern of excusing errors in capital proceedings and eroding norms of basic fairness. [2]
[2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-27-oe-liu27...
> In Murphy’s case, Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, accused defense lawyers of “inexcusably dilatory litigation tactics” and complained that “the great majority” of applications for stays of execution “are almost all filed on or shortly before the scheduled execution date … [with] no good reason for the late filing.” Staying Murphy’s execution, Alito wrote, “countenance[es] the dilatory litigation [and], I fear, will encourage this damaging practice.” While acknowledging that “[t]he claims raised by Murphy and Ray are important and may ultimately be held to have merit,” Alito said that “[p]risoners should bring such claims well before their scheduled executions so that the courts can adjudicate them in the way that the claims require and deserve and so that States are afforded sufficient time to make any necessary modifications to their execution protocols.” [3]
[3] https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/death-penalty-opinions-exp...
[4] dragonwriter ↗ > Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past. Akronymus ↗ Didn't he also help making asset forfeiture as bad as it is in the US nowadays?
Biden has never been a leftist (not even in the extremely loose sense that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party might be considered “leftist”), he’s always been associated with the centrist/conservative wing of the Party, and that was even more true in the 1990s (when he was involved in the crime legislation you are talking about) then in his post-Senate career (where he has been involved in national campaigns where the centrist faction is weaker within the party than it was in the mid-late 1990s, which were pretty much the peak of its dominance.)
> The last president (who many would consider more to the right of the political spectrum)
I think “corrupt authoritarian opportunist who seized on a perceived opportunity in the more right-leaning party, and particularly with mobilizing its extremist fringes” than describing Trump actually being ideologically to the right in some kind of coherent way that motivates policy over more immediate calculations of personal gain and opportunism.
I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease. "My parents hit me and I turned out fine" is often a revealing statement. And a defense of parents who may not deserve it but coping with that is harder.
They did their best with the tools and knowledge they had available to them.
Would I hit my kids? Probably not, I can see some value in it, but I think ultimately your parenting style shouldn't deviate too much from their own surroundings - that is what causes more harm IMO.
YMMV
So what does this statement reveal about me?
I mean, you can let someone touch a hot stove, or not. Is letting them learn for themselves abusive? I believe that was how I learned that specific lesson, not by being hit when I reached.
On the other hand, there are things that you can't let someone learn for themselves because they won't live through it.
And what about hurting other people? Is it possible that there is an empathy circuit that doesn't necessarily get wired properly if early on, pain isn't connected to hurting others?
This doesn't have to be applied by humans in all cases. You bother the cat, it slaps you.
If physical punishment is unacceptable, does that mean the cat should be declawed so it can't do that?
I provided a few things that I thought were in kind of a gray area, in order that you might clarify how you categorize them and how you think such situations could be avoided or handled differently.
It seems to me that my comment was manifestly a combination of factual claims and questions about your beliefs, not justifications of anything.
The other is softer - I am curious how normalising pain may positively benefit a developing child. Could it build toughness? Might my child be more likely to stand up to a bully?
From a self defence perspective, a big part of personal development is overcoming aversion to pain - eg not flinching in boxing/mma.
In any case I think there are alternatives to learning these lessons and disciplining your children and I think in our environment it would do a lot of emotional damage that isn't worth the benefits - hence why I probably won't hit my children.
That said, I find it curious that only one to two generations ago it was fully the norm.
Aren't you worried this de-stigmatizes violence, and could lead either to adoption of violence as a problem-solving tool, or in general a society that accepts everyday violence?
I'm living in a place where I never have felt physically threatened, not at dark streets or drunk alone or whatever. I do recognize large part of this is privilege of being a male, but I've always felt my physical well-being isn't threatened. I'd never try to fight back unless that's the last option, rather de-escalate, run away, call police.
>I am curious how normalising pain may positively benefit a developing child
I feel like this is a story we were handed in prior generations (for context, I am 45) where people (specifically men) need to be "tough" but I don't think anyone really defined what that meant or why.
Maybe tough is a dirty word. Not tough in the toxic masculine sense but tough as in resilient.
Being physically tough can often build a self confidence and mental strength that many people underestimate.
You'll never get me to agree that people don't need to be tough. Just as you should wear a seatbelt even if you're the safest driver in the world, you should be tough because you never know when adversity may come. Just like how you can't control for drivers around you. Maybe in a world only operating self driving cars can we stop wearing seat belts - and yet random failure will still happen. Bad weather, network failure, cosmic ray bitflips take your pick.
Given you are 45, people of your parents' generations came from truly tough times. Plenty of people I know from my parents' generation remember what was like to be truly hungry.
I've seen the UK slowly become more violent and dangerous in my own lifetime.
We're facing increasingly unequal times, geopolitical tensions are high as world powers go for hegemon. We have a displaced workforce - much like the run up to WW1. Climate change may well bring even greater hardship.
Summer lasted all of about 1.5 generations, I hope my children will be tough so that they have the resilience to face whatever the world throws at them and pick themselves up and always move forwards when they navigate the world we leave behind for them.
By the time I was 18 I had that reckless abandon and confidence that only an 18 year old can have - that feeling of invincibility and that belief that anything is possible.
Fast forward 10 years later after years of working super hard and not doing much exercise and accruing postural issues, I went skiing and felt very vulnerable and mortal - a stark shift from the me of 10 years prior!
When I hit my 30s I made reacquiring that fitness again and started exercising super hard. Like 10-15 hours a week of intense physical training. To my surprise, I actually started to feel almost like an 18 year old again. I couldn't believe my subconscious outlook on life could be so malleable.
What does this have to do with hitting kids and toughness? I've digressed a bit - I guess having some of that stoic grit is worth developing in children but I am undecided whether hitting children builds it in them.
It is only recently that we’ve (in the West) had a generation or two of the majority of us being raised without suffering direct experience of war.
Just as children who are abused often go on to be abusers in adulthood, I suspect societies that suffer war often become abusive post-war.
Maybe it's not a cycle, but genetic instead. It would appear like a cycle because the children will end up doing what the parents did, but they might simply be predisposed to it.
On the flip side, self-control, impulse control, being able to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are learned, honed, and mastered. Sure, many people learn them through other means than from their parents, often as a survival necessity in their environments, but I don't think that e.g. the people who fly off the handle and get into a bar fight when someone's hitting on their girlfriend, are doing so because of heavy metal poisoning or genetics.
That's far from obvious. You can't just observe some trait in an organism, and conclude "that must have genetic origins".
I got news for ya bub. They aren't learned. They can be honed to a small degree. They cannot be mastered.
When you have ADHD you realize this.
And to your last thing. Not in all cases but in some.
(I'm not arguing for or against the point that they can be learned, just against the "proof" that someone with ADHD has - and not because of ADHD specifically, but because generally speaking any argument which relies on "my experience proves X about humans" is likely to be short-sighted.)
Anecdotally, I grew up an environment with good parents and siblings with different genetic parents. One of us had been in jail and juvy several times by age 18 due in part to impulse-control related problems.
Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given. Then it was not as well understood.
The hyperactivity component of ADHD is often expressed as impulsivity, so that fits.
https://www.verywellmind.com/sensitivities-and-adhd-20473
This can be due to an old head injury. Head injury syndrome is a thing and one study found that upwards of 90 percent of people on Death Row had a history of head injury so severe that you could find evidence of it with an x-ray machine if there were no medical records.
In other words the skull still bore the scars. So it went well beyond just a concussion.
Edit: And of course there will always be the assholes with an excuse for their intentionally malicious behavior, which complicates the hell out of finding good solutions.
I imagine that poverty and poor diet do all kinds of bad things to the populations that tend to be most at risk of ending up in jail in the US. I have at times fantasized about trying to do something about nutrition in the US prison system as a means of trying to break the cycle, but I'm probably never going to be in a position to do that.
Even the Bible posits that feeding people is the way to promote the peace, basically. Psychological research and firsthand experience suggest that's pretty sound as an approach.
Edit: See discussion here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867
I don't have any other sources at my fingertips that wouldn't involve just doing a search myself.
"The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans | Daniel Amen | TEDxOrangeCoast" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPRsT-lmw8
My summary of the thesis of the talk: Brain injury is far more common than is generally realised, contributes to many kinds of behavioural issues far more than is realised, is visible on scans, and is to some extent treatable, but it's usually not considered or examined.
Since nobody mentioned it, I’ll add that toxoplasmosis seems to reduce the ability to control impulses in humans.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579228/
Patients with latent toxoplasma have a higher chance to get involved in car accidents.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/
I recognize that this incident is a microscope’s view of this young man’s life painting.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210311055900/https://www.youtu...
Judge Middleton and Deborah Davis (the attorney) from this case are very popular over there. She is even a member of the subreddit IIRC.
The idea being that law is applied in public to keep process in check, unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so.
Though there is a substantial difference between having an modestly-sized, in-person audience of dispassionate local journalists, plaintiffs, relatives and the occasional curious member of the public - and having potentially thousands of Internet gawkers and potential doxxers. Especially in cases like rape/sexual-assault and the like: there's definitely a public-interest (for the accused, the victim, the guilty and the innocent alike) in having a limited audience.
...can/would any judges agree to limit the public streaming audience to a smaller number in those cases?
There is so much to learn about the legal system and, more broadly, about the nature of people in trying circumstances watching court proceedings. The pureness of exchanges and the total lack of editorial bias is refreshing and too hard to find these days.
I have a theory that if more people watched court proceedings (daily misdemeanor, not just OJ/Floyd cutups), political opinions might shift toward humanizing both the accused and the victims.
1: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS8gM5S889oBPyN6K07ZC6A/vid...
Are there any other court feeds you've found interesting?
There has been a lot of work on this, showing that people's reactions to newspaper stories about court cases are polarized, but similar people on juries generally find common ground. I don't have any citations handy, but I'm sure they're easy to find.
The stream I watched was a landlord-tenant dispute hearing. It was sad to hear people's pretty desperate circumstances, but also fascinating to learn just how long a leash the court might give you on debt and eviction if you know how to work the system, as some tenants and the anti-homelessness orgs helping them seemed to understand. We have a pretty weird system all in all, patch after patch on this "Capitalism OS."
There's something about everyone being remote that worries me about how flippant / careless people could be about every aspect of it.
Is this bordering on a Fifth Amendment violation since the judge asked this or a future mistrial since the defense attorney didn't try to stop it?
Dude looked over 30, wife looked under 20.
Traffic court sometimes makes you grateful.