Do you know what the police did to Serpico? Look it up. Not pretty. At all.paperburn1 wrote:Serpico Time
But MSimon how can this be? We have it on the best of authority there is no cause for alarm:MSimon wrote:"Felt threatened" ? That is nothing. If only she had made a "Furtive movement" or was "Reaching for her waistband". That would have been serious. And he also left out "Seemed high on drugs". "Seeming high on drugs" is a serious criminal offense. You never know what those dopers are going to do. Lots of them get cops to kill them. That needs to be prevented by the cops. The preferred method is killing them. At least they will never repeat that kind of behavior after being killed.
GIThruster wrote:If you are not doing wrong, you have no reason to fear the police. End of story. No exceptions.
Another poorly-screened sociopathic control-freak, sheltering behind a corrupt system which will always take his side until full transparency is reached regarding the interaction of "officers" and (minority) public. EVERYONE should make a point of carrying a smart phone these days and ensuring its good working condition at all times. Be brave enough to record the crap you see happening, covertly if you prefer, but see it gets into the right hands, and gradually this villainy will die out.
Forty years ago, Bob Dylan reacted to the conviction of an innocent man by singing that he couldn't help but feel ashamed "to live in a land where justice is a game." Over the ensuing decades, the criminal-justice system has improved in many significant ways. But shame is still an appropriate response to it, as the Washington Post made clear Saturday in an article that begins with a punch to the gut: "Nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000," the newspaper reported, adding that "the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death."
The article notes that the admissions from the FBI and Department of Justice "confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques—like hair and bite-mark comparisons—that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989."
That link points back to 2012 coverage of problems with FBI forensic analysis, but the existence of shoddy forensics has been so clear for so long in so many different state and local jurisdictions that the following conclusion is difficult to avoid: Neither police agencies nor prosecutors are willing to call for the sorts of reforms that would prevent many innocents from being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, and neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party will force their hands.
Ignorance of the problem is no longer an acceptable excuse.
Among recent examples:
•At a Massachusetts drug lab, a chemist was sent to prison after admitting that she faked the results in perhaps tens of thousands of drug cases, calling into question thousands of drug convictions that ended with people in prison.
•In St. Paul, Minnesota, an independent review of the crime lab found "major errors in almost every area of the lab's work, including the fingerprint and crime scene evidence processing that has continued after the lab's drug testing was stopped in July. The failures include sloppy documentation, dirty equipment, faulty techniques and ignorance of basic scientific procedures ... Lab employees even used Wikipedia as a 'technical reference' in at least one drug case ... The lab lacked any clean area designated for the review and collection of DNA evidence. The lab stored crime-scene photos on a computer that anyone could access without a password."
•In Colorado, the Office of the Attorney General documented inadequate training and alarming lapses at a lab that measured the amount of alcohol in blood.
•In Detroit, police shut down their crime laboratory "after an audit uncovered serious errors in numerous cases. The audit said sloppy work had probably resulted in wrongful convictions, and officials expect a wave of appeals ... auditors re-examined 200 randomly selected shooting cases and found serious errors in 19."
•In Philadelphia, "three trace-evidence technicians have flunked a routine test administered to uphold the police crime lab’s accreditation, police brass announced Tuesday. Each technician tests hundreds of pieces of evidence a year for traces of blood and semen, so if investigators determine that the methods are problematic, it could throw countless court cases into question ... "
•In North Carolina, "agents withheld exculpatory evidence or distorted evidence in more than 230 cases over a 16-year period. Three of those cases resulted in execution. There was widespread lying, corruption, and pressure from prosecutors and other law-enforcement officials on crime lab analysts to produce results that would help secure convictions. And the pressure worked."
One major barrier to improving forensic evidence in criminal trials is that in most jurisdictions, the state has a monopoly on experts. Crime lab analysts and medical examiners (and to a lesser extent DNA technicians) typically work for the government and are generally seen as part of the prosecution's "team," much like the police and investigators. Yes, science is science, and it would be nice to believe that scientists will always get at the truth no matter whom they report to. But studies have consistently shown that even conscientious scientists can be affected by cognitive bias.attorney general's office may feel subtle pressure to return results that produce convictions. A scientist whose job performance is evaluated by a senior official in the district attorney or state In cases in which district attorneys' offices contract work out to private labs, the labs may feel pressure—even if it's not explicit (though sometimes it is)—to produce favorable results in order to continue the relationship.
Indeed, according to Business Insider, "In many jurisdictions, crime labs receive money for each conviction they contribute to, according to a 2013 study in the journal Criminal Justice Ethics. Statutes in Florida and North Carolina mandate that judges provide labs with remuneration “upon conviction” and only upon conviction. Alabama, Arizona, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, Tennessee, New Mexico, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Virginia are among the states with similar provisions."
I'm unable to find the original GIT post. Was the quote edited?williatw wrote:GIThruster wrote:If you are not doing wrong, you have no reason to fear the police. End of story. No exceptions.
I agree with all this. It does not however justify living in fear. I think what you and simon don't get is, that in an imperfect world, we manage with imperfect people doing imperfect things, and this is no reason to plan to live in fear. Just noting again, in a population with hundreds of millions these instances of police abuse can be multiplied and new instances posted up every week, but the real crime is happening every day. Yeah, the police sometimes shoot the wrong person, but criminals shoot people every day. You and simon don't much seem to note the irony, that it is the criminal drug users in this forum who are obsessing with the police. No one has disagreed with this point above. So why do you continue to pretend it is the big picture? It's not. The big picture is dominated completely by dopers doing crime and victimizing the rest of us. Lock up all the dopers and we won't have nearly so much crime. I say put them all away so the rest of us can enjoy a peaceful society.williatw wrote:GIThruster wrote:If you are not doing wrong, you have no reason to fear the police. End of story. No exceptions.
From your link the comments section:
Another poorly-screened sociopathic control-freak, sheltering behind a corrupt system which will always take his side until full transparency is reached regarding the interaction of "officers" and (minority) public. EVERYONE should make a point of carrying a smart phone these days and ensuring its good working condition at all times. Be brave enough to record the crap you see happening, covertly if you prefer, but see it gets into the right hands, and gradually this villainy will die out.
hanelyp wrote:I'm unable to find the original GIT post. Was the quote edited?williatw wrote:GIThruster wrote:If you are not doing wrong, you have no reason to fear the police. End of story. No exceptions.
GIThruster wrote:You're really scratching for an argument and coming up empty handed. If you are not doing wrong, you have no reason to fear the police. End of story. No exceptions. Even given the worst of your examples, like stop and frisk, are you suggesting being frisked is something to fear? If you're walking in an area known for high crime, and the police want to check you for a weapon or drugs, and you have no weapons or drugs, you have nothing to fear from them. What you ought to be afraid of is the criminal element around you, and be happy there are police nearby.williatw wrote:Unless your a young minority male acting "suspiciously"...or an "evildoer" pot smoker. I am more concerned with how the public which I am a part of feels about the police than how the police feel about themselves.GIThruster wrote: If you are not an evildoer, you have nothing to fear from the police. Doesn't matter your race.
Don't know for sure whether you are white or not but I seriously find it difficult to imagine anyone other than a privileged white male (or female) that could make a statement like that with a straight face. Tell me does that logic "nothing to fear from the police" apply to asset forfeiture?
Unless you & those who think like you are prepared to mass jail middle/upper middle class white "dopers" (and we know your not) than legalize and regulate pot. This is already happening its not going to reverse itself deal with it. Reduce the throughput of cases pushed through the corrupt system and you reduce the number of travesties of justice; not the "big picture" my arse; just because it doesn't directly effect people like you doesn't make it small. The cases we find out about are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the crime associated with "dopers" is because of the illegal nature of the drug trade; dope dealers can't exactly take each other to court to resolve disputes; legalize and regulate and watch the violent crime rate go down the same as when alcohol prohibition ended.GIThruster wrote: Yeah, the police sometimes shoot the wrong person, but criminals shoot people every day. You and simon don't much seem to note the irony, that it is the criminal drug users in this forum who are obsessing with the police. No one has disagreed with this point above. So why do you continue to pretend it is the big picture? It's not. The big picture is dominated completely by dopers doing crime and victimizing the rest of us. Lock up all the dopers and we won't have nearly so much crime. I say put them all away so the rest of us can enjoy a peaceful society.
I am perfectly willing to jail 1/100 of the population and otherwise punish 1/10 for their drug use until it ends. You can comply or leave the country. We don't need or want you. The trend you cite has already reversed itself in Europe where they found the permissiveness about dope was rewarded with crime, so Amsterdam is not the dopers paradise people like you have always pretended it would become. Drugs are no longer tolerated there.williatw wrote:Unless you & those who think like you are prepared to mass jail middle/upper middle class white "dopers" (and we know your not) than legalize and regulate pot. This is already happening its not going to reverse itself deal with it.
