12 stolen years
Shih-Wei Su is suing the city of New York for $25 million. He was convicted of a crime in which prosecutors enlisted the aid of a witness who was given probation for his own crime of "grand larceny" in exchange for his testimony. When questioned during the case, the prosecutors flat-out lied saying that "there was technically no agreement" to grant the witness anything in exchange for his testimony.
I hope he wins and personally would like to see the prosecutors serve extensive jail time. Our legal system is not "both sides trying their best and the result being justice", it is one side, with overwhelming resources blugeoning the other side into submission. In many cases, it is us, the American people, getting away with murder, or at least the utter destruction of people's lives on the basis of their class and skin color.
The solution:
We need to peel back the system of plea bargaining and deals in exchange for testimony. It's one thing if investigators use incentives to obtain information about a crime. It's another ballpark entirely when prosecutors are building whole cases exclusively on the testimony of someone who is basically a hired gun there to fabricate eye-witness testimony against the accused.
We need to stop the trying of adolescents as adults. All the psychological research suggests that most teenagers do not have the same decision-making faculties that adults do, are less prone to recidivism and more prone to recidivism once interned in state penitentiary with adult felons. And that's not even considering the utter immorality of killing children, which we are one of a tiny group of countries who still practice.
We need to even the resources in court. With the ridiculously resources disparities between plaintiff and defendant in many cases, "innocence" and "guilt" are terms with no meaning. Left behind are simply, "rich=innocent" and "poor=guilty" which only seems just if you are one of those on the pleasant side of the equation.
I say, "Good Luck Mr. Su!" I hope he can win and shake up the justice system a little. I imagine David Wong can empathize...
Here's another perspective on the issue.
I hope he wins and personally would like to see the prosecutors serve extensive jail time. Our legal system is not "both sides trying their best and the result being justice", it is one side, with overwhelming resources blugeoning the other side into submission. In many cases, it is us, the American people, getting away with murder, or at least the utter destruction of people's lives on the basis of their class and skin color.
The solution:
We need to peel back the system of plea bargaining and deals in exchange for testimony. It's one thing if investigators use incentives to obtain information about a crime. It's another ballpark entirely when prosecutors are building whole cases exclusively on the testimony of someone who is basically a hired gun there to fabricate eye-witness testimony against the accused.
We need to stop the trying of adolescents as adults. All the psychological research suggests that most teenagers do not have the same decision-making faculties that adults do, are less prone to recidivism and more prone to recidivism once interned in state penitentiary with adult felons. And that's not even considering the utter immorality of killing children, which we are one of a tiny group of countries who still practice.
We need to even the resources in court. With the ridiculously resources disparities between plaintiff and defendant in many cases, "innocence" and "guilt" are terms with no meaning. Left behind are simply, "rich=innocent" and "poor=guilty" which only seems just if you are one of those on the pleasant side of the equation.
I say, "Good Luck Mr. Su!" I hope he can win and shake up the justice system a little. I imagine David Wong can empathize...
Here's another perspective on the issue.
posted by Xian Franzinger Barrett at 2:37 PM
2 Comments:
No more plea bargains, no more deals, no more immunity.
MORE JACK BAUER INTERROGATIONS.
Have you heard about the new episode where Bauer knows the spy's identity, but it's Chloe, so he doesn't want to reveal it?
HE TORTURES HIMSELF!!!!!
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