this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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But how can it nullify a plea deal that was met because of all the "proof" they had from a tortured confession? If I knew it was fake but could stop the torture sooner I'd immediately confess and plea for less time if I'm having to serve it anyways.
because a plea deal is literally defined as "admitting to the crime regardless of whether or not you did it, in exchange for lighter sentencing" which is often done in cases where the burden of proof is too difficult and can cause problems.
Still doesn't make it a just case here, but that's just how plea deals work. Regardless you could still sue the state to appeal, you have these options, and people have exercised them before, and they will continue to exercise them into the future.
A standard plea deal is an admission of some form of guilt, usually less than what the prosecutor would charge for trial, in exchange for a lighter sentence. You (defendant) are not admitting you did it regardless of whether or not you actually did it. You're just admitting guilt.
What you're describing is called an Alford plea. This is where, in making the plea, you maintain innocence but acknowledge the prosecutor has enough evidence to overcome reasonable doubt. There's an excellent documentary called
Tap for spoiler
The Staircasethat results in one.
Wasn't there like "innocent until proven guilty"? I know that isn't for every crime, but for murder it is iirc
This is so fucked up 😰
yeah, and that's why plea deals explicitly negate that right. That's kind of the entire point of how they work. You have to accept a plea deal.
What I meant is if they have a hard time proving guilt that might be because there is no guilt.
well yeah, that's why plea deals are plea deals. They aren't meant to be a 100% guilt. The entire point is that you accept a lesser charge, in exchange for a lesser sentence.
Plea deals are basically you just accepting whatever comes your way regardless of your actual culpability. They aren't concerned with actual fault so much as being a steam release valve on the system to concerve the effort police need to prove actual fault. As far as civil case law is concerned I think they have value in terms of conserving the limited resources of court time as well as personal hastle and the resources needed for regular disputes to gain resolution.... But I personally think that plea deals pushed by persecution in criminal case law should be flat out illegal. If you want actual justice then relying on a system that exploits power imbalances between the individual and the State we need to see a commitment to actually giving people a full shake of presumption of innocence by the system and maybe consequences for cops who waste court time with poorly evidenced charges.
There are way too many people who take plea deals basically because they are poor.