And that's still using an extremely, extremely narrow definition of "innocent" that doesn't account for the fact that merely existing in the "wrong" country shouldn't be a crime in the first place.
Pedantic, but merely existing isn't a crime, it's a civil infraction. This is important because certain rights, like the right to a jury trial, don't apply to non criminal violations
Sure, but also, not paying a bill you legally agreed to pay is also a civil infraction that doesn’t allow you certain rights… you still won’t get denied due process altogether, and you certainly won’t be deported to a prison camp on foreign soil with no ability to appeal the decision.
Also, let’s not forget that the legal system is supposed to codify morality, but it does not create morality. Chattel slavery was once legal and freeing slaves was illegal. Just because a system says “technically you don’t have this right because the law” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have that right.
Yes, I feel it's important to know the distinction so that you are better prepared to fight the injustice. Relying on a right you don't have can turn out badly
Innocent people are being sent to a prison camp, essentially a concentration camp, in El Salvador indefinitely. There is no recourse and no way out. The Republican plan is for them to die there.
You'd have to be an apologist for something pretty awful to call that "tame".
Do you really believe that in a majority of countries entering illegally is punishable by death? Even if that were true, which it is wildly not, those people would still be put on trial in most countries. Otherwise you get exactly what the US is doing. A country attacking it's own citizens.
Well, the USA could just ask for him back, but the Trump administration is not doing that, and is arguing in court that they can’t be forced to do anything to bring an innocent man home.
I wouldn’t bring him back either, can you imagine the lawsuit, so much easier for Trump to simplify leave him there. Sadly it won’t even be the most criminal thing he done.
It's the saddest thing ever for our nation's rights. Especially that one side is seemingly okay with it. When they would have absolutely flipped their ever living minds had Obama or Biden done it. Because you know... it's an absolutely staggering overreach by the government.
Illegally and in error arrest a man. Then without due process. Deport the man to a foreign prison. Then declare... nothing we can do. How this isn't 100% of the news on all channels right now... with occasional breaks for the economy self destructing historically... I don't know.
That's why it's important to protect convicts rights, and to prevent the death penalty from being implemented -- if you let prisoners be treated as sub-human, then our broken justice system could very easily be used by those in control to do away with people.
Do sadistic killers deserve to die? Yeah. I won't argue against that.
I disagree actually. I think a sadistic killer deserve a long and miserable life way before a quick death. I would much rather die then spend the rest of my days in a prison cell.
That's dumb. You aren't working for the good of the people then, you're working to hurt. There's no point in that unless you just want to hurt them. And if that's all you're trying to do... I would heavily disagree with you.
Cut down on pain and suffering, I don’t care who it is. Pain is a side effect or a tool used to do something, it should never be the goal to inflict pain.
Death is not a punishment. It is a method of exile, to create an impassable border between us and them. To prevent.
The goal of death is not to inflict pain. It is to prevent pain and crime.
The 15% false conviction rate is the end of discussion point for it. There are loads of other arguments but they're all unnecessary because there's a 15% false conviction rate.
The death penalty also costs multiple millions in tax payer money for each case attempted and all the appeals and the actual niche process of carrying it out in a specialised expensive system.
It's far far far cheaper to imprison people for life.
In such a case an investigation on the administation should be launched. An U.S. citizen can't legally be deported from U.S. and they may be eligle for compensation if they are deported.
I'm not fully versed in how the U.S. justice system works but in my country it would be some third party. In the U.S. a special counsil maybe which in history has been appointed by at least an Deputy Attorney General (Mueller special counsel investigation).
Kilmar Garcia case is not fully analogous in my opinion since he is not an U.S. citizen which was my original point.
A special counsel would be appointed by the Attorney General. Trump's not about to let that happen and congress isn't about to force him. We'll see Monday if the administration is ruled in contempt of court over Garcia - and if courts can make that stick. Perhaps the Supreme Court will back the judge up - which maybe will help congress grow a backbone. If the administration gets away with flouting the rule of law I don't see why they wouldn't try and revoke someone's citizenship when they thought they could get away with it.
Things can change, but for example Mueller was appointed by the Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein during President Trump's first term and he also appointed Rosenstein (according to Wikipedia) so that might indicate, that the Deputy Attorney General could appoint a special counsil no matter who the President is.
If he was a permanent resident. You know... a legal immigrant that republicans say that they accept. I'm sure his residency would have been taken away without due process. But, you're okay with that right?
A permanent residency can be revoked in certain situations, such as an criminal conviction. If convicted for the crime of murder it most likely would be grounds to revoke the residency and if he were not an U.S. citizen he could be deported. He was not convicted so it should not apply to him.
If the permanent residency were taken away with no grounds I would not be ok with it and neither should other people in my opinion.
Thanks. When I told them I was getting a lawyer, they said “we got him a real lawyer!” It was the prosecutor that represented him.
This DA has been in trouble recently; so I’m going to call the innocence project. But my son was basically followed by feds, drones, etc till he left Maui.
What's upsetting is that I don't blame him for not wanting to use cuz the chance of winning against them is slim and even then what u win would probably be less than what u pay for the lawyers and all that
I have OCD (treated now), and before the digital age, I used to save all my receipts and movie and ticket stubs to have evidence of an alibi just in case I ever was falsely accused of a crime. I even tried to memorize cars and license plate numbers, so I could tell police to check them out in case I was nearby when a crime was committed. The brain's a whacky thing.
The positive thing about living in a country with quite low prison times and high quality prisons which look like normal rooms. It's a double edged sword. Those who commit crimes get out earlier, but if you were to be falsly convicted you would not be in for the rest of your life (unless you are very old or sick to the point of dying in the prison). The country in question, Sweden.
I once had the misfortune of interacting with someone right after a story broke about a man being cleared of false sexual harassment allegations. My interlocutor insisted the falsely accused only had themselves to blame for their misfortune. When someone else asked how this person would feel if it happened to them the reply was, "It wouldn't happen to me because I didn't do anything wrong."
"I don't think you're understanding what a false allegation is."
Because a “witness” named him. Literally just someone lied to the authorities that this guy was there and that was enough for them. I can’t remember if he lived in the vicinity of the murder or would visit someone on that street.
The fucked up thing is that the prosecution was ruthless in pursuing this guy who clearly hadn’t even been in the vicinity. The fact that he had tickets from the Dodgers game wasn’t enough to establish an alibi. The fact that he was recorded at the Dodgers game wasn’t enough either. He had to show that he had made a phone call from the stadium a short enough time before the murder that he couldn’t have physically gotten there in time.
And the prosecution still pushed, saying that the cell tower records didn’t prove he was at the game at that point, just that he was within a certain radius of the tower and could have been close enough to get there before the victim was killed.
This guy had to quite literally prove his innocence with a bunch of different technology - some of which was completely miraculous and random - and it’s sad to say that he was “lucky” all of that technology lined up well enough to keep the state from taking his life. It went from “he was spotted at the scene” to “he can’t physically prove he wasn’t there”.
It’s like that Dave Chappelle bit about making a public scene to establish an alibi when you hear the cops are looking for someone who remotely resembles you. People who don’t have a provable footprint of their whereabouts at all times are potentially at the mercy of a “justice” system that’s out for blood.
Well, he probably could have gotten out on a bail in order to not spend the 6 months before the trial in jail - though given that he was charged with murdering a minor, the bail would probably have been far too high for him to be able to procure.
He wasn't. The case never made it to trial because the judge, correctly believed the prosecution didn't have enough to convict. The deciding point was when the eye witness couldn't point him out in court. Mainly cause the eye witness had never seen Juan Catalan before.
That's the craziest part. He spent 6 months in prison just because the cops thought that he matched a description and that was enough to charge him and keep him locked up.
While not enough to warrant his treatment, the connection was that the victim had testified against his brother in a murder case a week earlier, which they presented as a motive.
Evidence to get a conviction doesn't have to be strong, and that's the big problem. Another big problem is that prosecutors don't care, they want a high conviction rate, and thus they are biased towards evidence that shows guilt and biased against evidence to the contrary (either finding it or believing it or even sharing it with defense).
For many DA offices, the rule is guilty until someone else bothers to prove innocence, and even then many will denounce the innocence to the press even after they've retired.
The whole “rather 1,000 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man go to prison” sentiment is completely lost on prosecutors. They would rather every murder have a fall guy even if they don’t actually believe that guy did it.
This doc is incredible. It's very beautiful in it's own right. A man about to lose everything saved by a show. A very scary insight into the flaws of the US justice system.
Oddly everyone uses these shots which the documentary seems to say they still could be contested in court while it was the footage of him returning to his seat with his daughter; literally passing by the crew which led to his freedom.
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u/malybongo 1d ago
There’s a documentary about it on Netflix (if it’s still available) called “Long Shot”, it’s well worth a watch.