The American Criminal Justice System is Dead

by Humphrey

A profoundly troubling study published by the University of Texas School of Law concludes that the American criminal justice system is dead in everything but name. The paper, entitled ?Waiving the Criminal Justice System,? describes how the adversarial process through which the state must prove the guilt of a defendant has been supplanted with a system of administrative law in which prosecutors extract plea bargains in exchange for relatively lenient sentences. This is why federal prosecutors win more than ninety percent of their cases through plea bargains, rather than jury trials.

This is a lamentable state of affairs, and to many observers a familiar story. This study, however, breaks new ground by showing that prosecutors at both the state and federal levels require defendants to waive?? due process rights that are vital for post-conviction appeals ? such as the right to effective assistance of counsel, and the right to obtain exculpatory evidence that can be used to overturn a conviction or at least obtain a new trial.

In the American tradition, the purpose of a trial was to establish the truth of an accusation against a defendant who is presumed to be innocent. The purpose of our post-constitutional criminal system is to ratify the defendant's guilt, irrespective of the facts.

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in exchange for relatively lenient sentences.?

They often have little evidence of a minor BS "crime" so they threaten to add "conspiracy" money laundering, terrorism, and other BS and threaten 30 years, unless they plead guilty and serve two years It an extortion business.

Agree they trump up the charges and add two or three extra charges and there you are facing 20 years in jail if the jury goes against you. Out of fear you accept the maximum sentence for the minor charge that they offer you a plea bargain on. You end up with the maximum sentence for a minor crime. The whole system is been on a decline for the last 100 years now it is finally dead. Now we have disorderly police who arrest people for made up offenses like a parent speaking out against a school for giving a child sexually explicit material in a English class.

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LAPD Cancels Bike-Path Ticket "In the Interest of Justice" After Video Goes Viral

Follow @infolibnews!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src='//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); In a video, the officer states he's giving the cyclist a ticket because he argued with him
By Melissa Pamer

After a YouTube video of an LAPD officer pulling over and ticketing a bicyclist with little cause on the Venice Beach bike path went viral, the ticket was canceled and the officer's conduct is under investigation.

In the 10-minute clip, a cyclist turns on his helmet camera and records the interaction, which drew a handful of onlookers who protested that the cyclist had done nothing wrong and that the officer needed to address serious crime in Venice.

The bicyclist, who identifies himself at 34-year-old Chris Jackson of Venice, was posted after Thanksgiving weekend, when he was ticketed for speeding after telling a motorcycle officer was blocking the popular bike-only path.

On Friday, Detective Gus Villanueva of the Los Angeles Police Department's Media Relations Section said that the "ticket had been canceled in the interest of justice." The department is conducing a personnel investigation into the conduct of the officer involved and would not comment further, Villanueva said.

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in the interest of justice.why am I laughing so hard? Good because it horseshit that law can impede pedestrian traffic and then threaten, intimidate and flat-out lie straight to citizens faces all while we get it on film right in front of their very eyes! This is why they want to take away our video recording rights because so many of us are right and they fucking know it! Sucks we have to point out the problems of those that should alreaDY KNOW WHAT NOT TO DO!

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Justice Department Wants $5 Million To Bolster Its Efforts As Hollywood's Private Police Force

by Mike Masnick

While the proposed Obama 2013 budget for the federal government is supposed to be about cutting extraneous expenditures, one area where it's seeking more money is to expand the Justice Department's copyright enforcement efforts. You see, this is what happens when you hand the Justice Department over to the RIAA and MPAA. DOJ is seeking an extra $5 million to focus on these kinds of efforts, to hire 14 new employees, including nine lawyers, claiming that it's "had an increase in the number of cases that we're dealing with in IP." Oh really? You mean like the case of Dajaz1? The site that the DOJ illegally held and censored for over a year? Perhaps if they had a few more lawyers on staff, someone would have taken the time to realize that they were supposed to give the domain back within a specified time frame. Or perhaps they could have used those people to realize that the site was posting music sent by the copyright holders. Of course, that's not what would happen. Instead, they'd just focus on seizing more sites and creating more collateral damage. The real question, of course, should be why are we allowing the government to be Hollywood's private police force?

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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill

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Justice Department Backs RIAA Against Pirating Student

by Ernesto

The Department of Justice has filed a brief siding with the RIAA in its civil case against the file-sharing student Joel Tenenbaum.The RIAA is protesting a demand from the student?s legal team, who want the court to reduce the massive $675,000 fine on due process grounds, to the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song.

More than half a decade ago, the RIAA sued tens of thousands of alleged file-sharers. While the music group settled with the majority for a few thousand dollars each, student Joel Tenenbaum chose to put up a fight.

As of today, the case is still ongoing.

In 2009, a jury found Tenenbaum guilty of ?willful infringement? and awarded damages mounting to $675,000. A year later this amount was reduced by 90% when Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the penalty was excessive and unconstitutional. In 2011 this decision that was reversed after a new hearing at the Court of Appeals.

In yet another appeal, Tenenbaum?s legal team, headed by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, is asking the court to reduce the $22,500 fine per song to the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song. This request is made on due process grounds.

As expected, the RIAA doesn?t agree with the request and presented its arguments to the court last Friday. But they were not alone ? on the same day the Department of Justice also filed a brief with the court, backing the RIAA?s vision on the case.

In a 26-page filing the Department of Justice makes the argument that previous cases, as cited by Tenenbaum?s legal team, do not apply in this instance. It concludes that the due process grounds are not relevant yet and that the damages therefore shouldn?t be reduced before the case continues.

The due process question should only be answered when the court decides that the jury?s award of $22,500 per song is not excessive, according to the Departement of Justice.

?The only circumstance in which the Court can reach Defendant?s due process challenge at this time is if the Court first determines the jury?s statutory damages award is not excessive under the common law remittitur standard. The United States, therefore, does not believe it is necessary at this juncture to address the merits of Defendant?s constitutional claim,? the DoJ writes.

Although this is not the first time the Justice Department has become involved in an RIAA civil case, it remains unclear why they chose to intervene this time. What we do know is that the authorities are very up-to-date with the legal proceedings, as five former RIAA lawyers are now employed by the Department of Justice.

Whether these connections between the Justice Department and the RIAA have increased the likelihood of the authorities getting involved is hard to say. However, it is clear that Tenenbaum and his legal team are up against some serious resistance, and that the US authorities don?t want the student to get off that easily..

To be continued, indefinitely.

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One Anarchist's Compressed Take On Justice

by Wendy McElroy

I have a fundamental objection to the prison system that I rarely hear raised. Why does a man who steals a loaf of bread lose his freedom of speech? Why does a woman who vandalizes a car lose the freedom to associate with her children? These questions are a challenge to those who view rights as social constructs as well as those who believe they are inalienable. Stated in more general terms, how is it that aggressors lose virtually all freedom because of what might be a minor transgression?

The facile answer is, "because they are in prison." Anyone who is incarcerated forfeits most of his rights to the state even if his offense was minor. In essence, a petty thief loses as many rights as a murderer. The longevity of the loss and the comfort of the circumstances may differ, but neither convict retains basic human rights like the freedom of association.

More than the state is at work here; the prison system is an expression of a specific form of justice that is based on retribution and punishment. In turn, these are usually based on the human desire for revenge and the belief that punishment deters crime. But given how angry and crime-ridden our society has become under this system, it is worthwhile to reconsider the wisdom -- if not the morality -- of having one in every thirty-one American adults imprisoned or on parole or probation (The Economist, July 22, 2010).

With two changes in the legal system, prisons could be eliminated or hugely reduced while still providing justice to victims. The first is to void all laws that do not involve harm done to individuals or their property. The second is to apply restitution not merely to civil infractions but also to criminal offenses.

Restitution is the system in which a person ?makes good? on a harm or wrong done to another individual and does so directly rather than paying a "debt" to the state. If a man steals $100, he must return $100 to the victim along with reasonable damages. Thus, restitution eliminates the need for an aggressor to be processed by any type of law enforcement beyond what is necessary to procure repayment and damages. A thief need not be caged; all he needs to do is pay up.

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