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ShadowMoo
Mar 13, 2011

by Shine
What is your opinion in regards to how people with mental health issues are treated in the criminal justice system? Broken/working as intended/the best we can do?

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ActusRhesus
Sep 18, 2007

"Perhaps the fact the defendant had to be dragged out of the courtroom while declaring 'Death to you all, a Jihad on the court' may have had something to do with the revocation of his bond. That or calling the judge a bald-headed cock-sucker. Either way."

ShadowMoo posted:

Doesn't pro se screw you out of a ton of appeals simply because you can't say your lawyer was poo poo?

Generally, IAC claims go to habeas, not direct appeal in this jurisdiction and yeah...if you don't have a lawyer you can't complain your lawyer was poo poo. Seems pretty straightforward.

dogcrash truther posted:

What's the reasoning behind reporting arrests independent of convictions, let alone a trial. Like if I get arrested for murder and it becomes so clear I didn't do it, or there's so little evidence, that the case is actually dismissed, an employer can still discover that I've been arrested for murder. I'm asking because it seems like this would be one of those ways that economic disadvantage get built into a system that targets certain classes of people even when it turns out they've done nothing wrong.

Here the only arrest information that is publicly available is pending arrests. If the charges are dropped or end in an acquittal, it's not available to the public.

Grem posted:

Actus I didn't know you were JAG. I've been involved in a ton of court martials in various capacities, but nothing big or important to the trial. Do you think the relationship between the prosecutors and defense attorneys is too close in the military? The group I knew constantly were in each other's offices, hanging out with each other on the weekends for BBQs and after work for beers. Just seemed really weird that they were on opposite sides of the court room but being in the same unit had them ending up as buddies.

Nah, honestly I think a little bit of collegial attitude helps both sides. Best deals I ever negotiated were done over beers and golf. Only time I saw it become problematic was one department head deciding making friends was more important than actually doing our job. I had to point out that opposing counsel had misrepresented facts. she didn't want me to because it would make people mad. But that was a fluke. I didn't see the collegial attitude as a detriment in most instances.

PostNouveau posted:

Defenders: Are the prosecutors on the up-and-up, or do you suspect something like that Orange County misconduct scandal is going on in most of their offices?

Prosecutors: Are the defenders on the up-and-up? (I actually don't know of the ways a defense attorney can be corrupt, so if you've got stories to share ...)

For the most part. Every once in a while you get one who is shady (bullying victims or witnesses, misrepresenting facts etc.) but I think for the most part the defense bar is just there to do their job. It's a dog and pony show. They have to act all "aggressive" for their client to keep the client happy. We know it's an act. As long as they don't act like a douche outside the presence of their client, people tend not to care.

mlmp08 posted:

Former JAG posters: our JAGs always talk about how fair they are compared to civilian lawyers because they don't get canned or lose elections for losing cases unless it's due to screwing up. They claim this makes them more willing to take on tough cases, such as difficult to prove sexual assaults.

Do you think they're blowing smoke?

They tend to back this up with a few local cases where the crime took place off post but the local DA wouldn't touch it for fear a jury would discredit a drunk woman or some such, and then the JAG prosecutors got a conviction at court martial. Or is this more that military conviction standards are looser?

Sexual assault is ludicrously politicized in the military justice system. They aren't' taking the cases because they are fearless litigators. They are taking them because convening authorities are afraid to dismiss them. As for talent, sure there are some very talented JAGs but on the whole they will never compare to civilians because of sheer lack of experience. You learn to try cases by trying cases. To give you some perspective on the differences in case loads, CAAFlog, a mil justice blog, gives out the "silver tongue award" for the attorney who argues the most appellate cases in a given term. The 2013 winner had four cases. And there was a six way tie for second with three. As a first year civilian appellate prosecutor, I would sometimes have three arguments in a single month...occasionally two in the same week.

dogcrash truther
Nov 2, 2013

ActusRhesus posted:

Here the only arrest information that is publicly available is pending arrests. If the charges are dropped or end in an acquittal, it's not available to the public.

Woah really? Does that vary by state, then?

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

dogcrash truther posted:

Woah really? Does that vary by state, then?

Kind of, I think. The fact of your arrest is basically always public. It is on a police blotter somewhere and if the media picks it up, with google, it will never die.
This is an often unspoken problem. Client of mine was arrested for murder, was cleared before charging (I was already appointed on another case already, so I helped him invoke and made sure the line up was fair). He was 100% innocent, even the cops agree. Google his name though and you find arrested for murder (and a lot of hateful internet comments), but no mention of him being cleared. Even if he has his arrest sealed, he will always be googleable.

Arrests histories in CA are generally not supposed to be made public, but they are. If you are charged, that charge is public record (and may be found by an internet search) even if you get a not guilty.

We do have a factual innocence petition, where if you prove your innocence, your arrest is taken off your record, all records are stamped "exonerated" and then destroyed (really, they have to stamp them before they are shredded) and if anyone speaks of it again they're kinda in trouble. It is really hard to get and are generally only granted in cases where someone gave a false if when arrested.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

nm posted:

Kind of, I think. The fact of your arrest is basically always public. It is on a police blotter somewhere and if the media picks it up, with google, it will never die.
This is an often unspoken problem. Client of mine was arrested for murder, was cleared before charging (I was already appointed on another case already, so I helped him invoke and made sure the line up was fair). He was 100% innocent, even the cops agree. Google his name though and you find arrested for murder (and a lot of hateful internet comments), but no mention of him being cleared. Even if he has his arrest sealed, he will always be googleable.

Arrests histories in CA are generally not supposed to be made public, but they are. If you are charged, that charge is public record (and may be found by an internet search) even if you get a not guilty.

We do have a factual innocence petition, where if you prove your innocence, your arrest is taken off your record, all records are stamped "exonerated" and then destroyed (really, they have to stamp them before they are shredded) and if anyone speaks of it again they're kinda in trouble. It is really hard to get and are generally only granted in cases where someone gave a false if when arrested.

Seems pretty bad, still. Obviously, this extends to more than criminal law alone, but what do you think of the EU's "right to be forgotten?"

I'm of two minds. Obviously, I think arrests with no convictions should not be publicly available at all, and to a certain extent I don't think convictions should be easy to find except for necessary background checks for certain jobs/positions. On the other hand, the only time I've dealt with it personally, I (and my other co-workers, and boss) found out that one of my co-workers had a conviction for sending a picture of his schlong to 12- and 13-year old girls, and soliciting child pornography from them, which he'd neglected to mention (obviously). It wouldn't have been as big a deal, but he was still a creepy motherfucker towards pretty much every woman he came into contact with, and that information did a great deal to contextualize it. In general, I think once people have served their time, they shouldn't have a scarlet letter, but this guy clearly had not learned his lesson. How would you propose balancing the interest of allowing convicts to reintegrate into society, with the public's right to know when they could be dealing with a predator (sexual or otherwise) who may not have been as rehabilitated as we all hope?

EDIT: There's also a particularly bizarre case here in Canada that showed the problems associated with those sorts of laws. There was a case of a girl who was bullied to the point of committing suicide after being sexually abused at a party, with photos being spread around after the fact. Because she was a victim of child pornography, it was illegal to publish her name in relation to the incident, even though her parents wanted her name publicized to bring attention to the crime, and to advocate for anti-bullying efforts. I believe it finally got changed, but there was a time the parents could not even use their own name in relation to the incident, due to our "victim protection" laws. I don't know where I'm going with this, really, but I may as well ask: how do you prevent the law from crawling up its own rear end in cases like this? It was clearly protecting the abusers more than the victim in this case, even though the law was implemented with the best of intentions and for a very important reason.

PT6A fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jul 5, 2015

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."
The whole answer would be complex, but I would at minimum prohibit police from disclosing the names of arrestees before charge. If PC can't even be met, they don't need to be releasing that.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

nm posted:

The whole answer would be complex, but I would at minimum prohibit police from disclosing the names of arrestees before charge. If PC can't even be met, they don't need to be releasing that.

Totally. Even people with charges that are later dropped, I think, should have the right to have any references to such eliminated. Or would you disagree? I know a guy who has been charged of DUI something like six times (and he's guilty as sin of all of them, and many more for the times he didn't get caught) but never convicted because he has good lawyers that can always plead it down to something like non-criminal dangerous driving. While a guy who is charged with something he didn't do doesn't deserve to have a stain on his record, I can see the other side of the argument that says the public has a right to know about people like my acquaintance, even if they've never actually been convicted of the crime they've been charged with repeatedly.

It's a fascinating question to me, and I certainly appreciate the many ethical and practical issues everyone involved in the criminal justice system must face on an almost-daily basis.

PT6A fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jul 5, 2015

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:
The sites that actively scrape arrest records to publish them and charge for removal ought to go the way of the dodo, as well.

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

PT6A posted:

Totally. Even people with charges that are later dropped, I think, should have the right to have any references to such eliminated. Or would you disagree? I know a guy who has been charged of DUI something like six times (and he's guilty as sin of all of them, and many more for the times he didn't get caught) but never convicted because he has good lawyers that can always plead it down to something like non-criminal dangerous driving. While a guy who is charged with something he didn't do doesn't deserve to have a stain on his record, I can see the other side of the argument that says the public has a right to know about people like my acquaintance, even if they've never actually been convicted of the crime they've been charged with repeatedly.

It's a fascinating question to me, and I certainly appreciate the many ethical and practical issues everyone involved in the criminal justice system must face on an almost-daily basis.

The problem is the 1st Amendment implications of requiring a newspaper to depublish something.

Dead Reckoning
Sep 13, 2011

nm posted:

The whole answer would be complex, but I would at minimum prohibit police from disclosing the names of arrestees before charge. If PC can't even be met, they don't need to be releasing that.

Do you think there is a public interest in the police having to disclose who they are detaining? My understanding was that was why they were compelled to release the names of arrestees.

Mr. Nice!
Oct 13, 2005

c-spam cannot afford



Javid posted:

The sites that actively scrape arrest records to publish them and charge for removal ought to go the way of the dodo, as well.

There are a number of mugshot websites that just scrape everything and then charge $400+ for removal and often times request stupid poo poo alongside that is difficult to prove. It's exploitation.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Mr. Nice! posted:

There are a number of mugshot websites that just scrape everything and then charge $400+ for removal and often times request stupid poo poo alongside that is difficult to prove. It's exploitation.

But surprisingly hard to make out a case for the illegality of under current law, so long as the report is accurate.

Obdicut
May 15, 2012

"What election?"

Dead Reckoning posted:

Do you think there is a public interest in the police having to disclose who they are detaining? My understanding was that was why they were compelled to release the names of arrestees.

Absolutely. One of the hallmarks of police in authoritarian countries is arresting people without admitting that they've been arrested and denying the ability of family members, reporters, etc. to find them and talk to them.

Untagged
Mar 29, 2004

Hey, does your planet have wiper fluid yet or you gonna freak out and start worshiping us?
The court's public information (arrests/trial dates) comes in handy for victims and witnesses too. Quite often a suspect's victim or an incident witness won't receive a subpoena for some reason (lost, not sent in time, wrong address, etc), but they'll know when to show up for trial because the info is right there on the internet.

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."
^^^^^^^^
There is no way that court information could be private anyhow.

Dead Reckoning posted:

Do you think there is a public interest in the police having to disclose who they are detaining? My understanding was that was why they were compelled to release the names of arrestees.

I certainly understand that arguement, but the problem is that has been overwhelmed by negatives.
I think you could do the same thing, by requiring police to release stats on those arrested but uncharged within 1 year, requiring names of persons arrested be disclosed to certain family members, and allowing those arrested to waive any privacy if they want.

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:
As long as people get their one phone call/lawyer visit/whatever, the police not disclosing it themselves is fine. The arrestee can tell whoever they want.

Kalman posted:

But surprisingly hard to make out a case for the illegality of under current law, so long as the report is accurate.

Slander? Extortion? Blackmail?

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Javid posted:

Slander? Extortion? Blackmail?

If the information is true, then it isn't slander.

For extortion or blackmail you need some kind of wrongful force or fear. The problem is that you're doing something you can do legally (publish true information), but offering to remove it for a fee. There's no threat to do something negative - it's already done before any contact could possibly be made.

Like I said - it's surprisingly hard to make a criminal case against someone publishing true information.

Dead Reckoning
Sep 13, 2011
^^^E: F, B

Javid posted:

Slander? Extortion? Blackmail?
It can't be slander because it's true, I don't think you can blackmail someone over a matter of public record, and it isn't really extortion because they aren't threatening you.

Untagged
Mar 29, 2004

Hey, does your planet have wiper fluid yet or you gonna freak out and start worshiping us?
And the argument by a lot of those arrest/mugshots sites is exactly that. It's public record and if you want to pay for it to be removed from the private service it's up to you. They just make already accessible information even easier to obtain.

The other part would be in the case of charge dismissal or expungement. The arrest still occurred, mugshot taken, and charges were still filed. The criminal records deletion stuff usually only applies to government records, not private entities. You can't make someone forget that another person was arrested when the information was public knowledge at one time.

Still most of those websites suck.

Legit Businessman
Sep 2, 2007


PT6A posted:

Totally. Even people with charges that are later dropped, I think, should have the right to have any references to such eliminated. Or would you disagree? I know a guy who has been charged of DUI something like six times (and he's guilty as sin of all of them, and many more for the times he didn't get caught) but never convicted because he has good lawyers that can always plead it down to something like non-criminal dangerous driving. While a guy who is charged with something he didn't do doesn't deserve to have a stain on his record, I can see the other side of the argument that says the public has a right to know about people like my acquaintance, even if they've never actually been convicted of the crime they've been charged with repeatedly.

It's a fascinating question to me, and I certainly appreciate the many ethical and practical issues everyone involved in the criminal justice system must face on an almost-daily basis.

I know this may be a strange thing to understand, but if he was never convicted, he actually wasn't guilty (which is entirely different form "innocent"). You might have even seen the certificate of analysis each time, which stated he has a BAC over the legal limit, but guess what? Thanks to the sterling work of the local RCMP or police, they managed to gently caress up his Charter Rights to the point where the certificate was kicked after a Grant analysis, or upon review by the Crown, the case was not going to stand up at trial. You could also have the issue where thanks to recent development in the case law (thanks St-Onge Lamoureaux!) a failure to maintain logs of maintenance procedures done to the breathalyser constitutes a breach of the Crown's obligation to disclose all relevant fruits of the investigation, including whether the breathalyser was in working order when it took the sample.

Part of the job of defence counsel is to remind the police not to be so goddamn sloppy in their police work. You take bad notes, you violate Charter rights, etc, and lo and behold, there is a consequence for those actions. Sometimes, the focus of the trial isn't what the accused did, but rather what the Police did in obtaining the evidence that the Crown presented at trial.

Do you honestly think that the defence counsel just walked up to the Crown was able to make those deals with no leverage? There was more to it then "he has good lawyers that can always plead it down to something like non-criminal dangerous careless driving."

And this is how I out myself as a Canadian Criminal Defence lawyer.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Drewjitsu posted:

I know this may be a strange thing to understand, but if he was never convicted, he actually wasn't guilty (which is entirely different form "innocent"). You might have even seen the certificate of analysis each time, which stated he has a BAC over the legal limit, but guess what? Thanks to the sterling work of the local RCMP or police, they managed to gently caress up his Charter Rights to the point where the certificate was kicked after a Grant analysis, or upon review by the Crown, the case was not going to stand up at trial. You could also have the issue where thanks to recent development in the case law (thanks St-Onge Lamoureaux!) a failure to maintain logs of maintenance procedures done to the breathalyser constitutes a breach of the Crown's obligation to disclose all relevant fruits of the investigation, including whether the breathalyser was in working order when it took the sample.

Part of the job of defence counsel is to remind the police not to be so goddamn sloppy in their police work. You take bad notes, you violate Charter rights, etc, and lo and behold, there is a consequence for those actions. Sometimes, the focus of the trial isn't what the accused did, but rather what the Police did in obtaining the evidence that the Crown presented at trial.

Do you honestly think that the defence counsel just walked up to the Crown was able to make those deals with no leverage? There was more to it then "he has good lawyers that can always plead it down to something like non-criminal dangerous careless driving."

And this is how I out myself as a Canadian Criminal Defence lawyer.

You're correct, I don't know exactly how he got the charged reduced, but he did admit to me that he had been drunk on each occasion (and I know he continues to drive drunk, because he's a severe alcoholic). Also, a few of them happened in the States. I don't know the full story, but he presented it to me basically as I did in this thread "I throw my money at lawyers until it goes away."

I think ultimately it's best to hold the Crown to a very high standard, and I'm not saying his lawyers acted unethically in defending their client, I'm just saying that this sort of thing is probably one of the reasons people are in favour of having records of charges made public.

flakeloaf
Feb 26, 2003

Still better than android clock

I'm pretty sure 253 is the most heavily annotated bit of law in the history of Canadian jurisprudence, and is therefore an oddity that shouldn't be used as a reasonable measurement of anything. The Crown needs a short route to the presumption that the instrument was working that can't be trumped without clear evidence that the defense is under an explicit burden to prove, and the Court needs a way to bleed off those cases where punishment wouldn't be a meaningful exercise for offenders who were caught before hurting someone, have paid through the rear end to get to this point and have honest and genuinely learned their lesson.

Legit Businessman
Sep 2, 2007


PT6A posted:

You're correct, I don't know exactly how he got the charged reduced, but he did admit to me that he had been drunk on each occasion (and I know he continues to drive drunk, because he's a severe alcoholic). Also, a few of them happened in the States. I don't know the full story, but he presented it to me basically as I did in this thread "I throw my money at lawyers until it goes away."

I think ultimately it's best to hold the Crown to a very high standard, and I'm not saying his lawyers acted unethically in defending their client, I'm just saying that this sort of thing is probably one of the reasons people are in favour of having records of charges made public.

It's an asinine proposition, frankly. The entire point of the criminal justice system is to determine if proof beyond a reasonable doubt exists of the alleged crime. If so, then criminal record. If not, then no criminal record. What is difficulty of this system? For every one of your crazy friends, you have someone on the other end of the spectrum who get dinged for non-conviction records on police background checks.

There have been countless people arrested by the police for things that ultimately ended up being acquitted of the charges. Should the mere fact that they were arrested haunt them like an actual criminal record?

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Drewjitsu posted:

It's an asinine proposition, frankly. The entire point of the criminal justice system is to determine if proof beyond a reasonable doubt exists of the alleged crime. If so, then criminal record. If not, then no criminal record. What is difficulty of this system? For every one of your crazy friends, you have someone on the other end of the spectrum who get dinged for non-conviction records on police background checks.

There have been countless people arrested by the police for things that ultimately ended up being acquitted of the charges. Should the mere fact that they were arrested haunt them like an actual criminal record?

No, I agree 100% that people acquitted of charges, or not charged, should not have arrests or charges noted in a public location. I'm just pointing out why some people feel differently. I can understand why people feel that way without feeling that way myself.

The Shep
Jan 10, 2007


If found, please return this poster to GIP. His mothers are very worried and miss him very much.

nm posted:

I certainly understand that arguement, but the problem is that has been overwhelmed by negatives.
I think you could do the same thing, by requiring police to release stats on those arrested but uncharged within 1 year, requiring names of persons arrested be disclosed to certain family members, and allowing those arrested to waive any privacy if they want.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at here. If someone is arrested, then they are also charged with the crime they were arrested for. If someone is held without charge, that's not exactly an arrest and everyday across the US police temporarily detain people and release them without charge or arrest due to the outcome of an investigation. Arrests are public knowledge specifically because a charge has been filed against them. Any charges that are dismissed, found not guilty, or otherwise dropped would be the purview of the court. In that case, it would make more sense to require the court of jurisdiction to file your "stats on those arrested but uncharged", and not the police department.

As for requiring notice to family members, why? I don't get the impression that most people that are arrested are jumping at the opportunity for their family to find out, in many cases they want that information hidden as best as possible. Who would the police notify? Who determines that? How would they make the notification? In what time frame? If the arrested person has the freedom to tell whoever they want about the arrest, and the police must also release that information as public knowledge (i.e. a press release), then why require the PD to make additional notifications? It's just another thing to saddle police with that are already encumbered with large amounts of paperwork and processes.

For a similar example, I look at the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that I believe places undue burdens onto police departments to comply with release of information. Since so many things fall under FOIA, our PD administrative staff spends dozens of hours each week photocopying, printing, redacting, reviewing, etc. It amounts to an unfunded mandate on police departments to comply with FOIA and many FOIA requests are simply nonsense. For example, a local media outlet FOIA's every possible thing they can at our PD, including our daily service logs, audio tapes, service requests, reports, everything. Because everything we do at the police department has to be tracked, there are paper index cards with time stamps for everything we do during the day so that when they are inevitably FOIA'd our admin staff can just photocopy them. If I stop at the gas station for a drink, it gets FOIA'd and the media gets a photocopied index card with the date and time stamp I was at the gas station.

Anyway, to bring this back on point, PD's releasing information on arrests is a good thing and it sounds like you'd be better off attacking other avenues of how that information is used. Remember it wasn't too long ago that the ACAB faction of SA was up in arms over a Chicago PD "black site" where people were taken and never heard from again (lol).

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site

The Shep fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jul 6, 2015

dogcrash truther
Nov 2, 2013

Cop gay. So What posted:

Remember it wasn't too long ago that the ACAB faction of SA was up in arms over a Chicago PD "black site" where people were taken and never heard from again (lol).

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site

I heard about this in passing. Did the article turn out to be wrong?

joat mon
Oct 15, 2009

I am the master of my lamp;
I am the captain of my tub.

Cop gay. So What posted:

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at here. If someone is arrested, then they are also charged with the crime they were arrested for. If someone is held without charge, that's not exactly an arrest and everyday across the US police temporarily detain people and release them without charge or arrest due to the outcome of an investigation. Arrests are public knowledge specifically because a charge has been filed against them. Any charges that are dismissed, found not guilty, or otherwise dropped would be the purview of the court. In that case, it would make more sense to require the court of jurisdiction to file your "stats on those arrested but uncharged", and not the police department.

I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're talking about. At least in (most of ?) the US, police arrest, and District Attorneys (or Grand Juries) charge. There is a break in time between arrest and going to jail and the DA filing charges. More importantly, there is a substantive procedural break between the arresting officer deciding there is probable cause and a district attorney/grand jury deciding there is probable cause/prosecutive merit to actually file charges. This is what probable cause affidavits are for; information from the arresting officer to the DA sufficient to support the DA's filing of a charge. Sometimes (rarely) a DA declines to file charges. At that time the arrested person is released or his/her bond is exonerated.
I've never heard of arresting officers filing charges; I would think it'd be a constitutional due process violation but the issue has never come up.

goatsestretchgoals
Jun 4, 2011

Bad translation, it wasn't a 'black site', it was a 'site where black people get the poo poo beat out of them'. HTH.

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

joat mon posted:

I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're talking about. At least in (most of ?) the US, police arrest, and District Attorneys (or Grand Juries) charge. There is a break in time between arrest and going to jail and the DA filing charges. More importantly, there is a substantive procedural break between the arresting officer deciding there is probable cause and a district attorney/grand jury deciding there is probable cause/prosecutive merit to actually file charges. This is what probable cause affidavits are for; information from the arresting officer to the DA sufficient to support the DA's filing of a charge. Sometimes (rarely) a DA declines to file charges. At that time the arrested person is released or his/her bond is exonerated.
I've never heard of arresting officers fil5ing charges; I would think it'd be a constitutional due process violation but the issue has never come up.
Yes. And arrests without charge are actually pretty common in California, esp for nuisance offenses like public intox. But again, I had a guy arrested for murder and uncharged.

Also, notice to family would be allowed because it sure would be lovely for that missing person's report to be filed when they are in jail.

Finally, FOIA is broad but you can reclassify some data, and more important we're talking about changes to laws here (beyond the Constitution), so that is game. No one is arguing it would be easy.

blarzgh
Apr 14, 2009

SNITCHIN' RANDY
Grimey Drawer

Drewjitsu posted:

And this is how I out myself as a Canadian Criminal Defence lawyer.

By misspelling 'Defense' :911:

Legit Businessman
Sep 2, 2007


blarzgh posted:

By misspelling 'Defense' :911:

I speak and write the Queen's English, filthy Yankee. :canada:

Why yes, I so louve the letter 'u'! It should be in every wourd.

ActusRhesus
Sep 18, 2007

"Perhaps the fact the defendant had to be dragged out of the courtroom while declaring 'Death to you all, a Jihad on the court' may have had something to do with the revocation of his bond. That or calling the judge a bald-headed cock-sucker. Either way."

Drewjitsu posted:

I speak and write the Queen's English, filthy Yankee. :canada:

Why yes, I so louve the letter 'u'! It should be in every wourd.

If we wanted to speak the queen's English we wouldn't have told her great great great great great grandfather to go gently caress himself. :patriot:

joat mon
Oct 15, 2009

I am the master of my lamp;
I am the captain of my tub.

ActusRhesus posted:

If we wanted to speak the queen's English we wouldn't have told her great great great great great grandfather to go gently caress himself. :patriot:

Frederick "Griff" Louis, Prince of Wales?

ActusRhesus
Sep 18, 2007

"Perhaps the fact the defendant had to be dragged out of the courtroom while declaring 'Death to you all, a Jihad on the court' may have had something to do with the revocation of his bond. That or calling the judge a bald-headed cock-sucker. Either way."

joat mon posted:

Frederick "Griff" Louis, Prince of Wales?

How the gently caress should I know? British monarchs ceased being relevant to me over 200 years ago.

Legit Businessman
Sep 2, 2007


ActusRhesus posted:

How the gently caress should I know? British monarchs ceased being relevant to me over 200 years ago.

Some day, if I'm lucky enough (read: politically connected enough) I'll get a Queen's Counsel designation. Or, if there's a king reigning, King's Counsel. :black101:

So for that tiny reason, the monarchy is still important to me.

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

ActusRhesus posted:

How the gently caress should I know? British monarchs ceased being relevant to me over 200 years ago.

You'd get to refer to yourself as the crown. That's pretty badass.

Gleri
Mar 10, 2009

nm posted:

You'd get to refer to yourself as the crown. That's pretty badass.

My only client is an old lady who lives in England and never talks to me. So that's an upside.

Omerta
Feb 19, 2007

I thought short arms were good for benching :smith:

flakeloaf posted:

Yeah, sorry that was me.

Pro se defendants: Are they all insane disruptions or have you seen any pull some pretty clever moves out of nowhere?

Pro se litigants in general are horrible to deal with. Most can get in the ballpark of what they should address, but they almost always fail to comply with the procedural and substantive rules.

When a pro se litigant finds a nut, it's usually because the judge was feeling charitable. The rule is that you must construe pro se pleadings liberally, taking into account their status as a non-lawyer. Judges differ on what that means to "basically nothing" to "I'm going to make arguments for you."

IME, pro se people will occasionally find seldom used statutes to use as the basis for a claim. We had a tax protestor who appeared pro se. She actually proved the IRS failed to comply with its administrative rules regarding sending notices of deficiency in her case, but the whole exercise is pyrrhic because all she got in damages was her filing fee. So prob 200 hours of time and a lot of hassle for $400ish bucks.

Edit: sorry, forgot this was the crim thread. Pro se criminal defendants are a nightmare to deal with. They get destroyed, especially when they try to cross anyone. Most of the time, the exchange goes something like this:
Def: so is it possible that (thing that would be good for def) occurred?
Witness: No.
Repeat for a while.

The district I worked in had two sovereign citizen criminal cases where the guys tried to go pro se/act nuts to avoid being convicted. It caused a massive headache for the trial judges. You have to do a lot more to make sure that some kind of reversible error doesn't occur.

Omerta fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jul 8, 2015

nm
Jan 28, 2008

"I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."
Pro se defendants are great because they remind judges and DAs what would happen if PDs didn't exist. How loving terrible must it have been to be a DA before gideon (in one of the terrible states that didn't have PDs before they were forced.)

I find judges are most postive torward me if I call my case right after a pro se.

By the way guys, if you ever really want to have fun watch restraining order hearings where both are pro se. At my last courtroom, my judge who had done nothing but crim for at least a decade, somehow got forced to do them. And he was way too nice to tell them to shut up. Hilarious ,and something highlarious.

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Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
I don't have the link to the article at the moment, but there was apparently a really horrible situation with sovcit pro se defendants in, iirc, Baltimore a while back. The defendants ran up such an extensive set of court costs that the prosectuion had to stop pursuing part of their case- with the result being that others in the prisoners' orbit learned the lesson that sovcit is correct and "Works".

edit: I believe This is it. "Too weird for The Wire".

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 8, 2015

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