I agree it's not about doing justice. But I still think we need the overall system to be just. I don't object to pretrial people getting home confinement generally, and I can grudgingly accept it here on the theory that the Feds must be pretty sure he's not going to pull a Ghosn. [1] But I have real questions about exactly who isn't getting this kind of generous treatment.
Objective of the justice system is to give defendants who are presumed innocent as much Freedom as possible. The chances of I'm alleged white collars Criminal spinning up a new Ponzi scheme before their trial date is low.
The chance of a alleged drug Smuggler or violent Criminal reoffending before trial is higher.
While the justice system should be blind to the economic situation of the defendant, that doesn't mean it has to be blind to common sense
But if we just look at the chances of reoffending, I think confinement to one's parents house with an ankle bracelet and frequent checkins is more likely to prevent drug smuggling than further financial crimes. Most drug smugglers at least can recognize that what they did is a crime, so they appear to be ahead of SBF here.
And my question here is really not just about broad categories of crime, but about specifics of the situation. What do the stats look like for, say, cherubic and well spoken young white men from upper-class backgrounds compared with other groups? I know that I as a youth got away with a lot, and I suspect it was due to factors like that. Seeing SBF get the soft landing here makes me wonder how things go for people who don't look and sound like him.
applied in the sentiments here and in general also seems to the fact that everyone just believes that Sam Bankman Fried is guilty. he hasn't been proven as such yet, and the system exists as such for good reason. there are ample examples of people who have also been incarcerated while innocent
I am not sure if you are implying this, but Ghosn's case is far from clear-cut in the way that SBF's is.The hilarious implication that all the bad apples at Nissan were non-Japanese foreigners was far too convenient to be true.
What's definitely clear cut is that via an elaborate plan he fled the country to avoid getting any of those questions answered definitively, which is the part that concerns me in relation to SBF. As many people have mentioned, pretrial detention can't be about actual guilt, just the likelihood to show up to trial.
That's not a very useful bit of information, is it?
We'd expect a very high conviction rate in very bad systems because of corruption and because such systems might be meant just for show.
However, we'd also expect a very high conviction rate in very good systems. Before a case gets to trial in a very good system first it would be investigated by police. Only if the police think there is a worthwhile case would it go to prosecutors. Then some prosecutor has to decide they have enough evidence to stand a good chance of conviction. There would probably be more review taking into account overall prosecutorial load to make sure they won't be devoting limited resources to a case they might lose.
The only cases that reach trial should be cases that the prosecutor is very sure they will win, so of course we should see a high conviction rate if the prosecutors are competent.
It’s actually 99.8%. Yes, prosecutorial discretion can account for much of that, but you don’t get to 99.8% without something in the system being broken. Not all cases are cut and dry, some cases should go to trial and fail. 99.8% stretches credulity beyond reason. Japan is under criticism from human rights organizations for forced confessions, due to being able to interrogate suspects for weeks without them allowed to contact family or a lawyer. There is no right to remain silent. Even with the rights granted to suspects in the USA, forced confessions are common. In comparison, Japanese suspects don’t have a chance.
People with something to lose can be controlled through it. People with nothing to lose can only be controlled through violence. If you wish your use of violence to be limited by necessity and proportionality then you will be gentler with the rich.
If you wish to treat everyone the same then you must either use excessive violence in some cases, or accept that others are not going to be controlled.
It’s good that the courts use the more peaceful option of going after the defendant’s property instead of his person, when available. But obviously it’s only available when there’s property to go after.
The idea that only rich people have something to lose is a) ridiculously classist, and b) not applicable here: SBF supposedly doesn't have any money to lose, so by your logic we should be controlling him with violence.
SBF, regardless of the truth of his claim that he only has $100k in a particular bank account, almost certainly has anywhere from some to quite a lot of wealth to lose [0] (whether any of it is likely to remain after fines, forfeitures, etc. in the current criminal case is another story.)
[0] e.g., there is currently a legal dispute between SBF, FTX, and others over who owns a $400+ million stake in Robinhood.
Wealth isn’t just personal property in your own name or under your exclusive control. It’s almost always social, tied up in families, relationships, credit lines, trusts, companies, etc. And part of its power over you is your responsibilities toward and relationships with the others in its circle. You don’t want to be the guy who vaporizes your kid’s college fund. Or in SBF’s case, your parents’ house. Even if you technically have access to them when push comes to shove. (Maybe you think he would! But he found someone to place a very high stakes bet that he won’t).
It’s true that your access to resources in a pinch is not always aligned with cultural or consumption-based class markers. For example the family in Winter’s Bone clearly reads as poor, even though Jessup’s bond is paid-off house and acres of timber forest. Conversely, you could imagine a financier whose relationships are all burned and whose assets are all wiped out. But having something to lose is still going to be correlated with class on balance.
> But having something to lose is still going to be correlated with class on balance.
I look forward to seeing your data on that, but knowing plenty of both rich and poor people, I'm not going to assume it's correct. A lot of the poorest people I know are the ones richest in social ties. And vice versa, at least if we're counting the sort of meaningful ties that would make one more likely to stay in one place while the machinery of justice works.
This is exactly the right way to look at it. Especially when pretrial incarceration is maybe the single most effective tool for extracting a plea agreement (even from the wrongfully accused!)
Serious question: Would you like to increase the systems overreach by incarcerating people which can post a reasonable bond, but therefore make the system more fair?
People who have nothing have nothing to loose when dodging bond. Rich people have something to loose, so they can held by posting a bond. There's a tradeoff between making the system fair (nobody gets out of jail) and making the system as lenient as possible (people who can post bond get out - but be aware that quite a few innocent people await trial, which would then be jailed as well).
Poor people don't have money to go on the run to Costa Rica and live on a beach for the rest of their lives.
Is this even a real problem? It's not 1920 anymore you can't do anything without papers.
>But I have real questions about exactly who isn't getting this kind of generous treatment.
You've uncovered the unjust nature of the cash bail system as a whole. The efforts being made to get rid of it in California are a huge step forward toward making the system more equitable.
In retail stores, I’ve seen it with my own eyes all across the Bay Area.
It’s gone from occasional, ‘tries to hide it’ shoplifting to brazen ‘runs off with a shopping cart full of tools/baby food/electronics in the daylight daily’ in a handful of years.
Stores are changing their display practices to try to compensate (locking up anything over a certain dollar threshold), but it’s easy to bypass. Last week when talking to one guy (Home Depot in Santa Clara) while buying a power tool, he said they’d had over $14k taken in the last few weeks alone from that store. I’ve seen folks do the runs myself while picking up Electronics too. The staff just sighs, takes a note, and continues on with their day.
Notably, it seems like it’s co-ordinated. when talking to the staff, they say it’s a different person each time, but very frequent now. shrug
As long as we're using dueling anecdotes, I've lived in SF 20+ years, and as far as I can tell crime levels are about the same.
Is it possible that criminal groups are doing some organized shoplifting? I'd believe it. But this may be just a change in method for existing criminals. Or it may be that we're hearing about it more because it's a topic that has gained sudden media interest. In any case, that cuts against your theory that the cops don't care, because doing it in bulk or in an organized fashion will turn it from a misdemeanor to a felony, making cops much more interested. And indeed, SF just announced results from exactly that kind of operation: https://sfist.com/2022/12/16/sfpd-touts-60-arrests-in-new-re...
It makes it harder to keep them off the street, which makes departments deprioritize arresting people for those crimes. Same as 5150 for mentally unstable folks on the street. When it’s clearly a revolving door, folks stop trying to spend so much effort pushing people into it.
It’s often part of the same platform too - at least for Chesa Boudin.
It doesn't "make" departments deprioritize that. They choose it.
Note also you are once again conflating pre-trial detainment with post-trial punishment. People presumed innocent should not be generally kept off the streets.
Even given the (dubious and ineffective) goal of keeping people off the streets, a removal of cash bail would in theory make them work even harder, so that a) true repeat offenders would receive the sort of escalating penalties that would put them away for a long time, and b) people failing to abide by the terms of their non-cash bail would not be allowed back out again. So the end of cash bail should make them more dedicated.
But Boudin is material here. SF cops sandbagged on doing their job because they didn't like him. He was foursquare for a modicum police accountability and they hated that. And if you'd like to post nominal facts about the Boudin recall, please don't use ones from a publication wholly funded by one of the people who paid for the Boudin recall.
The retail stores are less able to handle shrink than they could before because they have serious competition from online sales.
They have tighter margins due to competition, so they lock stuff down more, leading to a much worse shipping experience, leading to more people shopping online. It's a death spiral.
There's certainly more reporting of shoplifting in SF in the last couple years, but it's only a part of the story, and evidently not a general trend, or we would see it in higher level statistics.
Covid was the biggest bail reform experiment in history. Typically for any non-violent crime in the US, people get ROR'd (released on own recognizance) so long as they don't have any outstanding warrants. Bail is for people that have a history of skipping court (outstanding warrants). During Covid, everyone got ROR'd regardless of outstanding warrants, because getting caught shoplifting and the cops find 3 points of meth in their pocket shouldn't be death sentence. Normally that type of person would be given a $5000 bail if this was their second time getting caught. If they were unemployed, they would dry out in jail and hopefully come out the other side on a better path. During covid everyone was released on zero bail. Homelessness and crime spiked across the US.
There are places that think it is a good idea to make covid bail policies permanent. The experiment is running now.
Even the Netflix documentary showed a short section on Ghosn's misuse of funds and not even on a large enough scale (Billions) to get such strong reaction by the Japanese justice system.
Plus I believe that any justice system that traces its roots on a past hierarchical system (ex: monarchy, dictatorship, communism) without any revolutions to change it is heavily biased & distorted from reality for other political inclinations.
The Ghosn thing is an aside; the relevant part is that he indisputably committed more crimes to avoid facing a trial.
As to the latter bit, I think that's all current justice systems. Certainly the one here in the US, which inherited English common law and then added on a two-tiered justice system for race-based slavery.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/carlos-ghosn-inside-the-rise...