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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

I live in the UK too and every day I am grateful we don't have the absolutely idiotic concept of paid bail - the police can only hold you for 48 hours without charging you with a crime, and then you have to be tried within 51 days or released on unconditional bail, so idiotic situation like the one here where someone in the article was held for 3 years without a trial can't happen.

But yes, having read the article it just reinforces the impression I have of USA - that it's the "land of the free but only if you have money"

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I'm glad too, but some of your numbers are a bit off;

https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-...

Also its worth noting our anti-terror laws seem to allow indefinite detention without charge. And ant-immigration laws allow for long (months even years) detention of migrants, without even suspicion of a crime.

According to your link, the longest you can be held without charge is 14 days under the terrorism act.

The longest ever proposed was 90 days (proposed in 2006), and the longest implemented was 28 days (between 2006 - 2011).

https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/human-rights/counterin...

Terrorism Act 2000 (which was partially ruled unlawful by the House of Lords for what its worth) allows for theoretically infinite extensions to the detention period with only a police superintendent needed to sign off on it.

as for imigration 'Just over one fifth of immigration detainees are held for at least two months' :

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/im...

Have you got a source on that part of the terrorism act, it's not something I've heard of.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents

more specifically section 29, 1, (d):

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/8/part/...

Though F1 seems to have been edited since i last looked.. still its in theory, unlimited detention without trial.

There is also the Terrorism Act 2006, which i think extended the standard limit to 26 days.. Not sure if this was ever repealed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006

Surely migrants are "guilty" of not having proper immigration documents, not having a lawful right to remain, and similar crimes?

One may not agree with long term detention, nor even with the law in this area but this assertion (that immigrants are being held without due process) appears to be unfounded?

What would you change?

>What would you change?

I would like the presumption of innocence before due process and i would like the due process to involve a British jury. I would like an absolute time limit on detention of innocent people. And if these things made policing or managing immigration more difficult then i can live with that.

Presumption of innocence in the face of absolute proof? If you're a foreign national in the UK without proper documentation you are guilty of a crime; we could change that of course, but you don't appear to want that? I'm not sure restricted immigration can work without that assumption of guilt; the alternative seems like open borders with no controls?

If they're innocent then they'll be able to prove it easily ... if they have a valid reason for immigration than despite their crime they'll be released in good time. It seems a small price to pay for freedom if you're fleeing certain harm?

> innocence in the face of absolute proof?

this is just childish, you can only establish the existence of 'absolute proof' in a court of law. If you really want some jobsworth to sit in their office and dispense justice, then you don't want justice.

If you're interested in how the UK criminal justice system has its own set of problems and biased outcomes, you might enjoy (or at least be interested by) this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0753GBC5Z

So they can hold you for 51 days and you just have to sit in jail until your trial?

No, you can be released on conditional bail, but it cannot be tied to money. Commonly the conditions include reporting to the police station every day, not contacting certain people, staying at home except for certain hours etc.

In the US, bail is used to make sure people show up for their court date. How does this work in the UK?

If someone is a flight risk, they are not given any bail and just sit tight for those 51 days. But being given bail and not showing up to court results in far harsher sentence, so it's a shit game to play.

You do get reimbursed if you sat in jail for no reason. Right?

Not for the time spent waiting for trial. You only get compensation if you were wrongly convicted.

So you can be waiting for trial, not get convicted (for whatever reason), and not get reimbursed for being wrongfully in jail?

Unfortunately, yes. It's the same in both US and UK. You can sue the state for loss of income/whatever, but those cases are not always successful - all they need to prove is that they had reasonable reason to keep you in jail, even if you were found innocent at the end.

Thank you for the information. Do you know how this works in the rest of the world?

Roughly yes. The rationale is that you were not "wrongfully" in jail. You were held in the jail because prosecutors believed you'd be found guilty of a crime (which you subsequently were found innocent of) and the court believed that you were either too dangerous or too likely to abscond if you weren't held against your will.

In principle if you can show that these beliefs were unreasonable (not just wrong, but not even reasonable beliefs for the court officials to hold) you might be able to get somewhere, but I suspect a decent lawyer would tell you that this bar is too high.

Conviction rate for people who go to trial in the UK is very high, because the "Full Code Test" for prosecutors tells them to never prosecute people unless they're convinced the evidence they have will support a conviction for each charge they specify.

wow so if you lose your job because of that, bad luck I guess?

Maybe, don't do things that a reasonable person would consider makes you likely beyond reasonable doubt to have committed a serious crime? Or is that too great an expectation?

Would be interesting to read some real life info and stats on this.

What do you mean by "serious crime"?

If we draw a line at "felony", well... how many people wind up in jail for inability to make bail for misdemeanors? And for how long? I'm pretty sure you can google that kind of thing.

Also, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is the legal grounds for conviction, not arrest. "Probable cause" is the grounds for arrest, a far lower standard.

This subthread is UK specific, so the number in jail for non-payment of bail is zero.

Probable cause isn't a UK test -- we use [reasonable] suspicion -- but one needs far more evidence than that to retain someone in prison. CPS don't take cases to trial without an expectation of success; non serious crimes (and some serious ones) don't result in prison so aren't pertinent.

Suspicion is an even lower bar, but the charge officer won't even admit someone into custody without evidence (though that evidence has a far lower bar than is required for conviction).

So you get out 24 hrs later, the police caught the perp who just happened to match your description and locality. Surely the downside is just part of society functioning, do you really need compensating? Legal protection for your job, seems like it should be in place though.

Not to mention that it would be illegal for your employer to fire you over it, especially if you were only detained for 24-96 hours.

> Do you really need compensating?

I'd say the answer to that is a resounding "yes", but I get it that there's no consensus here on that one.

Your "compensation" is a functioning legal system.

You might lose a job by police stopping traffic after a RTA and so being delayed by several hours. Should you get compensation for that, or should you just accept it as part of a functioning road network/emergency service?

Are you seriously suggesting that people just avoid being falsely arrested? I'm pretty sure that everyone already tries to do that.

If you're locked away for an extended period for a serious crime then, presently in the UK, my conjecture is that you're probably close to the crime -- I mean you're an associate of the criminals without necessarily being an accomplice; or an already convicted criminal; or guilty of minor crimes if you're being held on remand (https://www.gov.uk/charged-crime/remand) in most cases?

In the UK IIUC there's a 85% arrest-to-conviction rate across all crimes.

[I realise I'm pushing my luck somewhat.]

> ...my conjecture is that you're probably close to the crime...

So you are OK with people's lives being fucked up just because they've been accused of something? You do realize that anyone can accuse anyone of anything anytime, right? There's a reason we go through investigations and trials.

You don't get locked up on remand just because someone made an accusation against you. People making specious accusations do get locked up sometimes.

To your question: obviously not. That statement discredits you as a genuine enquirer. Strawmen and incredulity don't really help us make progress here.

Or, you have statistics to show that's true?

Please point out the strawman in my argument. I currently do not see one, and your statement discredits you as a genuine enquirer. False claims and incredulity don't really help us make progress here.

> You don't get locked up on remand just because someone made an accusation against you.

Yes, you can. Once accused, you then go to trial to see if the accusation is correct.

What statistics do you want to see? How many people make false accusations? How many people are arrested on false accusations? How many people use "guilty by association" logic because they can't be arsed to figure out the real story? How many lives are ruined because you would rather we just bypass the judicial system?

Because people are always arrested for things they've done, not by mistake? Heck, why not do away with trials? If the police think someone did it, lock them up for good!

In the US you have a right to a speedy trial. Most sign away this right while being processed. The excuse given was the lawyers needed time to prepare for trial.

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