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Comment by himinlomax | Hacker News Reader

> Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired,

"Fired"? This is tampering with evidence, contempt of court, filing false reports and so on, all done repeatedly. People need to go to jail, because people go to jail for those crimes and for lesser crimes as well.

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Its outrageous. To coverup a lesser incompetance of not validating who the imposter really was, they tried to frame the innocent Ousmane Bah by deleting the video footage.

If Ousmane Bah didnt have a good lawyer he would be in jail and have his life destroyed already, such actions like this should be treated as a crime of falsifying evidence at least.

There are a lot of cases with the innocent project where an innocent person was lucky to be proven innocent.

There must be many more that are not lucky.

Around 4.1% of people on death row are estimated to be innocent.

https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230

I have a hard time imaging, that the rate is lower for lesser crimes where the victims of the justice system can be coerced to accept a "lesser" punishment.

There are because proving innocence is very hard... That is why more pressure needs to put on the Legal System to only convict on an actual "beyond reasonable doubt" standard, unfortunately today some juries seem to operate on more of a preponderance of the evidence or worse "ehh he did something wrong" standard

Personally I believe the 4.1% estimate to be pretty low, and it one of the reasons I strongly oppose capital punishment, I simply do not trust our legal system enough to give them the power and authority to kill people

>Personally I believe the 4.1% estimate to be pretty low, and it one of the reasons I strongly oppose capital punishment, I simply do not trust our legal system enough to give them the power and authority to kill people

Agreed, because humans are fallible, and a jury is made of humans The courts can always release on appeal. You can't un-kill someone

What's the difference between capital punishment and life imprisonment here? The amount of people that have their case re-analyzed to release them must be low. Plus, after decades in prison, coming out of it likely will make life very hard to get back into.

Well that is a very complex answer as I am not a supporter of the current prison system either. I am not a big fan of "prison punishment", instead I believe prison should be use to separate dangerous people from society, and not involve abuse.

That said in broad strokes, Death is final, and while reintegration may be pretty hard, if a person spent 20 years in prison because society made a mistake, I think that person should get a very large settlement from the state to the point where they never have to work again thus making that transition much easier.

But the odds of getting released are so low it's not really worth imo. I see life in prison more akin to torture than anything else, which makes it worse than death penalty

I do believe people should have a "choice" (lack of a better term as it not much of a choice) but I am still completely opposed to it as a "punishment"

I am also a supporter of legalized suicide for the general public as well, especially for the terminally ill

I think too that prison makes more sense for keeping physically dangerous people away. And if they don't assault anyone within X years in prison, maybe they're now a bit less dangerous.

Combined with some therapy or something.

But not as punishment.

For me, the main reason to oppose the death penalty is also that innocent people get killed.

He was thrown in jail several times (he was released relatively quickly, but that shit still fucks up your week) , and this crap made it difficult to get or keep a job for several years. That's not even considering that online articles which state he did it still exist so background searches are still problematic for him. His life was destroyed pretty thoroughly by this ordeal,and he was never even convicted of anything.

You'd be shocked how infrequently law enforcement officers get investigated, let alone prosecuted, convicted or sent to prison for anything you just listed. That goes triple for lawyers, lawyers have sent innocent men to prison for 30+ years for pretending exculpatory evidence didn't exist and they don't even get asked to apologize because it could throw other convictions into doubt. They should be thrown into doubt, but the thought that a murderer or mob boss might go free (even if that lawyer has only ever prosecuted non-violent drug offenders) is so powerful that lawyers have to be caught in the act and seen by thousands before they'll even begin to consider looking into the activities of a prosecutor. Defense attorneys on the other hand tend to be under paid and overworked, increasing the odds of a false conviction.

Remember kids, the criminal justice system has a strong bias towards conviction if charges are filed, so don't talk to the police. You're only helping them build a nonsense case against you, even if they've got another suspect you never know when a rookie cop is going to decide that getting you on Jay walking is good for his numbers this month. Unless you personally witnessed a serious crime like assault, rape or murder, shut the fuck up.

> Unless you personally witnessed a serious crime like assault, rape or murder, shut the fuck up.

And even then, only share your observations of the crime in question. If the conversation turns towards you in any way, shut the fuck up.

And even then, get a lawyer first consult them on everything you say before you say it.

And never forget the only things you should ever say during a traffic stop:

Why have you pulled me over?

I don't know. Here are my license and registration.

I'm not required to discuss my day.

When was your radar last calibrated? (avoid this one unless you really want to piss them off)

Am I free to go?

Am I under arrest?

I would like to speak to a lawyer.

If it's not on this list, have your lawyer present and consult them directly before saying it.

They would rather an innocent person go to jail - rather than look stupid.

Agreed. At the very least, if Apple-the-company isn't being fined (or their employees held criminally liable) for failing to produce exculpatory evidence in a criminal case that was later found during discovery, the court itself isn't doing its job.

I guess that would depend on whether the failure was due to malice or incompetence. Maybe also on whether it was a failure of individuals or a failure of the system. But yeah, something obviously needs to be changed.

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