Drunk Driver Mugshots Featured On Facebook 321
An anonymous reader writes "Get yourself a DUI and your mugshot may get some exposure on Facebook. That is, if you get caught in New Jersey by Evesham Township's police, which have begun posting mugshots of arrested people, convicted or not, on its Facebook page. Now, we know that if you get arrested, your privacy is pretty much limited to the brand of your underpants, but the local police department has started a controversy and may find itself in hot water. How much value does a public mugshot on Facebook have to the public? What privacy rights do you have if you get arrested?"
here, let me fix that for you (Score:5, Insightful)
and may find itself with a lawsuit for millions which tax payers will have to pay up while the police department will suffer no ill effects.
Fixed.
Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
What privacy rights do you have if you get arrested?
I suppose thats depends on what you get arrested for, but I would assume in most cases - all of them?
Re:here, let me fix that for you (Score:2, Insightful)
and may find itself with a lawsuit for millions which tax payers will have to pay up while the police department will suffer no ill effects.
That's silly. Have you ever worked with a small municipal Government? They aren't the Feds or State -- they can't print/borrow massive amounts of money. A large legal settlement would most definitely be felt by the police and all other municipal departments.
Of course, I'm not sure what grounds these people would have to sue. When I got arrested my name and street address were featured in the police blotter. Paper never bothered to do a story when the Grand Jury refused to indict me though. That's life -- I got over it. Not sure what my cause of action would have been if I didn't get over it. Arrests are a matter of public record. The paper/facebook/cousin-billy-who-works-for-the-PD are all free to talk about them.
Re:Meanwhile, on Long Island... (Score:5, Insightful)
it's different when the news does it because they are reporting on a government agency. in this case the government agency is showing off people accused of a crime simply to humiliate them before a trial. this is wrong
Re:It's stupid (Score:1, Insightful)
It's implying that criminals are somehow less than human and fair game for ridicule
They are fair game for ridicule. You don't think idiots who crawl into a bottle and then behind the wheel of a car are fair game for ridicule? How many innocent do they place in harms way?
Re:It's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
It's implying that alleged criminals are somehow less than human
FTFY, because until the charges are proved in court, simply being arrested could mean any number of things that fall well short of being guilty of an actual offence. Unfortunately, by posting mugshots to the internet (read "the public domain"), it ensures that these people will be forever linked to a crime they may or may not have even committed.
Re:Ohio "Scarlet Letter" License Plates (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile, on Long Island... (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it was a common trait for oppressive regimes to make use of public shaming/humiliation for ... helping enforce the law? Let's see how well the formula would work:
1) depressed person starts drinking
2) becomes alcoholic
3) starts driving a car under the influence
4) gets caught eventually
5) public humiliation - gets more depressed
6) goes back to drinking, and starts driving without a license
let's say step 6 is they go into rehab. They come back into public, random strangers start saying things like "hey - I remember you - you were caught for DUI" ... talk about not even getting a chance to put your past behind you. Sounds like a formula to keep these people in a permanent cycle of alcoholism.
I don't see how this helps at all.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because FaceBook has such incredibly great security there is no way this could ever be abused by a bored high school kid who decided to post pictures of his teachers there.
Absolutely no possible way this could ever be abused. None whatsoever. Therefore, this is a great idea.
You don't have privacy if you get arrested (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhat relatedly, recent studies have shown that 44% of men would be unwilling to help a lost child because of the ease of which false accusations could ruin their lives. Maybe it's our knee-jerk judgmental culture that needs to be fixed instead.
We're considering the Wrong Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is with us, the public. We react to this as if it is a shame to the person. We really need to be working to change the public mindset with the reminder of "Innocent until proven guilty". The proper response to these photos is "Huh. Joe got arrested for DUI. I wonder how it's gonna turn out?" That's how we need to get people thinking. At that point, all this Facebook crap doesn't matter.
Re:Meanwhile, on Long Island... (Score:3, Insightful)
big difference, here.
FB is a commercial enterprise. why on hell is a police force (governemnt agency) HELPING PROMITE THE PROFITS of a stupid commercial (and crass) website?
what would happen if 100 other FB clones showed up and asked for equal treatment? is this is the internet and society we WANT? are we even THINKING about what this will encourage?
give the police free reign to make fun of people in public (this is the undercurrent; the unsaid) and you've just glorified their jobs. new sport: frame someone, get their pic *permanently* on FB and then say 'haha, just kidding. you can go free now'.
WAY too much abuse and FB has shown it is 'the spoiled child of the internet' and they REFUSE to honor actual privacy requests.
the linkage between law enforcement and some stupid social networking website should never be allowed in any official means.
jersey cops being dumb asses. again. is there NO adult in charge, there, who can actually think about the repercussions?
Re:It's stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
You have the right to due process before the state takes away your life, liberty or property. You do not have the right to due process before the community can ridicule you. See, there's this thing called the 1st amendment. It means I can tell you and others what I think about you.
Re:It's stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, since the AC that I was responding to said criminals not the accused it's a safe assumption he was bemoaning the fact that we ridicule criminals after they are convicted for their crimes.
Jackass.
Re:I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure defence lawyers are just squeeing right now, this is perfict misstrial fodder / cause for dissmissing jurors.
Don't think this can be stopped (Score:5, Insightful)
As part of the "save the children" panic, the supreme court has already decided [cornell.edu] that such listings "aren't punishment", which is why they say they can be applied retroactively, after conviction. Without the (ridiculous, sophist) determination that such listings do no harm in and of themselves, the ex post facto prohibitions would come into play (as they actually should, of course.)
Consequently, I doubt that any listing of arrest subjects will be determined to be damaging or harmful, or that they require a conviction.
Shaming - permanent and otherwise - is part of America's new commitment to retribution over rehabilitation, and its support for the creation of a permanent rock-bottom lower class. The public is all for it; they love the drama and the fuckarosis that it all engenders, and it is a very rare citizen indeed that has any concept of how and why these things are wrong.
Re:Meanwhile, on Long Island... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny that of all the crimes out there, they choose to do this with DUI suspects. The notion that "driving is a privilege, not a right" has been twisted and abused so that if you are accused by the state of a DUI offense, you either have to incriminate yourself or suffer a punishment for not incriminating yourself. On a MVR (motor vehicle record) the charge for refusing a breathalyzer is quite similar to the charge for having taken and failed a breathalyzer. DUI, certain asset forfeiture laws, and maybe sexual harassment are the only crimes where the accused must demonstrate innocence. None of this is compatible with a reasonable interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, yet it goes on, because it's "for our own good" or something.
So it's interesting that this is done with DUI arrestees. They're basically screwed either way. This attempt to attach a stigma just makes that more so.
That makes sense. It's common sense, really. Criminals generally do not believe that they will get caught. If they believe that they will certainly get caught they tend not to do the crime. A stigma is a punishment that takes place after they get caught. Of course this isn't going to have much of a deterrent effect. If you really want to prevent crime, clever ways to make people suffer won't do the trick. That is punishment but it's not much of a deterrent. It'd be better to understand what personal/character flaws make someone like a DUI offender want to be so careless with the life and safety of others. Then you'd have some ability to prevent. But that's a much harder problem than locking people up or publically humiliating them which are quite easy to do by comparison.
I've always believed that there should be no such thing as an arrest record. There should be only a record of convictions. Otherwise someone can be haunted for the rest of their lives by a mere accusation that they have to explain to all future employers and others when in fact they are innocent. Otherwise people get the idea that cops and judges and politicians are something other than human beings who can make serious mistakes. Arrest records don't do anything to serve any real notion of justice. Neither does defaming someone who has not actually been convicted.
Re:Um..... (Score:5, Insightful)
How they're made public is irrelevant. If you don't liek it - get the law changed to make arrests NOT part of the public recored - but nobody will want that will they?
But it does matter how accurately they portray those public records. That is, if they are found to not make it clear that those are only arrest records, not convictions, they set themselves up for the same liability that journalists avoid by the usage of "suspect", "alleged", and "accused." If they are considered to be misrepresenting or obscuring the fact those depicted people were only arrested, not convicted, they risk a libel suit.
It also complicates matters if an arrest was made in bad faith, or any mistakes or wrong-doings. If charges are not pressed, or the court dismisses charges due to lack of evidence or other reasons, the accused may be able to seek compensation for both the bad arrest, and the bad publicity the police activity generated for the accused.
I know a someone who was arrested for DUI, but it was thrown out of court due to the total lack of evidence (no evidence they operated any vehicle that night). That person could of had their professional life ruined by such police's active attempt to "name and shame" people who was never found guilty of a crime. Frankly that smacks of police exceeding their authority and mandate, as if the police think they are judge and jury as well, and that they would never accuse an innocent person incorrectly. The history in reality shows otherwise. That why justice has a due process.
Re:We're considering the Wrong Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
But if you think that's a problem, you can take it back another level: why do people draw such strong inferences from the fact that you've been arrested? Arguably, this could be because of the difficulty of getting a conviction, which makes an acquittal uninformative, meaning people have to place more weight on the fact of an arrest.
This may be legal... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is "being available in the public record," and there is "put on worldwide public display with a big scarlet 'A' for Alcoholic on their chests." They're going over the line here.
Re:Don't think this can be stopped (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you even be found innocent on a charge of drunken driving?
Yes, though not if you were really driving drunk. But in some cases erratic driving that makes one look like (and get arrested as) a drunk driver can turn out to be a legit medical condition.
Re:Don't think this can be stopped (Score:3, Insightful)
Surpised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? The American public has allowed all manner of listings without any conviction, police or judicial action.
Just offhand: No-fly lists; No-buy lists; Gun owner lists; "offender" lists; land owner lists; boat owner lists; etc.
Unfortunately, the average citizen fails to anticipate what one seemingly harmless or seemingly desirable invasion of privacy means in terms of enabling behavior when an obviously harmful one comes around.
Re:Don't think this can be stopped (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally that's the ONLY way they should do it.
For arrests, just release statistics.
"This weekend we arrested 5 people on DUI. 1 Burglary. 1 Indecent exposure."
Only AFTER someone has been convicted in the court of law should their names be released. Release their names, photos who cares.
I remember there were some people up in arms that Spain refused to release the names of the guys that were accused of running a bot net. [cnet.com] I'd love to see a sane law in the United States, but I'm not going to wait on it.
Re:here, let me fix that for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the alternative to public arrest records is much worse: secret arrest records. Do we really want to go down that road?
Re:I disagree with a couple of points. (Score:4, Insightful)
Same here. I just want them to be arrested and prosecuted based on observable behavior, such as the way that they drive. A dangerous driver who disregards safety is not exactly difficult to detect. On the plus side, doing things this way might accomplish more towards addressing the dangerous drivers who are quite sober but just aggressive and/or stupid.
Then I'd rather you lobby for the repealing of the Fifth Amendment. That's a damn sight better than simply ignoring it. It's also the honest way to get what you seem to want. It's much more honest than coming up with clever ways to get around it, such as implied consent laws. "Driving is a privilege, not a right" is true, but the Fifth Amendment does not say "this law of the land does not apply to privileges". In fact it applies to the government whenever it wants to use its police power against a citizen, for any reason.
A concept that is totally unrelated in subject but completely related in principle is the notion of a "free speech zone". You see, that's a clever way to get around the First Amendment. That was also perpetrated by someone who did not want to honestly lobby for the repealing of the First Amendment and instead wanted to play clever word games to effectively ignore it.
I am not saying you are playing clever word games. I am saying that you have adopted the positions of people who are like religious zealots. A "true believer" thinks that the ends always justify the means. If it means throwing out 200+ years of jurisprudence and American traditions of freedom, if it means weakening the highest law of the land, then so be it as long as we catch a few drunks, right? Such people are utterly confident of their position and can be quite convincing. I can tell you are influenced by their thinking as long as the crusade is difficult to argue with, like "we want to catch drunk drivers". That still doesn't make it right.
The difference is that in any other criminal matter, you are not punished for refusing to incriminate yourself. When the cop asks you to blow into a tube, he is asking you to prove that you are innocent. That is not the way our system is supposed to work. It's the cop's job to gather evidence that you have committed a crime. The fact that we really don't like this particular crime is not a good reason to change this. That's the sort of reactive emotional thinking that is a complete departure from the wisdom of "innocent until proven guilty".
That's the most honest statement of your position so far. Not "honest" in terms of deception but "honest" in terms of showing a full awareness of the implications, as in the truth and the whole truth. "I've got nothing to hide, so I'll submit to any infringement of my civil rights" is a very, very dangerous position. The DUI implied consent laws are a clever way to ignore the 5th Amendment. The asset forfeiture laws of the War on (some) Drugs are a clever way to ignore the 4th Amendment. Free speech zones are a clever way to ignore the 1st Amendment. The federal government's practice of unfunded mandates on the one hand, and encouraging states to desperately depend on federal money on the other, is a clever way around the 10th Amendment. I won't even discuss the 2nd Amendment. That's where your sentiment leads, what it produces, what it evolves toward and blossoms into. It is not a static idea but a dynamic entity that expands whererver it can.
I don't like drunk drivers either but they are rather tame compared to the full expression of that sentiment.
Re:Don't think this can be stopped (Score:2, Insightful)
Ironically, the US law that started this was, IIRC, designed to protect people from police abuses. Making arrests and charges part of public record makes it very hard for police departments to arrest people secretly and hold them without due process.
Unfortunately, we have a tendency as Americans to equate "arrest" with "guilt".
Re:Meanwhile, on Long Island... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an inevitable and unfortunate side effect of basing public policy on extreme visceral emotions, like the loss of a loved one. The idea that someone you care about is hurt, maimed, or killed because of the completely preventable, blatant irresponsibility and disregard for life of a drunk driver is quite naturally an extreme and very emotional position. I'll make an understatement and say that it's downright fucking horrible and I wouldn't wish it on any enemy. That's quite understandable.
The problem is that because this begins with an extreme and emotional position it has its basis in visceral satisfaction. It does not have its basis in a reasonable approach to making changes to the law and the culture to ultimately benefit society. It is natural that what begins with an extreme finds its home within an extreme such as neo-Prohibition. Prohibition of any sort is quite simply the failure to recognize human beings as moral agents capable of making choices and being held responsible for those choices and instead transferring that status to inanimate objects like bottles of ethanol. It's completely unreasonable and dehumanizing. It also doesn't work.
Just as a judge is expected to recuse himself from a case to which he has personal connections, those who have been deeply, personally, and tragically affected by drunk driving are the least qualified to create public policy concerning it. The neo-Prohibition is because enough is never enough. Enough is never enough because the pain of such a staggering loss like these mothers have unjustly suffered is so great that no piece of legislation can hope to take it away.
I'm 100% behind using the police power of government to stop drunk drivers. I drive a car, too. So do my friends and family. I don't want to be endangered by someone else's blatant stupidity, nor do I desire that for anyone else. But I say that based on sound principle of what is reasonable, not emotional hatred of people who perpetrate such crimes. What I support even more than stopping drunk drivers is the preservation of our civil liberties while doing it. You can't get that with ends-justify-the-means thinking.
If someone refuses to use reason and principle, and death and loss are the only criteria they recognize, then I want them to consider this: lots of people die because of drunk drivers. How many people fought and died to secure the civil liberties that made this country the light of the world? How many more will suffer and die if we erode those civil rights and become a totalitarian police state?
Re:Don't think this can be stopped (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were required (and I think the news media should be held to the same standard) to be at least as public in announcing your acquittal or that the charges were dropped as they were in announcing your arrest, I might not think the police and media were such douchebags.
Re:Meanwhile, on Long Island... (Score:2, Insightful)
It is worse than what you're saying. The GP poster is suggesting doing something to a Police Officer that they wouldn't want done to themselves. There is an "us vs them" mentality (group politics) going on there, and the rules they are suggesting for others, they don't want applied to themselves.
Re:It's stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
You have the right to due process before the state takes away your life, liberty or property. You do not have the right to due process before the community can ridicule you. See, there's this thing called the 1st amendment. It means I can tell you and others what I think about you.
I have the right to say "fuck you, you're a god damned idiot". That doesn't make this a good, worthy, or noble thing to do. Now, that's a hypothetical. I'm not actually trying to insult you or call you an idiot but I wanted to make a point. If I used my free speech in that manner, it would say little or nothing about you while revealing quite a bit about me.
Sure, you can insult people with no fear that the law will stop you because of the 1st Amendment. But tell me, do you really need to have the 1st Amendment repealed and laws of censorship enacted before you would think twice about insulting someone who is presumed innocent until convicted? And if so, is that because you really see something wrong with that practice and found self-restraint? But in that case why did it take a censorship law to change your behavior? That's why you can use the 1st Amendment to cover up any non-existant legal challenges to this behavior, but that will never escape the objections to it that don't involve using the government to censor you.
If you believe in due process at all then you honor the principles behind it even if there is no law compelling you to do so. I mean fuck, if you won't believe or honor anything except under the threat of the force of law, your beliefs and your honor are quite worthless.
If I want the state to honor due process because due process is a sound principle, why would I suddenly consider it unsound when faced with a choice of whether I will personally honor due process? You see, that makes no sense. If I take a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude towards the state, then I'm a garden-variety hypocrite. I'd be a hypocrite because I would want it to represent principles that I myself refuse to even try to embody.
That kind of hypocrisy is the position of immature and self-serving people. Very simply, they want to be protected from a capricious state that can harm anyone it wants on a whim, because such a protection benefits them. They also want to be able to look down their nose at someone and judge that person as beneath them, because this (in one form or another) is extremely important to empty, hollow people who have no principles or nobility. For them there is only gratification and when they don't achieve it by making themselves higher, they do it by making someone else lower. So that also benefits them. By "benefit" I mean it feeds their childish mentality and makes sure they are never made to feel uncomfortable for having it. Thus, they give lip service to ideas like due process but routinely contradict it anytime they are not forced to honor it.
That's why this is about publically posting mugshots for arrests and not for convictions despite the fact that both approaches are equally practical. This and the whole "eighth-grade emotional level our nation is at" (to paraphrase Bill Hicks) is what you are defending.