Japanese Court Orders Google To Delete Past Reports Of Man's Molestation Arrest 271
AmiMoJo writes: The Saitama District Court has ordered Google Inc. to delete past reports on a man's arrest over molestation from its online search results after ruling that they violate the man's personal rights. The man, who was arrested about three years ago after molesting a girl under 18, and fined 500,000 yen (£2600, $4000). "He harbors remorse over the incident and is leading a new life. The search results prevent him from rehabilitating himself," the man's defense counsel said. The presiding judge recognized that the incident was not of historical or social significance, that the man is not in public office and that his offense was relatively minor. He concluded there was little public interest in keeping such reports displayed online three years after the incident. The judge acknowledged that search engines play a public role in assisting people's right to know.
(AmiMoJo spotted the story on Surado, the new name for Slashdot Japan.)
Huh (Score:3)
Re:Huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that I don't get what you're saying, but if a woman molested your son (one of the many, many female child molesters) would you hunt her down and presumably kill her?
Re:Huh (Score:5, Interesting)
"Not that I don't get what you're saying, but if a woman molested your son (one of the many, many female child molesters) would you hunt her down and presumably kill her?"
My 10 year old son? Yes. My 17 year old son? No. There are many variables. How "under 18" was she?
My daughter was kidnapped when she was 10 years old an suffered a horrific 12 hours with a monster. Over 2 years later the monster still hasn't been to trial but that's coming up soon. He's looking at 3 life sentences + a few hundred years.
A history of sexual predation should never be erased from the public memory. I don't give a rip if this particular guy is "living a new life" -- if your brain is broke in such a way as to be attracted to kids then you should no more be allowed to walk the streets than a lion who thinks kids are tasty.
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Public memory and criminal history are two different things. We should always take into account past crimes when determining future punishment, but on the flip side do we acre up a future life completely and drive then towards further crime for a minor offence?
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Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Am i doing this right? I have no end of sympathy for your daughter, but I'm clearly not as vengeance-driven as you are. At some point in our past we decided that eye-for-an-eye was not a workable approach to justice and three lifetimes plus hundreds of years for an offense of twelve hours, no matter how awful those twelve hours may have been, goes so far beyond eye-for-an-eye... There's some horrible disconnect when it comes to sex crimes. We load down the act of sex with so much baggage that it's social anathema to do anything mildly sexually deviant, and crimes related to sex are seen as absolutely horrifying while doing relatively little physical / financial / property damage. There is of course the psychological aspect, which I by no means wish to trivialize, but I can't help but think that the psychological damage is made as severe as it is by all of the baggage which we attach to sex.
I have heard people say, without hyperbole, that they think that rape is as bad or worse than murder. Many rape victims also seem to feel that - 13% of rape victims attempt suicide. Think about that. These are people, a large number of people, who genuinely believe that it's better to be dead than raped. That's a problem, a big one, and it's a problem of perception. The courts only reinforce this, if they're handing down life-ending sentences over rape offenses, and that feeds the problem further.
Back to TFA: molestation isn't rape. Without reading the article, I'd guess based on the sentence that the offense of the guy in question was pretty small. Maybe a grope on the train or something, happens pretty often on those crowded Japanese commuter trains. Is that also worth murder?
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"At some point in our past we decided that eye-for-an-eye was not a workable approach to justice and three lifetimes plus hundreds of years for an offense of twelve hours, no matter how awful those twelve hours may have been, goes so far beyond eye-for-an-eye..."
Dozens of multiple counts -- three of which hold 25 to life terms. I'm sure if you knew the details you would say it's not enough.
Again -- anyone who's brain is broke enough to be attracted to kids should not walk free -- ever. Just because they w
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Again -- anyone who's brain is broke enough to be attracted to kids should not walk free -- ever. Just because they walk, talk and wear clothes doesn't mean they aren't dangerous animals.
Your daughter has my deepest sympathy. Regarding the above though, you could just as easily say the same about anyone whose brain is broken enough to want to torture another human being. You could argue that it's actually pretty normal for human beings to have such a strong desire for vengeance when they have been personally wronged. You would be right. It's also actually pretty normal for human beings to feel sexual attraction to adolescents. Adolescents fall broadly into the "kids" category. The simple fa
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If sentences like that were dished out like candy, you might have a point. They, however, are only for the worst of crimes. Personally I'd call it more practical and humane than the death penalty, and safer than leaving these people back out in public.
If someone is cleaning a firearm and forgets to unload it and shoots someone, they're dumb, not evil. If someone is talking an a cell phone and accidentally hits someone, they're careless, not evil. Torturing a child is not something you accidentally do, i
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TFA does not elaborate on what he actually did. Based on the fine it sounds like inappropriate touching or something like that. Bad, and deserving of punishment for sure, but also not something that a person should have their life entirely ruined for. Rehabilitation is ultimately in everyone's best interests.
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Back to TFA: molestation isn't rape. Without reading the article, I'd guess based on the sentence that the offense of the guy in question was pretty small. Maybe a grope on the train or something, happens pretty often on those crowded Japanese commuter trains. Is that also worth murder?
Well, without reading the article, you don't know if what they call molestation would be called child rape in our part of the world. To enlighten the debate a little: "The Japanese Penal Code sets a minimal age of consent of 13" (from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]) - which to means that the court would be biased towards assuming consent, unless the girl was very young. Japan is also a society that still has a great deal of sympathy towards the rights of men is realtion to women.
From the artic
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Then, of coruse, every crime becomes a life sentence, even those undertaken while say still a hormone addled teenager.
Doesn't seem very just to me.
Sadly, justice as defined by the law is not necessarily just in a moral sense; it only means that it follows the law as currently practiced. What is too often lacking is the reality of full restitution - that you can be forgiven your past sins. I think it is fundamentally important that criminal justice happens in public, so that people can see that crimes are properly and consistently prosecuted, and the punishments are neither too harsh nor too lenient.
As for things becoming a life sentence - whether it i
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I have heard people say, without hyperbole, that they think that rape is as bad or worse than murder. Many rape victims also seem to feel that - 13% of rape victims attempt suicide. Think about that. These are people, a large number of people, who genuinely believe that it's better to be dead than raped. That's a problem, a big one, and it's a problem of perception. The courts only reinforce this, if they're handing down life-ending sentences over rape offenses, and that feeds the problem further.
I've made this argument myself, and I do think that murder is worse than rape, as you do. However, our prison system is not really about rehabilitation. I wish that it were, but it is not. Given that, life sentences for rape seem reasonable. If the goal is to reduce recidivism, we can't permit them to get out of prison, since our prison system is designed to increase it.
What needs to change most is our prison system, which increases violent crime in our nation.
Back to TFA: molestation isn't rape. Without reading the article, I'd guess based on the sentence that the offense of the guy in question was pretty small. Maybe a grope on the train or something, happens pretty often on those crowded Japanese commuter trains.
And that's why he shouldn't be allowed to cover
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The difference between lions and humans is that lions can't reconsider their life, while humans can. So it comes down to the risk: what are risking if we trust this person to be changed? What are we risking if
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People who wear funny pants can't get jobs. People who come up the wrong way in google searches can't get jobs either. Sometimes (e.g. sex-offender registries) one of these may directly be the fault of the government, but in the case the article is referring to, if the government really feels that the man is being harmed by his name being too recogniza
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If you molest my daughter, you'd be lucky to be living under a bridge. It'd make it harder for me to find you, but eventually....
You know, that's about the oddest - and disturbing response I've heard to a statement like the one I made..
Short answer, I have no intention of molesting your's or anyone else's daughter. Why you would take anything like that from what I wrote is a puzzlement.
1. I would be a bit concerned about your overcompensation .
2. And online threats of violence are never encouraged. Just a friendly reminder.
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Whoosh. I think.
I'm pretty sure Ol Olsoc meant every word he said. Which is sad.
Use "someone, instead of "you", and I would have just ignored it. Simple.
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Not a native speaker of (American variant) English, I take it? That use of "you" to represent an indeterminate "other person (you or him or her or them)" is pretty much standard usage....
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Ugh. Just castrate the guy and be done with it. It's called prevention, people.
Places where thats been tried, and chemical castration as well, these people tend to still rape they just do it with implements, like sticks.
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Places where thats been tried, and chemical castration as well, these people tend to still rape they just do it with implements, like sticks.
Here is a citation [wikipedia.org] that says you are wrong.
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It said he molested a girl under 18. That means she was 17, which isn't a big deal.
According to Google, it was a "vicious crime" which implies that it was forcible and non-consensual. I think that makes it a "big deal".
Don't want that following you around? (Score:2)
Don't do it in the first place. Not like it's hard to avoid.
Why can't this be the law everywhere? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do arrest records have to be public?
Lets be real here. If you work in most industries, the first thing the employer is going to do is pull a Lexis-Nexus report, then a NCIC check. These show not just convictions, but -arrests-, and if someone is -arrested- for anything, even if it is a case of a night in the drunk tank, no job. The reason for this is that the HR people I've asked say that a conviction can be bought off, but if a police officer decides to take the time to pull out the handcuffs and do paperwork, the person is a criminal.
Lets be real, for all but the most heinous crimes, arrest records need to be private, and if the person arrested has charges dropped or was acquitted, the -arrest- record will be expunged.
Japan is doing the right thing. You have to force private companies with their databases propagating among each other to remove info, or any government expunging of records of people who are perfectly innocent does not matter at all.
I also respect the fact that even showing someone in chains or handcuffs (other than bondage stuff obviously) implies guilt. During my criminal justice classes, there was definitely a jury bias against a candidate who was forced to wear a belly chain or stun belt versus one who wasn't.
Re:Why can't this be the law everywhere? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you like them to be not public?
"No, we have no idea where your hubby Joe Smith is. We haven't arrested him"
'But he was seen in the back of your patrol car!'
"Nope, sorry lady"
Re:Why can't this be the law everywhere? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do arrest records have to be public?
Would you like them to be not public?
"No, we have no idea where your hubby Joe Smith is. We haven't arrested him"
'But he was seen in the back of your patrol car!'
"Nope, sorry lady"
Theres a country where employers do background checks including looking at arrest records. If you've ever been arrested you'll never get a decent job again. So you were wrongfully arrested, acquitted, maybe the cops were even punished. You were still arrested and you still won't get a job.
Still want arrest records to be a matter of public record? Better also have laws prohibiting people from refusing a former arrestee a job, just like they do for gays and racial minorities. Mr "Sorry but my religion won't let me hire a gay" has a problem. Mr "Sorry but you were once arrested, I can't give you a job." should also have a problem.
At most the background check shouldn't be for arrests but for convictions...
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As a gay man, I'd rather hear "sorry but my religion won't let me hire a gay[sic]" instead of some weird excuse or, worse yet, working for a homophobic employer.
Those l
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Theres a country where employers do background checks including looking at arrest records. If you've ever been arrested you'll never get a decent job again. So you were wrongfully arrested, acquitted, maybe the cops were even punished. You were still arrested and you still won't get a job.
If this is wrong, then we should make it illegal for employers to look at arrest records. But that would be wrong, because it would force people to employ you on false pretenses. You don't want to work for someone who won't ask you about what they find and have an honest dialogue anyway, do you? Oh, you do, because if you don't have money, they will throw you out on the street, and it's a crime to be homeless? Well, let's fix that, instead of hiding information that people need to make intelligent decisions
Recent arrests, perhaps. Old ones, no. (Score:2)
Then seal arrest records six months after a person leaves custody.
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Making information public is not a binary thing. I think that's where a lot of confusion comes from on Slashdot, e.g. with the European data protection rules. Sure, some people might know about something, but that's different to everyone knowing or having immediate and easy access to that knowledge.
His wife might know he was arrested, but employers probably won't because the record isn't in any databases accessible to them.
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What you don't get is that this is how it works already. And if they can't get away with using cop cars, they'll use taxis [lyricsmode.com]. These laws don't protect you from being kidnapped by the cops and murdered.
That doesn't mean they're bad laws. Arrest records must be public if we are ever to have a backlash against bad laws. They don't guarantee it, but how will it happen without it?
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They would still have their one phone call
The "one phone call" is a myth made up by Hollywood. Last time I was arrested, there were several phones in the holding cell, and I was there for four hours. I could make as many phone calls as I wanted, to anyone, either local or collect.
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My sister was arrested for DUI a few years back and it was the same. I got like 5 calls within a 5-6 hour span.
Kicker was it was a "collect" call that the recipient had to pay $15 to receive.
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I don't think it was a myth so much back in the day - the supreme courts ruled that if you were arrested, you have a right to contact someone. I.e., the police could not arrest you, then toss you in jail without you being able to talk to someone who can try to do something
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"Allegations of police misconduct and widespread false arrests could not be verified by reporters because arrest records in cases where charges are ultimately dropped were made private in 2015."
The real answer is to make the original records easily viewable on an official government web site, but mandate that "CHARGES DROPPED" or "NOT GUILTY" or some other exculpatory language clearly appear whenever they are viewed.
Also helpful: fewer laws and fewer police. Every action and inaction doesn't need to be reg
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Tort law should be able to handle that. That is, I have no problem with people being able to recover damages from Google or newspapers if the text they present doesn't make it crystal clear that the person in question was exonerated.
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The bigger problem is that HR and everyone else who sees arrest records take a "where there's smoke, there's fire" attitude towards arrests, assuming that anyone who got arrested is of questionable character, a troublemaker. Maybe there's even some assumptions that a lot of minor arrestees might get the charges dropped or dismissed.
They have no subtlety, willingness to understand what happened or differentiate why you got arrested, just that you were arrested.
Personally, I think arrest records without char
mod parent up (Score:2)
In the country where I live, I don't think criminal records are available via on-line services but employers do ask for a copy of your police record. Employers obviously have a bias against anyone who's record isn't blank.
IMO, asking for such a record should be illegal and instead, employers (subject to signing an NDA) should be allowed to ask the police to verify that the person in question has no convictions *relevant to the job being applied for*.
I thought I still had mod points. The above comment is t
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No, they are not. They are going after Google, which isn't putting these reports online, instead of going after the people who actually do put them online.
Because we don't want police to be able to operate without public scrutiny.
Well, why are corporations ("HR department") so reluctant to h
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I don't know where you live, but in most of the U.S. you can be fired at the drop of a hat with no reason given.
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I didn't say that it was illegal to fire people, I said that it had become costly. You really need to learn to read.
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It doesn't cost anything when you do that. That's what I mean by drop of a hat. You should focus on understanding what someone is saying rather than looking for excuses to be a condescending ass.
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Pretty much true in an "at will" State. Many, of not most, States are NOT "at will" States.
And firing a union member is painful pretty much everywhere....
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And firing a union member is painful pretty much everywhere....
I wouldn't go into a union business, simple as that. The Unions were a necessary phase in worker's rights, but now they are holding us back and they need to go away and be replaced by rights for all workers. If the Union leaders spent half as much effort to raise the minimum wage on a meaningful schedule as they do on padding their own pockets I might feel differently.
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If unions are obsolete, what does it matter what they spend their time on? They aren't preventing you from lobbying for those rights, are they?
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If unions are obsolete, what does it matter what they spend their time on?
Because they distract people's time and effort from actually working on worker's rights, and always derail conversations about rights for all workers into how everyone else should unionize. Of course union reps would say that, it creates more jobs for union reps. But it's bullshit.
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Even in "at will" states, there are so many other employment protection laws that firing people for no cause is extremely legally risky, and usually incurs other costs. In addition, you can't see the firing in isolation, you need to consider the cost of firing and hiring someone else together.
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Even in "at will" states, there are so many other employment protection laws that firing people for no cause is extremely legally risky
Excuses are dirt cheap. As long as the firing can be plausibly claimed not to be motivated by racial or gender discrimination, it's not much problem. Examples seen in the wild include "not meshing with the workplace culture", "poor attitude", "not a good fit for the job", "cutbacks", etc.
And that's not even including the tactic of creating so many workplace rules that pretty much every employee will routinely violate one or more of them (and at the manager's discretion, be forgiven).
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Hiring and firing are costly for businesses. Sorry if you don't understand why.
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Bald assertions aren't very convincing, sorry. I might as well reply that the moon is made of cheese. There is a cost in the sense that a replacement will need time to get up to speed, but any other costs are self-inflicted damage.
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"Why do arrest records have to be public?"
Because in criminal law, as opposed to civil law, the public is a party to the case. N. B. criminal cases are tilled "The People vs.". The records of a criminal case show the actions that the State has taken in the name of the People.
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You are talking about charges and the prosecution that the state brings. Merely being arrested often does not lead to a charge or prosecution. Arrest is not the state making a legal judgement and acting, it's the police making a judgement which is then supposed to be checked and overseen by the state.
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no, just make it illegal under penalty of long prison sentences for businesses to use public arrest records when considering hiring people. maybe if that hr person was afraid of squatting over a filthy toilet clutching her underwear while looking over her shoulder in fear, 4 times a day for 4 years, she might think twice about denying someone a job for being arrested in a police state. just saying.
Unfortunately its not fear of the punishment that makes someone think twice before committing a crime. Its almost only the prospect of being caught that figures. And of course they think they are awesomely clever so they underestimate the prospects of being caught. So they still commit the crime even if the sentence for, say, stealing a loaf of bread is death by hanging or, possibly worse, being deported to Australia.
Punishment is pretty meaningless in this context. You have to make it really stupid easy fo
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no, just make it illegal under penalty of long prison sentences for businesses to use public arrest records when considering hiring people. maybe if that hr person was afraid of squatting over a filthy toilet clutching her underwear while looking over her shoulder in fear, 4 times a day for 4 years, she might think twice about denying someone a job for being arrested in a police state. just saying.
No need for a prison sentence. She should simply be arrested and her employer notified...
Will the Japanese courts do the same thing? (Score:2)
Seems logical. And unlikely - for good reasons.
because people dont change (Score:2)
one thing that has been proven repeatedly is that people dont change because you punish them. in order for them to change, they have to want to change and even then they are likely to fail. some things just can't be changed without behavioral reconditioning aka "brainwashing" and it's not always permanent.
as for it's relevance, would you want a guy like this to be a teacher?
just sayin.
People DO change (Score:2)
Arrests and guilt (Score:2)
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There's also a history of the police coercing confessions. They can also keep people locked up for quite a while (10 days) with no contact with family and without charges.
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I should add that a judge can extend the length someone can be held without charge and they almost always do. All together, you can be held in isolation for up to 23 days without being charged.
Google can't "delete past reports" (Score:4, Insightful)
Google provides search results, not reports. If this report is truly of no public interest anymore, the court should order the people who put the report online to take it offline. The court knows full well that if they ordered the original reports in newspapers and in public records offline, there would be a storm of protest, so they go after Google.
Since no one else will say it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop going after search engines. They index the web. Also, they pop up and go under overnight for the most part. Where is Bing mentioned? Yahoo? Duckduckgo? Literally any of the over 700 search engines available on the internet (in just English, not even gonna get into the thousands in other languages) can or have indexed this information. By making Google remove links...you are just forcing HR departments and the press to use other engines. Its little more than a thinly veiled stab at Google for being so popular OR its a display of massive incompetence by elected and appointed officials worldwide.
If you want to remove information from the web... you must go after the websites. In this instance no, you cannot argue that its undue burden, because there are only a handful of sites that show public arrest information and public court records for each country. Unlike piracy, your average person doesn't care to make their own arrest record index for shits n giggles or as a middle finger to The Man.
The right to be forgotten is pure censorship. If the government wants to approve it though, they need to get a lot more savvy about technology, the internet and what exactly the fuck a search engine actually does. Cause every day the governments of the world only make themselves appear more and more ignorant by doing this kind of crap.
information (Score:2)
I find it arrogant for any group to tell another they can't handle the truth, so to speak. Maybe arrest records are unreliable metrics. Shouldn't adults be able to figure that out?
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I find it arrogant for any group to tell another they can't handle the truth, so to speak. Maybe arrest records are unreliable metrics. Shouldn't adults be able to figure that out?
They are, and they should. The problem, of course, is that the government treats them like they mean something any time they want to look hard on crime, which lends them undeserved credibility — both the statistics, and the government. And by "the government" I mean all of them.
End of internationally based search engines. (Score:2)
Because of this case and others like it, eventually internationally based search engines will become untenable.
Making headlines while trying to hide something (Score:2)
If it is of such little historical significance... (Score:2)
If people care enough about it to allow it to affect how they judge the man today, then it still has at least some historical significance... if for no other reason than to give the people that this man meets the tools with which to know what the truth is. In the end, if he has genuinely repented, then it will still be up to each and every person he meets to evaluate the man for how he presents himself today, and it
I think there's a lot of misplaced hate here (Score:5, Insightful)
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We don't know exactly what this guy did. Grabbing a 15 year old's ass once on public transport is quite a lot different than kidnapping and rape and should be treated as such. If he wants to clean up his act, he should be given a fair chance to do so.
He has a fair chance. He can open an honest dialogue with his potential employer about what he did, and how he has improved himself since then. It's not like his arrest record is more available than those of other prospective employees.
Wait! (Score:2)
Wait one second...
Actions have persistent consequences?
I didn't realize that.... I thought we were entitled to always get forgiveness or at least a do-over if we needed it, no matter what we did?
Signed,
All of modern culture.
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Modern culture? Isn't that the core message of Christianity, which is around 2000 years old? And at least some parts of Judaism can also be interpreted that way - Jubilee, sacrifice to pay off sins, etc.
"Right To Be Forgotten" in action (Score:2, Interesting)
The non-existent "Right To Be Forgotten" recently invented by our progressive European friends strikes again.
And what it means is, as soon as the technologies for altering human memories are perfected, the same "right" will be enforced on humans. In TFA's example, that molested girl herself retains her memory of the crime — and the criminal. Will some future court-decision not order her to undergo a memory-wiping procedure to help the man rehabilitate himself?
Need not be a crime — your ex-wife
Fuck Japan (Score:2)
The guy was found guilty. This is factual information on a guilty party for a heinous crime. Too bad for him, he made his choices and now has to live with them.
"that the man is not in public office" (Score:2)
Yet. What if that changes? Will Google be allowed to un-delete him? How will they know to do so?
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but a whimper.
but applause.
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but a whimper.
but applause.
Thunderous applause!
So... butt applause?
So does Karl Rove (Score:2)
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Breaking news! Mrs Clinton does a good job representing someone she was supposed to represent... in light of that, who'd want her to represent US?
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The fact that a person did their job to the best of their abilities and succeeded, has no say in politics.
Facts are there so they can be twisted to show how evil they are or ignored. We can't have an actual human being in the office, ones who have good and bad movements in their life. They will somehow be completely virtuous while having the drive, ambition, thick skin and aggression to make it threw the political system.
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Indeed. It does seem like she is more likely to favour people more like her (ie. competant in their profession or hard-working) over those who had their success via luck or inheritance.
Re:Hillary Clinton says: (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hillary Clinton says: (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is this thing called the "cab rank principle", which means that lawyers are supposed to accept any case that comes their way. The only grounds for refusing a case are that they are already working on one and therefore don't have the time, or that they don't have the skills to do it properly.
Re:Hillary Clinton says: (Score:5, Insightful)
When we lose our moral compass is when we, as a society, decide that due process isn't important anymore. When we revoke the rights of the accused to a proper defendant, to a proper trial, and try them in the Court of Public Opinion. It's been done in the past, and it generally works out to a singular solution, with no quarter and no recourse. But being accused of a crime doesn't mean that one has committed it. Even though Mrs. Clinton was convinced he committed the crime, she wasn't a judge, it wasn't her call to make. That's the way our society is built, that's our system of justice.
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Or why not mention the Taliban? You know the ones that wanted some form of proof for the involvement of Osama Bin Laden in 9/11 before they would extradite him?
No matter if this was just a way to delay the process USA decided that they didn't have to do anything and (as usual) responded with an invasion, starting a war without any legal or moral justification.
And (again as usual) the USA started the war without a declaration of it - something that is incredibly wrong when the Japanese did the same* at Pearl
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This bullshit about lawyers representing clearly guilty clients because 'its what we do' is ... well, bullshit.
People are entitled to equally competent representation on both sides. The reason the guilty people need lawyers is to prevent getting ass fucked on the grounds of not knowing how the process or the legal system works.
Why not just shoot them all one by one. They don't have legal representation and thus won't know that stealing a loaf of bread does not get a death penalty right? When you take representation away from the guilty you ultimately end up taking representation away from the innocent and start puni
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She had a choice between (a) defending the client assigned to her and (b) incurring the wrath of the court for failing to obey its lawful order. (b) could have meant gaol time and/or disbarment.
Apparently you think its Ok for someone to keep their job/career at the cost of someone else getting raped.
You'd imply that Clinton's defence of her client caused the rape to occur? That's pretty silly.
Re:Hillary Clinton says: (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you lack a moral compass and need t get some help. I'm suggesting that when you know the fucker is guilty, you put his ass in jail, not defend him.
If your defense lawyer won't offer competent counsel it won't ever be a fair trial. Everybody speculates, even defense lawyers. The prosecutor, the judge, the jury members, the journalists, everyone on the peanut gallery got a personal opinion. You can pick one from the lynch mob as judge, jury and executioner and you got the court of personal opinion instead of the court of public opinion, it's still a shitty system.
That's why we have a system built on evidence. The prosecutor lays out the evidence in favor, the defense lawyer the evidence against, the judge is the referee and the jury decides if it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Now certainly there's a lot of subjective evaluation on what testimony is credible, evidence is reliable, theories are plausible and so on.
It's not supposed to be gut feel speculation based on superficial appearance and behavior, maybe you get an impression he's creepy and sleazy "hood rat" but that doesn't make him more guilty.than a slick smooth talker in a suit. At least it's not supposed to, but that's what personal opinion often is - how well the person in front of us matches the mental image we have of "that kind" of person.
Re: (Score:2)
'Hillary Clinton asked to be removed from a 1975 rape case in which her client was accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl' ref [cbsnews.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, a lawyer standing up for the principles of law is "amazingly creepy". You sir are an idiot.
Re: Hillary Clinton says: (Score:5, Informative)
I've decided to blow off the downmod I just gave you in order to explain something to you:
1. Clinton was appointed by the court to defend an accused rapist.
2. She asked to be excused from the case, presumably because she knew or at least strongly suspected the defendant had actually committed the offence.
3. The judge would not let her off the case.
ExecSummary: Hillary Clinton was *ordered* by the State to act to the best of her ability in the interest of the defendant. And this is exactly what she appears to have done. You may or may not like her or her politics, but in this case *she did the job which she was legally and ethically bound to perform*. If you cannot understand why she did so, then you've never any business ever voting in a US election or especially ever serving on a jury in a US criminal trial.
Re: (Score:3)
That is the best response I have seen in a long time.
let me say why:
( all of this is my view and communicates properly to my style of trying to understand, also I suck at grammar so good writing is impressing to me )
a) re-asserted the right of innocent until proven guilty, not only to the HC but the party she had to defend. ( something which is very important to me )
b) proved a point of; she had a job, she was required to do it, then did it ( don't know the outcome but she did it).
c) added humor ( my percep
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Holy fuck that's amazingly creepy. Hillary Clinton effectively got a man who raped a 12 year old off scot-free.
Your champion of liberalism and women's rights, right there.
He was convicted and got a sentence of one year in jail and four years probation in a plea bargain.
First of all, that is not "scot-free", and don't pretend that your use of the word "effectively" makes what you said anything other than misleading.
Secondly, she was appointed to the case by the judge and asked to be let off but was denied.
Finally, it's up to the judge and prosecutor to set the sentence.
They're the ones that are to blame in cases like this.
Re: (Score:2)
She wasn't ordered to slander the victim and she would not be getting any mistrial or whatever for not slandering her. That is how the law works.
Re: (Score:2)
The court just drew massive attention to this guy that wouldn't otherwise have been there. Doh!
The news reports don't mention his name, so he isn't getting much attention.
If Google isn't allowed to report facts, why shouldn't journalists be censored as well?