How 'MythBusters' Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence (innocenceproject.org) 127
"John Galvan was arrested at 18 and spent 35 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit," writes the Innocence Project, a nonprofit specializing in legal exoneration.
"In 2007, John Galvan was about 21 years into a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit when he saw something on the prison television he thought might finally help him prove his innocence and secure his freedom: A re-run of an episode of the Discovery Channel's MythBusters."
At the time of his arrest, they write, Galvan had been handcuffed to a wall for hours, physically beaten, and ultimately "agreed to give a confession that was completely fabricated by the detectives to end the abuse" — that Galvan had started a fire in an apartment building "by throwing a bottle filled with gasoline at the building and then tossing a cigarette into the pool of gasoline on the porch to ignite it." And then 21 years later... In his cell, a 39-year-old John watched as the hosts of MythBusters struggled repeatedly to ignite a pool of gasoline with a lit cigarette, despite fervent attempts. Based on the ignition temperature of gasoline and the temperature range of a lit cigarette, the show's hosts had initially hypothesized that a lit cigarette might be able to ignite spilled gasoline as they had seen on TV and in movies. But after several failed attempts to start a fire, including rolling a lit cigarette directly into a pool of gasoline, the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire....
The show's findings were confirmed in 2007, by experiments conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which made more than 2,000 attempts to ignite gasoline with a cigarette under various conditions. The bureau's experiments even included a vacuum that increased the cigarette's temperature to the level it would typically reach when being sucked and spraying a mist of gasoline directly onto the lit cigarette. All of the attempts failed. "Despite what you see in action movies, dropping a lit cigarette on to a trail of gasoline won't ignite it, assuming normal oxygen levels and no unusual circumstances," said Richard Tontarski, a forensic scientist and then chief of the ATF's fire research laboratory.
In 2017, when John finally had his evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims, [his attorney Tara] Thompson and his legal team presented multiple alibi witnesses, in addition to seven witnesses who testified to being tortured by the same officers who had coerced his confession, documents showing that police had fabricated probable cause to arrest him, and an arson expert who testified that John's false confession was scientifically impossible.... In 2019, the appellate court granted John post-conviction relief on the grounds of actual innocence — a rarity in Illinois — largely based on the abuse used to coerce a false confession from John.
The court concluded that without John's false confession, which he did not give voluntarily, "the State's case was nonexistent."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Sleeping Kirby for sharing the story!
"In 2007, John Galvan was about 21 years into a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit when he saw something on the prison television he thought might finally help him prove his innocence and secure his freedom: A re-run of an episode of the Discovery Channel's MythBusters."
At the time of his arrest, they write, Galvan had been handcuffed to a wall for hours, physically beaten, and ultimately "agreed to give a confession that was completely fabricated by the detectives to end the abuse" — that Galvan had started a fire in an apartment building "by throwing a bottle filled with gasoline at the building and then tossing a cigarette into the pool of gasoline on the porch to ignite it." And then 21 years later... In his cell, a 39-year-old John watched as the hosts of MythBusters struggled repeatedly to ignite a pool of gasoline with a lit cigarette, despite fervent attempts. Based on the ignition temperature of gasoline and the temperature range of a lit cigarette, the show's hosts had initially hypothesized that a lit cigarette might be able to ignite spilled gasoline as they had seen on TV and in movies. But after several failed attempts to start a fire, including rolling a lit cigarette directly into a pool of gasoline, the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire....
The show's findings were confirmed in 2007, by experiments conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which made more than 2,000 attempts to ignite gasoline with a cigarette under various conditions. The bureau's experiments even included a vacuum that increased the cigarette's temperature to the level it would typically reach when being sucked and spraying a mist of gasoline directly onto the lit cigarette. All of the attempts failed. "Despite what you see in action movies, dropping a lit cigarette on to a trail of gasoline won't ignite it, assuming normal oxygen levels and no unusual circumstances," said Richard Tontarski, a forensic scientist and then chief of the ATF's fire research laboratory.
In 2017, when John finally had his evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims, [his attorney Tara] Thompson and his legal team presented multiple alibi witnesses, in addition to seven witnesses who testified to being tortured by the same officers who had coerced his confession, documents showing that police had fabricated probable cause to arrest him, and an arson expert who testified that John's false confession was scientifically impossible.... In 2019, the appellate court granted John post-conviction relief on the grounds of actual innocence — a rarity in Illinois — largely based on the abuse used to coerce a false confession from John.
The court concluded that without John's false confession, which he did not give voluntarily, "the State's case was nonexistent."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Sleeping Kirby for sharing the story!
Pay public defenders more (Score:4, Insightful)
You might attract people with more than good intentions between their ears who might have poked holes in "evidence" derived from generic action movies.
Re:Pay public defenders more (Score:5, Insightful)
Lock up cops who torture people for a very long time.
Re:Pay public defenders more (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be a moderator on a fairly popular wiki (tens of thousands of registered users, millions of edits, etc.) that had a precedent that moderators who abused their power to ban someone would themselves be banned for the same length of time. Innocent mistakes or clerical errors were excused, of course, but when a mod was found to have engaged in misconduct by negligently or deliberately banning someone they shouldn’t have, they’d get banned for the same time that the victim had been banned.
It really helped keep abuses of power in check. Plenty of people weren’t fans of the rules (which, ironically, were set by end users, not mods), but the mods were mostly the low-drama sorts you’d want holding the keys of power, just the same as with the police.
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We tried to do our best to discourage anyone from pursuing it as a status badge while at the same time honestly portraying it as the administrative janitorial work it was. While I’m sure you could easily find people who would accuse even the best of our mods of being a power hungry jerk, and while there are obvious examples of some who absolutely were power hungry jerks, on the whole, no, we didn’t have those issues on the regular. To be fair, however, with something like 150K pages, we were in
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Lock up cops who torture people for a very long time.
This. And the fact that anyone in law enforcement disagrees or would fight such a law shows how badly the corruption is.
As a counterpoint: there's many laws specifically protecting various state and law enforcement people with enhanced penalties for assault, etc. because their job puts them in harms way. This I fully support and updates/enhancements to these bills are typically voted through quickly and easily...now if only those with great power and protection would also be held to a higher level of res
Re: Pay public defenders more (Score:5, Insightful)
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... sleep deprivation, waterboarding and needles under the nails ...
This is where 'you have no rights" (because 'black', 'accused' or just making the government look bad) lands: With a legal loophole that 'temporary pain' isn't torture. The Military Commisions Act (2006) means the US president can declare anyone, anywhere, and fuck the Geneva Convention, a terrorist for any reason.
The USA pretends the absence of a king makes them superior: If a real king did this, he would be quickly killed.
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> If a real king did this, he would be quickly killed.
What planet are you from? Practically every king on Earth did exactly that from time to time, and very few were ever killed. In act such behavior was one of their smallest crimes - If your farm had a bad year, very few kings let their people make the choice between feeding their family and paying taxes.
The people may have *wanted* to kill the king, but a king has an army of enforcers, and those enforcers are likely to be far more vicious than those
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The US version of nobility is state's rights: US courts declared segregation was illegal but the states did it anyway.
Similarly, the landed gentry (who had their own militia) would make a point of disagreeing with a king that proclaimed "fuck the Geneva Convention".
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On the other hand, a large part of the elected officials believe sleep deprivation, waterboarding and needles under the nails isn't torture, or at least the government is allowed to torture individuals deemed important.
No. It's not the elected officials. That's just blame shifting.
The problem is that a larger part of people (a.k.a., voters) [pewresearch.org] believe that.
Their elected political creatures are just parroting their beliefs.
What we need to face, as Americans, is that we have a lot of people in this country that would be considered a bit fucking sick in most of the western world.
Re: Pay public defenders more (Score:5, Insightful)
Any coercion to obtain a false confession should be illegal and carry a penalty at least as severe as the innocent defendant's sentence. The police in this case should face life in prison.
There should also be severe penalties for police or prosecutors who are aware of such coercion and do nothing.
Any statute of limitations for such crimes should be from the date of exoneration and release.
The plea bargain system, often used to coerce false confessions, should be reformed or abolished. Many plea bargains require the defendant to forfeit their right to appeal, even if new exonerating evidence surfaces. That practice should be banned.
Juries should be instructed that coerced confessions are common, and they should never convict based on a confession alone.
Police interviews should be recorded in their entirety. Any confession obtained without a full recording of the interview that led to it should be inadmissible.
Re: Pay public defenders more (Score:5, Interesting)
Agree, but didn't understand the following line:
>> Any statute of limitations for such crimes should be from the date of exoneration and release.
Re: recordings ... who gets to see / hear it anyway? Surely those recordings are secured. (?) Main issue I can imagine is recording of secret informants.
In NSW, police can choose when to turn on/off their bodycams, which all too often happen to be turned-off at moments extremely convenient to them. Arguments are put forward relating to workplace privacy, but I reckon (i) any activity during active duty should be recorded; (ii) if something private is accidentally recorded
I have a vague recollection reading that when police get back to the station they have the opportunity to delete recordings (take that statement with a large amount of salt). If true, this should not be available.
And I would add to your list above: ... there should be a formal presumption of dodginess on the part of the arresting officers.
any court case where police recordings were deliberately switched-off should place a heavier burden on the prosecution
One more addition:
I truly believe the vast majority of police (at least here in Australia) are honest family men & women doing a generally thankless and dangerous job, but crooked cops need to be punished very severely: they erode public confidence in the majority, and allow toxic societal elements to continue.
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The problem is the good cops covering for the bad ones, you only have too look at the enquiry going on in Queensland to see the issue.
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If they are covering for bad one then they are not good cops.
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Definitely not. At that point they become accomplices to the crime.
If you have one bad cop, and nine cops cover for them, then you have ten bad cops.
And yes, that would seem to mean that we have very few good cops in the US.
However, it is worth noting that the problem comes from the top - there seem to be a lot of cops that would prefer to be (fairly) good cops, but have to choose between covering for their coworkers, and getting fired or killed.
I have a hard time condemning those who stick it out to try t
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They should reconfigure the recording 'off' button to just switching to recording it to an encrypted stream with the key held in District Attorney's office. If the cop claims one thing and the suspect another they can unlock the video for a viewing in a hearing.
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In the very least, the sentence should be whatever it would be for say, falsely imprisoning someone in your basement for whatever the duration of the victims sentence was.
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Re:Pay public defenders more (Score:5, Interesting)
Their being able to perform well is literally one of the foundations of our legal system's attempt at fairness.
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You should research the British legal system. They have a pool of trial lawyers (Barristers) that do both the prosecution and defense work. Considering the US system is based on the British one in most places outside Louisiana, it makes little to no sense to me that what we have essentially special lawyers for wealthy citizens-accused and below-average ones with the deck stacked against them for everyone else.
There are a few great lawyers who go into the PD's office, but all the incentives stack against t
Busted (Score:4, Funny)
n/t
Similar case but this time Texas executed him (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.newyorker.com/maga... [newyorker.com]
Re:Similar case but this time Texas executed him (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't tread on Texas' right to execute someone, evidence be damned
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No recourse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No recourse (Score:5, Insightful)
And thanks to qualified immunity laws, the cops who did this are sitting on thier fat pentions living the good life and do not have to answer for this atrocity.
What the city should do is fully review all cases involving the officer(s), fully investigate any with convictions of any sort, and pass on the full costs of this to those officers (or their estates) as well as to any police unions that ever "protected" the officers in any past disciplinary hearings - taxpayers shouldn't need to pay a cent of all of this.
They'd be broke pretty much instantly (Score:4, Informative)
While I agree that taxpayers shouldn't need to pay a cent of this, tragically, they pretty much have to. You see, police pensions might be "fat" on a personal basis, compared to what they earned while serving. But what you call for would render them bankrupt virtually instantly.
Consider that reviewing these cases would most likely require a lawyer or a judge. Instantly, you're going from ~$50k/year to $128k(using google for "median pay for 'x'"), so they're making more than double what the officer did. Then, if you add all the benefits and other expenses, 50% more on top isn't unusual at all. So you're up to ~$200k to have ONE lawyer review their cases for ONE year.
If they worked for 20 years - figure like 100 cases/year, that's 2000 cases to review. At roughly 1-2 days per case to review, that's roughly 10 years of man-hours. Or $2M.
Keep in mind that this is likely an underestimate, as reviewing cases might then mean action needing to be taken.
And my reaction was to do the math and figure out he was convicted in the '80s. Now, it might just be that it normally takes 20-30 years for this stuff to come out, but it'd been my impression that the '70s and '80s were particularly bad on this front for officer malpractice. You go back far enough and torture wasn't even against the rules, but by the '70s torturing false confessions was illegal, but still common practice. I'm currently hoping that the practice was mostly stamped out by the '90s and 2000s, but at this point I'm not going to hold my breath.
And I'd rather spend taxpayer money to make things better for those harmed by these officers, than to let them continue suffering because we already took from the officers everything above the poverty level or such.
I'd much rather put them into a prison for a while, but it's an open question on how many are still alive to be imprisoned, whether we'd be able to convict them, etc...
Re:They'd be broke pretty much instantly (Score:4, Insightful)
But what you call for would render them bankrupt virtually instantly.
Yeah, that's kind of the whole point: they fuck up royally (usually with specific intent), they end up paying for it royally too. It's basic accountability. The tax payers didn't do the fuckup, so why should they end up being the ones paying??
If they worked for 20 years - figure like 100 cases/year, that's 2000 cases to review.
I didn't say to review all cases, ever. Just the ones where there had a conviction (and more specifically, ones based on coerced interrogation or where due process wasn't followed - easily identifiable in repeat offender officers)
And I'd rather spend taxpayer money to make things better for those harmed by these officers,
Fair enough, but I'd much rather see the officers responsible (as well as any other staff that aided/didn't prevent it) being punished so that it never happens again, rather than continually make those that have been harmed "made right" (which you never truly can anyways - how do you "make right" someone having been stolen decades of their life?).
But much more than that, failure to hold them accountable destroys the legitimacy of the city and that of the police force in future court cases:
Defense lawyer:"Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury - we've established in this case that the officers and investigators have repeatedly violated the rights and due process owed to the defendants they had prosecuted, and that the city have also repeatedly failed and neglected to act on these violations, leading to atrocious miscarriages of justice. Given these facts, can we truly believe this hasn't, yet again, happened in this case?"
I actually look forward to something like this happening in the future...
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I felt (and still do) feel much the same way as you do in broad strokes. Here are my big takeaways from a little deeper study of criminal law:
We think of the cops, courts, lawyers, and jails as entirely different entities. Yet in some ways it's like one big organism... some call it the Prison-industrial complex.
The book Arrest Proof Yourself does a far better job of explaining it in detail.
The best law grads work for big firms. Prosecutors tend to be solid students with (typically) conservative politics
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So basically, it’s a popularity contest, with “the truth” being fabricated to fit the contestants’ cases, real truth and justice be damned.
Pretty much validates my assessment that each case must be reviewed, and any violations merit 5x what a regular civilian would get at sentencing for the same level of crime.
Estimations (Score:2)
On not reviewing all cases:
1. If you don't review the cases, how do you know which ones involved coerced interrogations/due process violations? Keep in mind that 1-2 days per case isn't a lot of time I'm allocating. Some cases will take mere hours, some will take weeks. I figure 1 day allows the person investigating to read most of the case file, make an early determination, maybe call those affected to see what they say.
2. If you only look at convictions, that's probably a lot of torture you're missin
Re:They'd be broke pretty much instantly (Score:4, Interesting)
While I agree that taxpayers shouldn't need to pay a cent of this, tragically, they pretty much have to. You see, police pensions might be "fat" on a personal basis, compared to what they earned while serving. But what you call for would render them bankrupt virtually instantly.
I'm a taxpayer, so I get where you're coming from.
However- tax payers put these people in power. They're ultimately responsible for their abuse as well. That's how self-government works.
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However- tax payers put these people in power. They're ultimately responsible for their abuse as well. That's how self-government works.
Well, no. You can pay taxes and not vote. You also don't vote for the individual officers at your local police station. At most, the police commissioner or some higher position. And even then, a lot of those positions having people run unopposed. So that link from tax payer to police is a pretty gross simplification. Think of it this way, let's say you pay taxes and then voted for a mayor that ended up assaulting his/her staff. a) that's obviously the opposite of what that person said he/she would do. b) th
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Well, no. You can pay taxes and not vote.
Hm- ok. You bring up a good point, at least partially.
It is the responsibility of those who can vote.
If you can, and do not, you do not absolve yourself of the responsibility.
You also don't vote for the individual officers at your local police station.
Not relevant.
Pretending like you're only responsible for the people you vote for flies in the face of self governance.
So that link from tax payer to police is a pretty gross simplification.
Not the tax payer, tax payers. As a group.
You aren't solely responsible of course, but you are in part as part of the electorate. There is no avoiding that- that is how the system works.
It is government by and of t
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Well, no. You can pay taxes and not vote.
Hm- ok. You bring up a good point, at least partially.
Not even "partially" - he knows damn well what you meant: the general public (taxpayers) are the ones funding all this, and ultimately are the "top boss", and that it's not exaggerated to have the highest expectations of their "employees", regardless of how they got "hired" (voted or otherwise) into their positions.
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That means the ultimate responsibility is the governed.
The governed do not get to shirk it and pretend like the government is something that exists without their consent.
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And no, don't assume I knew what he meant. Or, if I did maybe that's what I meant by saying, "that's an oversimplification". Because a) my first language is Chinese, meaning I take words very literally. I'm literally in Taiwan right now. It's 11:12 AM on our independence day as I type. b) the words, "top boss" and "ultimate" has a lot
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Not the tax payer, tax payers. As a group. You aren't solely responsible of course, but you are in part as part of the electorate. There is no avoiding that- that is how the system works. It is government by and of the people. I.e., there is no distinction between the electorate and the government.
Yes, there is. If it truly if of the people, by the people, then why does policies overwhelming popular with the people, never get voted in or enacted? On top of that, this ignores that the US is a democratic republic. Meaning we choose the representatives and those representatives are the government. If there was no distinction, you should be able to walk into any government assembly in the US, (or in the UN, for that matter since the people there are elected too), and out shout your local representative.
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Yes, there is. If it truly if of the people, by the people, then why does policies overwhelming popular with the people, never get voted in or enacted?
Because people elect bad leaders.
On top of that, this ignores that the US is a democratic republic.
Ignore? What the fuck are you talking about. That's literally my fucking point. Those regular citizens that you elect are the government. ;)
The US is a democratic republic. That means a state in which sovereignty is in the hands of the people, and the government is chosen by the people.
That means the people are the end all of authority and responsibility.
If there was no distinction, you should be able to walk into any government assembly in the US, (or in the UN, for that matter since the people there are elected too), and out shout your local representative.
What kind of stupid logic is this?
Says what treatise on government, I laughingly ask.
Even your vote isn't direct, remember?
That isn't relevant.
You're tryin
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Intellectual dishonest will not get you far in this world. Do better.
So... your arguments to my points are "Nuh-uh." and "you're lying". But I'm the one being intellectually dishonest?
First off, you said:
I.e., there is no distinction between the electorate and the government.
And my reply is "Yes there is because democractic republic. You yourself are not recognized as part of the government nor the electorate." And your reply is "Those regular citizens that you elect are the government."... which voids the point that there is no distinction because, you have to be elected to be part of the government. That's a distinction. Also, I'm Taiwanese.
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Sorry, dyslexia strikes again.
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So... your arguments to my points are "Nuh-uh." and "you're lying". But I'm the one being intellectually dishonest?
You didn't have points. You created a strawman.
You then beat it down and called it a proof.
It was amusing to watch, but ultimately a waste of everyone's time.
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Keep pissing in the wind, my ignorant little toady.
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Go get me some fries, dumbfuck.
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Yes, we absolutely are all responsible for the evil we fund with our taxes. It's harder to do the moral thing but that doesn't mean you can beg off responsibility for doing the thing you know is not moral, and that goes for me too.
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But as I keep trying to ask the troll DamnOregonian, when does "ultimately responsible" stop?
Oh yeah, don't waste your time with that. He's basically just a collection of logical fallacies. My point is that the responsibility is spread around. We each have a little bit of it. That's what makes it so easy to pretend it's not real.
if we all have responsibility, doesn't the police also? Shouldn't they be more responsible that the tax payers?
Yes. They have direct and primary responsibility. But if we keep funding the system that keeps putting them into positions where they keep murdering people, then we are also responsible.
When can you go "I've done my due diligence, it's not my responsibility."?
Never. That's literally how we got where we are now.
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Oh yeah, don't waste your time with that. He's basically just a collection of logical fallacies.
Thank you for confirming that. I'll remember that as I spend my moderation points. Though I wouldn't say he's full of logical fallacies. I think he's a literal Russian or Chinese troll. Denying definition of words, lying and name calling doesn't require fallacies.
Yes. They have direct and primary responsibility. But if we keep funding the system that keeps putting them into positions where they keep murdering people, then we are also responsible.
Agreed. No arguments there.
Never. That's literally how we got where we are now.
Here's where I'd like more clarification. To my understanding, being responsible (as opposed to having responsibility) would mean, if something goes wrong, you're the one to fix things. So, in the case of the previous exa
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We endorse what is done in our name with our acceptance.
It's hard to oppose it because we're comfortable. But accepting evil done in your name to make you comfortable is evil.
I for one am not going to go throw my life away by dashing it on the rocks of the state, I know what that's worth. I do what I can by trying to convince people that what they are supporting is evil. Without their being willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with me I have no chance to affect change anyway.
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...or to effect change, for that matter.
People literally know their actions are evil and are avoiding learning the details so they can sleep at night. I want to stop them from doing that comfortably, because otherwise they will never be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with me to oppose it.
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The "theory" as you call it, is pretty basic Lockeian thought.
The question here becomes, does the Russian government really govern with the consent of the governed?
If yes, then yes. If no, then no.
I believe current western belief is that the answer is no, that Putin is the executive of a near-dictatorship.
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It's the voters' responsibility to make a good decision. Most won't, so we get the government we deserve.
It's also true that people in government have deliberately compromised voters' ability to make good decisions by decreasing the quality of education, so there's plenty of blame to go around. But we've got to stop accepting that the state educates poorly, so we have to be stupid. There's learning resources out there and we've got to educate each other if the government won't.
Voting stuff (Score:2)
Technically speaking, you can pay taxes and not have the option to vote.
For example, minors, felons in states that revoke voting rights, people who live outside the voting area, etc...
Plus, consider the timeline here. He was falsely convicted in ~1986. I did not pay taxes or have the ability to vote at that time, I was a child. I'd wager most tax payers around today were either children or not born yet.
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But what you call for would render them bankrupt virtually instantly.
And that would differentiate them from millions of others how exactly? An incredibly large portion of the population live at or below subsistence levels. Why shouldn't a corrupt police officer join those ranks?
Uh... I think you misunderstood me... (Score:2)
I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say to not render them bankrupt. I said that it'd be utterly insufficient to correct the damage they've done. The investigations alone to determine who needs to be compensated will exceed their assets, much less the compensation for years and decades falsely spent in prisons.
Sure, render them bankrupt. Just be under no illusion that this is going to significantly cut the cost to the state.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No recourse (Score:5, Informative)
What you say is incorrect. Qualified immunity only applies when it is _UNCLEAR_ that an action was illegal. It doesn't apply to slam-dunk cases like torturing a confession out of someone. Police can be and have been sued in civil court for clear-cut abuses.
Let's say it's 1985 and you arrest someone for burning the American flag. It turns out what you did was illegal: you violated that guy's freedom of speech by arresting him. But the Supreme Court didn't actually rule on that issue until 1989, and the decision was 5-4, so it was a really close call. Given that four out of nine Supreme Court justices came to the same "wrong" conclusion that you did, how were you, a police officer who doesn't have a law degree, possibly supposed to have known the law you arrested that guy for breaking was unconstitutional? Also, how are you supposed to do your job if you're risking being sued into the ground for failing to predict how unsettled law eventually gets settled?
Qualified immunity is what protects police officers from being held liable for not predicting the details of how the Constitution will be interpreted in the future. Instead, they're only held liable in clear-cut cases where they should have known what they were doing was violating someone's rights. That's a good balance.
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Enforcing a law that is/was on the books at the time doesn't need qualified immunity as it should be thrown out of court pretty quick as frivolous.
Much different then torturing a confession out of someone, which as far as I know, has been illegal for the lifetimes of everyone alive right now.
I also here about qualified immunity to get out of excessive force accusations as well as point blank murder and attempted murder by police.
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If that law if unconstitutional then the case is very much NOT frivolous, and there should be no qualified immunity*, GP's taste for shoe leather notwithstanding. The the unconstitutionality of a law would just mean that the legislators and executive who passed the law should be on the hook for damages and punishments too. Injustice in the justice system is hardly ever the work of a single rogue operating alone. It takes a long chain of malevolent co-conspirators, supporters, and enablers to unjustly fram
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Is finding a law unconstitutional retro-active enough to be able to sue for someone enforcing what the current law was? I'd assume no but I'm not a lawyer or even American
Re:No recourse (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that 'unclear' is too often stretched to the breaking point in the officer's favor based on excuses anyone over the age of five can see through (if they want to).
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That's our fault, as a society. Clearly we need to expect / demand more impartiality from our judges.
And like many other societal problems, fixing them starts with putting the correct people (politicians) into power.
Elected representative => attorney general => judge
Or do I have this wrong?
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The biggest problem isn't the judges, it's the DAs. They don't bother to prosecute whole classes of crime, like for example wage theft (which exceeds all other theft combined.) Judges don't even come into play at the point at which our legal system is failing us most egregiously. The case has to get there!
I am however pretty fucking sick and tired of hearing judges tell potential jurors including myself that they have to return a verdict in accordance with the law, and never mention that juries can't be hel
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> Judges don't even come into play at the point at
> which our legal system is failing us most egregiously.
Maybe. But they happily go along with the rogue cops and prosecutors when they reach the courtroom in nearly every case. The judge in this very case did so; cheerfully allowing, in his courtroom, an innocent person to be framed for a crime he didn't commit. Perhaps he is LESS responsible... I suppose he could have "merely" been negligent and believes the police's and prosecutors' lies without d
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The last time I had jury duty I was excused because I said that taking an oath to "judge only the facts presented and NOT the law itself" would be unconscionable. You know it's getting bad when they want you to actually swear an oath not to nullify.
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Some version of it could be a good balance. What the courts have been doing is not. Here's a very partial list of what police have gotten away with under qualified immunity: https://reason.com/2021/08/18/... [reason.com]
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What you say is incorrect. Qualified immunity only applies when it is _UNCLEAR_ that an action was illegal. It doesn't apply to slam-dunk cases like torturing a confession out of someone. Police can be and have been sued in civil court for clear-cut abuses.
Let's say it's 1985 and you arrest someone for burning the American flag. It turns out what you did was illegal: you violated that guy's freedom of speech by arresting him. But the Supreme Court didn't actually rule on that issue until 1989, and the decision was 5-4, so it was a really close call. Given that four out of nine Supreme Court justices came to the same "wrong" conclusion that you did, how were you, a police officer who doesn't have a law degree, possibly supposed to have known the law you arrested that guy for breaking was unconstitutional? Also, how are you supposed to do your job if you're risking being sued into the ground for failing to predict how unsettled law eventually gets settled?
Qualified immunity is what protects police officers from being held liable for not predicting the details of how the Constitution will be interpreted in the future. Instead, they're only held liable in clear-cut cases where they should have known what they were doing was violating someone's rights. That's a good balance.
What you say is incorrect.
You're defending a far, far weaker form of qualified immunity than actually exists. No one thinks that a cop should be sued for an action that's only declared unconstitutional year later. That's not the debate over qualified immunity.
How it actually works is: [wikipedia.org]
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clear
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Oh? So, if qualified immunity works as you've described; then why was there nothing in the article about the cops and DA involved in this case being arrested, tried, and imprisoned for perjury, which is very much unambiguously a crime?
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I'd love to see a citation for this. It's been a long time since I really read up on qualified immunity but I don't think your GP's characterization of immunity was right (at all). You're generally not immune for actual criminal acts when working as a cop... such as police brutality, stealing money from a crime scene, etc. You ARE much more shielded from civil lawsuits (this is suing someone for money, which is a different legal system entirely) based on say tackling someone. The idea is obviously that
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No, taxpayers should pay for the damages done by cops on their behalf. If they don't care enough to elect officials who will hold police departments accountable and create a culture of culpability then they absolutely deserve to pay for what's done in their name... after all, they supported it.
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In a just world, their pensions should be transferred to their victims for life and they should take their victims place in prison.
I can understand qualified immunity for genuine errors and accidents but writing a confession and beating someone until they copy it down as their own is no accident.
And by genuine mistake, I mean genuine for someone using appropriate caution and good judgement, not cowards who start shooting before they verify their target.
end cash bail so that poor people don't take deals (Score:5, Insightful)
end cash bail so that poor people don't take deals and skip court.
Re: end cash bail so that poor people don't take d (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:end cash bail so that poor people don't take de (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. I had a public defender a couple decades ago when I was super poor. They just say plead guilty and take a deal - don't even try.
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This sounds "insightful", however if you consider the alternatives, ending cash bail is the wrong choice.
What can you do?
No arrests, nobody goes to jail pre-trial. Tried in San Francisco, ended with the DA being recalled: https://ballotpedia.org/Chesa_... [ballotpedia.org]
Judge decides who stays in jail. Obviously will not help with arbitrary prosecution, nor the plea deals.
Fixed limits for jailtime for everyone. Again, will have similar results, and most likely will have amendments for "extensions", which will again forever
Those cops.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I sure hope the cops who beat a coerced confession out of this guy replace him in prison for a life sentence. They damn sure deserve it.
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You better not look up what happened to the cops who gave a naked 14 year old with a hole drilled in his head back to Jeffrey Dahmer.
what the actual f (Score:5, Insightful)
We seem to be skipping over the fact that the cops tortured this guy?
What the actual fuck USA.
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Perhaps this is why US has a larger jailed population per population than anywhere around the world. Plea deals made under extreme coercion.
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> The differences between them and China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. are a matter of degree, not character
The direct, and indirect, amount of torture, suffering and death cause by them, in say the past 30 years, makes me wonder if we can gauge that one hasn't been as bad as the others. Maybe even worse?
The truth always wins (Score:2)
I hope he will enjoy the remainder of his life to the fullest.
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Err, how many others haven't been so lucky to get the innocence project involved and had their conviction revisited. The legal system in America is rewarded for convictions, not catching the guilty.
The Chicago Torture Justice Center (Score:2)
Mythbusters was such an unique show (Score:2)
One that deserves appraisals over everything they did. They made science fun again and captivated generations with their experiments. They saved many lives and continues to save more. All of its members, past and present, alive or deceased, are a reason to believe in mankind again.
Sounds like I overreacted at gas stations (Score:3)
I complained to management both times and called the fire marshall once over attendants smoking at the pumps.
Bless Mythbusters. Pursuing reality is a good thing. My favorite Bible verse is "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free". All slavery, all tyranny, depend on lies.
Re:Sounds like I overreacted at gas stations (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you did the right thing. It's the vapours that are dangerous. A cigarette tossed into liquid gasoline will be extinguished for lack of oxygen. The gasoline will be heated up a little bit but not enough to light it. Holding a cigarette for an extended amount of time in an environment of gasoline vapours mixed with atmospheric air, now that's another matter.
Even if the first 2000 cigarettes do nothing, it only takes one ignition in the course of a lifetime to ruin someone's life.
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Holding a cigarette for an extended amount of time in an environment of gasoline vapours mixed with atmospheric air, now that's another matter.
Is it? Because there are gasoline vapors above a pool of gasoline, too. Has a lit cigarette ever actually ignited gasoline vapors, or has that always been caused by some other ignition source like a match or lighter?
Lazy Police (Score:2)
It's easier to abuse and torture a prisoner than to do actual police work and find the actual guilty party who gets away with it.
Defund the police (Score:2)
Police should just be there to maintain the peace and detain/arrest people causing immediate harm, or warranted arrests.
Timeline (Score:4, Insightful)
The show's findings were confirmed in 2007, by experiments conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which made more than 2,000 attempts to ignite gasoline with a cigarette under various conditions.
[...]
In 2017, when John finally had his evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims, [his attorney Tara] Thompson and his legal team presented multiple alibi witnesses, in addition to seven witnesses who testified to being tortured by the same officers who had coerced his confession, documents showing that police had fabricated probable cause to arrest him, and an arson expert who testified that John's false confession was scientifically impossible.... In 2019, the appellate court granted John post-conviction relief on the grounds of actual innocence — a rarity in Illinois — largely based on the abuse used to coerce a false confession from John.
So after the ATF confirms that the crime as described is impossible it takes 10 years to get a hearing.
The after that another 2 years to actually be proclaimed innocent (I hope he was actually released in 2017).
Once you're convicted it takes a long time to reverse that fact, even when you show the conviction never should have happened [wikipedia.org].
Qualified Immunity. (Score:2)
I was told (Score:2)
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It is true. However, anything that contacts the fuel must first pass through the vapor cloud which, if ignited, will become a self-sustaining fire until the liquid fuel stops evaporating (a process accelerated by the fire's heat).
However, igniting the vapor cloud still requires a critical minimum temperature to trigger combustion. It would seem that the slowly smoldering cigarette ember just isn't hot enough to do the job for gasoline. I seem to recall hearing that even a direct flame from match or light
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I seem to recall hearing that even a direct flame from match or lighter is unlikely to do the job for diesel, so it's not that big a stretch.
Diesel fuel won't burn at all until it is heated quite a bit. You can use a wick, but then you just get a very sooty oil lamp. Absent additives, it is also remarkably biodegradable, and tends to persist in the environment for a shorter time than a veg oil spill. Which is also diesel fuel, from a certain point of view...
Annd..neither prosecutors or police charged (Score:2)
Because anything is legal if you work for the legal system.
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Paid vacation. Firing. Arbitration. Jobs restored. Back pay. Promotion. Retirement with pension. ‘Murica.