ahna

Ironic that we're only seeing collective action now, when it's too late to help him. Though we can, maybe, move the needle a bit and make such things less likely to happen again.

I feel as if the tech community is still trying to figure out the collective action thing. Maybe it's because we don't have the history of unions* like many workers in hollywood/entertainment industry do. But when the tech community did act collectively to stop SOPA, it made a big difference. I hope we can do more of that.

(* which is fine -- I don't think you can make the economic case for having them in the highly competitive tech job market. Unionization is more strongly justified in cases of bad working conditions, or a single employer with an effective monopoly on that type of job in the region)

> Uh, plea bargains are the #1 way the system is made more "expedient", you can't have your cake and eat it too. Feel free to continue putting words into my mouth about "sanctioning miscarriage of justice" though.

What the heck. Forcing plea bargains on 96% percent of accused is just so we can be "expedient" for the other 4%? How does that make sense? Other countries get by just fine without plea bargains. Maybe we could get expedience by, you know, focusing prosecution effort on serious crimes or ones that actually have victims.

> Feel free to continue putting words into my mouth about "sanctioning miscarriage of justice" though.

You might want to read up on how plea bargaining is viewed in other countries. There are some that are of the opinion that plea bargains are "miscarriage of justice", and you seem to be defending it as a perfectly fine practice.

(edit: not sure what I think on plea bargains generally. But in this particular case it seems pretty ridiculous.)

> The thing they were really trying to do was not have the trial, which is something I would expect them to do given the structure of the legal system.

So basically, charge someone with something ridiculous, and then be offer a sweet sweet deal, such as "only 6 months jail time and confess to 15 felonies. Oh and if you want to go trial it will cost you and your family years of drama, all your savings, and risk 50 years in prison". How nice of them! Let's suppose someone offers you this deal. Does it even matter if you're innocent? Your life is going to be messed up either way. Maybe you cave under pressure and take the deal. How is that furthering the cause of justice?

Oh, and in theory, there's this little thing in the US called the Sixth Amendment:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence"

I've seen this sentiment expressed over and over here this week, and it's really frustrating to read.

Want to stop people speeding on a road? Issue tickets. In some sense, that's not fair -- people still do it and get away with it, why single out one person? But having a non-zero possibility of a negative consequence is a net disincentive to the behavior. Even if it's enforced somewhat randomly.

Hypothetically: let's suppose that our goal is to stop "the system" of prosecutors threatening multiple felonies against citizens for behavior that most other citizens do not consider worthy of a consequence as serious as jail time/felony conviction. Let us also assume that some prosecutors do this to get prestige/promotions. If there are well known examples of positive consequences, and no examples of negative consequences, then the incentives for our hypothetical prosecutor are pretty clear.

It seems fairly obvious that if Ortiz and Heynmann face seriously negative career consequences, it changes the cost/benefit calculation for other prosecutors, even those whose main concern is career advancement.

There aren't many ways to hold public officials accountable besides public outcry.

I do agree that the root problem is the human psyche. We have all kinds of bugs/heuristics (depending on how you look at it) for social behavior. These lead to group behaviors that us abstract thinkers find frustrating. Unfortunately, this isn't going to get fixed until 20+ years, and that's if you're on the optimistic side about transhumanism. So in the meantime we have to use the tools (and brains) that we have.