
Google Engineer bails out student in jail - staktrace
http://neil.fraser.name/news/2010/12/23/
======
mixmax
25% of the world population in jail is American. 737 out of 100.000 Americans
are in jail, that's almost one out of a hundred. As a comparison Denmark has
59 out of 100.000 people in jail. And the number of Americans in jail has been
rising steadily for the last 20 years.

This is a pretty serious problem.

~~~
philwelch
And yet, somehow, over the last 20 years the crime rate in the US has dropped
tremendously. Every single one of those prisoners was convicted of some crime
or another by a comparatively just court system.

The underlying problem--criminality in some American cultures--is difficult
and rather unique to the United States. Other rich countries are more
culturally homogenous and hence suffer less criminality, though that's
changing if you look, for instance, at Scandinavia, where the rate of rapes
has risen dramatically as more and more Muslims immigrate there.

~~~
nostrademons
Many of those crimes are drug crimes, which are only a crime because we've
chosen to make them so. It's not all that hard to change a law to make a
certain group of people whose habits you dislike criminals.

~~~
philwelch
There are definitely elements of this involved; I just challenge the idea that
this is the whole story. If you're comparing the US to a country where drugs
are legal, of course the US crime and incarceration rates are going to be
higher on account of that fact. That's not the comparison being offered,
though.

~~~
swombat
Drugs are not legal in Denmark.

~~~
philwelch
Yes, that was roughly my point. If drugs were legal in Denmark, we'd be able
to say "of course the US crime and imprisonment rates are higher than
Denmark's because the US considers drug use to be a crime and Denmark
doesn't". But, since drugs _are_ illegal in Denmark, Danish drug dealers
contribute to the Danish crime rate (and imprisonment rate, when caught) just
as American drug dealers contribute to the American crime rate (and
imprisonment rate, when caught).

------
woodrow
In case you're (like me) wondering what "attempted lynching" means in the
context of the article, consider yourself enlightened by the California Penal
Code:

    
    
      405a.  The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful
      custody of any peace officer is a lynching.
      
      405b.  Every person who participates in any lynching is punishable
      by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.
    

I can't imagine this is what the law was written to be used for, given the
usual connotation of lynching.

~~~
waterlesscloud
The part about "attempted lynching" results from an accusation that the
student yelled "Kick her (the police officer's) ass!" during the
confrontation. At least that makes the charge make sense, though of course who
knows if it's true or not.

Details were linked off the linked page-

[http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/jeremy-marks-
attempt...](http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/jeremy-marks-attempted-
lynching-case/)

~~~
rdl
New goal in life: if I ever have children, don't send them to LAUSD schools.
Schools with armed police at the door are undesirable -- borderline tolerable
if they're there to protect from outsiders, but if they're needed to control
the students, something is seriously wrong.

~~~
qq66
You're lucky that you have the choice to send your kids to a different school
(as do I, and most HN readers). The people who don't have this choice, also
disproportionately have children who need to be controlled by police (leaving
the families without a choice, but with non-feral children, as unfortunately
bystanders).

------
pieceofpeace
[From: [http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/jeremy-marks-
attempt...](http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/jeremy-marks-attempted-
lynching-case/)]

The first thing to understand is that Jeremy Marks touched no one during his
"attempted lynching" of LAUSD campus police officer Erin Robles.

The second is that Marks' weapon was the camera in his cell phone.

The third is that Officer Robles' own actions helped turn an exceedingly minor
wrongdoing — a student smoking at a bus stop — into a state prison case.

\---

Edit to add: Jeremy wasn't smoking, just recording the cop (which is legal in
his state)(wo)man-handling the smoker.

------
patrickaljord
I don't live in the US but when I read that kind of story or how Bradley
Manning is treated (regardless of whether he's guilty or not), it really looks
like the US is acting like the worst kind of police state or despotism (where
the despot would be a mixture of corporations and corrupt media/politicians).

~~~
paulbaumgart
Keep in mind that the US is a very distributed system. You can have a local
District Attorney who decides to pursue cases like this, but in the next
jurisdiction over, you could very well have a DA who is an entirely reasonable
person and would never allow something like this to happen.

Eventually these things usually get sorted out in some higher court, but that
can take years and can really mess up a person's life in the meantime.
Especially if that person is poor, unfortunately.

~~~
jrockway
Well, as long as some people aren't being abused, the system is fine and in no
need of repair.

~~~
mscarborough
Not the point he was trying to make.

There are plenty of flaws, but there are different avenues available other
than what the GP mentioned.

------
meterplech
While people sometimes knock the Reddit community on here this is an
impressive example of Redditors really helping people. Great job to the
founders and everyone who put Reddit together, for all the sarcasm and jokes
about it it's really cool to see stories like this.

Most importantly, good luck to this kid!

------
matwood
There are just so many WTF moments in this story.

1) Why are police involved with a kid smoking at school? Kids caught smoking
when I was in HS got after school detention.

2) There seems to be zero respect for the police officer. At what point did
kids quit respecting police and did the police lose that respect?

3) The DA actually bringing charges against someone who just looks to have
been idly filming the event. Where are charges against the more rowdy people?

4) The judge letting this case go forward.

~~~
e40
People in the US lost respect for police officers when they became bullies.
Either they're giving law-abiding citizens tickets or they are killing and
injuring suspects in their custody. Yes, I know, it's not all cops. But, there
are too many of these stories in the news. Young people, especially those that
hang out on reddit, will definitely have the sense that cops are just bad.

I live in Oakland, CA. Lots of crime here, but the beat cops spend most of
their time generating revenue and hassling people unlikely to be dangerous (to
them). It is pretty pathetic.

EDIT: an example (from the 80's)

I was in a bad part of Oakland one day, driving down a one-way street (2
lanes). A couple of blocks in front of me was a cop waving everyone on the
street over to the side. Each one of us (20+ people) got a ticket. Mine was
for "straddling the lanes", even though I protested that I was changing lanes
because I saw him standing in my lane. I realized that he was just making
something up.

I contested the ticket and he didn't show up. He knew he had no leg to stand
on.

How many of the people in that poor neighborhood did that? How many just
ignored the ticket and were later arrested on a bench warrant? Really
pathetic. That's the day I lost respect for them. (And, this happened in the
early 80's.)

------
PanMan
I love this quote, why he did this: "One of the things I learned was that bad
things can only happen if good people do nothing. I consider myself to be a
good person, so I had no choice but to act when I saw something like this
happening."

------
pixelcort
When I've heard mention of Neil Fraser in the past I've thought of his awesome
MobWrite project. But now I'll think of what he did for this kid and his
family.

Makes one think about what one wants to be known for.

~~~
benatkin
I know of him because of <http://code.google.com/p/google-diff-match-patch/>
which is best in its class by a longshot. And it's a very awesome class of a
library: a powerful text diff tool with implementations in multiple languages.
Haven't read TFA yet but I'm expecting I'll be even more impressed by him when
I get done reading it.

Edit: read the article. What an amazing contribution to justice! I'm
especially glad to hear of Google matching some legal funds. By the way, he's
likely to get the bail money back.

~~~
gcb
The bail and nicely commented code. now you can't not like the guy!

~~~
benatkin
If you don't like heroes, you could not like the guy!

------
Natsu
Honestly, I think we're going to need a constitutional right to videotape on-
duty cops or something one of these days.

That, and more people who refuse to convict anyone for "resisting arrest",
especially when that's the _only_ charge and none of the cops are injured.
Doubly so if only the suspect is injured.

I realize they charged them with "attempted lynching" here, but "resisting
arrest" is by far the more common charge. Mind you, I'm not saying that one
can't resist arrest or that it shouldn't be a crime, only that I wish more
people were wise to the abuse of that charge and that they knew to look for
warning signs that it's being used abusively. Specifically, I would consider
it to be a warning sign if: no cops are injured, there's heavily injured
suspect especially when they're disproportionately injured compared to the
hypothetical threat they might pose to an officer (two large cops shouldn't be
very threatened by a small, unarmed kid), no weapons are found or alleged to
have been seen, officer say-so is the only evidence of the crime, suspect is
charged with no crime except resisting, contradictory or non-existent
testimony about what they were arresting for to begin with and any other
contradictions in the evidence.

------
rdl
It's probably worthwhile to have some familiarity with how the
arrest/jail/lawyer process works beforehand. While for most people it is a
low-frequency event, it's not good to learn about the process for the first
time while in jail!

The key is:
[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912#...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912#docid=-4097602514885833865)
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912#>

~~~
aperiodic
Disclaimer: I Am Not A Laywer

It's also good to familiarize yourself with the distinctions between detention
and arrest.

In the United States, "detention" is whenever police temporarily restrict
someone's rights based on an "articulable" suspicion that a crime has
occurred. Police can detain anyone at any time if they have an articulable
suspicion, but only for a short period of time, and they cannot search the
belongings or vehicles of people in detention without consent (many cops will
try to obtain consent by saying things like "let me see what's in your bag,"
but you are well within your rights to verbally deny consent). A good way to
establish if you're being detained is to ask the officer if you're free to go.
If not, you should then ask why you're being detained, and memorize the
response. This is the "articulable suspicion" that the officer is supposed to
have before detaining you.

"Arrest" occurs when "any reasonable person" would feel that they are not free
to leave. The distinction between detainment and arrest is subtle, but if
you're being handcuffed or put into a police vehicle, your belongings or
vehicle are being searched after you have denied consent, or you are detained
for an extended period of time, then you're under arrest. Crucially, police
are not required to make any formal declaration of your arrest, nor are they
required to read you your Miranda rights (though they are required to read
them if they wish to question you). If you feel that you're under arrest, your
best course of action is to state that you refuse to speak and wish to see an
attorney. You can repeat this as often as is necessary. They're not allowed to
question you after you say this, but only if don't say anything else. If you
do, then you've waived your right to silence. The only exception is that you
are allowed to give your name and address in order to be released with a
promise to appear in court. If you do give that information, immediately
follow it by repeating that you will remain silent until an attorney is
present.

Again, I Am Not A Lawyer, although all of this information does come from
lawyers who give talks about civil liberties. None of these talks are online,
but most of the above is explained in more detail on an actual lawyer's
website[1].

[1]: <http://www.williamweinberg.com/lawyer-attorney-1127658.html>

------
dschobel
You can talk about the privatization of the penal system as yielding
degenerate incentives but ultimately it's up to the police on the streets to
get them into the system.

If there's no dead body, damaged/missing property or even an aggrieved person
(as in this case) what problem are the police trying to solve by capriciously
jailing people?

What's the incentive here?

~~~
billswift
Since the _real_ crime he committed was obviously "contempt of cop", the
incentive for the cop is to encourage people to kowtow properly, by showing
them what happens when you don't.

------
abraham
This is why you use a livestream tool like Ustream or JustinTV so your video
evidence can't be destroyed.

------
lkrubner
Mike Konczal has posted an interesting chart suggesting a link between
economic freedom and prison:

[http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/the-
conservative-w...](http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/the-conservative-
world-view-and-prison-populations-war-on-drugs/)

------
webuiarchitect
I liked the statement he made, "Bad things can only happen if good people do
nothing".

------
pixelbeat
I'd already noted Neil Fraser as an open source star
<http://www.pixelbeat.org/misc/google_stars.html> but now see he's an all
around great guy

------
nickfromseattle
I wonder how the situation will evolve as cameras that can stream to the cloud
are introduced into the marketplace. I imagine it cant be more then 10 years
away.

------
olalonde
Anyone knows what was the bail out amount?

~~~
irons
$155,000, according to the linked story. Fraser paid $50,000, which he'll get
back when the kid makes his court dates. The alternative was paying 10% and
not getting it back, which I didn't know was standard policy. (Most of what I
know about bail bonds comes from Jackie Brown.)

~~~
ars
It's the policy of the bondsman, not the court. You basically pay the bondsman
10% of the bond in exchange for them posting the rest of it.

Some people skip the hearing, and then the bondsman is out the money, so they
keep the 10% to cover their risk.

I don't know how the $50,000 number works - it seems the bond company is
paying the rest of it, but I don't know what they get in return.

~~~
MichaelApproved
>>so they keep the 10% to cover their risk.

The bondsman doesn't simply absorb the 90% loss if you skip, that's where Boba
Fett comes in. I believe if the bondsman's bounty hunters catch up to you
before the police do, he gets back the money that was put up.

~~~
ars
Actually I believe the bondsman gets the money either way (cops or bounty
hunter) - but the bondsman has to pay the bounty hunter, and the 10% helps
cover that.

------
gcb
or this guy's lawyer was benign or the system is really screwed up.

I would really like to read the analysis of the judge to justify that one.

------
GrandMasterBirt
We need tiny spy camera attachments which work on bluetooth with your
cellphone. These should be cheap to make (a couple of bucks) and everyone
should have one with their phones. This way we can record without police
knowing.

------
nightlifelover
lol at the US! Sounds like the police in a third world state.

~~~
cookiecaper
Yeah, I've never heard of charges being maliciously fabricated against a
perceived enemy of the local authoritarians anywhere else. Not even in Sweden.

