
Writer Peter Watts Guilty Verdict in Border Incident - mikecane
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186
======
cstross
It appears, from his report on the trial, that he was basically found guilty
of assault for failing to _immediately_ obey an order by a border guard to
drop to the floor ... after being punched in the face. (He paused to ask
"why".)

The problem here isn't the trial, or the prosecutor, or the jury: it's a law
that's drawn so broadly that failing to immediately obey an order from a US
border patrol guard is classified as "assault".

(If this is remotely typical of the breadth of the law, then most of us are
guilty of serious criminal behaviour and should turn ourselves in. Or
something.)

~~~
gamble
The conviction rate for federal crimes in the US is around 95%, a level
typically associated with countries like Japan or Russia that are routinely
criticized for their kangaroo courts.

~~~
evgen
The "conviction rate" at the federal level is basically a BS statistic because
it includes plea bargains and federal prosecutors have a much greater degree
of choice when it comes to pursuing prosecution compared to state and local
prosecutors. Most of the convictions are drug an immigration cases (29% and
21% respectively in a recent example year) and if you were to look at the
actual conviction rate of cases where the conviction comes from an actual
court verdict the rate is much lower. An odd little factoid here is that for
cases that go before a jury the conviction rate is in the low 80% range while
bench trials before a judge have a conviction rate in the mid to high 50s.

~~~
gamble
Which is exactly why the crimes are so loosely defined. The prosecutor loads
up a defendant with every conceivable charge, in the expectation that they'll
plead guilty to avoid an absurdly long sentence. Only the bravest, most
foolish, or truly innocent will risk a jury trial. Plea bargaining is illegal
in some countries for this reason.

------
regularfry
"...I cannot begrudge the jury their verdict. Their job is not to rewrite
laws, or ignore stupid ones..."

Surely the existence of jury nullification argues that this is _precisely_
their job?

~~~
CWuestefeld
This is an incredibly important point, and bears adding more information. See
the Fully Informed Jury Association here: <http://fija.org/>

I tell myself that were I in this case, I'd insist that my lawyer make this
point, and move for a mistrial were my lawyer not willing to defend me in this
way. In real life, I don't know if I'd have the guts to do that.

It's incredible that judges as a matter of course _lie_ to juries, telling
them that they must decide based on the law, and ignore their conscience. On
the contrary, the reason that juries exist is precisely because of their
conscience; otherwise we'd just have a computer keep score in the trial. It's
a horrible failing of our legal (I hesitate to say "justice") system that this
is not only tolerated but perpetuated.

~~~
dlytle
Here's a question: in the US, if a juror mentions jury nullification _during_
deliberation, can they be penalized or can their actions lead to a mistrial?

I seem to remember that once deliberation starts, whatever a jury talks about
is officially under wraps, but I've seen way too much Law & Order to trust
anything I remember about our legal system.

~~~
jrp
Wikipedia says yes:

"In 1997, in U.S. v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606, the Second Circuit ruled that
jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the
law"

"In 2001, a California Supreme Court ruling on a case involving statutory rape
led to a new jury instruction that requires jurors to inform the judge
whenever a fellow panelist appears to be deciding a case based on his or her
dislike of a law."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_United_States#Court_rulings)

~~~
jrockway
As with any threat to the Establishment, you have to be discreet. Of course
the Establishment is going to get upset when you take an end-run around their
procedures. So don't tell anyone you are doing it; convince the other jurors
with facts from the trial, and if they can't be convinced, you can always
hang.

(Remember, it cuts both ways. Nullification can prevent unfair laws from being
applied. But nullification can also let the white supremecist go free for
lynching a black man, if another racist is on the jury. This would be a
horrifying miscarriage of justice and would put society in danger, so it makes
sense that there are safeguards that help prevent this situation.)

------
AngryParsley
If you like hard sci-fi and haven't read Watts's novel Blindsight, I highly
recommend it. It's the only sci-fi story I've read that has dozens of
footnotes referencing real papers published in real journals. On the Mohs
Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, it's aggregated diamond nanorod.

The book is CC-NC-SA licensed and available for free online:
<http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm>

It's also published in real paperback form: <http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-
Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640/>

~~~
CWuestefeld
Agreed, it's a good book -- and maybe we can help him with his legal expenses.
As you said, the hard science in it is very good. And I'd add that it's done
with a lot of imagination: he covers a lot of novel ground (pun intended).

I'd also recommend his book _Starfish_ , which shows just as much imagination
and almost as much hard science. However, by the second book in that trilogy (
_Maelstrom_ ) there was a lot of political agenda showing through. That's not
necessarily bad, but since I happen to disagree with his agenda, and I was
reading it purely for pleasure, I was disinclined to finish that book or the
next.

------
aero142
Just because the law exists doesn't mean I cede all rational thought. If a law
is worded in a way to make a action taken by a reasonable person a felony,
then I reserve the option to not contribute to making matters worse by
convicting someone of breaching that law. There are so many laws on the books,
it is possible to convict people of all kinds of things, even though most
aren't felonies. The prosecutor has discretion on whether to charge someone,
so I say the jury should too. Civilization isn't going to break down just
because jurors decide that a law is being enforced too strictly.

With that said, this whole thing sounds funny, and I wasn't there for the
trial.

------
madair
It's so sad that we, our society, haven't figured out how to put a stop to
obvious injustice such as this. To think of all the people who must spend
collective lifetimes locked away by abuses of power, and yet we seem powerless
to put a stop to it. Fear takes it's toll on society exercised in ways such as
lax oversight of law enforcement, demeaning and abusive behavior tolerated
among our border guards towards pretty much all people depending on the mood
that day, unwillingness to reform a prosecutorial and judicial system that is
politically compromised into the cat and mouse game of the reds against blues,
a game where the unwitting losers end up in prison or worse.

:(

~~~
jrockway
_haven't figured out how to put a stop to obvious injustice such as this_

Actually, we have. It's called jury nullification. This jury did not want to
nullify; 12 ordinary people agreed to support this law. This is as fair as it
gets.

It is a dumb law, though, in my opinion.

~~~
prodigal_erik
They might not have even realized they could choose not to support the law,
with impunity. Jurors are often given demands like "you are bound by the oath
that you took at the beginning of the trial to follow the instructions that I
give you, even if you personally disagree with them" that lack any
constitutional basis, and the judiciary does its utmost to prevent jurors from
even hearing that nullification is possible (much less any arguments in
favor).

~~~
jrockway
People come up with much worse ideas on their own. If they didn't, we wouldn't
even need a criminal justice system.

~~~
prodigal_erik
The judiciary behaves as though those people are very rare (otherwise this
wouldn't be so drastically censored), and they're probably right about that.
_Voir dire_ filters out many of the well educated, and I wouldn't expect many
of the other jurors to figure out from scratch "hey, if I refuse to convict,
they can't actually do anything to me" or bet their freedom on that. I doubt I
would have before I read about it....

------
dustingetz
so, like, did he press battery charges against the border guard? or is it not
possible to be battered by an officer.

~~~
dustingetz
On further reflection, so why exactly was he punched in the face? The article
doesn't say, and google is flooded with biased 'omgwtfbbq' stories. I mean it
seems pretty clear that he got shafted, but I'd still like to see the opposing
timeline before he was punched.

------
gradschool
If you were in a situation where you believed the police were acting
improperly, wouldn't it be both more politically effective and safer to make
an official complaint later than to try arguing with them at the time?

~~~
9oliYQjP
Never talk to police. Never ever ever. Back in high school, I broke up a
fight. I came between two people and stopped them from duking it out. A nice,
kind, female police officer started talking to me. She asked me how old I was.
I replied that I was 18 (Ontario had 13 grades at the time and I was in OAC,
the last grade). She then asked me if I'd laid a hand on any of the people. I
said, "yes I pulled back my friend and separated them". She then warned me
that I could be charged for assault and tried as an adult. At first I thought
she was joking, so I kind of chuckled, but she let the thought linger over my
head while I tried to figure out what she was getting at. What she really
wanted me to do was play along with the report of how things went down, which
I'd disagreed with. I quickly weighed the options, determined that no charges
would be laid if we just helped this officer out and kept her paper work to
the minimum, and went along... Not my proudest moment, but perhaps quite
smart.

What's my point? You think you know what you're going to do in a situation
like that, but the police hold all the cards. Things can escalate
uncontrollably. All you need is a peace officer having a bad day (e.g., maybe
the wife yelled at him earlier in the day) for things to get really bad. I've
seen people get picked on by police when they literally didn't do anything
except ask "Why?" and often in a polite way. It's quite possible that the
author really is the victim here. It's certainly more plausible than the
border guard's story. When crossing the U.S. border, I'm terrified to even
wish them a good morning/afternoon. They're terribly rude, uneducated, and a
freaking embarrassment to the U.S..

~~~
blasdel
The US border guards are nowhere near as bad as the Canadian ones, and the
Canadian border laws are worse too: having been barred from entry by one
shitheaded guard in the past is grounds to be barred automatically in the
future.

~~~
9oliYQjP
Maybe border guards are jerks to non-citizens.

And it's funny, please tell Fox News that are border laws are more stringent.
Apparently we're the leaky sieve of North America when it comes to letting in
terrorists :)

~~~
billswift
Strictness and obnoxiousness are orthogonal.

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andrewcooke
what's the sentence? edit: ok, sentencing on april 26 -
<http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2499555>

~~~
AngryParsley
Sentencing is scheduled for April 26th. Dr. Watts could appeal before that. He
might also take another look at Canada's extradition policies (and US prisons)
before choosing to abide by the verdict.

------
inklesspen
Please, he's not just "writer Peter Watts". He's "Dr. Peter Watts, Ph.D".

