
Judges refuse to order fix for court software that put people in jail by mistake - kyleblarson
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/appeals-court-public-defender-lacks-standing-in-dispute-over-court-software/
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wonderwonder
Obviously a case of not enough wealthy people being affected. If the poor are
falsely imprisoned its just business as usual and they lack the clout to hire
an aggressive talented attorney. This will likely rectify itself as soon as a
substantially wealthy individual is imprisoned improperly.

Just a continuation of the sad state of our legal system where punishment is
not so much an issue of guilt but of wealth or more specifically the lack
thereof.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-new-orleans-public-
defend...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-new-orleans-public-defenders-
decision-to-refuse-felony-cases/)

~~~
davesque
Also, am I correct in understanding that private prisons earn more profit if
they have more inmates? So someone stands to make less money if less people go
to prison. Any connection there or am I blowing things out of proportion?

~~~
trhway
frequently the private prison contract contains minimum occupancy guarantees
(like 80-100%). Thus government has to either send people to prison no matter
what or to face the politically tricky situation when taxpayers' money would
be openly wasted on non-occupied "beds".

~~~
Florin_Andrei
What could possibly go wrong, with rules like this? /s

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rrggrr
>Even if there was standing, the plaintiffs did not establish that they would
“suffer harm or prejudice in a manner that cannot be corrected on appeal.”
“They also fail to show that they lack an adequate remedy at law, as they may
move for correction of erroneous records at any time,” the 1st District
continued.

Civil and criminal Courts are intentionally blind to the cost, suffering and
disruption the process inflicts. It should be obvious that filing an appeal
and moving to correct records is expensive at a minimum, and hugely disruptive
to people struggling to survive, support families, etc. It may be easier and
cheaper to simply do time for alleged offenses, innocent or not.

Its appalling. @wonderwonder's comment is on target.

~~~
oh_sigh
That's not what it is about. The judge basically said that the public defender
couldn't bring suit because he was never harmed by said system. For this to go
forward, he would need to find someone who was jailed or labeled a sex
offender incorrectly, and have them bring suit. That is the heart of the
statement.

~~~
passivepinetree
I guess it must be legally valid because a judge said it, but how does that
make sense?

One could even argue that the public defender's clients were affected, this
impacting him.

~~~
Terr_
The "standing" limitations are a relatively common and long-standing feature
in the US legal system. If someone's dog barks in the night, and you live
absolutely nowhere nearby but you dislike the person, should you personally be
allowed to launch a lawsuit against them as a nuisance?

Unfortunately this can lead to a catch-22, where you statistically know that
people are being harmed, but without a lawsuit you can't identify specific
people, and without specific people you can't launch a lawsuit. I feel that
something like what happened with some of the government spying stuff in the
last decade or so.

~~~
aswanson
I get the dog analogy but this technique for correcting a flaw would be deemed
idiotic in almost every other setting. Imagine a software developer not being
able to fix bugs until a user reported it, or an airplane designer not
correcting a stress joint mispecification until a plane crashed, or a police
force not firing a rogue officer until a citizen complained, sued and won.

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Overtonwindow
"the public defender’s office has filed approximately 2,000 motions informing
the court that, due to its reportedly imperfect software, many of its clients
have been forced to serve unnecessary jail time, be improperly arrested, or
even wrongly registered as sex offenders."

There's the metric. Maybe there's a law firm that's willing to sue on behalf
of all of these people. Surely the hassle of that lawsuit would push them to
change, and those defendants would have standing.

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andrewla
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13069775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13069775)
was posted as the nature of the problem began to occur, and has many
interesting discussion on the underlying problems involved.

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baybal2
In any normal jurisdiction, a prima facie mistrial would've resulted in an
automatic disqualification and disbarment of a presiding judge.

America admits no legal liability of court employees over anything except
gross miscariage of justice, and even for such cases Americans invented insane
legal theories that let few judges walk away from charges ranging from
corruption and bribery to selling "freedom for blowjob"

Push for personal liability of judges in mistrials and violations of court
protocols

~~~
paulddraper
> normal jurisdiction

What is this "normal jurisdiction" you speak of? The jurisdiction most people
are in?

China, India, U.S.?

Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan?

Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia?

Mexico, Japan, Ethiopia?

Philippines, Egypt, Vietnam?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_\(United_Nations\))

~~~
manquer
Disingenuous.. do you always compare the united states with developing
economies for everything ? They are all less than 100 years old as independent
countries . with europe or other mature democracies would be better context
for normal surely?

Even these countries do not have 25 % world 's incarcerated population.. US
legal system has a problem whether you admit it or not

~~~
paulddraper
Seeking for "normal", I just took the top 15 most populous countries,
representing two-thirds of the entire human race.

Maybe by "normal" you meant "ideal". Or maybe you meant "where _I_ live". But
if "normal" means "usual", I think you are wrong.

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downandout
The law does allow for all of these people serving extra days in confinement
to seek financial damages for each day. It seems to me like a civil attorney
could file boiler plate lawsuits for each of these people, since the
underlying facts in each case are nearly identical. Besides the money that
both the attorney and his clients would enjoy, that would be by far the
fastest route to getting this fixed. It will stay broken until it hits the
county in the wallet.

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hvo
How about if the two names of sitting judges are added to the list,one
appellate judge and one supreme court judge. I am confident the software will
be fixed.

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slang800
Actual arguments used by the judge:
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3514379-Order-
Denyin...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3514379-Order-Denying-
Odyssey-Motion.html)

From a brief reading, it seems like the complaint is delays/errors in document
entry by clerks (like updates to probation terms or bail postings) and that
the search interface isn't connected with other databases.

Just sounds like confusing software, or users that haven't been trained to use
it. However, it's not clear if it's causing more or less clerical errors than
the last system they had.

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plandis
Here is the docket:
[http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.c...](http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=1&doc_id=2190036&doc_no=A151018)

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WCityMike
As a legal assistant in Illinois, which will start using this software
statewide by the end of the year (excluding Cook and some other counties,
which adopted other software), this is troubling news.

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angry_napkin
Unit tests, while not the prescription for everything, do tend to be important
in some domains.

