Battered women jailed for "letting" abuse happen

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Aside from that, few things offend me like a prosecutor first offering someone a plea bargain with a fairly low custodial sentence attached, then grandstanding in court about this dangerous offender that must be locked up for the maximum amount of time for public safety after they reject the deal, it's pure vindictiveness, not justice.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexcampbell/how-the-law-turns-battered-women-into-criminals#1rfsp8g

A percentage of serial killers have been abused. It doesn't change the intent though.

Abuse always need to be taken into consideration as do other facts.

That's called 'the tax', the practice of prosecutors seeking the maximum sentences they can, regardless of context or circumstance, against defendants who insist on going to court and not taking plea deals, with the idea of intimidating others into taking pleas, whether guilty or not. It's a grave miscarriage of justice, and a major reason for my own personal disdain for the entire profession of prosecutors.

As an aside, it bugs me that the 'slimy defense attorney' is still a favorite stock villain in entertainment and that people still seem to think that criminals getting off on technicalities is a major problem, when calculating and ruthless prosecutors flagrantly violating the law and getting away with it are a much more common and serious problem. A prosecutor can lie, withhold exculpatory evidence, suborn perjury, and otherwise make a mockery of the legal system, be caught on tape doing so, and you still can't so much as civilly sue them because they have absolute immunity, beyond even what the police have, for anything they do in the course of their work. Add in the fact that they're often elected, and that what they run on is conviction ratings (not 'justice' ratings), and you have a recipe for abuse of power on an unprecedented scale, which is exactly what is happening today.

This is insanity. Surely, at the very least, there needs to be different people setting the charges and trying to get them? And defence and prosecution lawyers need to be held to equivalent standards (can defence lawyers legally withhold evidence?).

How does the American system stand up with its peers? Obviously it is better than China, but how many developed countries have these messed up rules? Jordan is capable of throwing out evidence obtained under torture that would convict a probable terrorist... OK, America could probably do that too, but is it common for legal systems to be quite that screwed, or is America out in front amongst developed, democratic countries?

Legally prosecutors aren't allowed to withhold evidence, but it's commonplace and virtually never punished, and defendants convicted in such tainted trials have huge obstacles to overcome to get new trials, as said prosecutors fight tooth and nail against it, and we have some bone-headed legalistic rules regarding when a new trial can be granted.


It's a bit more complicated, we have a lot of the right rules on the books, the problem is that they're seldom enforced, even more rarely publicly, and when they are, almost never to any lasting consequence. It's very similar to what's been happening with the fourth amendment, where the courts have been chipping away at the exclusionary rule barring illegally obtained evidence from being used at trial, giving the police various "good faith" exceptions that all but guarantee more illegal searches, as the police are not penalized for them so long as they claim they thought what they did was legal, even in the most outrageous situations.

What a lot of people don't understand is the lopsided nature of criminal proceedings, where the prosecution already has the entire resources of the state to call upon, while the defendant, if lucky enough to be able to afford council, can only muster the best defense he can afford, and god help him if he has to rely on a public defender. Further, with the rise of mandatory minimum sentences, prosecutors were given a ton of control over what potential sentence a defendant could be looking at, based on what enhancements they do or do not file, giving them vast leverage when plea bargaining. Add in the motivation structure, prosecutors are rewarded for convictions, not for finding the truth, and their aforementioned absolute immunity, and you can see how it got so out of control.

Yes, it is absolutely ridiculous to give an incentive for convicting someone. I just don't understand how it isn't exceedingly obvious to everyone how backwards that is.

People really still want to believe in the system, and will ignore all sorts of evidence to the contrary, even when it's shoved in their faces. That, and the general public seems ignorant of public choice theory and its implications in politics and governance.

Mom charged with doing nothing about son's beating

By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News

The mother of a 3-year-old boy who police say was beaten and kicked to death by the woman's teenage boyfriend has been arrested and accused of leaving her son with the man after she witnessed most of the violence.

Arrest warrant affidavits say Arlena Lindley, 21, of Dallas was in the apartment when her son, Titches Lindley, was choked, stomped and tossed against a wall by her boyfriend. Then Ms. Lindley went shopping.

Ms. Lindley was booked into the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on Wednesday afternoon on a charge of injury to a child with the intent of serious bodily injury by omission, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison. Her bail is set at $100,000.

Ms. Lindley's boyfriend, Alonzo Turner, 19, was being held without bail on charges of capital murder in connection with the Oct. 13 death of Titches.

He also is charged with family violence assault because he's accused of injuring Ms. Lindley.

Ms. Lindley and Mr. Turner have declined interview requests.

Police said that about 10 a.m. Oct. 13, Ms. Lindley was at the apartment in the 4800 block of Sunnyvale Street in east Oak Cliff when Mr. Turner flew into a tirade because Titches wouldn't eat his oatmeal and had soiled his pants.

According to the affidavits, Mr. Turner ordered the boy into the bedroom, told him to bend over and beat him with a belt. He threw the boy against the wall.

Titches then spit oatmeal on the floor, and after he refused to lick it up, police said, Mr. Turner forced the boy's face into the mess. He then grabbed the boy's throat and stepped on his chest, then forced the boy's head into the toilet, police said.

"She didn't step in to protect the child," said Lt. Ches Williams, head of the crimes against children unit. "She was there enough of the time to realize that the child was being hurt."

Instead, the affidavits said, the boy's mother left with a friend to go to the store. Mr. Turner would not let them take Titches along, police said.

When her friend asked Ms. Lindley if they should call anyone, she reportedly said no, one affidavit said.

Soon after, an apartment manager walking by heard Mr. Turner yelling, "Get up! Get up!" at the boy. Through the window, she could see the man kicking the boy. She knocked on the door and confronted him. "I had to whoop him for pooping in his pants," Mr. Turner told her, according to police.

She went back to the office, and 911 was called. An officer arrived but found the apartment abandoned.

Police later learned Mr. Turner had taken Titches "to the store to get Pepto-Bismol because [Titches] was complaining of a sore stomach," according to one affidavit.

Meanwhile, after doing some shopping, Ms. Lindley accompanied her friend to her apartment, where they discussed Mr. Turner's behavior. Ms. Lindley, according to the friend, "was smiling when she told about the ... beating," an affidavit states.

At 1:40 p.m., the women returned to the apartment and found Titches, who was having "a hard time standing up and was tired." Mr. Turner told the boy, "Don't you fall down!" and laughed. The boy went to rest in the bedroom.

Ms. Lindley checked on her son and found his breathing labored but did nothing, police said. Minutes later, she found him not breathing, police said.

Mr. Turner dialed 911. Titches died at Children's Medical Center Dallas. Police said Titches had broken ribs, extensive internal bleeding and head trauma. The Dallas County medical examiner's office ruled he had died from multiple blunt force injuries.

When investigators asked Ms. Lindley why she didn't take her son away from Mr. Turner, she answered, "I don't know."

What sticks out to me is the alleged calloused attitude she had towards the beating and her refusal to call 911, the killer was actually the one who ultimately ended up calling it. It is a tragedy and Ms. Lindley may of been a victim of abuse as as well but she failed in her duty to protect her child. She left her child to die at the hands of this guy and did nothing to stop it even when she left the house and he was no danger to her.

Sometimes I am revolted at but really do sympathize with Plato's concept of a philosopher king.