you should fear the legal system.

Eyewitness evidence is turning out to be some of the most unreliable evidence out there.

It is not the "fault" of honest people, rather it is the fault of our brain, and how the brain attempts to piece together events to create a timeline, a story.

First time I read about the "Invisible Gorilla on the Basketball court" I was very surprised about the number of people who did not see the Gorilla. Glad I was not part of the experiment or I would have felt very foolish if I missed the Gorilla.

This New York article discusses this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/h...mory-has-its-day-in-court.html?pagewanted=all

This article shows that 70 percent of Chicago accident reports are incomplete and 30 percent grossly wrong.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...120423_1_crash-reports-red-light-cameras-data

In my opinion, the greatest reason for this is that report filling is boring work and the Cop does not have "skin in the game" about the accuracy of the final product.
 
To say the system is corrupt because it isn't working very well, much less perfectly, is not exactly correct, unless there's money being paid by interested parties to influence the results. That is, that's what I call corruption. Money talks, people listen.
 
Moral corruption of the system can hurt every bit as much as criminal corruption...

When you for years go to the court and get no help and no enforcement Im not sure what else anyone can call it but corruption... or maybe bankrupt... I dont know but it wasnt fun and it never got corrected.

I cant even begin to imagine a lawful user of deadly force in our system... I guess some places justice still works but a lot of places its on vacation..
 
double naught spy, your assertions are ridiculous. The only reason it all worked, and I avoided having to sue to recover thousands of dollars, is that the driver in question admitted guilt instead of denying it.

I left my vehicle in place after the accident, and hers was moved. The fact that the measurements and position were completely screwed up even on the vehicle that remained stationary shows that the report itself was deeply flawed. Afterwards, I was told by the reporting officer who filed an admittedly badly flawed report that my only recourse was filing a lawsuit and proving that the information presented was incorrect.

how can you call this the correct outcome? If the other driver had chosen to deny responsibility, the aggrieved party would have lost the game!

And yes, this is relevant to any event when a citizen draws the attention of police. Witnesses will be taken at their word, no matter what they say. diagrams and scene reproductions will be approximate and maybe inaccurate. Your own words may be improperly reported. You will be entering court with almost certainly flawed sources of information.

If this isn't sufficiently clear, I don't know how to fix it for you.

It is a fact. Looking at the records of overturned convictions and other indications that errors occur, people should be afraid of becoming involved with the legal system.
 
Again, get pictures, collect witness information, and record anything you can.

For traffic accidents, specifically this would include traffic signs, obstructed sight lines, sun angles, debris locations, etc.
 
You should do all of that at any crime scene to defend against inaccuracy.

My wife gets so upset sometimes. When our daughter was a teenager, there were times that police were in the home. Any time my daughter became unstable, my wife would start cleaning the house. Washing dishes, vacuuming, etc. She's afraid of going to bed with an untidy kitchen, in case there is an overnight break in, and the police put down in the report that "the place was filthy and the homeowners deserved to be shot in their sleep."

the whole intent of the post was to remind people that no matter how clear the case is, you can still wind up with all of the recorded data being corrupted and having to face bad information in court.
 
Don't feel bad at least the officer did an investigation. On Saturday sometime between 10 AM and 2:30 PM someone rammed the driver's door on my pick up. The local police took about 40 minutes to show up and did an initial report. When told about a vehicle that had paint that matched the color of my truck on the bumper and my door had the paint color of their bumper on it, the officer said he doubted that this was the vehicle that hit mine and ran. The local police seem to want to do their jobs only when there is a TV camera around so the officers can make a name for themselves. If there is no camera around they just file the report away and forget about it. Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing police officers (I'm a police officer for a different jurisdiction) but hit and run takes so low a priority with the locals that they really tell people that you can damage someone's property and there are no consequences unless someone else sees you.
 
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As a lawyer, I agree; you should indeed fear the legal system. It scares the living heck out of me nearly every day, and I'm not even on the receiving end.

A judge, and even the jury itself, should be able to ask questions if they feel there are relevant issues or viewpoints that are not being presented properly to the jury.
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In Indiana, the jury can ask witnesses questions, and they often do. I am regularly impressed by them... when they don't write out the questions in "text-speak", anyway. :)
 
Back to motor vehicle accidents: Several years ago I was working late one night and I went to a small restaurant in a nearby strip mall for dinner. As I was returning to my car, I heard a loud engine noise and I turned in that direction. The traffic aisles were convoluted. There was a young woman unparking her car near me. I WATCHED as she carefully looked in both directions before starting to back up. Then some doper in a souped-up heap came screeching around a corner and slammed into her. She never saw him coming, and he was moving so fast that I had no time to warn her.

So the police were called. I waited, and I approached the investigating officer to inform him that I was a witness and I would give him a statement as to what happened.

"We don't need your statement. It's obvious what happened. The chick backed into the other guy."
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This happened to my father in law. The guy that hit him even said to the police, I was going to fast I wasn't looking and I hit him. Did not matter, my father in law was still considered the party at fault. Sort of like getting rear-ended it is almost impossible to be found liable if you are rear-ended. I suspect in your state the girl was going to be found liable no matter what and the cop just wanted to save himself a lot of time.
 
Anyone who doesn't fear our legal system just hasn't been around any courtrooms or for that matter, they've been asleep for the last couple decades.

There have been some very high profile/publicized cases in which the accused walked with overwhelming evidence against them. Too, during court proceedings, due to some kind of crazy technicality, very pertinent information regarding the cases was legally withheld. O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony cases come to mind.

I once sit in on a deposition in which one of the lawyers made a sarcastic, off record comment as to having a 'slam dunk' case. The opposing attorney looked across the table, smiled and said, " competent counsel knows those don't exist".

The opposing attorney's comment summed things up nicely.
 
You all make it sound like justice is never served, the guilty always go free and the innocent are punished. Is that what you are saying or implying?
 
You all make it sound like justice is never served, the guilty always go free and the innocent are punished. Is that what you are saying or implying?
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As far as my posts goes, I'm sorry if I made it sound that way. Was not my intentions.

What I am saying/implying is that if I find myself in a horrible situation of having to defend my(or family members) life with deadly force, even though I may be 100% justified in my actions, by no means am I guaranteed not to go to prison.

The steps I would take if found in this situation would be to shut up, hire the best counsel I could find specializing in this field and most important of all, pray like my life depended on it. It does.

I don't believe this to be the norm but there are innocent people sitting in jail and guilty people walking the street for no more reason then a small technicality during the investigative or court proceedings. It happens. Just don't want it to happen to me.

FWIW, we may have the best judicial system of any country but the older I get and more I see, the less confidence I have in it.
 
The problem as i see it is quite often prosecutors deem every shoot by non police to be unlawful regardless of circumstances. Now I must say for where I live that isnt always the case but I can certainly find it easy to believe that some states and counties will charge anyone for murder or a lesser charge no matter how innocent the evidence may show the shoot to be.

To me it seems to be a way the system (in areas) tries to enforce a kind of gun control through prosecution.
 
It is funny to hear comments about the innocent sitting in jail because of some technicality when what you usually hear is the guilty out walking the streets because of some technicality. I guess sometimes we can have it both ways, huh?

I still haven't heard any suggestions as to how the judicial system could be improved and of course, every town, city, county, state and federal has a separate system.
 
I still haven't heard any suggestions as to how the judicial system could be improved and of course, every town, city, county, state and federal has a separate system.
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Actually I made a suggestion a couple of post ago on this thread. :) Audit, Audit, Audit
 
No offense, Mr Gutzman, but your suggestions amount to tinkering of the system, although I have no suggestions at all myself. The funny thing is, the judicial system is supposed to be the check on the other parts of the government. In a sense, there is already a system in place to deal with faults in judicial proceeding. It's the appeals system but I guess it comes with the same faults that lower courts sometimes have. Of course, it is also worth mentioning that cases of child custody and support payments, as well as suits involving traffic accidents lie outside the criminal courts. That is not to say you couldn't be charged with a crime in connection with any of those.

There are certainly a lot of things wrong with the courts but they are reflective, I think, of the larger society. The system favors the rich, for one thing. Who you are, generally speaking, makes a big difference in how things work. Another is that the judicial system and law enforcement in general is bogged down with a lot of laws. In other words, there are a lot of things against the law, things that do not seem to be illegal in other countries. At the same time, other countries are sometimes rather harsher in punishment, but we're catching up in that regard, if what one reads on the internet is true about grade school kids being taken out of school in handcuffs.

But we're not supposed believe everything we read, are we?
 
Any system run by humans is going to be subject to the faults of the humans in it. Why would I expect the justice system to operate any better than any other branch of the govt? Only you and yours have any interest in what's fair for you.
CYA & know the number to a good attorney.
 
The point to observe is that the way to win the game is to not play it. If you have to play it, don't throw away your greatest advantage, and that is the ability to present in court to the jurors as innocent of wrongdoing.

The one time I went to municipal court, most of the people there looked like they were swept out of a mission. A guy there regarding an assault charge was wearing a "wifebeater" shirt. There are times and places and situations where a person simply must rein in his needs to express himself and do what he chooses to do. I better leave it at that.
 
But we're not supposed believe everything we read, are we?
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No we're not.

Too, only half of what we see. ;)

The funny thing is, the judicial system is supposed to be the check on the other parts of the government.
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Agree, but with murders being committed with weapons being furnished/ok'd by our government in situations such as 'Fast and Furious', then nobody being held accountable and prosecuted, not even a decent investigation, kinda puts putting blind faith in our present system out the window for me. Heck, there has been a bigger 'ado' made of the CIA members picking up hookers in Columbia then there was about Fast and Furious. Of course Obama gave orders for the CIA/hooker investigation...hmmm...wonder why he wasn't/isn't as adamant about an investigation that killed two of our agents while they were doing their jobs as he was about CIA member gratifying their sexual desires on their own time. :confused:

Again, not the kinda system I feel comfortable blindly entrusting my life to.

As far as the U.S. catching up with the harsher penalties that other countries have for crimes, I just don't see any proof of that. Far as that goes, I see the opposite happening.

The system favors the rich, for one thing. Who you are, generally speaking, makes a big difference in how things work.
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Unfortunately, this I have to agree with.
 
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My legal issues, "eye witnesses", events....

I, too, can understand the forum member's issues & feelings about the criminal justice system/witnesses.
In March 2012, I saw a local street person-vagrant trespass onto the property where I live in the unit next to me. I contacted the front office and made the agent on duty of the incident. The property's security officer was not on duty and the street person was widely known by myself & other residents to be hostile/aggressive.
I contacted my local PD's non-emergency help line and requested an officer to come & issue a trespass notice to the unauthorized visitor. I then contacted the property's owner/general manager to brief him on the events and to inform him that I contacted the police to remove the male subject.
When the 2 police officers arrived, the senior officer(who I knew from previous incidents as a security officer) started screaming at me and calling me names.
The younger police officer(who I think may have been in field training status) was shocked by the older officer's conduct.
I stayed calm and informed the irrate police officer that I would file a professional standards complaint due to his insults & misconduct.
The police officer then flew into a rage & placed me under arrest for "disorderly conduct" and "making a false 911 call". I was handcuffed & transported to the county jail. I later pled; NOT GUILTY to all charges & explained to my legal counsel that I NEVER called 911 and the call(s) I made on my cell phone were recorded by the city's PD/call center. The police officers also claimed the office agent said he told me NOT to call; 911(that never happened & was a total lie).
In Apr/2012, I was informed that the city prosecutor declined to press charges and the entire case was closed.
I'm now looking into civil actions and plan to file internal affairs complaints against both officers. They lied repeatedly in the court documents and provided false information. I may contact the local media(print & TV) too.

The lessons I learned were; be ready for witnesses(even people you'd think would be fair & honest) to lie, be able to prove/document your statements & actions in an incident. Law enforcement officers or "witnesses" can't lie or distort things like phone records, digital pics, DV(digital video), etc. Stay calm and avoid profanity or being emotional. That will only make you look worse later on.
It's unfortunate that these events occur in this modern era but that's the reality today.
ClydeFrog
 
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