I've reviewed many of these cases and it typically means the prosecutors changed from a tough-on-crime prosecutor to a restorative justice prosecutor who's looking to get a nice media headline. The convicted man is still obviously guilty, but because they found one piece of evidence that cuts against guilt, but is in no way exonerating, they decide to let the convicted rapist/murderer/etc. go free.
Best example is the Central Park 5. If any aspiring-bayesian take a look at that case they'll realize very quickly that the 5 people convicted definitely held down a woman while she was being raped. Yet for some reason they are now lauded as innocent men wrongly convicted.
I'll let you operationalize it and give you 3 to 1 odds.
edit: My main point is that a lot of people who are otherwise very smart have no idea how the criminal justice system works. They think our prisons are overflowing with people convicted of non-violent drug offenses when nothing could be further from the truth. Our prisons are overflowing with robbers, stabbers, rapists, arsonists, burglars, and murderers. That's because the media and activist groups lie and misrepresent the truth. We wouldn't ever have to execute a non-violent drug dealer to free up prison space.
I would say this clearly falls outside my bet as I said "solely for sale of Marijuana" and this news release says, "were each sentenced today to 30 months in prison" and "pleaded guilty in November 2023 to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana and conspiracy to commit money laundering"
So really a no-brainer. Unless I can look at their sentencing agreement and it says they got time-served on the conspiracy to commit money laundering and their sentence to 30 months is solely for the conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana count.
It seems like you've done some research on this topic now. Do you want to take me up on my bet?
edit: Also your article is for a 30 months sentence which started back in November 2023. I'd also bet that those defendants are either released right now or are very close to it.
What you describe is the system of justice we had back 250 years ago. The whole reason for the formalistic procedures involving a jury and Judge and all these rights given to the accused were because if he was convicted then he was most likely looking at a quick public hanging. The State has to prove guilt beyond any and all reasonable doubt because there's no going back once the guy's head rolls off the chopping block. Over time however, punishments got more lenient, judges became way softer, and due to the way the appeals process and appellate courts work, justice can only get ratcheted one way, softer.
Now somehow there's US Supreme Court precedent saying it's cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone for a crime that didn't result in anyone's death. How does that make any sense when back during the founding of the US they were executing people for horse thievery?
Your post is obviously correct and I think there's about 3 reasons right now that it's anathema to public policy. 1) The general public has a totally mistaken understanding of why people commit crimes, how they could be made to stop, and how criminals are being punished right now. 2) Judges and other people in the criminal justice system are numb to just how evil criminals are because they have to interact with these depraved people every single day. 3) There is now a sizable portion of the population who is actively pro-criminal because they hate the US.
Right now there are people in prison for selling marijuana in Washington state
I'll bet you $100 there is nobody in prison solely for sale of Marijuana in Washington state.
I think we tend to agree on the method to safely talk to a journalist. At least, the method that I see you write about is virtually the same as the method I suggested in my comment.
What I want to emphasize though is that for most ordinary people whom journalists will try to talk to, the format will mostly be just talking to the journalist and letting them write an article later. Most journalists will not do the whole long form interview that recorded and video taped with people who aren’t already famous.
So for your average person who doesn’t already know the depths of journalist depravity, it’s much better to just have a blanket “don’t talk to journalists” rule.
Did you ever have a positive experience where the interviewer didn't misquote you?
The President is the chief executive of the United States and is supposed to control all the government agencies operating inside of it. Theoretically, Trump has the power to walk into any government office and start doing whatever jobs he wants to do himself. There is no reason why he can't hire people to do this for him instead. He also has the power to grant security clearances to whoever he wants to. The chief executive of the US has a lot of power.
Trump is doing an end-run around the old chain of command because US case law has set the legal precedent that government employees can't be fired at-will. This is why Trump is offering to buyout government employees instead of just firing them. This is also why Trump has a separate team directly accessing the systems at the treasury and other departments. If he just sent word down the chain of command to 'find government corruption and spending on stupid things and eliminate it' nothing would get done. Much of that preexisting, unfirable chain of command is either incompetent or participating in the corruption themselves.
Obviously if the new CEO of a private company wanted to shakeup the old system he would just fire the old workforce like Musk did with Twitter.
This stems from a misunderstanding of how the career-criminal mind works. They don't really care about being caught. They remember how out of the last 40 or so times they walked into Walmart and left with ~$100 in unpaid merchandise they only got caught half the time and the other half of the time they got let off with time served of 10-20 days. Either they get away with it or they gotta wait a couple weeks before they get to try again. Not a big deal either way.
So much of the crime plaguing modern America is open and obvious and even caught on camera. It's just that the criminal justice system refuses to punish repeat petty offenders.
What punishment do you think someone who has been convicted of stealing 15 times before should get on his 16th conviction?