You already know he had such a history, right? This “maybe” is a rhetorical ploy – I’m guessing.
N/m, not taking the bait.
Yeah, I shouldn’t’ve either. Good call.
Per the Wikipedia article, he stayed in jail not because he and his family couldn’t afford bail, but because bail was denied. I’m not sure if the law in question even covers his situation.
New York used to do things differently. Mr. Browder’s 2015 suicide was a direct influence on the 2018 ‘Raise the Age’ initiative, signed into law as part of the 2018 state budget. Before then, “New York was one of only two states, with North Carolina, to view 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in Criminal Court.”[1]
Mr. Browder’s suicide was also cited by President Barack Obama in his op-ed[2] accompanying a March 1, 2016 Presidential Memorandum to end solitary confinement of juveniles in federal prisons[3].
[1] McKinley, J. (April 10, 2017). ‘Raise the Age,’ Now Law in New York, Is Still a Subject of Debate. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/nyregion/raise-the-age-new-york.html
[2] Obama, B. H. (January 25, 2016). Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-why-we-must-rethink-solitary-confinement/2016/01/25/29a361f2-c384-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html
[3] Obama, B. H. (March 1, 2016). Limiting the Use of Restrictive Housing by the Federal Government [Memorandum]. Washington, DC: The White House Office of the Press Secretary. Retrieved from Presidential Memorandum -- Limiting the Use of Restrictive Housing by the Federal Government | whitehouse.gov
~Max
The OP assumes, wrongly, that the police only arrest guilty people. We have many, many, many examples of innocent people who were arrested, tried and convicted.
Survivors Guide to Prison makes a startling statement. It states that if you stand trial in a jumpsuit, you are 7 times more likely to be convicted than if you show up in street clothes. If you are not out on bail, you have to ask the court to allow you to wear civilian clothes.
We know that Kalief Browder was black, so I’ll throw out a stat rather than an anecdote.
Black people are 7 times more likely than white people to be wrongly convicted of murder
Black Americans incarcerated five times more than white people – report
And waiting in jail for 3 years for a trial is an atrocity. He wasn’t in jail because he was guilty. He was in jail because he was poor.
Why don’t you just take ten seconds to google his name and learn the first thing about the topic you are posting about?
I see this ALL of the time, and IMHO it should be an ethical violation of the part of a prosecutor. If you have no problem with this guy walking the streets, then you should agree to a recognizance bond. It should not be used as leverage for a conviction.
It’s nice to see the right and left agree on political issues sometimes.
Wow, this is actually disgusting. Like, I have a pretty high bar for this shit, and I’m still impressed. It’s kind of all there - blatant disregard for the human rights of a young black man, treating a disgusting miscarriage of justice as though it’s no big deal, baseless assumptions about the case that I cannot help but assume are based largely on the fact that we’re talking about a young black man, and a parting shot comparing him unfavorably to… checks notes… someone convicted of 8 charges related to tax and bank fraud and a history of aiding war criminals.
Man. Some threads…
Before I start I want to make totally clear that I believe Mr. Browder’s case was a tragedy and stain on the American criminal justice system. I also agree that cash bail reform is necessary and urgent. But I agree in part with JBGUSA that Mr. Browder is not a perfect symbol for cash bail reform. Nevertheless we do need cash bail reform and I wish America would tackle that without misleading the general public by elevating Mr. Browder to martyrdom.
JBGUSA presents a reasonable critique of The New York Times’s article. This would have pushed me to research the questions, but I don’t see it as unreasonable for JBGUSA to ask The Straight Dope Message Boards to fight his ignorance.
I did do a little research and found a longform article describing Mr. Browder’s case in The New Yorker, written after his release but before his suicide[1]. This article doesn’t touch on recent developments in cash bail reform but it does answer most of the questions. Lots of other articles point back to this one, including the New York Times article cited in the original post.
Mr. Browder said he was put in solitary confinement at least three times, each after a fight. The first trip was two weeks, the second for ten months, and then a third trip from the end of 2011 until his release on May 30, 2013. The article implied that he incurred minor infractions during his confinement which made for longer stays. Mr. Browder also alleges a violent atmosphere among the correction officers, who beat inmates and threatened them with solitary confinement. The New Yorker found video evidence of inmates and officers abusing Mr. Browder[2], both of which probably contributed to his time in solitary confinement. Unfortunately he committed suicide two months later so I assume the internal investigations were closed as moot. It’s within reason to say his continued solitary confinement was unjustified and a travesty of justice nonetheless.
Even before Mr. Browder’s case became national news, New Yorkers saw a problem with solitary confinement, specifically confinement of adolescents at Rikers[3]. I mentioned in post #25 Mr. Browder’s case had a direct influence on curtailing this practice. I hope this answers point 1.
According to The New Yorker, Mr. Browder “had already had a few run-ins with the police, including an incident eight months earlier, when an officer reported seeing him take a delivery truck for a joyride and crash into a parked car.” He pled guilty, was put on probation, and given “youthful offender” status. Eight months later he and a friend were arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. When the judge saw this kid already on probation charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault, he set the bail at $3,000. Mr. Browder’s alleged accomplice was released. I must give the judge the benefit of the doubt because the court records are sealed. This is the best answer I can give for points 2 and 3.
With a $3,000 bail his family couldn’t afford, Mr. Browder waited in prison from his arrest May 15, 2010 until the grand jury indicted him on July 28, 2010. Two of those weeks were spent in solitary confinement. It is not apparent that his court-appointed lawyer filed any motions to reduce or waive bail before the grand jury indictment. Neither do I see that Mr. Browder testified in person before the grand jury - he was interviewed by police. The grand jury indicted him nonetheless and, as I am sure you are aware, grand jury proceedings are secret. But once the grand jury indicted him:
Mr. Browder’s lawyer would later make bail applications, but “was unsuccessful because of the violation of probation.” This should answer point 4.
The New York Times article cited in the original post[4] reads: Mr. Browder “spent three years on Rikers Island because his family could not raise $3,000”, or “Unable to pay his bail, he spent three years in jail, two of them in solitary confinement, as his trial date was repeatedly postponed”. Shame on the New York Times for propogating a misleading charactarization of Mr. Browder’s case, even if for a righteous cause. Shame on “left-wing politicians” who make him into “a symbol of the problems inherent in the bail system” (same cite). He did spend three years in jail because his trial date was repeatedly postponed, accumulatively two years of which were spent in solitary confinement; however, the high bail only kept him in jail for the first month. After the first month Mr. Browder wasn’t allowed to leave prison because he was accused of violating parole.
So Mr. Browder’s case really is a travesty of justice, and there really are inherent problems in the bail system. But Mr. Browder is not properly a martyr for cash bail reform.
The argument can be made that it is necessary and pragmatic to elevate Mr. Browder into a martyr, to garner popular support for meaningful cash bail reform. I dearly hope this is not true, that our country can achieve meaningful reform without misleading the public. Perhaps the pessamists are right, and this is largely a moral argument, but I still expect better from The New York Times.
All of that being said, I have no idea what point JBGUSA is trying to make comparing Kalief Browder with Trump or Manafort. Neither do I think the thread title is appropriate, given that Mr. Browder was never tried or convicted for stealing the backpack he does not deserve to be labelled a “miscreant thief”. Unless JBGUSA is referring to Mr. Browder’s prior guilty plea, which would be disingenuous and unlikely since JBGUSA asked twice if he has a history in the criminal justice system.
I agree with both of you, and if the New York Bar hasn’t issued guidance along these lines I think they should. On the other hand, it is much harder to police ethical violations than to actually require a speedy trial, but then I believe there are problems with discovery and funding that would need to be addressed first.
~Max
[1] Gonnerman, J. (October 6, 2014). Before The Law. The New Yorker. Retrieved from Three Years on Rikers Without Trial | The New Yorker
[2] Gonnerman, J. (April 23, 2015). Exclusive Video: Violence Inside Rikers. The New Yorker. Retrieved from Exclusive Video: Violence Inside Rikers - The New Yorker | The New Yorker
[3] Casella, J. & Ridgeway, J. (October 2, 2012). Unlock The Box: The Fight Against Solitary Confinement in New York. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/unlock-box-fight-against-solitary-confinement-new-york/
[4] McKinley, J & Southall, A. (March 29, 2019). Kalief Browder’s Suicide Inspired a Push to End Cash Bail. Now Lawmakers Have a Deal. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/nyregion/kalief-browder-cash-bail-reform.html
Blame Willie Bosket.
Ignorance fought and made to tap out in the middle of the ring. Thanks!
Michael Avenatti got a recognizance deal: amount named, but he doesn’t have to actually put up the money. Very inspiring in terms of people’s faith in our CJ system.
The thing is, if we are going to do something to fix mass incarceration – and that something could be something totally milquetoast, or something along the lines of “abolish prisons,” or something in between – it’s going to involve, to some degree, trusting people charged with crimes to do better in the future. (Locking them up is, after all, a way of saying “we don’t trust you out there in the world.” Or, as my students say, “on the outs.”)
Kim Foxx’s op-edabout her decision w/r/t Jussie Smollett is relevant here. I’m in no significant way sympathetic to Smollett, given what I know of the facts of his case (and I only know what’s been in the media I’ve seen). But Foxx’s argument against charging him really struck me as pretty convincing. He’s probably not a threat to public safety, and any future violations of the kind he probably committed aren’t likely to harm anyone either. Focusing resources on more dangerous offenders is a good call.
I don’t have an easy answer here, but I’m glad to see people from diverse ideological perspectives talking about how bail, and our CJ system in general, are messed up.
“Because you can’t cough up a bunch of money, we’re going to jail your ass for three years and spend over fifty times the amount of the bail to do it.”
Does that really make sense? What the fuck are we as a society gaining from this? This shit started out as way to get rid of undesirables. Ship them off to the mines or the farms to die. Deport them to Australia. Chain gangs. Sell them as indentured servants until they’ve worked off the debt.
Now we’re just publicly funding an entire industry that does nothing but cost us orders of magnitude more than we’d save by NOT doing this.
Then we have to discuss the ways in which this has been used to imprison black people, get rid of troublemakers, make money off their incarceration.
And why our taxes go to fund this but we can’t pay for health care or environmental regulations.
Besides the whole “Assumption of Innocence” thing. You know, because it gets really old to have to keep reminding people that just because you’re arrested doesn’t mean you’re guilty and it doesn’t mean you’re a “miscreant”.
The federal system is a bit different in that it has all but eliminated cash bail. In my experience, if you are eligible for pretrial release, you get released with whatever conditions the judge deems appropriate and out the door you go with no cash payment.
If you are charged with a crime that endangers the public (selling drugs is one of these) you are likely held on no bond.
Further, these things do seem to have a backwards sort of incentive. If Bill Gates was arrested for DUI, for example, a recognizance bond would be appropriate even though he could afford almost any money bail. Why? Because Bill Gates is a very public figure and will not flee the jurisdiction, leaving his mansions behind over a simple DUI.
Joe Sixpack (or more like 18 pack) who is unemployed and has $11 in a checking account who is charged with the same thing while traveling through the jurisdiction may require a higher than normal cash bail because he has an incentive to not show up.
Well, what do you do, though for people who keep violating the law? Also, these terms and conditions of bail, IMHO, are ridiculous. Many times you must report to the probation office, get random drug screens, and be home by a certain time every night. These are all for people who, as is always forgotten, are innocent people before the law. Why are innocent people forced to go to a probation officer or pee into a cup or have a curfew?
Invariably, drug use is what led to the crime to begin with, so when they test positive for whatever, their bail is revoked and they are locked up until trial which could be months away. Even if they have a legitimate defense, say a bad search, they beg to plead guilty to go home free and clear.
See, the prosecutor says that he violated bail conditions so we can’t have him on the street. But if he pleads guilty, he is on the same street unsupervised. It is a fraud on the court.
I agree that not pursuing a prison sentence is a good call, and is consistent with the practice in her office. But dropping the case entirely? I disagree. That is not what happened with other similar cases in her office and she equivocating in that article, trying to equate no prison with no prosecution at all. Do I get a free pass on 14 felonies so long as they are non-violent?
Agreed.
A 16 year-old who steals a backpack needs counseling and summer camp, not being locked up with hardened violent street thugs.
I can’t think of a better symbol for cash bail reform than a 16 year-old MINOR who was in desperate need of some responsible, caring adult guidance but instead got condemned by the system. If ever there was an example that shows how our criminal justice system jails people because we’re angry at them but in so many ways fails to follow through on one of its core responsibilities, which is to presumably rehabilitate people, then this would be it.
Except again, per the wikipedia article on him, cash bail reform wouldn’t necessarily have kept him out of jail. His family came up with the money but bail was denied.
So noted - now I’m wondering why the NY Times article, which I am unable to read due to paywall restrictions, is linking cash bail to his suicide. It seems that the harsh prison conditions in the Riker’s facility are to blame more than the inability to raise money for bail, which was denied as you point out.