posted August 22, 2014 02:35 AM            

I knew a guy who was on parole, it was insane how he got railroaded through the system when he was innocent. However, after several months he was released on parole...as long as he paid his monthly fees. But he's 18, no job, no family, he can't even support himself let alone pay like 200 dollars (I forget the exact price) a month to the state. Prison had been so bad that he BECAME a criminal to pay the extortion. And when he got busted for stealing cigarettes it was his parole officer who got him out and told him "don't get caught again" before releasing him to get the money.

Oh yeah, a woman was disillusioned when the court kept playing games and rescheduling when she showed up to convict the burglar and when she finally gets stuck in traffic the judge threw the case out of court, the burglar was back on the streets...and he, too, was on parole (which meant he was paying fees, so the courts made sure he could keep paying the state's racket). Meanwhile, the judge has her dog (that bit the burglar and forced him to flee, unable to pay the state that month) destroyed.

Sometimes the state acts as a pimp. And not just in fining prostitutes (and worse acts of corruption that I'm not sure is sanctioned by the state or private corruption on the side) but one girl (at least she was guilty) was set up to work as a strip dancer so she could pay the same extortion, er, legal fees of her probation or parole. (I wonder how many cops, judges, etc, had her give them a lap dance?)

And it can get worse, like when cops research property they'd like to seize before cooking up a warrant to do so (especially effective when they can seize all your assets without a warrant or trial and then it's up to you to clear your name and get your assets back without the money to hire a lawyer and probably no longer with a job, assuming you're even alive to contest it at all), such as this:
http://www.fear.org/chron/denoce.txt

quote:

---

On September 2, 1992,
at a briefing conducted by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs
Department regarding the investigation of the Trail's End Ranch,
officers present received documents which included a property
appraisal statement of the Trail's End Ranch and a parcel map of
the area. Both of these documents are attached. DEA Special
Agent Charles A. Stowell, who made the aerial flyover, made a
notation on the parcel map indicating that the property
encompassed 200 acres and that 80 acres "in the area" had
recently sold for $800,000.

We can find no reason why law enforcement officers who were
investigating suspected narcotics violations would have any
interest in the value of the Trail's End Ranch or the value of
property sold in the same area other than ff they had a motive to
forfeit that property. As discussed in our report, although
there may be other explanations for this , information, it is our
opinion that the most reasonable explanation is that the law
enforcement officers involved in the preparation of the search
warrant were motivated, in part, by a desire to forfeit a
valuable piece of property.

---

The guy who owned it was shot to death, or as I prefer to call it, murdered. Technically, since it was done in commission of a robbery it's a capital crime (that is had someone not a cop murdered him in order to inherit the property, for example, he'd face the gas chamber). Natch, deputies cleared themselves of all wrong doing. And that's just one of the more bad ones, plenty of other robberies go on, but for some reason Americans are more worried about corrupt cops in Mexico than in their own country.

posted August 23, 2014 11:00 PM            

Corruption at its best.

posted August 24, 2014 04:56 PM            

I have empathy for you and your family over it.

I`m curious, , when comparing justice systems, which countries systems are you comparing it to?

Syria, Iran, Mexico or one you would ideally create?

In contrast, I believe we have one that , on the whole, works.