I know this has been beaten to death here, but I am starting to see a disturbing trend coming out of US policing/justice system. That trend is the laying on of multiple charges when someone pisses off the authorities.
It's one thing when the federal prosecutors do it (Swartz, Brown et al) and now even low level enforcers are doing it.
Is this what I have to look forward to if I ever return to the country of my birth? I cross the road at the wrong time, the arresting officer takes a dislike to me and adds 3 extra charges to the jaywalking charge which ends up with me spending 3 years in prison because I was running late for an appointment?
I've tried to stay out of these HN NSA and other political stories, but there is one thing I've noticed as a business consultant: the attitude and beliefs of top management always end up filtering down to the rank and file employees.
Is this what is happening to the US justice system? Will you one day walk into the local DMV get into an argument and end up with 15 (technically correct) charges against you, bankrupt and in prison?
For more details, including a good thesis on what drives this, an explanation for why you can have a dramatic drop in national crime rates without layoffs in what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex, read this book, Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...), and decide if you want to return to this sort of environment.
This was reified for me when I retired to the SW Missouri town I was born and raised in and an officer played a game of chicken with his vehicle and my body. From my time on the East Coast I was an experienced enough pedestrian to see that he would barely miss me and stared him down, but I'm pretty sure this was designed to get the average local to run, "crazy cop trying to kill me!", which would generate a fleeing an officer arrest statistic for him per the book.
It's one thing when the federal prosecutors do it (Swartz, Brown et al) and now even low level enforcers are doing it.
Is this what I have to look forward to if I ever return to the country of my birth? I cross the road at the wrong time, the arresting officer takes a dislike to me and adds 3 extra charges to the jaywalking charge which ends up with me spending 3 years in prison because I was running late for an appointment?
I've tried to stay out of these HN NSA and other political stories, but there is one thing I've noticed as a business consultant: the attitude and beliefs of top management always end up filtering down to the rank and file employees.
Is this what is happening to the US justice system? Will you one day walk into the local DMV get into an argument and end up with 15 (technically correct) charges against you, bankrupt and in prison?