American bail is set up specifically to lock up the poorer members of society whilst offering a get out of jail card for the more wealthy.
Justice may well be blind, but in the US system she can still feel how much cash you've got in your wallet.
It's not uncommon for you to spend longer in jail awaiting trial than the penalty for your alleged crime for a lot of really minor things.
IIRC there are pre trial detention centres (jails) where a huge percentage of those incarcerated have been there for 6 months, with a year or more not being uncommon.
It's one of the reasons they have so many people who are innocent but take "plea deals" - because they can't afford to post bail, and know they're likely to be locked up for months before they ever get a chance to see a courtroom properly, and once they've done a plea deal they're screwed the next time they're arrested for anything.
I'm not sure that was the intent to the point where anyone can claim it was specifically set up for that but it certainly seem to be an effect, though there are bail bonds companies that exist for this reason, to provide bail for people who can't otherwise afford it.
The plea deals are messed up, on big source of leverage there isn't so much bail (though that could certainly apply if bail can't be provided) but also over charging and harsh sentences... if your odds are close to a coin flip but the difference between a plea vs a trail that could add many many years on then even innocent people can easily be induced into making a plea.
I guess at least at the lower levels the bail does function (where it is available), even if poor you stump up *some* cash but have the additional aspect of a bail bondsman tracking you down if you skip bail.. if you're middle class etc.. then you have a hefty sum at risk. I guess if you're rich then meh... but realistically you've got more to loose and so you're not going to skip the country on some minor crime charge.
The bit where it gets silly is at the extremes, I guess if there are states that go with large cash bail amounts and don't allow bonds men to operate or at the other extreme, serious crimes and high bail amounts because someone is wealth and a flight risk or just a high profile case... that's where rich people get to negotiate house arrest etc.. or high profile people have some pointless go fund me and then go through the charade of posting bail that they have absolutely no stake in and thus undermining the entire principle of it.
I guess this is also an issue with bail funds, it's become popular after BLM protests/riots for some woke people to donate to bail funds... but, like the go fund me type things for high profile cases, these undermine the point of putting up bail - some random kid from the ghetto gets arrested looting or some antifa type arrested after scraping with police and they're bailed out the next day, they have absolutely no interest in the bail money that was put up to secure their release so it has pretty much no function.
They should probably scrap the whole system of putting up a cash deposit/bail and either allow people out for certain crimes or put them on remand/in jail if they're a risk to the public.
None of those replies address the issue that he was out of place with a firearm he was not meant to have which heavily contributed to the outcome of the situation he involved himself in. Ultimately it is true that he appears to have had to defend himself however he is responsible for inserting himself into an already volatile situation which lead to a TOTALLY AVOIDABLE outcome.
Interesting to see you guys completely let that go over your heads as usual.
He is not innocent, he needs to bare responsibility for his actions.
You could say exactly the same thing about the people he shot, in fact more so as they were the aggressors and he was retreating. Getting shot was totally avoidable for them too, don't chase down and attack a guy with a gun.
No one is ignoring the firearms issue here - that's the one charge that probably has the highest chance of actually landing him some time in prison.
He's got an obvious defence to the other charges in that he tried to flee and he was attacked.
he's way out of his depth, obviously never been in a situation before where he doesn't have control and panicked.
seems kinda self defence but at the same time seems like because of his lack of experience his reaction was way over the top.
tbh he's really at fault for putting him self in that position.
it's like the uni students who want to live as adults without the responsibility of being an adult.
While I think it's bat **** crazy that a bunch of "militia" turned up, ultimately the local government and the police shouldn't have let it get that far... He was there to protect a local business and was there with the permission of the business owner. Arguably the rioters have far more blame here, they attacked him and they were attacking the police, destroying property etc... I don't think the blame really lies with the person being attacked, ultimately he put out a bin fire and then became a target for them.
Is this gonna be like the other threads were you pretend to add to people to your ignore list and make passive aggressive remarks to them after the fact?
