LastWeekTonight
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2018–2019
19:44 · 9.7M views · Aug 6, 2018
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on how prosecutors wield power in the US criminal justice system and how it can be abused. It touches on elected district attorneys, plea pressure and the lack of electoral competition.
HN cites it as an accessible explainer of prosecutorial abuse, especially piling on charges to force plea deals.
4 comments from Hacker News
For foreigners (like me) this episode of last week tonight[1] is quite useful to understand the role and possible abuses of prosecutors. [1] this video
You're absolutely right. We take people from other countries and put them in a facility on Cuba and deny them their rights. We treat our own citizens better, and enforce these same standards on China because we must Make America Great Again. Here's Last Week Tonight's recent episode focusing on forced confessions in the US: this video HBO's miniseries "The Night Of" is a great look into the inner workings of the US justice system, and how it's designed to get people to take plea deals (aka forced confession): [LINK] The fact that you bring up these essentially sovereign nation internal issues as if they are fundamental transgressions against human rights (which maybe they are) while ignoring rights violations under your own nose, shows that your perspective on these issues is highly underdeveloped. China has many problems, and I'm sure forced confessions are probably a larger problem over there than in the US, but for the most part their citizens don't need armchair observers to fight for their rights. They don't need proselytizers, evangelists, or colonists either.
> That's why the state and federal governments maintain a system of talented-if-overworked public defenders. ...whose advice is usually "take the deal," because they're incredibly overworked and would rather get things over with, and they've long been jaded by the system. It smells a lot like the prosecutors did what they always do with trial penalties - dump a deluge of charges and say "look, we'll throw all of the rest of them away except one or two if you take the plea deal." Fighting the charges in these situations often requires a reckless disregard for money and time, even in the case when you're completely innocent, neither of which can be recouped even upon acquittal. This is such a common tactic that even John Oliver had to call out the bullshit: this video
it's a democracy, run for office and change the system. just one small piece of it is who goes to prison in the first place. john oliver had a segment on prosecutors and that they need more competition this video