Woke DA Bail Madness Wisconsin

[ajax18]

The district attorney facing criticism after the alleged Waukesha Christmas parade crash killer was freed on bond two days before the carnage previously admitted his progressive reforms “guaranteed” killers could be put back on the street.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who was elected to the position in 2007, has spent his career supporting cash-bail system reform because he argues it criminalizes poverty.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the year he was elected, Chisholm said: “Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody?”

“You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.”

Chisholm has long pushed to divert nonviolent offenders away from the prison system with alternate programs, and has spoken previously about reducing the number of incarcerations in Milwaukee County.

He describes himself on his website as a “bold reformer with a track record of keeping our community safe” and has taken credit for inspiring a wave of “progressive prosecutors” across the US.

“Progressive prosecutors in Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, and San Francisco have followed in John’s footsteps and designed similar programs,” his website says.

Chisholm has come under fire after admitting on Monday that Darrell Brooks, the man charged with mowing down five people in Waukesha, had been released on an “inappropriately low” bond following an arrest earlier this month.

He vowed to investigate how Brooks was given the $1,000 cash bond despite allegedly running the mother of his child “over with his vehicle” in a Milwaukee gas station parking lot on Nov. 2.

“The state’s bail recommendation in this case was inappropriately low in light of the nature of the recent charges and the pending charges against Mr. Brooks,” Chisholm’s office said in a statement.

“The bail recommendation in this case is not consistent with the approach of the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office toward matters involving violent crime, nor was it consistent with the risk assessment of the defendant prior to setting of bail.

“This office is currently conducting an internal review of the decision to make the recent bail recommendation in this matter in order to determine the appropriate next steps.”

Chisholm’s decision has renewed calls to give judges more power to set higher bails.

Julius Kim, a defense attorney and former assistant prosecutor, said the bail could easily have been set more than twice as high.

“He was accused of running over the mother of his kid, and to put it at $1,000 strikes me as low,” Kim said. “It could have been an inexperienced attorney who happened to be reviewing cases that day.”

Some conservatives were quick to jump on the case as an example of a broken legal system.

Republican Rebecca Kleefisch, a former Wisconsin lieutenant governor who is running for governor in 2022, called the killings “yet another avoidable tragedy that occurred because a violent career criminal was allowed to walk free and terrorize our community.”

GOP state Rep. Cindi Duchow said she was reintroducing a constitutional amendment that would change the bail process in Wisconsin to allow judges to consider a defendant’s danger to the community when setting bail.

Judges currently are only allowed to consider the possibility that defendants might not show up for a court appearance when setting bail.

“He tried to run over his girlfriend with his car — that’s attempted murder,” Duchow said. “If you’re a danger to society, you should have to work hard to get out.”

Legal experts, however, warned that one extreme case should not be reason to push for higher bail amounts that would keep poorer defendants behind bars longer while they await trial.

https://nypost.com/2021/11/23/the-da-be ... -low-bond/

[Res Ipsa]

This is typically terrible NY Post journalism, which is often just a step or two above the National Enquirer. It’s terrible because it intentionally conflates two unrelated things.

First, reform of the cash bail system is an issue because it lets wealthy people stay out of jail, while poor people who present the exact same risk are kept in jail. There is simply no way to justify that result in terms of legal Justice.

The only way to guarantee that an accused person (who is still legally innocent of any crime) never commits a crime while out on bail is to eliminate bail entirely and imprison every accused criminal until their trial. For example, that would mean Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty of any crime, would have spent the entire time from arrest to the verdict in jail.

There’s a teensy constitutional problem with that.

But, the simple fact is, any time a person is released from custody pending trial, there is some risk that they will commit another crime. It’s math. But that math doesn’t justify taking two people who present equal risk and letting one go free until trial and depriving the other of his freedom until trial simply because one is poor and one is not. Treating the two justly would require basing the decision on pre-trial release on risk of flight and risk to the community, not on financial resources. Under the current system, people who are poor but present less risk are kept in jail, while people who present more risk go free because they can afford bail.

But any reform that addresses the injustice involved in depriving people of their freedom simply because they are poor will require pre-trial release of those less-risky but poor people kept in jail under the current system. And less risky doesn’t mean no risk. So the prosecutor’s statement about the effect of reform is simple honesty based on math. But that doesn’t justify punishing poor people simply based on their poverty.

So that’s the first issue. The second issue is the guy who drove his car into the Christmas parade. His release has absolutely nothing to do with cash bail reform. His release was a mistake — the kind of mistake that gets made in our current system from time to time. This is not the kind of accused that cash bail reform would cause to be released. Even the prosecutor who is in favor of reform says that, given his records and the nature of his offense, the low bail that was set was a mistake and is investigating how a guy who present an obvious danger to the community had bail set at a thousand bucks.

But the actual facts don’t create the sensational headlines that are the lifeblood of the tabloid rag that is the NY Post. It sells papers by sensationalizing stories. So, it creates a headline and story that implies that cash bail reform would let monsters like the parade murder roam free pending trial. But that’s simply not the case. And the Post doesn’t care.

[ajax18]

Why is the judge only allowed to consider whether the defendant will show up to court and not whether the defendant is a danger to the community?

For example, that would mean Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty of any crime, would have spent the entire time from arrest to the verdict in jail.

I pointed out earlier that Kyle was prohibited from raising bail money on gofund me while Marcus Wilson, who is probably guilty of an even worse crime, was not.

But, the simple fact is, any time a person is released from custody pending trial, there is some risk that they will commit another crime. It’s math. But that math doesn’t justify taking two people who present equal risk and letting one go free until trial and depriving the other of his freedom until trial simply because one is poor and one is not. Treating the two justly would require basing the decision on pre-trial release on risk of flight and risk to the community, not on financial resources. Under the current system, people who are poor but present less risk are kept in jail, while people who present more risk go free because they can afford bail.

But any reform that addresses the injustice involved in depriving people of their freedom simply because they are poor will require pre-trial release of those less-risky but poor people kept in jail under the current system. And less risky doesn’t mean no risk. So the prosecutor’s statement about the effect of reform is simple honesty based on math. But that doesn’t justify punishing poor people simply based on their poverty.

Are the January 6 protesters being held until after the 2022 election for political purposes and as political prisoners more risk to the community than Darrell Brooks? How is trespassing on Madame Pelosi's lecturn so much more egregious than the rampant smash and grab thieving going on basically unimpeded in California.

[K Graham]

This is typically terrible NY Post journalism, which is often just a step or two above the National Enquirer. It’s terrible because it intentionally conflates two unrelated things.

But it serves ajax's purposes, so he relies on it as if it were in any way reliable. Ajax isn't interested in what's true, on virtually any subject here.

[K Graham]

All of the arrested idiots from Trump's failed coup attempt, face multiple FEDERAL charges, and not just "trespassing."

For example, Gregory Lamar Nix, charged with the following:

"Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon or inflicting bodily injury; civil disorder; destruction of government property; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings"

702 people have been charged, and 129 have pleaded guilty
https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capi ... mes-2021-1

[Res Ipsa]

Why is the judge only allowed to consider whether the defendant will show up to court and not whether the defendant is a danger to the community?

For example, that would mean Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty of any crime, would have spent the entire time from arrest to the verdict in jail.

I pointed out earlier that Kyle was prohibited from raising bail money on gofund me while Marcus Wilson, who is probably guilty of an even worse crime, was not.

But, the simple fact is, any time a person is released from custody pending trial, there is some risk that they will commit another crime. It’s math. But that math doesn’t justify taking two people who present equal risk and letting one go free until trial and depriving the other of his freedom until trial simply because one is poor and one is not. Treating the two justly would require basing the decision on pre-trial release on risk of flight and risk to the community, not on financial resources. Under the current system, people who are poor but present less risk are kept in jail, while people who present more risk go free because they can afford bail.

But any reform that addresses the injustice involved in depriving people of their freedom simply because they are poor will require pre-trial release of those less-risky but poor people kept in jail under the current system. And less risky doesn’t mean no risk. So the prosecutor’s statement about the effect of reform is simple honesty based on math. But that doesn’t justify punishing poor people simply based on their poverty.

Are the January 6 protesters being held until after the 2022 election for political purposes and as political prisoners more risk to the community than Darrell Brooks? How is trespassing on Madame Pelosi's lecturn so much more egregious than the rampant smash and grab thieving going on basically unimpeded in California.

Ajax, you’re grabbing at isolated factoids to fuel your own resentment rather than trying to understand the whole picture.

First, my understanding is that danger to the community can and is considered in setting bail. If that’s not your understanding, I’d be happy to do a little digging.

Second, I’m not familiar with the go fund me issue. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with cash bail reform. Was it a decision made by go fund me? If so, they’reap rebate company that has nothing to do with the judicial process. Was it a difference in state laws? Then you’d have to ask the legislature. Was it a decision by a judge? If so, there is zero reason to expect different judges in different cases to use their discretion in exactly the same way. Cherry picking two cases in which you think a white guy got a worse deal than a POC is not in any way evidence off a two-tiered system of Justice that disfavors white people. There are so many cases that are handled by so many different prosecutors and so many different judges in so many different jurisdictions, that you will always be able to find some example in which a person of any given race for a better deal than any other race. But that’s just feeding yourself meals information to cling to this resentment that has you all tied up in knots.

I know that people have referred you to the studies of the system as a whole rather than cherry picked individual cases, and I guarantee you that if you would pay attention to the data, you would never consider choosing to be a black person suspected of a crime instead of a white person. You’d have to be an idiot to do that.

So the answer to the go fund me question is that you can always find an example of one person who’s got a better deal than another person, and you can always find an example in the combination of race, sex, ethnicity, or shoe size that you want to find. You cherry picked an example that feeds your resentment. The only conclusion to be drawn is that you like to feel angry and resentful.

Finally, you are in deep denial over January 6. That was an attack on the government of the United States. They’re lucky they live in US, as in lots of counties they would be executed. They are not political prisoners. They are criminals that attacked the country. If you ever understood what it means to be a citizen of the USA, you’ve long forgotten it. If you hate the country as much as you seem to, find another that’s more to your liking.

[ajax18]

First, my understanding is that danger to the community can and is considered in setting bail. If that’s not your understanding, I’d be happy to do a little digging.

From the original post:

GOP state Rep. Cindi Duchow said she was reintroducing a constitutional amendment that would change the bail process in Wisconsin to allow judges to consider a defendant’s danger to the community when setting bail.

Judges currently are only allowed to consider the possibility that defendants might not show up for a court appearance when setting bail.

Is that just a state law that perhaps is different in the state where you practice law?

Second, I’m not familiar with the go fund me issue. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with cash bail reform. Was it a decision made by go fund me? If so, they’reap rebate company that has nothing to do with the judicial process. Was it a difference in state laws? Then you’d have to ask the legislature. Was it a decision by a judge? If so, there is zero reason to expect different judges in different cases to use their discretion in exactly the same way. Cherry picking two cases in which you think a white guy got a worse deal than a POC is not in any way evidence off a two-tiered system of Justice that disfavors white people. There are so many cases that are handled by so many different prosecutors and so many different judges in so many different jurisdictions, that you will always be able to find some example in which a person of any given race for a better deal than any other race. But that’s just feeding yourself meals information to cling to this resentment that has you all tied up in knots.

Well let's just remember this fact and apply it equally here the next time we have a police shooting and the left argues that the entire system needs to be torn down because it's systemically racist against black people

I know that people have referred you to the studies of the system as a whole rather than cherry picked individual cases, and I guarantee you that if you would pay attention to the data, you would never consider choosing to be a black person suspected of a crime instead of a white person. You’d have to be an idiot to do that.

Black people committing more crimes is not evidence of systemic racism. It goes back to the old being judged by the content of our character rather the color of our skin standard that the left has now abandoned as the left has pushed way too far.

So the answer to the go fund me question is that you can always find an example of one person who’s got a better deal than another person, and you can always find an example in the combination of race, sex, ethnicity, or shoe size that you want to find. You cherry picked an example that feeds your resentment. The only conclusion to be drawn is that you like to feel angry and resentful.

the same way BLM protesters like to feel angry and resentful when looking for an excuse to smash and grab?

Finally, you are in deep denial over January 6. That was an attack on the government of the United States. They’re lucky they live in US, as in lots of counties they would be executed. They are not political prisoners. They are criminals that attacked the country. If you ever understood what it means to be a citizen of the USA, you’ve long forgotten it. If you hate the country as much as you seem to, find another that’s more to your liking.

One day we will.

[Res Ipsa]

First, my understanding is that danger to the community can and is considered in setting bail. If that’s not your understanding, I’d be happy to do a little digging.

From the original post:

GOP state Rep. Cindi Duchow said she was reintroducing a constitutional amendment that would change the bail process in Wisconsin to allow judges to consider a defendant’s danger to the community when setting bail.

Judges currently are only allowed to consider the possibility that defendants might not show up for a court appearance when setting bail.

Is that just a state law that perhaps is different in the state where you practice law?

Second, I’m not familiar with the go fund me issue. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with cash bail reform. Was it a decision made by go fund me? If so, they’reap rebate company that has nothing to do with the judicial process. Was it a difference in state laws? Then you’d have to ask the legislature. Was it a decision by a judge? If so, there is zero reason to expect different judges in different cases to use their discretion in exactly the same way. Cherry picking two cases in which you think a white guy got a worse deal than a POC is not in any way evidence off a two-tiered system of Justice that disfavors white people. There are so many cases that are handled by so many different prosecutors and so many different judges in so many different jurisdictions, that you will always be able to find some example in which a person of any given race for a better deal than any other race. But that’s just feeding yourself meals information to cling to this resentment that has you all tied up in knots.

Well let's just remember this fact and apply it equally here the next time we have a police shooting and the left argues that the entire system needs to be torn down because it's systemically racist against black people

I know that people have referred you to the studies of the system as a whole rather than cherry picked individual cases, and I guarantee you that if you would pay attention to the data, you would never consider choosing to be a black person suspected of a crime instead of a white person. You’d have to be an idiot to do that.

Black people committing more crimes is not evidence of systemic racism. It goes back to the old being judged by the content of our character rather the color of our skin standard that the left has now abandoned as the left has pushed way too far.

So the answer to the go fund me question is that you can always find an example of one person who’s got a better deal than another person, and you can always find an example in the combination of race, sex, ethnicity, or shoe size that you want to find. You cherry picked an example that feeds your resentment. The only conclusion to be drawn is that you like to feel angry and resentful.

the same way BLM protesters like to feel angry and resentful when looking for an excuse to smash and grab?

Finally, you are in deep denial over January 6. That was an attack on the government of the United States. They’re lucky they live in US, as in lots of counties they would be executed. They are not political prisoners. They are criminals that attacked the country. If you ever understood what it means to be a citizen of the USA, you’ve long forgotten it. If you hate the country as much as you seem to, find another that’s more to your liking.

One day we will.

Thanks for pointing out that part of the article. I completely missed it. I took a quick look and found this article: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/01/q-p ... ted-states# So, it does look like consideration of danger to the community in setting bail varies from state to state. From the article, it sounds like there is something in the Wisconsin constitution that restricts what can be considered. My wild ass guess is that safety of the community is a practice that developed over time.

Your response on the Go Fund Me issue continues to treat cherry picked examples as if they were the same as evidence of systematic bias over a large number of cases. Let me try this analogy, Let’s imagine a large container of marbles of different sizes and colors, with the number of each possible combination of color and size represented equally. If you go digging through the container looking for a red marble that is bigger than a blue marble, you will absolutely be able to find one. But that doesn’t mean that all of the red marbles are bigger than the blue marbles or even most of red marbles are bigger than the blue marbles. It means that, because every combination and size of marble is included in the container, if you go looking for one color marble that is bigger than another, you will always be able to find it. But finding the combination you are looking for doesn’t tell you anything about the composition of the marbles in the barrel. To do that, you either need to examine all the marbles or take a statistically valid random sample.

That is what you are doing: setting out to look for some white person who got a worse deal than some black person. But, just like with the marbles, examples that you go looking for tell you nothing about overall bias in the system. There are so many different cases, judges, prosecutors, and jurisdictions that there is a 100% chance that you can find an example of a person of race X who got a better deal than a person of race Y.

Put another, given all the different variable, it impossible for every case in the US to be perfectly consistent with every other case in the US. That impossibility means that some degree of unfairness is inevitable. We can call that “base unfairness.” It’s what parents mean when they tell their kids “nobody promised you fair.” (Mine sure did.) So, finding specific examples of unfairness tells us nothing about whether the system as whole is fair.

But, “base unfairness” can help us figure out whether the system as a whole is fair. Why? Because that unfairness should be distributed randomly. It should be blind to race, ethnicity, sex, or any other characteristic. So, if we find a statistically significant difference in unfair outcomes among racial groups, that is evidence of bias in the system, whether intentional or not. (Assuming, of course, the method used to measure the distribution of unfairness is valid.

So, individual examples that appear unfair to you tell you nothing, because, if you step back and think about it, you know those examples must exist and you can easily find whatever you look for. And what the people who operate the sources you use for media are looking for.

Ok, gonna take a break. I’ll get to the rest of your post in a bit.

[ajax18]

But, “base unfairness” can help us figure out whether the system as a whole is fair. Why? Because that unfairness should be distributed randomly. It should be blind to race, ethnicity, sex, or any other characteristic. So, if we find a statistically significant difference in unfair outcomes among racial groups, that is evidence of bias in the system, whether intentional or not. (Assuming, of course, the method used to measure the distribution of unfairness is valid.

But how does your assessment of what the baseline fairness is take into account personal decision making, socioeconomic status, and culture? If it were true that being nonwhite means that if two individuals make the same series of the same decisions than the white person will end up with the better outcome due to history and systemic racism, why do Asian people have a lower crime rate, higher income level, and higher education level on average than white people? Surely you understand that there a lot of factors that go into disparate outcomes. Concluding that disparate outcomes are sound evidence of racial discrimination ignores nearly all of those factors.

[Res Ipsa]

You’re right. I collapsed all of that stuff into the idea of doing the analysis appropriately. The issues you mentioned segue nicely into the next part of my response.

Let’s say we look at the statics for drug convictions and find out that people convicted are disproportionately black. And I don’t mean by a little — I mean by a lot. So much that odd that the difference is due to chance is extremely low. What does that mean? Does it mean that there is bias in the system? No. It means that something is going on that isn’t colorblind. It could be be bias in the system. It could be some other cause. My argument is, when we observe what appears to be a non-random distribution of unfairness, we should take the time and effort to figure out why. Because if it is a race-based bias, we should take steps to remove it. I’ll bet you and I agree that the system should deprive people of their liberty based on what they do — not on the color of their skin.

Of the many possible explanations in our drug example, one we have to evaluate is whether black folks disproportionately violate drug laws when compared to white folks. And there is nothing wrong with investigating that as a possible cause. But, figuring that out presents a measurement problem. People commonly use the figures for criminal convictions to figure out the rate at which each group commits crimes. But what we’re trying to figure is whether convictions represent the rate at which each group uses illegal drugs. So we can’t just assume that convictions, which are the end result of the system, represent violations, which happen before the system starts.

So, we have to figure out how to measure the rate that each group violates the law using something that is not a product of the system.

So, let’s say we do randomized surveys of Americans, and we consistently find that there is no statistically significant difference in the percentages of black folks and white folks that use illegal drugs. So, how do we start with two groups that violate the drug laws at the same rate, but end up with dramaticallly different rates of conviction?

Now we have evidence of bias in the system. But that doesn’t tell us where in the system the bias is or how it works. We have to look at each step in the process.

Suppose that one of the major tools that law enforcement uses to discover drug crimes is pretext stops. They stop a vehicle for some traffic infraction in order to look for evidence of drug use. Now assume that vehicles driven by black folks are stopped at a rate much higher than their percentage of population in the jurisdiction. The more that LEOs stop black drivers, the more drug offenses they will find by black people. The fewer white drivers they stop, the fewer violations by white people they will find.

So, the entire difference in the rate of drug convictions could be caused by who the officers chose to stop. Note that could be do to conscious or implicit bias. If the discrepancy is lower at night, when it’s harder to determine race before the stop, that would indicate some form of bias in deciding who to stop.

But what if the rate is the same regardless of day or night, then what’s going on? It could simply be how much time is being spent patrolling where most of the drivers are white folks as opposed to places where most of the drivers are black folks.

And that kind of thing is a really good example of what is called structural bias. No one has to intend to discriminate against the black folks in order for them to convicted at a higher rate than black folks.

Notice that no one has to tear down the system to fix that problem. They just have to adjust where they patrol.

Note that this kind of structural racism can be self perpetuating. Suppose the police chief decides how to allocate resources based on last years criminal convictions. Because the convictions are biased based on which areas are patrolled, then the resources will be deployed in a way that results in black folks being disproportionately stopped and disproportionately convicted. This gives the chief a picture of where crime is happening that is biased against black folks, which means black folks are police more heavily. Self perpetuating, with no one intending to discriminate.

And they stop is just one point in the process at which bias could be present. There is also the decision to search, the decision to prosecute, the decision to try, and the decision to convict. To explain the original discrepancy, you have to look at every step to see how each step affects the discrepancy.

That’s what the published research does. It investigates and analyzed whether the discrepancy in rate of convictions is consistent with the rate crimes are committed or something else. A proper study controls for variables like offense committed, criminal history, or what ever could explain the discrepancy other than some kind of bias in the system. You can check any particular study to see what variables were controlled for and how.

So, if I were to tell you something like “the published research demonstrates lots of bias in the criminal Justice system,” “black people commit more crimes” doesn’t contradict what I said. Because any study published in a peer reviewed journal that doesn’t control for that rate that the groups come crimes isn’t going to make it though peer review. And you can always read the studies yourself.

So, that was a really long winded way of saying yes, you have to consider the rate at which the groups being examined commit crimes, but the research takes that into account, although a post on social media or newspaper article may not.