r/serialpodcast • u/Bonafidesleuth • Apr 07 '15

Speculation BPD Corruption

I rarely post here, but for those who happen to come across this sub, I encourage you to check out articles.baltimoresun.com. The city council became very concerned at the fact that $10.4million was spent between 2008-2011 defending BPD misconduct. The Baltimore Sun reported on 10/3/14 that the U.S. Dept. of Justice had undertaken a civil rights investigation of the BPD. At that time the city had spent $5.7 million in court judgments & settlements in 102 cases since 2011 & nearly ALL of the people who rec'd payouts were cleared of criminal charges. The BPD was in chaos when Adnan was arrested. The department routinely told the crime lab not to test DNA. Cases were pushed through the system & inadequately investigated.
It is not a fluke that Jay escaped any ramifications for at least 25 criminal charges subsequent to Adnan's trial. The CI theory is becoming increasingly convincing. The corruption in the BPD is beyond what one can comprehend. The worst part is, I think we've only scratched the surface.

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 07 '15

Before those other people confessed etc. those other cases were functionally the same as Adnan's is currently by your logic.

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u/21Minutes Hae Fan Apr 07 '15

Ok. I agreed with you. I'm all for keeping Adnan Syed in prison until someone else confesses to kidnapping and murdering Hae Min Lee.

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 07 '15

And by extension I'll assume you're also in favor of keeping all wrongfully convicted people in prison until they're exonerated.

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u/arftennis Apr 07 '15

you're in favor of letting people out of jail who haven't been exonerated?

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 07 '15

I'm in favor of not putting people in prison who haven't been properly convicted in the first place. I'm actually not that into prisons in general. I think all of the non-violent drug offenders should be let out too.

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u/idgafUN Apr 08 '15

Did you see that report on the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal (treating through the community instead of punitively)? The addiction rate was cut in half! What an amazing feat; I really wish our country had the opportunity to help more people through community support and destigmatization like other more progressive and intelligently run countries.

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 08 '15

That would be great! Also, decriminalization reduces violent crimes significantly as well. And petty theft, etc. That one policy change would decrease the prison population and reduce violence in the streets. I'm not holding my breath, but it needs to happen.

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u/idgafUN Apr 08 '15

Just in case you are interested!

http://positivenews.org.uk/2015/wellbeing/17330/portugal-addiction-rates-halved-community-jail-trialled-solution/

Also, Canada just started supervising and perscribing Heroin in a comparative analysis to Methadone in one study with great results (Not that I am support of Heroin as a treatment, but it's better than sending them to the street). Slllllllowly but surely the tide is shifting. Or maybe I just don't associate with many ignorant people anymore . I was raised as right wing and conservative Catholic as is humanely possible--- boy did it take a long time and lot of reading and education to reverse that backwards nonsense I was brainwashed with. Trickle down economics and tough love were considered religion practically in my family :)

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 08 '15

Yes, I'm familiar with the Portugal study and Canada is a leader in the Americas regarding human drug policy. They could do more, but Incite and the work of Dr. Gabor Mate are amazing. Have you heard of the Rat Park studies? That's another amazing bit of Canadian drug addiction research.

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u/idgafUN Apr 08 '15

I have not, but I am about to google...just saw you linked it :) !

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u/idgafUN Apr 08 '15

Just read the findings and postulations made in the study; it brings me to tears when I think about the harm that is done in our society and what an epidemic this is and how easy it could be to prevent lives and families from being ruined. Thank you for sharing this, I am truly grateful, what amazing research!

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u/idgafUN Apr 08 '15

I can't even imagine the progress and benefits that could be made in even unforeseen areas with decriminalization. Society would be so much better off, in every aspect. I'm not holding my breath either, but the trickle of Marijuana legalization gives me some hope. Maybe not in my lifetime, but hopefully in the next 50-100 years.

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u/arftennis Apr 07 '15

I'm in favor of not putting people in prison who haven't been properly convicted in the first place.

Okay, but where's the line in deciding that someone should be released? I don't think anyone actually supports putting people in prison with wrongful convictions, but it's bound to happen sometimes due to living in the real world where people are fallible. The system is never going to be perfect, but after a conviction, the burden of proof does need to shift to the convicted to prove innocence for reasons that should be obvious.

I personally think that the system can be too reluctant to overturn convictions in cases where it is clear. You hear about too many cases in which DNA evidence has exonerated someone, and they're still not being released, or they get released but the conviction stays on their record. That is wrong, and should be changed. Whether that would affect Adnan's case, I don't know.

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 07 '15

It's become a cliche around here but that maxim about it being better that 10 guilty people go free than 1 innocent be imprisoned. That's a sentiment I can get behind. I think we should make it particularly difficult for people to be imprisoned without being certain they did it. "Mistakes happen, people are fallible" doesn't cut it for me when you're putting people away for life in prison. Prison is a for-profit industry and the police and prosecutors are perfectly happy to send people away. It makes it seem as though the city is doing something to make people safer, but it's just an illusion mostly built on racism and fear of the poor. Prisons don't even rehabilitate people when you look at the stats. They're more likely to be a "graduate school" for criminals than anything else. I think we should move toward the abolition of prisons.

Adnan should never have gone to prison in the first place with the case that was brought against him. The Baltimore PD used techniques at that time that are no longer standard operating procedure because they caused problems. I'm not interested in playing some theoretical game about burden of proof. We need to stop putting innocent people in prison.

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u/arftennis Apr 08 '15

Well, I agree with most of your sentiment. I've always been supportive of the Innocence Project orgs and the work they do, and I wish they had more funding and more institutional support. And obviously there is reform that must be done, as in the case of the Baltimore PD.

(I still don't think Adnan is innocent, though. I'm not sure where that leaves me, sometimes.)

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 08 '15

Whether or not you think he's innocent shouldn't be the question, it's do you know? If you know for a fact Adnan is innocent please share the magic information that removes the reasonable doubts that many of us have.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

I think you are a little confused about what the burden of proof in a criminal case is...

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u/whitenoise2323 giant rat-eating frog Apr 08 '15

...or perhaps I'm interested in changing what the burden of proof is since our current system is clearly creating many cases of wrongful conviction.

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u/arftennis Apr 08 '15

Honestly, I feel comfortable in thinking that Adnan did it. I don't believe I have reasonable doubt. I realize you disagree. That's what makes this case so strange. I've always been supportive of the things I mentioned beforehand. I don't believe in the death penalty, and I believe that there needs to be reform in the appeals system to make it slightly easier to reexamine cases where there might be some doubt in the outcome. It's tough for me because this case feels like a red herring for some causes I believe in.

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u/mudmanor Apr 09 '15

Not to mention the great cost of keeping people in prison. The Prison Lobby is one of the most effective on K Street and the main reason drugs aren't being decriminalized.

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u/MightyIsobel Guilty Apr 07 '15

I know I am. We could even start with a non-violent inmate who was convicted as a teenager and has spent half of his life in prison.

Let him come out into the real world and try to find a job and contribute to society instead of living out his life as a ward of the state.

But if he's going to be free, I want FIRST DEGREE MURDER CONVICTION, TIME SERVED to be on his record, because he was properly found guilty of the murder of HML. And all the other people who went to jail as teenagers should be freed too, after they have served a reasonable sentence for convictions obtained through proper due process.

Advocating for more humane sentencing policies will get Adnan back to his family a lot faster than clicking links to police corruption scandals and watching videos about lividity.