#1 ·
I’ve been noticing lately that whenever there’s a particularly nasty car accident, the courts seem all too eager to throw people into pretrial detention.
I mean, looking at the actual legal code, I don't really see the justification for it—so I can't help but wonder if this is just a reaction to public outcry, since, you know, the court of public opinion usually operates by a totally different set of rules than the actual law.
It almost feels like pretrial detention has turned into some kind of... I don't know, a "down payment" on the sentence they're eventually expecting to hand down.
And it's the same story with those white-collar crime cases—those shady corporate schemes—where being held in jail seems to be used as a way to lean on the defendant. It can drag on for years, and I guess you could say it's a tactic to get them to finally "cooperate" with the investigation.
The law basically says pretrial detention should only happen if:
1) the defendant is a flight risk—like, they're actually running away or there are circumstances suggesting they might bolt (hiding out, identity issues, that sort of thing),
2) there's a real chance they'll destroy, hide, or mess with evidence, or maybe try to intimidate witnesses, experts, or other people involved in the case to throw things off track,
3) there are reasons to believe they might commit the same crime again, finish up an attempted crime, or go after someone with a more serious felony—specifically one carrying a potential prison sentence of five years or more,
4) the circumstances surrounding the crime are just so incredibly severe that the law mandates a long-term prison sentence anyway,
5) the person has been properly summoned to court but is just straight-up dodging their hearings.
I mean, looking at the actual legal code, I don't really see the justification for it—so I can't help but wonder if this is just a reaction to public outcry, since, you know, the court of public opinion usually operates by a totally different set of rules than the actual law.
It almost feels like pretrial detention has turned into some kind of... I don't know, a "down payment" on the sentence they're eventually expecting to hand down.
And it's the same story with those white-collar crime cases—those shady corporate schemes—where being held in jail seems to be used as a way to lean on the defendant. It can drag on for years, and I guess you could say it's a tactic to get them to finally "cooperate" with the investigation.
The law basically says pretrial detention should only happen if:
1) the defendant is a flight risk—like, they're actually running away or there are circumstances suggesting they might bolt (hiding out, identity issues, that sort of thing),
2) there's a real chance they'll destroy, hide, or mess with evidence, or maybe try to intimidate witnesses, experts, or other people involved in the case to throw things off track,
3) there are reasons to believe they might commit the same crime again, finish up an attempted crime, or go after someone with a more serious felony—specifically one carrying a potential prison sentence of five years or more,
4) the circumstances surrounding the crime are just so incredibly severe that the law mandates a long-term prison sentence anyway,
5) the person has been properly summoned to court but is just straight-up dodging their hearings.