The alleged victim's testimony was the extent of the prosecution's case against Perry and Counts. There was no physical evidence linking them to the crime.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/07/convictions-vacated-26-year-old-rape/588406002/

It was Banks’ word against hers and she was not likely to change her story. After all, Gibson sued the Long Beach Unified School District claiming the school’s lax security provided an unsafe environment that led to the fraudulent rape. She would eventually receive a settlement of 1.5 million dollars.

Brian Banks was faced with an impossible decision at the time – either fight the charges and risk spending 41 years-to-life in prison, or take a plea deal and spend a little over 5 years of actual prison confinement. Although it would mean destroying his chance to go to college and play football, a lengthy probationary period, and a lifetime of registration as a sex offender, Banks chose the lesser of two evils when he pleaded no contest to the charges.

https://californiainnocenceproject.org/read-their-stories/brian-banks/


I'd look up more, but I have to go pick up my wife from work.

Your talking about it historically though. Historical abuse and mistreatment of Aboriginal people in Canada has been acceptable to discuss for at least a generation or two now, up to formal apologies and enormous numbers of court cases and cash settlements around the myriad past injustices.

The trouble is, even while addressing all the historical problems, there still exist new ones right now.

Typical conditions on Aboriginal reserves in Canada are unacceptably awful. You can have a thriving municipality right neighbouring an aboriginal reserve that is a mess of dilapidated homes, boiled water and grossly increased rates of unemployment, substance abuse and suicide. Small wonder then that increased crime rates also come along with all that.

Even that you can talk about, though the increased crime rate will get you in trouble for flirting with being racist against aboriginals.

What you can't talk about is many of the causes of the disparity.

Aboriginal reserves operate under a different legal framework than the neighbouring municipality. They operate under a different framework of governance. They operate under a different system of taxation. Organisation of all related government services like education, healthcare, policing and civil works like roads, water and sanitation are ALL different if you're on a reserve.

Talking about all that you need to be very careful how you say it, because if your not careful my above observations are a statement that coloniser systems are superior to aboriginal ones.

Private property rights are IMO an even hotter topic. The dilapidated housing on a reserve 10 minutes away from the municipality with everything in order is a direct result of who is responsible for maintaining them. In the municipality if a roof is missing shingles, the owner replaces them. If a window is broken, the owner replaces it. On the reserve though, the community is the owner. Unsurprisingly, that abstraction means maintenance on the homes is worse. If the mayor was responsible for using tax dollars to maintain all the homes in the neighbouring municipality it'd be a mess too. This leads to the poor aboriginal family stuck in a destroyed and overcrowded home and a chief saying sorry, the Canadian colonisers didn't give us enough money to fix your place, go yell at them. This just stirs up the Winnipeg citizens I mentioned earlier to respond with wonderment at why you don't fix your own home up yourself instead of protesting hopelessly for the government to hand out the money to do it for you.

The differential treatment still in place now, today is a cancer and needs to be fixed but calling it out like that would get me in trouble.

My biggest issue with these settlements is that, instead of finding the person (or people) that discriminated against him and punishing them, they simply award a massive monetary amount to the victim.

Now unless the city has a special insurance to cover situations like this (most don't), that money isn't coming out of the pockets of the guilty only. It is coming out of the pockets of all of the taxpayers, of ALL ethnic groups. So not only are you punishing the 'evil' 40ish percent of white taxpayers, you are actually punishing more non-white ones.

You might say, "Well, it is only some additional property taxes." Typically, though, even small increases in property tax hit the poorest people first and can lead to gentrification as property values increase as well.

Ironically if he doesn't end up moving, he'll actually be paying for a proportionally small part of his own settlement.

Sorry, but I disagree.

Touching a shoulder or hand can be enough to be accused of abuse.
Shit, just look at Shawn White, who was in a band with friends, and is now accused of sexual harassment for telling bandmates how he wants them to dress on stage, like most band leaders do, and for "making" her (and other friends) watch 2 girls 1 cup, like most teenagers/immature people did....publicly accused after settling with the band member who complained long after the fact and who accepted a settlement to drop it.
If that's sexual harassment, every man is guilty....as is every woman. Your parents are monsters, they actually forced you to wear what they said. Context is irrelevant.

Yes, today, asking a co-worker out and nothing more can and has led to harassment accusations and removal from their job....Jeffrey Tambor today, and he's never even heard what the accusations against him are or who made them, but he's already fired and his show, transparent, is certainly cancelled.

It's not that the whole world paints all men as rapists, it's that when any one person does paint any man (except Trump) as an abuser, the whole world seems to back them up without investigation or evidence. That's a problem, and is terrifying to many single men.

And women wonder why sexbots are becoming more popular daily, it's because to many men, their precious fairy vaginas aren't worth the risk of permanent scarlet lettering when there's a safe alternative. I just hope this has the positive effect of slowing population growth.

It's not about doing something that one thinks might lead to accusations, it's that any interactions can, and there's no recourse at all if you're accused, you're considered guilty off the bat.

Pain and suffering. Easy $200k settlement. Or $1 million min at trial for any decent lawyer.

And now she's a half million richer. http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/10/31/utah-nurse-arrested-for-blocking-cop-from-drawing-blood-from-patient-receives-500000-settlement/

Jesus Fucking Christ...he was convicted by judges of violating a legal judicial order and the constitution...not by Obama of being an old white guy. You drank more Trump coolaid, but this cup has made you thoroughly un-American.

Is that really what you call the best sheriff...someone who unapologetically violates the law and constitution at every turn, who abuses not only the convicted (still evil and illegal, btw) but also the merely accused in a jail he himself bragged was a concentration camp. That's how he treats American citizens who've not been convicted of a thing....and it's how he deserves to spend the remainder of his life.

If I held you (or your daughter) in a 145 deg tent, feeding you rotten balogne, offering no medical treatment while hoping you die of heat stroke, you would call me a terrorist, but because Joe violated mostly Hispanics (not even Mexicans, mostly legal Hispanic Americans) you call him the best sheriff...and you still tell yourself you aren't racist.

He cost his county well over $140 million in settlements for his victims, with hundreds of millions more in the courts still being litigated. The number of deaths in his jail are exponentially higher than the norm, with most going uninvestigated and fewer (none) being prosecuted (they just pay off the family a few million taxpayer dollars and move on to the next victim).

You really have to be shoving you head even farther up your own ass to even give Arpaio and Trump the benefit of a doubt at this point...he's gleefully admitted all his crimes as if they aren't illegal, and Trump made him right, violating the constitution and thumbing your nose at the court orders is perfectly fine in Trump's America, so long as you support him.

Jesus Fucknig Christ, bob. Next you'll be supporting Trump's pardon of Sheik Muhammad and other Daesh fighters...who were also the victims of an "Obama witch hunt".

You claimed to hate Obama because you've been convinced by drug addled blowhards (Limbaugh, Jones) that he subverted our rule of law to fit his agenda...yet here you are cheerleading Trump and Arpaio uncontrovertibly doing exactly that. Just because you agree with this particular agenda (subverting the constitution to forcefully eject illegal immigrants of one specific nationality) doesn't change the act you claim to hate, subversion of our constitution, laws, and government.

I think this narration makes a lot of assumptions.

That wolf was never domesticated. Domestication is a genetic adaptation that involves retaining juvenile traits that allow an animal to overcome the boundary that would instinctively cause them to flee or fight. This would take many generations. You can imagine how that adaptation would be advantageous to animals that benefit from living at the edges of human settlement.

There's no way to know why that wolf interacted the way it did but it was wild and posed a potential risk due to it's instinctive programming.

Happy that it remained an uplifting story. But it's not responsible to spread the narrative that you can domesticate a wild animal.

She's lucky to have been taken into custody with all her teeth and without the beat down she would have gotten if she were a black or brown skinned male. Demonstrating a knowledge of the law has been proven to be the main cause of police escalating a minor road side stop to a violent and possibly deadly encounter if you are not white and male. Hope the settlement includes mandatory training for the municipalities police force.

AFAIK, New Jersey doesn't have a "Stop and Identify" law, so this was a Terry stop no-no (Terry v. Ohio). She was under no obligation to answer their questions. As long as she provided her license, registration and proof of insurance, it looked like they had no reasonable basis for the arrest. I'd guess those cops were "rookies" since, as reported, they only had a year-and-change of experience on the force. Supervisor was right to let her go and release her car from impound, but I don't think she'll get any kind of monetary settlement from her suit.

I never really got into Spawn and Rob Liefeld... well, google Rob Liefeld and the first result is The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings.

It's also kind of ironic that despite Image's entire raison d'etre being "creator's rights", they ended up in a legal battle with Neil Gaiman over a character Gaiman created for McFarlane.

That said, Image are putting out some amazing work these days. If you like comics or sci-fi and you're not reading Saga or Black Science, you're missing out. Seriously, go read them now.

Side note: I know purists probably hate digital comics, and as someone who owns 5 volumes of Ultimate Sandman, I do like a real book, but digital comics are goddamn awesome.

The dude fully complied and the Cops did this man wrong.

I hope he gets him and his mom and much much nicer home after this settlement.

About 600,000 split fairly evenly between them in mid 2015.

(See also http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2011/01/05/glance-who-takes-most-asylum-claims for a slightly older article about refugee settlement)

If they were really separated populations, that might be OK (immigrating to the Jewish held territories), but they weren't. The lived in the same areas for the most part, they just didn't intermingle so much socially (although WAY more than they do today).....but expansionist settlements were and are a major sticking point to resolving the conflict, so even if there was a Jewish territory to migrate to, they wouldn't stay in it, and that's a major problem. The governing body of the area didn't want them, and the immigrants armed themselves and fought that government (and beat it senseless), to me, invaders. Your feelings may differ, I get it, I think we understand each other and disagree...and that's fine.

I don't think the US was as closed as you imply (but certainly not open to everyone), but it was difficult and expensive to get here, so practically it wasn't an option for most, agreed.

Perhaps the Arab League's intent was truly expansion into Palestine, at least they were 'invited' by the government of the territory! ;-) I agree, their lack of cohesion doomed them before they started, and should be a national shame to all involved.

YIKES! OK, I'll just say that I, in no way, support Daesh or any of their actions, not almost, not nearly, just not. I can sympathize with a few of their complaints, but that's as far as it goes. The Syrian resistance is in no way tied to Daesh, as you mentioned they are fighting each other. I don't get how you go from support of the resistance to 'near yes' to supporting Daesh, especially if you support the Syrian resistance. Huh?

Call it what you will. To me, massive illegal immigration with the goal of territorial control is invasion...no matter why they invaded. Invaders always have a reason.

The Jewish population didn't want to be mixed, nor did the Arabs by then from my readings, so there was no chance of peaceful coexistence.

Wait...what?! So...after the Nazis were gone it was too late to go home?!? How do you figure? Many if not most of them were still in Europe then.
They didn't need a promise, they needed to return to their properties, then demand reparations. They weren't promised anything by Palestine either....right?

They should have said that when the Nazis showed up, not after they were defeated...and should have fought the Nazis, not the mostly blameless (for the atrocities) Palestinians.

Again, civil wars are between native populations, not immigrants. Immigrants fighting natives is called invasion. Period.

HA!!!!! So, when neighbors and allies try to secure their borders that are being crossed by invaders, you call THEM invaders, but not the immigrant army. WTF, man?

EDIT: Should I think you call Turkey an invader of Daesh, and you a supporter of Daesh? They were in the same boat as the Jews, being ostracized and destroyed around the globe, until they came together in an area where a small portion of the natives gave them support and the majorities ignored their rise to power, they grasped territories and power, formed their separate nation, and since then have simply 'defended' themselves from the aggressive natives....right? Um....no.

No...far from the most open place, Palestine was openly hostile to them, but incapable of stopping the invasion. The U.S. was open...if they could get here. There was no separate Jewish Palestine then. I have sympathy for the European Jews until the day they tried to become a separate nation by force. Since that day, they've been the aggressive invaders doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to them without the gas chambers.

Perhaps you don't know that >90% of rockets are fired at expansionist settlements in Palestine, not Israel, met with exponentially more force against civilians. (And before you balk, there's no such thing as an Israeli civilian, they are all, 100%, military....by law).

Neighbors and allies fighting invaders of their allies are absolutely not more at fault than the invaders for the continuing tragedy...not that I support their rhetoric or actions.
The single cause of the conflict is foreign invaders taking territory by force and constant expansion ever since. Their continuing inhumanity towards the natives is another topic, morality.