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Drunk Driver Mugshots Featured On Facebook
An anonymous reader writes "Get yourself a DUI and your mugshot may get some exposure on Facebook. That is, if you get caught in New Jersey by Evesham Township's police, which have begun posting mugshots of arrested people, convicted or not, on its Facebook page. Now, we know that if you get arrested, your privacy is pretty much limited to the brand of your underpants, but the local police department has started a controversy and may find itself in hot water. How much value does a public mugshot on Facebook have to the public? What privacy rights do you have if you get arrested?"
and may find itself with a lawsuit for millions which tax payers will have to pay up while the police department will suffer no ill effects.
Fixed.
Newsday has been publishing DUI arrestees' mugshots on their website for at least the last few years.
It's always confirmation bias!
What privacy rights do you have if you get arrested?
I suppose thats depends on what you get arrested for, but I would assume in most cases - all of them?
It's implying that alleged criminals are somehow less than human
FTFY, because until the charges are proved in court, simply being arrested could mean any number of things that fall well short of being guilty of an actual offence. Unfortunately, by posting mugshots to the internet (read "the public domain"), it ensures that these people will be forever linked to a crime they may or may not have even committed.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Actually, there are a number of ways that a breathalyzer test can give a false positive, and a number of ways that an officer can otherwise cock up an arrest.
So then wait for them to be convicted in court, and then ridicule away. Is due process really such an inconvenience for you?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Because FaceBook has such incredibly great security there is no way this could ever be abused by a bored high school kid who decided to post pictures of his teachers there.
Absolutely no possible way this could ever be abused. None whatsoever. Therefore, this is a great idea.
For good and for bad, getting arrested is a matter of the public record. (You wouldn't want to be arrested and held secretly, would you?) For some, the fact of public disclosure and "loss of face" is reason enough not to do bad things. For the innocent, it's our society's willingness to ostracize someone based merely on accusation that is the problem, not the posting of the picture.
Somewhat relatedly, recent studies have shown that 44% of men would be unwilling to help a lost child because of the ease of which false accusations could ruin their lives. Maybe it's our knee-jerk judgmental culture that needs to be fixed instead.
The problem here is not the fact that the photos are being presented on Facebook. They're public record. Local newspapers have printed booking photos since the beginning of Local Newspapers (or maybe the beginning of booking photos).
The problem is with us, the public. We react to this as if it is a shame to the person. We really need to be working to change the public mindset with the reminder of "Innocent until proven guilty". The proper response to these photos is "Huh. Joe got arrested for DUI. I wonder how it's gonna turn out?" That's how we need to get people thinking. At that point, all this Facebook crap doesn't matter.
Posting pictures of people who have been arrested but not convicted would seem to be very dodgy territory, the police could be exposing themselves to all sorts of law suits. While the police generally try their hardest to do a good job, mistakes can be made. Putting up pictures of people who are later released without charge might still cause those people complications in their lives, whether it is over-zealous local vigilantes, or employers.
A friend of mine is a primary school teacher. He had to break up a fight between two ten year old boys a couple of years ago. As he was separating them, one of the parents arrived (end of school day) and then claimed my friend had assaulted her son. This all took a couple of months to sort out, nearly finished my friend's professional career. He was proved completely innocent, classic case of an insane parent believing their little Jimmy never did any wrong. My friend was incredibly stressed and depressed throughout, years of hard work possibly destroyed by one stupid parent, and ended up moving town to take up work in another school where he is very successful, has been promoted twice.
I can only imagine what might have happened to him if his pictures had been on Facebook for those two months with the caption "suspected child assault". He would have been under intense psychological pressure, and perhaps local parents might withdraw their children from his care, or pressurise his head teacher to sack him, or even taken illegal direct vigilante action. And then at the end after they'd ruined his life they'd find out he was innocent. Even if they gave him his backpay and reinstated him in his old job, he could have been in a very bad way psychologically if he'd been attacked as a result of this, maybe rumours would have spread that couldn't be stopped (his neighbours in his street saying "well he was proved innocent but I don't want my kids near his house" etc).
Posting pictures of arrested but not convicted folk in any circumstance, whether on Facebook, or a town billboard, or in the local paper - no - I think this is difficult territory.
You have the right to due process before the state takes away your life, liberty or property. You do not have the right to due process before the community can ridicule you. See, there's this thing called the 1st amendment. It means I can tell you and others what I think about you.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, since the AC that I was responding to said criminals not the accused it's a safe assumption he was bemoaning the fact that we ridicule criminals after they are convicted for their crimes.
Jackass.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
As part of the "save the children" panic, the supreme court has already decided that such listings "aren't punishment", which is why they say they can be applied retroactively, after conviction. Without the (ridiculous, sophist) determination that such listings do no harm in and of themselves, the ex post facto prohibitions would come into play (as they actually should, of course.)
Consequently, I doubt that any listing of arrest subjects will be determined to be damaging or harmful, or that they require a conviction.
Shaming - permanent and otherwise - is part of America's new commitment to retribution over rehabilitation, and its support for the creation of a permanent rock-bottom lower class. The public is all for it; they love the drama and the fuckarosis that it all engenders, and it is a very rare citizen indeed that has any concept of how and why these things are wrong.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Releasing an arrest record is not slander. Newspapers have been publishing police blotters for decades. Arrests are a matter of public record. Get over it.
I was arrested for a crime I didn't commit. Police blotter was on Page 2. Guess which page it was reported on when the Grand Jury kicked the charges against me? Oh, that's right, it wasn't reported at all. Such is life. I bet if you were in my shoes you'd sue, wouldn't you?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
How they're made public is irrelevant. If you don't liek it - get the law changed to make arrests NOT part of the public recored - but nobody will want that will they?
But it does matter how accurately they portray those public records. That is, if they are found to not make it clear that those are only arrest records, not convictions, they set themselves up for the same liability that journalists avoid by the usage of "suspect", "alleged", and "accused." If they are considered to be misrepresenting or obscuring the fact those depicted people were only arrested, not convicted, they risk a libel suit.
It also complicates matters if an arrest was made in bad faith, or any mistakes or wrong-doings. If charges are not pressed, or the court dismisses charges due to lack of evidence or other reasons, the accused may be able to seek compensation for both the bad arrest, and the bad publicity the police activity generated for the accused.
I know a someone who was arrested for DUI, but it was thrown out of court due to the total lack of evidence (no evidence they operated any vehicle that night). That person could of had their professional life ruined by such police's active attempt to "name and shame" people who was never found guilty of a crime. Frankly that smacks of police exceeding their authority and mandate, as if the police think they are judge and jury as well, and that they would never accuse an innocent person incorrectly. The history in reality shows otherwise. That why justice has a due process.
My neighbor was just arrested and had their mug shots on the nightly news and written up by the local news for suspected meth and related paraphernalia. So obviously everyone thinks there was some involved as thats what the news said relayed to them by the police spokesperson.
Problem is, there wasn't any. It was only suspected (due to past boyfriends) and they found nothing and had to release her later that night but the persona damage is still done to her and to the neighborhood.
So I'm not really sure how I feel about this as DUI is slightly different when arrested. And I don't see how FB is any different than the nightly news or papers.
...but it sure seems unethical. The police seem to be posting these pictures only to (a) humiliate and shame those arrested, (b) forever stigmatize those people by way of distributing (downloadable) pictures that will now live on in digital form in the public domain, in one form or another, forever. Who knows where they might end up. Sounds like a good way to potentially ruin someone's life over an *alleged* night of over-indulgence and bad judgment.
There is "being available in the public record," and there is "put on worldwide public display with a big scarlet 'A' for Alcoholic on their chests." They're going over the line here.
"..a law where repeat convicted offenders of DUI laws get a special yellow license plate with red letters,...."
A yellow star?
Why? The American public has allowed all manner of listings without any conviction, police or judicial action.
Just offhand: No-fly lists; No-buy lists; Gun owner lists; "offender" lists; land owner lists; boat owner lists; etc.
Unfortunately, the average citizen fails to anticipate what one seemingly harmless or seemingly desirable invasion of privacy means in terms of enabling behavior when an obviously harmful one comes around.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I was arrested for a DUI early this year. Admittedly, I had gone off the deep end and was overdrinking. However, I was NOT driving drunk. My wife was concerned and called the police reporting that I was, on a Sunday morning. In reality, I had a single drink, then hit the road. . I got home before the cops. I was knocking back straight bourbon IN MY HOUSE. . I was cuffed, my BAC was .1. I spent eight hours detained.
.
My trial is next week. My wife is testifying that she saw me drinking in the house. The cop says he saw no such thing. My lawyer says it's far from a slam dunk, since it's a DUI.
.
I've been forced to breathe into a hyper-sensitive device to start my car for five months. It can lock up the ignition because I've used mouthwash, or because I had a couple of beers within the last couple of hours. It also locks out if I pull into the garage, I shut the car off, and it wants a test anyway. No doubt the judge will have all the details at my hearing. It costs me 75 bucks a month.
.
There's nothing worse than being accused of something politically incorrect. Even if the charges are tossed, I'm out almost two thousand bucks.
.
So no, I don't think this is a good idea.
Same here. I just want them to be arrested and prosecuted based on observable behavior, such as the way that they drive. A dangerous driver who disregards safety is not exactly difficult to detect. On the plus side, doing things this way might accomplish more towards addressing the dangerous drivers who are quite sober but just aggressive and/or stupid.
Then I'd rather you lobby for the repealing of the Fifth Amendment. That's a damn sight better than simply ignoring it. It's also the honest way to get what you seem to want. It's much more honest than coming up with clever ways to get around it, such as implied consent laws. "Driving is a privilege, not a right" is true, but the Fifth Amendment does not say "this law of the land does not apply to privileges". In fact it applies to the government whenever it wants to use its police power against a citizen, for any reason.
A concept that is totally unrelated in subject but completely related in principle is the notion of a "free speech zone". You see, that's a clever way to get around the First Amendment. That was also perpetrated by someone who did not want to honestly lobby for the repealing of the First Amendment and instead wanted to play clever word games to effectively ignore it.
I am not saying you are playing clever word games. I am saying that you have adopted the positions of people who are like religious zealots. A "true believer" thinks that the ends always justify the means. If it means throwing out 200+ years of jurisprudence and American traditions of freedom, if it means weakening the highest law of the land, then so be it as long as we catch a few drunks, right? Such people are utterly confident of their position and can be quite convincing. I can tell you are influenced by their thinking as long as the crusade is difficult to argue with, like "we want to catch drunk drivers". That still doesn't make it right.
The difference is that in any other criminal matter, you are not punished for refusing to incriminate yourself. When the cop asks you to blow into a tube, he is asking you to prove that you are innocent. That is not the way our system is supposed to work. It's the cop's job to gather evidence that you have committed a crime. The fact that we really don't like this particular crime is not a good reason to change this. That's the sort of reactive emotional thinking that is a complete departure from the wisdom of "innocent until proven guilty".
That's the most honest statement of your position so far. Not "honest" in terms of deception but "honest" in terms of showing a full awareness of the implications, as in the truth and the whole truth. "I've got nothing to hide, so I'll submit to any infringement of my civil rights" is a very, very dangerous position. The DUI implied consent laws are a clever way to ignore the 5th Amendment. The asset forfeiture laws of the War on (some) Drugs are a clever way to ignore the 4th Amendment. Free speech zones are a clever way to ignore the 1st Amendment. The federal government's practice of unfunded mandates on the one hand, and encouraging states to desperately depend on federal money on the other, is a clever way around the 10th Amendment. I won't even discuss the 2nd Amendment. That's where your sentiment leads, what it produces, what it evolves toward and blossoms into. It is not a static idea but a dynamic entity that expands whererver it can.
I don't like drunk drivers either but they are rather tame compared to the full expression of that sentiment.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The difference is that today your name is in the paper. Tomorrow it's wrapping fish and by next week it's in the dump or recycled. Sure, the newspaper is still available on microfiche in the library, but there's no index, certainly not for a police blotter.
Meanwhile, your mugshot is still up on Facebook being seen, effectively re-published every day it isn't taken down. It's indexed on Google.
It's the difference between catching a bad cold and catching HIV.
You have the right to due process before the state takes away your life, liberty or property. You do not have the right to due process before the community can ridicule you. See, there's this thing called the 1st amendment. It means I can tell you and others what I think about you.
I have the right to say "fuck you, you're a god damned idiot". That doesn't make this a good, worthy, or noble thing to do. Now, that's a hypothetical. I'm not actually trying to insult you or call you an idiot but I wanted to make a point. If I used my free speech in that manner, it would say little or nothing about you while revealing quite a bit about me.
Sure, you can insult people with no fear that the law will stop you because of the 1st Amendment. But tell me, do you really need to have the 1st Amendment repealed and laws of censorship enacted before you would think twice about insulting someone who is presumed innocent until convicted? And if so, is that because you really see something wrong with that practice and found self-restraint? But in that case why did it take a censorship law to change your behavior? That's why you can use the 1st Amendment to cover up any non-existant legal challenges to this behavior, but that will never escape the objections to it that don't involve using the government to censor you.
If you believe in due process at all then you honor the principles behind it even if there is no law compelling you to do so. I mean fuck, if you won't believe or honor anything except under the threat of the force of law, your beliefs and your honor are quite worthless.
If I want the state to honor due process because due process is a sound principle, why would I suddenly consider it unsound when faced with a choice of whether I will personally honor due process? You see, that makes no sense. If I take a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude towards the state, then I'm a garden-variety hypocrite. I'd be a hypocrite because I would want it to represent principles that I myself refuse to even try to embody.
That kind of hypocrisy is the position of immature and self-serving people. Very simply, they want to be protected from a capricious state that can harm anyone it wants on a whim, because such a protection benefits them. They also want to be able to look down their nose at someone and judge that person as beneath them, because this (in one form or another) is extremely important to empty, hollow people who have no principles or nobility. For them there is only gratification and when they don't achieve it by making themselves higher, they do it by making someone else lower. So that also benefits them. By "benefit" I mean it feeds their childish mentality and makes sure they are never made to feel uncomfortable for having it. Thus, they give lip service to ideas like due process but routinely contradict it anytime they are not forced to honor it.
That's why this is about publically posting mugshots for arrests and not for convictions despite the fact that both approaches are equally practical. This and the whole "eighth-grade emotional level our nation is at" (to paraphrase Bill Hicks) is what you are defending.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein