COURT: I got you cold mate.
April 17, 2016 3:20 PM Subscribe
This post was deleted for the following reason: Eh, I get the sort of cute gloss to this but it's pretty thin news-of-the-weird with a big potential fight attached. -- cortex
In the cells!
posted by samthemander at 3:40 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by samthemander at 3:40 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well. That happened.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:42 PM on April 17, 2016
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:42 PM on April 17, 2016
"Hi I have magic state appointed powers to punish you above anyone else who did this because you said mean things about me"
The more I read this the more I don't like it at all.
posted by Ferreous at 3:46 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
The more I read this the more I don't like it at all.
posted by Ferreous at 3:46 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Hi I have magic state appointed powers to punish you above anyone else who did this because you said mean things about me"
I mean, I hate it, too, but let's be real, do we expected judges to always be above petty, irrational human emotion? I don't.
The only difference between then and now is that back then you'd have to be at the same pub as the judge, being loudly inebriated. Now the judge can get you cold just by looking online, if you're dumb enough to post that kind of nonsense on a public forum.
It's not really appropriate, no, but I kind of blame the judge less than a society that hasn't caught up with how to deal with social media and its effects on what people tend to think are private conversations. I'd wager the response would have been just as cross if it had been overheard in the pub the night before, as opposed to a Facebook post.
posted by deadaluspark at 3:50 PM on April 17, 2016
I mean, I hate it, too, but let's be real, do we expected judges to always be above petty, irrational human emotion? I don't.
The only difference between then and now is that back then you'd have to be at the same pub as the judge, being loudly inebriated. Now the judge can get you cold just by looking online, if you're dumb enough to post that kind of nonsense on a public forum.
It's not really appropriate, no, but I kind of blame the judge less than a society that hasn't caught up with how to deal with social media and its effects on what people tend to think are private conversations. I'd wager the response would have been just as cross if it had been overheard in the pub the night before, as opposed to a Facebook post.
posted by deadaluspark at 3:50 PM on April 17, 2016
The judge didn't even need to bring up the comments online, but he did! He's clearly lording his position over this guy. Fuck him, he's clearly abusing his power. What this guy said about him online has zero bearing on unpaid fines.
posted by Ferreous at 3:55 PM on April 17, 2016
posted by Ferreous at 3:55 PM on April 17, 2016
Well, it appears that the guy was already scheduled to appear before the judge in question, thus the hope that they'd retire before Friday. I think it's a little different when you decide to attack your judge in an ongoing criminal proceeding, as opposed to just bashing a random judge and then discovering you were appearing before them.
Though I'm inclined to think it's not a great idea either way.
posted by tavella at 3:56 PM on April 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Though I'm inclined to think it's not a great idea either way.
posted by tavella at 3:56 PM on April 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Everyone knows rule 34, but so many people seem to forget rule 1: don't post it unless you want everyone to know you posted it.
To expand, remember the Streisand Effect and remember that it can happen to you too. Do not ever. Under any circumstances. Not even a little bit. Post something online that you wouldn't literally literally, not metaphorically literally, be comfortable seeing on the front page of your nation's biggest newspaper and read by your elderly relatives, employer, and other authorities.
Degrees of pseudo-anonymity apply. If you're posting on mefi under a pseudonym it still isn't that anonymous if you ever talk about yourself, link to anything you've ever done, etc. Remember that there are bored assholes on /b/ who have nothing to fill their days but tracking you down from the smallest, tiniest, clues and who will delight in stripping away the veil of pseudoanonymity and revealing your worst posts to the world.
I'm hardly an exemplar of that myself, I've said quite a few intemperate things that, if linked back to my employers, might not be so great for me.
But posting things on Facebook, where you use your real name and often have real photos of yourself and (if you're foolhardy) you link to your employers, family, church, university, etc is especially reckless. You post it to Facebook it **WILL** be tied to you, and found very quickly by whoever you badmouthed.
Hell, people have known this since the invention of writing: don't put it in writing unless you want it to be tied to you forever. Back when we wrote in cuneiform on wet clay thoughtful people knew this and followed that maxim, and foolish people forgot it and suffered for it.
As for the judge, yeah, he seems to be abusing his power for petty vengeance. The community service decision seems to be in line with others, but putting the dude in a cell while the details were worked out hardly seems like the standard procedure. Judge should be penalized in some way, I'd favor removal from office myself. I don't really believe in second chances for abuse of power, if he'll do it for something petty like this he'll do it for bigger and more important things.
posted by sotonohito at 3:56 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
To expand, remember the Streisand Effect and remember that it can happen to you too. Do not ever. Under any circumstances. Not even a little bit. Post something online that you wouldn't literally literally, not metaphorically literally, be comfortable seeing on the front page of your nation's biggest newspaper and read by your elderly relatives, employer, and other authorities.
Degrees of pseudo-anonymity apply. If you're posting on mefi under a pseudonym it still isn't that anonymous if you ever talk about yourself, link to anything you've ever done, etc. Remember that there are bored assholes on /b/ who have nothing to fill their days but tracking you down from the smallest, tiniest, clues and who will delight in stripping away the veil of pseudoanonymity and revealing your worst posts to the world.
I'm hardly an exemplar of that myself, I've said quite a few intemperate things that, if linked back to my employers, might not be so great for me.
But posting things on Facebook, where you use your real name and often have real photos of yourself and (if you're foolhardy) you link to your employers, family, church, university, etc is especially reckless. You post it to Facebook it **WILL** be tied to you, and found very quickly by whoever you badmouthed.
Hell, people have known this since the invention of writing: don't put it in writing unless you want it to be tied to you forever. Back when we wrote in cuneiform on wet clay thoughtful people knew this and followed that maxim, and foolish people forgot it and suffered for it.
As for the judge, yeah, he seems to be abusing his power for petty vengeance. The community service decision seems to be in line with others, but putting the dude in a cell while the details were worked out hardly seems like the standard procedure. Judge should be penalized in some way, I'd favor removal from office myself. I don't really believe in second chances for abuse of power, if he'll do it for something petty like this he'll do it for bigger and more important things.
posted by sotonohito at 3:56 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
So where does it say that the guy was punished in any way for the Facebook post, beyond being forced to read his drunken rants while sober, in a courtroom. The protocol says he had $6244 in outstanding fines, and no means to pay, so it was converted to community service.
posted by effbot at 3:57 PM on April 17, 2016
posted by effbot at 3:57 PM on April 17, 2016
"Hi I have magic state appointed powers to punish you above anyone else who did this because you said mean things about me"
Which he didn't use. The substitution of community service for fines paid is totally reasonable in the circumstances.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:58 PM on April 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Which he didn't use. The substitution of community service for fines paid is totally reasonable in the circumstances.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:58 PM on April 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Again, those posts have ZERO BEARING on this case!
Shaming people who spoke ill of you is not what court procedures on unpaid fines are about.
posted by Ferreous at 3:59 PM on April 17, 2016
Shaming people who spoke ill of you is not what court procedures on unpaid fines are about.
posted by Ferreous at 3:59 PM on April 17, 2016
Judge should be penalized in some way, I'd favor removal from office myself.
He was already retiring six days after this hearing.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:03 PM on April 17, 2016
He was already retiring six days after this hearing.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:03 PM on April 17, 2016
Shaming people who spoke ill of you is not what court procedures on unpaid fines are about.
No shit it has no bearing on the case, but judges are humans, and are just as likely to err in bad judgment as the man who made the initial post erred by posting cruel things about his judge on a public forum.
Does that make it right? By no means, but what are we gonna do about humans being humans?
Yeah, the judge should probably be reprimanded, but as others have pointed out he is retiring, and realistically, the worst the guy got from the judge was a public shaming, some time in the cells while he waited, and actually got paid pretty well in terms of his community service. (Working it off at roughly $21 per hour, much higher than the minimum wage of $15.25 in New Zealand.)
People complaining about judges being judgmental assholes who use every opportunity to shame you and act like you're trash have obviously never been in front of a judge for a petty crime. Because guess what, it's not really that unusual.
posted by deadaluspark at 4:05 PM on April 17, 2016
No shit it has no bearing on the case, but judges are humans, and are just as likely to err in bad judgment as the man who made the initial post erred by posting cruel things about his judge on a public forum.
Does that make it right? By no means, but what are we gonna do about humans being humans?
Yeah, the judge should probably be reprimanded, but as others have pointed out he is retiring, and realistically, the worst the guy got from the judge was a public shaming, some time in the cells while he waited, and actually got paid pretty well in terms of his community service. (Working it off at roughly $21 per hour, much higher than the minimum wage of $15.25 in New Zealand.)
People complaining about judges being judgmental assholes who use every opportunity to shame you and act like you're trash have obviously never been in front of a judge for a petty crime. Because guess what, it's not really that unusual.
posted by deadaluspark at 4:05 PM on April 17, 2016
He isn't getting punished for what he said on facebook you adorable fussbudgets. 300 hours of community service is for the remission of $6400 fines. As in, he does the community service (picking up litter in a fluoro vest) and doesn't have to pay the fine.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:08 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Sebmojo at 4:08 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Perhaps we should feel less uncomfortable about the judge who calls the defendant out about this but does nothing else than about other (hypothetical) judges who don’t publicly call out defendants and instead quietly up the sentence.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:09 PM on April 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 4:09 PM on April 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by Ferreous at 3:38 PM on April 17, 2016 [2 favorites]