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Is Eliza Orlins only a actually dangerous protection legal professional, or is one thing else occurring right here? Hmmm …
Additionally in New York Metropolis, Kalief Browder—a youngster who had allegedly stolen a backpack however hadn’t been tried or convicted—spent greater than 1,000 days imprisoned at Rikers Island, the place Weisselberg will serve his 100 or so days. A lot of Browder’s time on Rikers was spent in solitary confinement, and he was assaulted by each inmates and employees. He died by suicide about two years after he was lastly launched. A thousand days for a criminal offense he wasn’t convicted of versus Weisselberg’s possible 100 days for the 15 felonies he admitted.
The 19 people who died in custody at Rikers in 2022 included a person who, like Browder, had not but been tried, however had been imprisoned for three years awaiting trial on a theft cost. They included a person who had been imprisoned for greater than a yr after allegedly committing assault whereas having a psychological well being disaster; he was imagined to be on suicide watch however was left unattended. It goes on—and whereas the 19 deaths within the Rikers Island jail advanced in 2022 are a scandal, it’s additionally a scandal that individuals are being held for years with out trial whereas individuals like Weisselberg get 5 months most.
Even some pretty distinguished individuals have gotten noticeably harsher sentences than Weisselberg:
There are large racial and wealth disparities threaded via the whole lot in regards to the so-called justice system in the USA, however every so often there’s a case that simply reveals so clearly how advantageous it’s to be white and rich (even when a great chunk of the wealth was unlawful ultimately) and related to energy that you must cease and marvel at it. Additionally related right here is how our system doesn’t deal with white-collar crime as actual crime, despite the fact that in lots of instances it has extra victims who expertise extra hurt than in instances of particular person acts of theft and even assault. If there’s one sort of mass incarceration I’d cheer, it’s mass incarceration of white-collar criminals.
