alt Hacker News> "Unfairly biased most of the time" and "unjust more often than just" are the same claim when discussing legal outcomes. If the system is systematically biased, it produces unjust outcomes. Don't play word games.
Then that's not an extraordinary claim.
I'm doing my best to avoid word games here.
If someone is claiming that the system is biased always, but not claiming that most outcomes are wrong, that is a reasonable claim.
Calling plea bargains inherently coercive is a reasonable claim. Yes they're broken in some ways.
> The assertion that 98% plea bargain rates represent coercion rather than efficient processing is precisely claiming the system gets it wrong most of the time.
No no no no no no no no. That's not what those words mean.
> Pick one: is the system broken or just imperfect?
Some imperfection will always be there.
But there are important imperfections that could be reasonably fixed, therefore I would say the system is broken. By my definition of broken; yours might be different.
I don't know what "fundamentally broken" means exactly so I won't comment on that term.
Fair enough, let me step back because I'm getting angry.
You're right that "biased in process" and "wrong outcomes" aren't the same thing. A system can have unfair disparities (wealth based, racial, whatever) without necessarily convicting innocent people at scale. That's a reasonable distinction.
But that's not what sparked this thread. Go back to the top: the original claim was "when is the law just in its application?" implying never or nearly never. My position is that it's just more often than not. That's the disagreement.
If you're saying the system has procedural problems that create unfair pressure but generally reaches correct guilty/not guilty determinations, then we probably don't disagree much. That's a claim about needing reforms, not about fundamental systemic failure.
The issue is when people use "98% plea bargains" or "inherently coercive" to argue the system is fundamentally broken. If that's not what you're arguing, then we're likely closer to agreement than it seemed.