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Jeffrey Epstein arrested for child sex trafficking

Darat said:
In the UK the burden is placed on the prison service to say why someone needs to be on suicide watch, and a prisoner can challenge that and if the health care staff involved agree or an external assessment is made -lawyers could bring in their own healthcare professionals to evaluate the prisoner - then the prison can't "force" a prisoner to be on suicide watch. (Don't want to go down the chronic underfunding that makes many of these processes laughable in the UK.)

It is expensive whether you look at it from a pure dollar cost or personnel hours to have prisoners on suicide watch, prisons aren't going to do it unless they are sure there is an immediate and current risk of a suicide attempt.

It is not strange at all that someone who commanded the legal resources Epstein could, would be able to get themselves taken off suicide watch.
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I don't question that. But there is a fundamental difference between the concepts of "demand" and 'request'. If the authorities in charge of Epstein's incarceration could provide sufficient justification for heightened monitoring of his cell then his lawyers could "demand" as much as they wanted to. It wouldn't matter. Those lawyers are not in a position to make demands. They don't have that sort of authority. It is the custodians who have the legal responsibility for his welfare. If they fail in that then those same lawyers would be all over them for the failure.

Is the jail absolved of responsibility because Epstein's lawyers "demanded" that he be taken off of suicide watch?
 
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quadraginta said:
I don't question that. But there is a fundamental difference between the concepts of "demand" and 'request'. If the authorities in charge of Epstein's incarceration could provide sufficient justification for heightened monitoring of his cell then his lawyers could "demand" as much as they wanted to. It wouldn't matter. Those lawyers are not in a position to make demands. They don't have that sort of authority. It is the custodians who have the legal responsibility for his welfare. If they fail in that then those same lawyers would be all over them for the failure.

Is the jail absolved of responsibility because Epstein's lawyers "demanded" that he be taken off of suicide watch?
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Errrr....no. As far as I understand there is an ongoing investigation into the jail and at least two people have been sacked over the death. Maybe more. I think literally no one is saying the jail is absolved of responsibility.
 
shemp said:
A sign of fear and desperation perhaps?
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If he's guilty, then this is a bluff, hoping the videos don't exist. If he's innocent, it's him trying to support his innocence in the face of the problem that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It's hard to prove you did nothing wrong even when you in fact did nothing wrong.

So one question is: does Dershowitz think it's more likely or less likely that Epstein video taped all this stuff and kept it? If he thinks the videos probably exist, then he's unlikely to make this bluff, so that suggests innocence. If he thinks the video likely doesn't exist, then saying this is low risk whether he's innocent or guilty, so we can't really draw any conclusions.
 
Ziggurat said:
If he's guilty, then this is a bluff, hoping the videos don't exist. If he's innocent, it's him trying to support his innocence in the face of the problem that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It's hard to prove you did nothing wrong even when you in fact did nothing wrong.

So one question is: does Dershowitz think it's more likely or less likely that Epstein video taped all this stuff and kept it? If he thinks the videos probably exist, then he's unlikely to make this bluff, so that suggests innocence. If he thinks the video likely doesn't exist, then saying this is low risk whether he's innocent or guilty, so we can't really draw any conclusions.
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He kept his underpants on. Got to be mitigating.
 
Ziggurat said:
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So one question is: does Dershowitz think it's more likely or less likely that Epstein video taped all this stuff and kept it? If he thinks the videos probably exist, then he's unlikely to make this bluff, so that suggests innocence. If he thinks the video likely doesn't exist, then saying this is low risk whether he's innocent or guilty, so we can't really draw any conclusions.
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Some of his victims have said that Epstein maintained extensive surveillance systems. It's likely that either Dershowitz is actually innocent, or that he's betting as a lawyer that any recordings implicating him will never been released.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/18/jeffr...d-pinhole-cameras-to-monitor-private-moments/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11723...s-blackmail-powerful-friends-victims-netflix/
 
Arcade22 said:
Except that the law recognizes that they still have rights. It's not as if being sentenced for a crime means you are no longer recognized as a human being, even if that sometimes appears to be the case...
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Sure, prisoners have rights. I just don't think privacy is generally one of them. When a prisoner enters prison he is subjected to a strip/body cavity search. All of his communications except with lawyers are closely monitored. Guards can search his cell and his belongings anytime and take anything they think he shouldn't have. He can be locked in solitary confinement.

Here's advice to prisoners:
In Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 530 (1984), the Supreme Court held that prisoners don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cells, so prison officials can search them as a routine matter without any particular justification, and without having to produce anything like a search warrant.
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http://jailhouselaw.org/your-right-to-be-free-from-unreasonable-searches-and-seizures/

Again, leaving aside Epstein's celebrity status, the fact is that he either attempted suicide or was the victim of a serious assault two weeks before he died. That would seem to be sufficient justification for enhanced monitoring in one form or another.
 
Darat said:
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It is also very "resource" heavy as it requires someone to be continuously watching the CCTV feed 24 hours a day.
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Most large commercial facilities -- and certainly prisons -- have numerous cameras that feed into a central watch station monitored by a small staff, even one guy, sometimes not even on the same premises. The expense of adding a few cameras would be trivial. It's not like having to park a guard in front of one screen 24 hours a day.
 
Darat said:
It is also very "resource" heavy as it requires someone to be continuously watching the CCTV feed 24 hours a day.
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Okay. My office has 3 cameras pointed at the vending machines in the lobby.

This wasn't some nobody sitting in Gen-pop waiting to post bail for writing bad checks or selling a half ounce of weed.

When the "LOL Epstein Didn't Kill Himself" memes started weeks before Epstein actually killed himself, probably not a bad idea to keep an eye on him.
 
timhau said:
Is there a simple way of doing the transactions if we do a bet?

I could put $100 (or €100, if you wish) on that. Not that she sings, but that she'll get the opportunity to sing in court. What sort of odds are you giving me?
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She'll be singing songs in Sing Sing!
 
Bob001 said:
Here's advice to prisoners:

http://jailhouselaw.org/your-right-to-be-free-from-unreasonable-searches-and-seizures/
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The issue is not one solely of privacy. You also have to factor in any negative effects on their wellbeing. Depending on what "suicide prevention" actually entails it can be detrimental to their mental health and wellbeing, for example by severely interfering with their ability to sleep.

In China, one part of the coercion and torture method inflicted upon individuals in order to produce confessions of any supposed crimes they are supposed to have committed, is pretty much indistinguishable from "suicide prevention" in that they subject to constant close supervision. No matter what, there's always someone glaring at them.
 
Arcade22 said:
The issue is not one solely of privacy. You also have to factor in any negative effects on their wellbeing. Depending on what "suicide prevention" actually entails it can be detrimental to their mental health and wellbeing, for example by severely interfering with their ability to sleep.

In China, one part of the coercion and torture method inflicted upon individuals in order to produce confessions of any supposed crimes they are supposed to have committed, is pretty much indistinguishable from "suicide prevention" in that they subject to constant close supervision. No matter what, there's always someone glaring at them.
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I would say a prisoner's No. 1 right above all others is the right to stay alive, even despite his own self-destructive impulses, and the state's No. 1 obligation to prisoners above all others is to keep them alive. I am not convinced that close monitoring has to be equivalent to torture, especially when cameras are used instead of direct observation, and especially when somebody has already either tried to kill himself or been attacked.
 
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