Citing dismal conditions at Rikers Island and a 16-year-old who committed suicide after he was jailed without charges for three years, the city of New York announced Wednesday plans to eliminate bail requirements for non-violent and low-level offenders.
John Oliver, HBO’s best critic of America’s broken-ass political and economic systems since The Wire, turned his attention this week to one of the brokenest-ass systems of all: the way we handle bail for people accused of crimes.
In a bizarrely lengthy ruling—the reading of which took nearly two hours, most of which was devoted to summary of the evidence and of South African law—Magistrate Desmond Nair granted bail to paralympic medalist Oscar Pistorius, who has been charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, law student and model Reeva Steenkamp.
French politician and rumored "rutting chimpanzee" Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been granted $1 million bail and home detention while he awaits trial for the alleged sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid. Arriving in court, Strauss-Kahn gave "a quick smile to supporters in the gallery" Such a charmer! I guess he didn't do it, after all. [AP, image via AP]
IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been denied bail after being accused of sexually assaulting a maid in his Manhattan hotel this past weekend. Prosecutors say, plausibly, that Strauss-Kahn could easily hop a plane to France and never be extradited and be a whole new Roman Fucking Polanski, over there. [WSJ, photo via Getty]
Lindsay Lohan had her millionth day in court today, this time to be arraigned on grand theft charges related to a necklace she supposedly stole from a store. She has to pony up $20,000 bail for that charge and another $20,000 for violating her parole for a string of DUIs that she already served a brief sentence for.
