“For centuries, military forces have been taught to dehumanize an enemy nation’s soldiers in their minds to more easily psyche themselves up for battle, to inflict harm and death. A video feed to an arraignment judge of a defendant who resembles a cartoon character more than a real person provides an implicit psychological platform for the judge to abandon any empathy he or she might otherwise exhibit toward an arrestee regardless of evidence or a lack thereof.“
Criminal Legal News
August 21, 2019