Reading between the lines, I would guess that this poor soul believed that the system is reasonable, and if he just had a chance to speak, everything would be cleared up.
That's how a justice system should work, but that's not the reality. In fact, there never should have been an arrest warrant issued with such a weak "case" comprised entirely of exculpating evidence.
What he should have done was stop speaking immediately, use the first available opportunity to call family, a friend, or anyone else capable of securing a competent defense attorney, and retained their services.
Unfortunately, it can be hard to find a competent criminal attorney even when you're not in jail. If you unexpectedly find yourself in jail, you have no access to any resources other than a payphone, and whatever phone numbers the desk officer allowed you to copy out of your phone. All your outgoing calls use an exploitative collect-call system that charges obscene amounts and requires the receiver to listen to a robo-caller greeting — and set up an account with a credit card — before they can accept your call.
If you received a random call from an unknown New Mexico number, with the caller ID of "Quay County Jail", would you even answer? If you answered, and heard a robocall announcement asking if you want to accept a collect call from an inmate, would you even wait for the message to finish?
> What should have have done that while in jail?
He should have found a lawyer as soon as he could — but that's easy to say when you're not experiencing the incredibly dehumanizing reality that is our criminal "justice" system.
I'm not defending our system, but I do want to point out one problem with any ideal of how the system ought work. In reality, most of everybody will claim that they're innocent, including those that are not. And so from the perspective of anybody working in law enforcement/corrections, somebody claiming they're innocent is not only a criminal but a liar on top. And the vast majority of the time, they'd be right.
And every system enabling you to challenge your detention is going to be built with the knowledge of the sort of system it's working within. I live abroad now and in the system here defendants who lie about their innocence will face greatly lengthened sentences, so most people not only don't bother lying, but actually have to reenact their crime for police. But of course the obvious problem there is that it greatly increases the risk for challenging any arrest when you actually are innocent, though for a case like this (where there was 0 argument whatsoever that he was guilty) - that would obviously be a better system.
The police here are similarly allowed to lie. They're allowed to lie so forcefully that they're able to extract false confessions. It's not a rare occurrence.
>If you received a random call from an unknown New Mexico number, with the caller ID of "Quay County Jail", would you even answer? If you answered, and heard a robocall announcement asking if you want to accept a collect call from an inmate, would you even wait for the message to finish?
Is there a tech solution here ? I used to have an obi device that bridged pstn and voip lines and would do call forwarding. I suppose I can set up a DID number that can then patch to a real connection. The main issue would be automating the "accept collect call" part and avoiding abuse.
It's not a tech solution because it's not a tech problem. The prisons don't use these convoluted solutions because they can't just use a normal phone and give the prisoners calls on a normal phone contract for free, they do it this way because it's profitable
My question was whether I can create a gateway so that if I had to call from a prison, I can still reach friends/family/lawyer without the call being marked as spam, collect fees etc.
That's how a justice system should work, but that's not the reality. In fact, there never should have been an arrest warrant issued with such a weak "case" comprised entirely of exculpating evidence.
What he should have done was stop speaking immediately, use the first available opportunity to call family, a friend, or anyone else capable of securing a competent defense attorney, and retained their services.
Unfortunately, it can be hard to find a competent criminal attorney even when you're not in jail. If you unexpectedly find yourself in jail, you have no access to any resources other than a payphone, and whatever phone numbers the desk officer allowed you to copy out of your phone. All your outgoing calls use an exploitative collect-call system that charges obscene amounts and requires the receiver to listen to a robo-caller greeting — and set up an account with a credit card — before they can accept your call.
If you received a random call from an unknown New Mexico number, with the caller ID of "Quay County Jail", would you even answer? If you answered, and heard a robocall announcement asking if you want to accept a collect call from an inmate, would you even wait for the message to finish?
> What should have have done that while in jail?
He should have found a lawyer as soon as he could — but that's easy to say when you're not experiencing the incredibly dehumanizing reality that is our criminal "justice" system.