"Isn't likely".
Meaning it's possible and has happened X times over the years that it was the case of Pedophile/violent crime/financial rip off etc etc was thrown out. Strictly due to a technicality.
What comfort is that to the victims?
I will totally take Ben to task for that.
Better that 100 criminals inflicting harm are set free to (studies and common sense will show) continue to wreak havoc on how many more people as they continue their crimes? Why not, they got off scott free. Or went to prison and learned in more detail how to commit criminal acts.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
That having been said, of course an innocent should not be falsely found guilty. Happens all the time tho in our "Cons utional" arrangement.
And in doing so, the law presumes the one making the accusations is false.
No other way to spin it.
As to the Innocence Project* and the Hernandez case, i completely disagree that the Bradley shooting should be excluded. The judge says because it was a "different type" of shooting.Look i've already read the *legal* reasons why it's excluded. I don't contest the *legal* reasons. But how it's excluded is beyond me. Ditto with the girlfriend not having to testify. What f'd up set of laws that someone with absolute knowledge of what came down can hide behind some bull law and avoid testifying.
To put it in general terms, did you see OJ criminal trial? Of course you did. Compare with OJ civil trial. No no no don't give the "lesser burden of proof" dance. I mean in that evidence that OJ's liarwyers were able to exclude in the 1st trial we in for the 2nd.
On and on.
OJ 1 held in heavy black hood with heavy black jury. Where, many of them had experienced direct or indirect police abuse. Where they unbiased?
Compare with the competent civil trial and you had a juror saying "finding OJ Simpson guilty was very easy" -paraphrasing. Was she an OJ hater? No, she meant the evidence was so obvious.
You are surely not going tell me you think OJ was innnocent? Yet here we had under the *legal* system his skating 100%. Not our fault he was a dumb and tried to bully the memoribilia guys.
*The Innnocence Project with the same Barry Sheck who fought viciously to get OJ off.
Tell me how in terms of fairness, Hernandez girlfriend, who is already busted for lying to the grand jury, gets offered immunity to maybe testify in Hernandez trial?
What does that have to do with justice and a search for the truth?
Oh i've read the legal mumble jumble as to why the prosecution more or less has to choose this route.
She can't be forced to testify about her own criminal acts because she cannot *self incriminate* WTF is that?
All because of her Kons ushunal Wrights.
For F's sake.
She can't be required to testify because she (like everyone else in this country) has an absolute right against self-incrimination - which effectuates the presumption of innocence - and can invoke that right as to any question she might be asked in a court proceeding. The Commonwealth offers her an immunity deal, hoping that if she is assured that she won't face prosecution based upon what she might say (and thus, doesn't have a need to invoke her 5th Amendment rights), that she'll be forthcoming and revelatory. The State doesn't have to offer her that deal; assuming that she doesn't enjoy any sort of immunity from her relationship with Hernandez, the prosecution could presumably subpoena her and force her to either testify or invoke her 5th Amendment right, which tends to play poorly to a jury. But the Commonwealth would prefer that she offer substantive testimony and thinks that the only way to get her to do that is to offer her immunity. The only way to get around that is to eliminate the 5th Amendment right, which I don't think any reasonable person has actually suggested.
I get it. You hate the Cons ution. Have a nice day.
I said i already knew the legal mumble jumble reasons. My q was how in terms of fairness can she refuse to testify. Your answer provided none of that.
Regarding the cons ution, you completely did not respond to this post:
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy conceded Thursday that the Cons ution is not meant to be interpreted in its original, literal state, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
In a speech at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in Monterey, Calif., Kennedy asserted that the authors intentionally used general language so that guiding principles could steer lawmakers tackling present-day issues.
“The Cons ution of the United States is a flawed do ent,” he said, pointing to original text allowing for slavery. “The framers were wise enough to know that they could not foresee the injustices” of the future.
Along with post #45.
We're real big on defendants rights.
Victims rights, not so much?
Do you, like so many legal one sided Kons ution lovers benefit financially from the ability of the do ent to be manipulated? Ie lawyers - legal field?
I did address your question; I just didn't give you the answer you wanted.
You see the Cons ution as a trifle that gets in the way of what you perceive to be justice. That's fine, but don't expect a lot of people to agree with you.
The Cons ution is precisely the reason she can refuse to testify and it's fair to the accused (or to those who might be accused) because at that point in time, they are only accused and not yet guilty. What you want is to deprive the accused (who, again, is merely accused and has not yet been convicted) of the protections against being incriminated on a wrongful basis in order to give a victim more rights just because he was victimized.
I get the desire to protect the victim, but exalting the rights of the victim over the accused only makes sense if you presume that being accused of a crime means that you did it unless you prove otherwise. If a trial is tilted toward ensuring that the victim is remedied with a conviction then the only thing that really matters is the conviction not whether that conviction was factually justified and obtained after a trial that was fair. At some point, the balance has to tip one way or the other; if we presume guilt, then the balance would tip in favor of the victim, but we presume innocence, which necessarily means that ensuring fairness tilts the balance of equities at trial in favor of the accused.
That's the way it is (and I think that's the way it should be if you believe (as I do) that the accused are simply accused and no more and that the State that elects to prosecute them is obligated to prove guilt). If you don't like it, then run for office and seek to make a change. At this point, your railing on an internet message board is completely counter to all prevailing cons utional theory and law on these issues.
Justice Kennedy has a point about there being some flaws in certain parts of the Cons ution, but contrary to your suggestion, you are in a very small minority that would suggest that the Fifth Amendment's protections of due process and the right against self-incrimination are among those flaws. I don't see any widespread cry to amend the Cons ution to rewrite the Fifth Amendment, to curb fundamental notions of due process in criminal proceedings, or to compel individuals to incriminate themselves at the whim of the State. So, the fact that other parts of the Cons ution have been revisited over time does not compel the conclusion that any part of the Cons ution is in any way infirm, as you seem to suggest.
Name a case where an alleged rapist was set free because he didn't get his Miranda rights read to him.
Pillowcase Rapist.
No you didn't respond to my questions.
Not one word about post 45.
On the other I'll make it real simple for you.
The 5th Am protects ones from being falsely accused while at the same time allows guilty ones to hide behind it.
"One can chose to not self incriminate even when one is guilty as ."
Ya that is what the Cons ution was meant to be.
Change is coming, but i won't be running for office.
Yes, that is literally why the fifth amendment exists you ing idiot.No you didn't respond to my questions.
Not one word about post 45.
On the other I'll make it real simple for you.
The 5th Am protects ones from being falsely accused while at the same time allows guilty ones to hide behind it.
"One can chose to not self incriminate even when one is guilty as ."
Ya that is what the Cons ution was meant to be.
Change is coming, but i won't be running for office.
that dude was in jail for a long time. He's currently under house arrest
Why should I respond to some prosecutor's whining about the Cons ution? He'd prefer to make it even easier than it already is to convict people on iffy evidence.
Besides, his entire list assumes that the person being tried for the crime is a "criminal;" he's a criminal ONLY if he is actually convicted of the crime, which does not happen until the State carries its burden of proof. A prosecutor ignoring the presumption of innocence? Shocking.
Oh, so what the Fifth Amendment ("No person shall be . . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself") was really meant to say was: "No person shall be . . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," unless, of course, we all have chosen to believe that he committed the crime, in which case he should be required to admit to the fact that we think we already know.On the other I'll make it real simple for you.
The 5th Am protects ones from being falsely accused while at the same time allows guilty ones to hide behind it.
"One can chose to not self incriminate even when one is guilty as ."
Ya that is what the Cons ution was meant to be.
Honest question: Can you point to anyone with a reasonable chance to win public office who is urging revision of the Fifth Amendment?Change is coming, but i won't be running for office.
fabbs got dumber when he started using mul roll......who'd've thought?
Your stance on guilty people who get off due in large part to suppressed evidence is ____?
Your stance on guilty people who escape testifying using the 5th as a cowardice is ___?
Good. He's a rapist. Would you have him running around willy nilly in public?
My position on each question is that the Cons ution protects the accused from being wrongfully convicted. I agree with many others in the view that the greatest injustice of all is the wrongful conviction of anyone. Even with all the Due Process protections that exist in criminal trials, innocent people are still convicted, are still imprisoned, and in some cases are still executed. That is unconscionable. What you propose would only make that happen more often. I don't see how that could possibly be a good thing.
If you do, again, more power to you and your anti-Cons utionalist self. Should your argument win out, I pray that neither you nor anyone you care about is ever accused of a crime.
No Numb Nutts, the original Cons ution was not drafted so guilty sleazy cowards could hide behind and loophole out of accountability.The 5th Am protects ones from being falsely accused while at the same time allows guilty ones to hide behind it.
"One can chose to not self incriminate even when one is guilty as ."
Ya that is what the Cons ution was meant to be.
I'm talking about when people are guilty and skate.
How do you know when evidence has been suppressed?
What way do you want to force people to testify?
Who exactly has skated on 5th amendment technicalities?
I'm talking about when people are guilty and skate.
Pillowcase rapist.
How do you KNOW that they're guilty? With Hernandez, you seem to have concluded that he's guilty, but unless you were there on the night of Lloyd's murder, you don't have any way at this point to KNOW that. You'll have to pardon me if I don't take your assumption of an accused's guilt as the gospel truth, particularly since you do seem prone to knee-jerk conclusions about things, often with incomplete knowledge about them.
I'm talking about when people are guilty and skate.
In any event, my stance is that even people who are objectively guilty of crimes should not be deprived of due process protections and should not be obligated to incriminate themselves and if the State can't prove guilt within the strictures of the due process requirements of law, then our rule of law has been fulfilled even if the outcome of the case might seem unjust to you.
That's a pretty remarkable claim, given that the Fifth Amendment says "No person shall be . . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," since that phrase has been part of the Cons ution since 1791, and since that phrase was included in the Bill of Rights by the same men who wrote the Cons ution itself, largely.
I think it pretty clearly means that the "original Cons ution" was drafted so that those who are accused of crimes -- even those who might be objectively guilty of those crimes -- have a "loophole out of accountability," or at least the protection against incriminating themselves if they so choose.
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