Should crimininal defense have limits?

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BonosSaint said:
I look at all the tools the prosecution has at its disposal and even so, how often they don't play fair. I look at the police chemist whose "expert" testimony helped lead to wrongful convictions and see not just a mistake in lab evidence, but a lab worker who was overeager to please the DA's office. I look at dubious witnesses to whose advantage it is to testify the way the state would like them to testify. I look at exculpatory evidence that must be presented by law and is not. Expert witness whores. And sometimes police officers lie.

The deck is still stacked against the defendant, no matter what the conventional wisdom is, even when the prosecution plays fair. Presumption of innocence is a legal term. Outside of the courtroom, we are not bound by a presumption of innocence. And I suspect that what we call presumption of innocence for the jury is mostly in all practicality the willingness to suspend our presumption of guilt while the jury sees whether the prosecution proves its case.

As with anything, the side with the better information has the advantage.

For the average defendant, this may simply be a matter of knowing the basics of the system. There are defendants, however, that can do a better job than the prosecution (especially with access to "for hire" expert witnesses).

Suspicions of people who want to "please" the prosecution are exaggerated from reality. Unfortunately, it only takes one incident to reinforce this stereotype.
 
Nobody wants to do jury duty. It is a huge inconvenience to some people who have young children at home or unreasonable employers. Every person I know who has gotten called either managed to defer for various reasons or went there hoping to give every wrong answer in the book hoping to not get picked. It's a total sham. Perhaps if they had a jury pool of people who were actually willing to do jury duty it would be somewhat less of a joke.
 
Chewystick69 said:
Hell No! Defense Attorneys are SCUM!! They protect the innocent about 5% of the time. The rest of the time they get the guilty off.

I'm a Chicago Homicide Detective. All of their conspiracy theoricies are B.S. The sad fact is that you all believe in them.

"I'm a doo-gooder. Let's believe in it.' I'd bet my mother's life that O'J'. was guilty.

But let's blame it on a "racist" detective. Fuhrman said "******" sometime in his life so he is a racist. I blame the outcome of that trial on judge ito. He let it get out of hand.

The outcome came down to the fact that Detective Fuhrman said "******", not to the fact that there was inconclusive evidence to prove that O'J' killer his ex-wife.

Give me a fuc*ing break. ******! Kite! Honkey! Spic! Polack!

This is why I hate liberals. They don't think rationally. They think with emotion. "That poor Osama Bin Laden didn't wish the twin towers would fall" "He only wanted to make a staement"





um, yeah. someone's thinking *really* rationally. and such creative racist slurs!

and i'm a gay catholic! or lapsed catholic, more accurately.
 
Just an update on the trial I referenced. Jury is in.

Jury is hung on one count of first degree murder.
Not guilty on the other count of first degree murder
Not guilty on all lesser degrees of murder
Guilty on two counts of abusing a corpse (he burned the bodies)
Rumor has it state police are waiting outside courthouse to
rearrest him again and retry him on the undecided count of first degree murder.

So the Hugo saga continues.
 
I think there have to be some "limits" even if they're not codified - I think the judge should be responsible for reigning in lawyers. I watched the Simpson trial (most of it) and in my opinion that Judge Ito let Johnny Cochran just throw anything against the wall and try to make it stick. I think he was intimidated by him and let him get away with way too much. No more jibber jabber in my courtroom!( He should have said that /Boston Legal reference from last night's episode)

I don't think anyone really knows what reasonable doubt is. There's the legal definition that is given in court, but what is it really?

I have never served on a jury, I was called once and excused because I knew a cop who was involved in the case, I had worked with him on another job years back. The defense attorney excused me for that after I told the judge and I told her I would do my best not to let that affect my thinking. I was glad to be excused, it was a home invasion case. The defendant passed me on the way out of the courtroom and honestly it gave me chills. I don't know why he was walking around like that either.
 
last night's was sooo good James

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.

Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.

Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it's speech time.

Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.
 
It was a great show. I particularly like the Adlai Stevenson quote regarding principles.

New Hugo update. Right after the trial, he was rearrested to recharge him with the one murder charge the jury was deadlocked on.
 
Chewystick69 said:


Well the year is short.

But it is not irony if there is truthfulness behind my remarks my bearded friend. By the way, does your hat and beard make you more intelligent? I can read you like a book. I'd bet that you are a gay non-catholic.

michael moore or barbara streisand has spoken recently. Keep following them. You keep thinking like hillary clinton, good luck in 2008!

How the hell did you know melon was gay???? You must be an awesome detective! What'd you do, read back a few pages and get some idea?
:ohmy:

:applaud: thank god there's good folk like you protecting american from criminal scum.
:bow:
 
Last update, I promise. They can't try Hugo on the deadlocked count. So they are charging him with the murder of two other bodies dug up on the property. These being a suspected drugdealing pharmacist and his girlfriend. Hey, this is the height of our excitement here.
 
Angela Harlem said:
How the hell did you know melon was gay???? You must be an awesome detective! What'd you do, read back a few pages and get some idea?
:ohmy:

:applaud: thank god there's good folk like you protecting american from criminal scum.
:bow:

Either that, or it's just easy to "defame" all your "liberal" opponents by calling them gay. It's almost becoming as tiresome as when conservatives would call all their opponents "communist" back in the olden days.

It's no wonder that the gay community and law enforcement have a historically uneasy relationship.

Melon
 
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