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Double Jeopardy
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Post by
Squishalot
Do you think he should have stayed in Jail for a crime he did not comit because new DNA should not be admissable?
Oh no, I definitely think he should be free, and that new DNA should be admissable.
My query is why the US court system is inconsistent to allow the innocent person to go free, but not to drag the guilty guy in. We'd have no qualms with that down under - investigations get reopened all the time due to new evidence. Dingo ate my baby, anyone?
Post by
Heckler
My query is why the US court system is inconsistent to allow the innocent person to go free, but not to drag the guilty guy in.
Another off-the-cuff response, but isn't it because Double Jeopardy protection is a
protected right
under the
Fifth Amendment
, and therefore the 'option' of surrendering that right is in the hands of the accused? If the State attempts to try me for a crime they already failed to convict me of, I can plead Fifth Amendment protection; however, if the State accepts my re-trial in light of new DNA evidence, I can simply forego my Fifth Amendment protections and accept the new trial.
Post by
Squishalot
That's a fair argument, on the assumption that new evidence = not a different crime. So the burning question on my mind is, why hasn't the Fifth Amendment been amended to deal with the case of new evidence? Presumably, it's something the vast majority of the US population would support.
Post by
Heckler
That's a fair argument, on the assumption that new evidence = not a different crime. So the burning question on my mind is, why hasn't the Fifth Amendment been amended to deal with the case of new evidence? Presumably, it's something the vast majority of the US population would support.
I'm not so sure the "vast majority" would support it, as the Bill of Rights is generally considered sacrosanct by the American populace. I bet you could easily construct a poll where you might get a majority to agree that double jeopardy protection shouldn't be in the Constitution, and in that same poll get them to disagree that you should modify the Fifth Amendment. And because it's damn near impossible to amend the Constitution, I sincerely doubt it would even make it out of Congress, much less 38 States.
All that being said, I still have to read those JSTOR articles on the history of the protection. The historical basis for its inclusion in the Bill of Rights should be an interesting read. As of this moment, I have next to no knowledge of it except that I'm going to assume its based on British Gov't activity in some way.
I'm still defaulting to this idea of "necessary faith in the legal process" though.
Post by
pezz
I think, Squish, it falls under the same reasoning as statute of limitations and that the prosecution can't claim they were incompetently represented. In all three cases (those two and when new evidence comes to light) it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how prosecutors could abuse those provisos. "Woops we purposefully forget everything we knew in law school in the second half of that trial when we saw we couldn't win" "Woops we don't have evidence to convict this 45 year old man of murder yet, but did he ever try smoking pot in high school" "Woops we got a not guilty verdict, but we 'forgot' about this one piece of evidence here, do over please."
I like to think a lot of these laws and rights are to stop abuses of power by prosecutors.
Post by
xaratherus
In regards to instances where the judge or jury were bribed to determine the outcome of the trial, according to Wikipedia double jeopardy does not apply. The interference with the previous trial invalidates the final ruling of that trial, meaning from a legal standpoint the original trial never took place.
It's also important to note that double jeopardy only prevents retrial for the same or similar charges arising out of a given situation. In some instances, a person tried for a more extreme crime can be retried later for a charge of a lesser type, assuming that the court determines that the charges are dissimilar enough from the original charge and that the charge would fit properly with the circumstances. For instance, someone who is acquitted for murder could feasibly be retried for a lesser charge of "conspiracy to commit murder" as long as conspiracy was not included as a potential charge in the original trial (United States vs. Felix) and it fit the circumstances of the incident.
In regards to the presentation of new evidence, I seem to remember reading an article that there are legal statutes that take this into account with the idea of double jeopardy, even after all appeals have been exhausted. I'll see if I can locate it.
Post by
gamerunknown
Oh yeah, in regards to laws being unfair to the poor, I definitely think there are cases where that applies.
Fines are obviously not curved to match income or savings, so can be brushed off by the rich but be devastating to the poor. Should a poor individual get into arrears, this could mean more court appearance, poor credit rating and thus increase their chance of getting fired.
Another instance may be specific to the UK, but the rich can apply for superinjunction where not only the details of a court case must not be discussed, but the mere fact that the court case exists can not be discussed and such a capacity is frequently abused.
Finally, even prison itself can disproportionately affect those that are not working class. As rare as a celebrity actually attending jail is (imagine if Kate Moss was a black teenager), they frequently can afford to either live off their interest or assets relatively comfortably for the rest of their life, or profit while in jail in other ways like Lord Archer. Even non-institutionalised working class people may have to resort to crime in order to find a job due to the prevalence of criminal background checks in applying for decent work. My dad was friends with a man that said he was proud for being off crack for 2 weeks while out of prison, but while in prison, he wasn't trained in any skills or given any contacts in order to get gainfully employed outside of prison, so ended up relying on his friends for money. Friends that got him high and transporting their drugs around for him, only for him to end up in prison again within the span of a few months.
Post by
168916
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Post by
164232
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
In its current state, the US "justice" system is nothing more than a very high stakes game. It rarely, ever is actually about "justice".
First, you have all the legal "procedure" that has to be followed, with absolute perfection, by human beings which by design are not perfect. One piece of mis-labeled evidence, one minute of lost time in chain-of-custody, can result in damning evidence being ruled inadmissable in court.
Then you have lawyers. We have 200+ years of legal precedent, much of which can be attributed to political motives in the cases of the Supreme Court, that all have to be considered if used by a defense attorney. You also have the fact that a prosecutor's job performance is based on their conviction rate. It doesn't really matter to many prosecutor's if the person they are trying is "guilty"....it's more about getting a "win". (You will often see an attorney use the terms "win" and "lose", rather than "conviction" or "acquittal". IMHO, this just goes to show that it is more of a game to them, not a true legal process)
I also hate the fact that we have cases like the Loughner case, where there is zero doubt of if he committed the crime, yet he is appointed the best defense team that our tax dollars can buy, and they fight "tooth and nail" for ANY possible way to keep him from standing trial for his crimes. Their current "defense" is to try and keep him as insane as possible so he can't be convicted. That is not "justice", that is gaming the system.
As for the OP question, yes, Double Jeopardy is another stupid aspect of the system that just takes all common sense and completly ignores it. We all understand why it is there, but there also should be exceptions to the rule. If new, undeniable evidence is found, no guilty man should walk free due to a procedural rule.
I think it is high time that we create either a different "Supreme Court" to deal with actual criminal cases, or we completly rework how the current supreme court is conducted. The current court is a political organization, not a judicial one. Every justice on the bench there has an agenda, and those agenda's are obvious in their rulings.
We need a criminal "Supreme Court". One that uses more of a common sense approach to justice. The justices need to elected, not appointed, and they need to be subject to re-election and term limits.
This post, while already a wall-o-text, is only a drop in the bucket of what is wrong with our system. Again, it has become nothing more than a game between the lawyers, where the defendant's life is the prize
Post by
gamerunknown
The justices need to elected, not appointed, and they need to be subject to re-election and term limits.
This is a very good point - especially when the Supreme Court can essentially establish law by their interpretation of the Constitution. I don't think it would be such a bad thing if they were subject to the people. In England pretty much the only thing you can do to get disbarred as a judge is get convicted of a crime, which is a pretty poor way to go about it IMO.
Post by
Heckler
. . .
I remember you wholeheartedly endorsing the Death penalty in a prior thread, I'm wondering how this meshes with your evisceration of the dysfunctional legal system. Seems to me it should be hard to grant the power to end a life to a justice system that is broken. . . is there a presumption of a "proper" legal system implicit in your support of the Death penalty? Or do you think that even our broken Justice system is functional enough to end a life?
This seems pretty off-topic, but the reason I ask is because as I've described above, my opinion of the death penalty plays a pretty large part in my opinion of double jeopardy protection. Seems to me it's impossible to have a
perfectly
functional legal system; and therefore we should do the best we can, and always err on the side of the accused when we fall short of perfection (hence statute of limitations, inadmissible evidence, double jeopardy protection, appeals courts, etc).
Post by
Magician22773
I do support the Death Penalty in cases where the evidence is undeniable that the offender is guilty. My opinion that the justice system is "broken" is even more relevant to death penalty cases in fact.
There are two clear issues with the way death penalty cases are handled under the current system. First, we can catch the killer, with the smoking gun in his hand, covered in blood, caught on video, and have 10 eyewitnesses, .....and he still gets a defense team provided for him, he still gets every chance at finding some technicality that could set him free. Next, he gets appeal after appeal if he is convicted....still at the taxpayers expense. And in the end, people will still say he should not be executed.
Second, you have many documented cases where people who have been convicted, and new evidence....real evidence....has been discovered, are denied proper ways to have the evidence considered in their case, all because the prosecutor doesn't want to "lose" the conviction. I remember watching a case on TV where new evidence was found that clearly showed a man was innocent, yet the prosecutor was able to have it barred from court....on a technicality.
My arguement is not for either side, prosecution or defense, as they are both equally "corrupted" by the game. But is also does not mean that we should not use the death penalty in cases where it is warranted. I believe in the other thread, that I made it clear that a higher standard of evidence should be required, but when the criminal is PROVEN guilty, they should face the ultimate punishment.
Post by
Heckler
I believe in the other thread, that I made it clear that a higher standard of evidence should be required, but when the criminal is PROVEN guilty, they should face the ultimate punishment.
I could probably agree with this, it's just so difficult to "prove" some things to an "undeniable" standard. Almost all evidence can be faked, planted, or tampered with (I agree that there are cut-and-dry cases though, I'm not trying to argue that Laughner might be innocent). I'll leave it there because further discussion probably belongs in the Death Penalty thread, and as I said there, I've never come to sound conclusions in my mind on that subject.
Post by
207044
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Jubilee
Why is paying for prisons just a big deal? Why can't you outfit the prisons with 9-5 jobs and you make the prisoners work to pay for their own upkeep. I don't believe in the death penalty, but I also do shy away from them doing their share of work.
Post by
gamerunknown
They make a choice ok if your deciding to commit a crime, what would dissuade you from doing that crime. Three square meals a day with dessert, free cable tv and warm bed at absolutely no cost to you. Or would it be more effective as crime deterent you get caught doing x crime then your dead.
Guess the former is a better deterrent.
In reality though, despite the fact that there's no evidence to support the death penalty's effectiveness as a deterrent, the states that lack it probably have a more rational government that decides to tackle the situations that influence a person's decision to murder such as drug addiction and whatnot.
If so for every guy in prison it take 3-5 average taxpayers taxes to cover cost it while it may seem wrong to bring up money.
Its what keeps the gears moving and this country running. Why do you think we dont have free colleges free healthcare ect. Cause its not financially possible and neither is how things are being run right now. Why do you think we are trillions of dollars in debt with a unstable economy. Either taxes have to be raised we have to cut certain areas of excess spending. It comes down to would you rather cut public education or get rid of a couple of the most heinous people on the face of the planet. Or I guess we could throw a international bake sale or have sarah palin get in a bikini and do a car wash.
Getting rid of the "most heinous people on the face of the planet" would probably entail getting rid of a few innocent people as well (I'm sure someone has links to stories where another guy has confessed after someone has been executed or irrefutable DNA evidence shows that an executed individual was not guilty). Not to mention that it's cheaper to keep them in jail based on how many appeals someone on death row gets. Cutting down on death row appeals just means that more innocent people will die: the state can provide restitution to someone that's been locked up half their life improperly, but it can't do so for someone that's been killed.
Not to mention that the single biggest thing costing the taxpayer the most money is military spending, at over 800bn last year. Want to cut down on costs? Pull out of Iraq as fast as possible.
Post by
207044
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
Surely your second argument is in support of prison reform? As far as I'm aware, very few prisoners are murdered by other prisoners on death row or in child rape specific prisons. On the other hand, a prisoner that is in for something other than murder or whatever else may warrant the death penalty might murder another prisoner for gang affiliation anyway.
Keeping violent prisoners from each other and doing something useful with them should be a priority, whether they're on death row or not. Making sure their lives are miserable and that they die in the cheapest way possible should not be.
Post by
168916
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