RR: Courts procedures, fair, honest and ignored. Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. You can think of the 6th amendment as one long compound sentence; or as a companion to the 5th in that is concerned with the fairness of criminal prosecutions and protections from the excesses of fedl prosecutors. Obviously, the first clause, a “speedy” trial is passé. The most notable case was the prosecution of Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron. After he was indicted, he actually sued the govt to have his day in court. They made him wait a year before setting a date, but the last laugh was on them. He died of a heart attack shortly after his conviction and his appeal filed, and the verdict was thrown out. Likewise, “impartial” jury is a joke. Originally a province of sharp defense lawyers, now prosecutions hire experts in “jury shopping”. OJ was tried in downtown LA court house where the presiding judge was the spouse of an LA Captain in the LAPD! (In hindsight, they say this was a mistake because of the number of blacks in the jury pool!) A judge charged with investigating the Waco Massacre chose a jury panel that essentially made up entirely of govt employees! Cases Vs police officers have juries selected from pro-police communities, like Kerrville , TX , for instance. High profile international figures, like Noriega and Jose Padilla are tried by “impartial” juries in Dade County , FL. (Padilla was a Chgo resident, arrested at O’Hare, accused of planning to blow up apartment bldgs with dirty bombs presumably not in Florida!) The proof of the puddin’ is the near 100% conviction rate. Exceptions like OJ and Robert Blake occur only because they can martial millions of dollars to defend vs the bottom less pits of tax payer dollars provided prosecutors. Perhaps you believe the high conviction rate is due to the efficiency of the police to get the right culprit. Then, pray tell, how do you explain all these overturned convictions due to modern DNA testing. And these are mostly to do with the more severe crimes of murder and rape with best defense attorneys and where juries are more prone to be looking for the reasonable doubt. Imagine how much worse it must be for a person of standard means charged with lesser or petty crime in such a system. The American judicial premise, “it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man” has been replaced by: the potential risk posed by the accused of such a dastardly crime, is too great to take a chance of letting him loose in society. We must protect the public at any cost. The cost is the mistrust resulting from application of miscarriage of justice in our court rooms. And the proof is.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012 For more info, Google --> NDAA Rich Martin When replying to this message, plz cc [email protected]
Bill of Rights 1 to 5 1st http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants/browse_thread/thread/2e8e52bbe7cf30b1 2nd http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants/browse_thread/thread/4042764806fb8f7a 3rd http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants/browse_thread/thread/a0f23878012dee8d 4th http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants/browse_thread/thread/f3ec871c23ca740b 5th http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants/browse_thread/thread/b30fe5f86fce6b5a Reminder to pledge signers "We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." A Pledge to America, Republicans in Congress, September 2010 -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en
