From: dcrosgr@uoft02.utoledo.edu
Newsgroups: talk.rape
Subject: Re: Rage (story)
Date: 24 Jul 92 01:12:27 EST
Organization: University of Toledo, Computer Services

In article <19305@plains.NoDak.edu>, hennebry@plains.NoDak.edu (Michael J. Hennebry) writes:
> In article <1992Jul22.155839.8861@uoft02.utoledo.edu> dcrosgr@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:
> <In article <19271@plains.NoDak.edu>, hennebry@plains.NoDak.edu (Michael J. Hennebry) writes:
> <> <
> <> <What due process rights are you taking about? ...
> <> 
> <> Ever hear of RICO?
> <
> <Yep. States a criminal cannot keep his ill-gotten fortune. What about it?
> 
> DC, you ignorant slut, where have you been living, the far side of the
> moon? RICO also allows the government to call anyone its wants a
> criminal and take away anything and everything. It the rare event
> something is eventually returned it's been subjected to such malign
> neglect that it's useless. I guess that wasn't mentioned in your
> procedures class.

When people hear about RICO, they think it is something new. Hardly. The states
have always had a principle known as an action against property. Basically the
argument goes that the item committed an act against society/the state, and now
the state may move in a civil proceeding against it. The state prosecutes the
item.

No. I am not making this up. When the senior partner at my law firms showed me
the cases, I was just as shocked.

Now, as only people are protected by the constitution, certain 'rights' do not
apply. The offending item (farm, boat, rake, corvette) does not get a lawyer
despite the fact it is indigent. Further, the stae need only show by a simple
preponderance that the item committed the offending act (was used in a
robbery).

RICO merely states exact rules that the Feds must follow when applying this.
The states have been doing it since they were territories.

This is nothing new. The principle came over to the U.S. with the Puritans. It
has been valid law ever since. This is NOT an eroding of any rights.

Now, WHO is ignorant???


> 
> <> <...                                           What right to confront
> <> <one's accuser has been compromised? ...
> <> 
> <> When children testify the defendant is sometimes replaced by a video
> <> camera. The witness doesn't see the person the state is trying to
> <> destroy.
> <
> <So? Right of confrontation is the accused's right to know who, and interrogate
> <the witness themselves. I don't recall any right for the accused to demand that
> <the interrogation take place in a court room. Unless you have a different
> <cosntitution than the one the rest of us have been using...
> 
> The interrogation can take place in Joel Fleischman's living room for
> all I care. If trial testimony is being taken there, it is a courtroom.
>            The witness doesn't see the person the state is trying to
>    destroy.
> That is the primary difference between being allowed to confront, to use
> the constitution's word, one's accuser and just seeing him or her on TV.
> Also the defendant doesn't get to ask his own questions.

Wrong! "Confront" in the COnstitution does not mean 'stand over them with a
baseball bat.' Or, 'Berate them with pointless questions.' Confront means to
be able to have your counsel question the subject. That is fully allowed.

Further, one important note. This video-taped testimnoy applies to minors
beneath a certain age (state variable). The reason that this is used with
children is to assure more honest answers by the child. They ar enot being
coerced by EITHER the defendant OR the courtroom OR the person who brought the
allegations to the police. It is neutral. 


> 
> [on trial by jury]
> <> At least one state supreme court justice refered to the phenomenon as
> <> "guilty anyway". I call it "the insanity offense". The prosecution can
> <> do what ever illegal and constitiutional crap it feels like and when
> <> it gets to the appeals court the appeals court decides that the
> <> defendant was so obviously guilty anyway that he doesn't deserve or
> <> get a new trial. Juries are supposed to decide whether a particular
> <> set of evidence is good enough for conviction. I think the justice
> <> was from Virginia.
> <
> <Totally off base. There is the doctrine of harmless error, which states that
> 
> The doctrine of harmless error when applied to unlawful and unconstitional
> deeds which are neither harmless nor error is judicial corruption.
>

You are ignoring the facts. The appellate court does a de novo review of the
evidence presented WITHOUT factoring in the mistakenly admitted evidence.
If there is then any reasonable doubt that the defendant should be found
guilty, the appellate court orders a new trial with the evidence in error
excluded.
 
> To call deliberate misconduct harmless requires the assumption that
> the prosecutor is at least incompetent. That is why I call it the
> insanity offense.
> 
> <if the evidence was so overwhelming that the error in question was harmless
> <(i.e. defendant, beyond a reasonable doubt in the appellate court's mind, would
> <still have been convicted if the evidence had properly been excluded) then the
> <conviction stands this NEVER apllies to errors which udermine the judicial
> 
> The jury's mind is the mind that is supposed to count, not the appellate
> court's. That's why it's called "trial by jury" not "trial by appellate
> court". They can have quite different ideas about what doubt is reasonable.
> See Simi Valley vs Rodney King.

There has never, ever been a trial without a mistake in evidence or procedure
or jury instructions or prejudice. To afford a defendant a perfect trial means 
that we abandon all trials, as they do not exist.

Further, the root of this discussion was the 'eroding' of our civil liberties.
Even, if you say this is wrong despite the fact that it is as fair as any human
system can make it, this doctrine of harmless error is hardly new. It has
existed since before you could apply it to constitutional questions, as there
was no constitution.

You seem to believe that we have less rights than we did before. That is simply
not true. What has happened is the press has finally gotten around to telling
stories about the legal system as it IS, as opposed to how people THINK it is.

I agree that there are areas of the law where it is insane. Running from the
police if they are not chasing you, or if they are, is evidence you are guilty
of something, thus giving them the right to chase and frisk you.

Bothersome? Yes. New? Hardly. 

> 
> <> She probably gave her name and address to a grand jury before she
> <> thought of asking for immunity. Then she had to testify without
> <> immunity about anything that happened while she had that name or address.
> 
> DC deleted the part where I wrote that I was probably exaggerating a little.
> 
> <Jesus Bucko, are you reading your criminal procudre from a Lucky Charms box???
> 
> Cracker Jacks, from an old family recipe.
> 
> <She had to testify as to anything regarding that name or address??? 
> <The appellate court will probably uphold the conviction??? You are paraniod,
> <and you are basing your opinions on myth.
> <
> <Yes, I suppose if someone willfuly waives their right against
> <self-incrimination, they can then incriminate themselves. All she has to do is
> <state her fifth amendment right BEFORE she incriminates herself!!!
> 
> Frequently this means that she must do so before she suspects that she
> is a suspect.
> 
> I have heard of at least one case where a sister was convicted for standing
> and watching while her brother killed their father. So far
> as I know there was no dispute as to the facts of the killing, but
> maybe some regarding motive. That dad was a federal marshall or
> something may have had an influence on the case.

Did you hear it from a reputible source, or word of mouth? (A 15 second snippet
on T.V. or radio is word of mouth.) IF you are discussing the case that was
covered on sixty minutes about a decade ago, she was convicted because she
helped in the planning, and setting up of the execution. True, she did not pull
the trigger, but she encouraged her brother onward.

Quite different form 'Rage', where she tried to stop him.

> 
> <Further, do they have grand juries in juvinile court cases regarding twleve
> <year-olds where you live???
> <
> <The answer is 'No.' 
> 
> Murder cases aren't tried in juvenile court where I live, at least
> not in practice. They are tried in adult court. I'm not sure that
> we ever had one involving a twelve year old though. The current one
> involves a sixteen year old and maybe his girlfriend.

The lowest anyone has been tried at for murder in recent history is, I believe,
13. It involved drugs and drug money, and the 'youth' has a stack of priors.

Hope he fries.


DC