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Posted on 09/26/2013 9:09:09 AM PDT by Altariel
That part aside, and aside from whether or not the following should be the case, I thought it was already legal in many if not all states to detain a material witness.
There is a growing movement to criminalize crime victims....whether its ignoring criminal activity because criminals are minorities...or arresting victims to testify
This prosecutor needs to be removed
My wife was a Court Reporter for years, and she has filled me in on the "But I Luv Heem!" statements. I am not insensitive to that. I would not approve of jailing a vic just so later I don't have people complaining I didn't protect her, as this DA specifically says in the story. (It's a quote, so it's not leavened with the bias you detect.) How selfish can a government drone be?
As I said, if "zero tolerance" is the game, then we need to jail everybody alive to keep them from becoming crime victims. It's the only way to shut the critics up. It's the same thing, the only difference being the level of degree.
If you are commenting from this article without any other substantiating details about this story, I shudder to think what other freedoms you think should be sacrificed in the name of safety. I really do. The post to which I am replying makes a *lot* of assumptions about this person.
If I was a juror and knew a person was testifying because they
were.arrested and caved to insure they testified I’d call that
testimony under duress and assume it was not believable.
This is what happens when yahoos create hysteria and pass these stupid laws that take away the discretion of judges and juries. We wind up with zero tolerance nonsense, mandatory minimums, stupid laws named after dead kids. And the most imprisoned nation on Earth.
My only point is that we don't have all the facts here, and that there ARE possible justifications for this other than just "police state".
On the one hand, somebody's got to figure out a way to protect idiots.
On the other hand, people who report a crime, get somebody else arrested, and then go back on their word should have SOME consequences for that act.
I agree 100%. People who use the criminal justice system as a tool to manipulate other people really piss me off.
As for this DA, check out this quote from the story: She defended her decision to arrest the victim, saying “I would rather have to explain why she was arrested than why she was dead.”
She's not all that worried about the woman, she's more afraid of having to explain herself later if something bad happens. This is a terrible character flaw!
Maine law allows police to arrest victims to make sure they testify
That’s a sure fire way to get them to cooperate!
What asshats........
Why?
On the other hand, people who report a crime, get somebody else arrested, and then go back on their word should have SOME consequences for that act.
Um, aren't both of the above the same hand, since both are justifications for the state's action in this case?
Way too much nanny state for me. No thanks.
The only suggestion that anyone has “gone back on” anything comes from your post, not the information from the source.
I find it concerning that you are resorting to assumptions and inventions to justify government overreach.
If you grant the State the power to arrest you, the victim, to be sure you testify, one day, the State will reason that it also has the opposite power—the power to arrest you to ensure that you do *not* testify.
“Whatever happened to a subpoena?”
Not nearly as fun as kicking down a door and dragging someone off to jail.
“On the one hand, somebody’s got to figure out a way to protect idiots.”
And why is that? That’s the same reasoning the nannies use for all their laws and regulations. If I want to do something idiotic, leave me the f*&k alone, it’s not your business.
The prosecuter has “crazy eyes.”
When somebody is not just an idiot but deluded, and that delusion may result in their death, I'm more inclined to think intervention is o.k. It's the same thinking that undergirds petitions to appoint an adult guardian or to involuntarily commit. Which are well-established functions of government, back long before we were worried about creeping socialism and Big Government.
The two instances I proposed are NOT fingers on the same hand. Reporting a crime and then taking it all back is generally considered a crime: if you were lying, then you just got somebody arrested for no reason (a major trauma for them and false report of a crime for you, usually a misdemeanor but sometimes a felony); if you were telling the truth, now you are compounding a felony (also a crime).
Again, this was the law a LONG time ago, not just recently.
I am simply speaking generally from my experience, because I'm pretty sure there is a lot more to this story that is not being told.
Incidentally, the idea that a corrupt government would jug you to keep your testimony out of court forms the central theme of R.L. Stevenson's Catriona or David Balfour (same book, different titles in England and America). It's the sequel to Kidnapped, which is pure action adventure, but it's a political thriller with some adventure thrown in. A really good read.
This DA rightly observed that it's a lose-lose situation - SOMEbody (either the victims-rights group or the civil liberties group) is going to be really mad at her no matter what she does, and campaign against her at the next election. I can understand how that bothers her - it's probably not her primary motivation, though. Most DAs really care about the victims of crime, I've seen some of them get almost physically ill when they lose a victim or a witness to a repeat criminal.
Those particular words are just what the author of this article seized on. Given the title of the blog and some of the language in the article, I'm pretty sure he set out to make her look bad. He's certainly succeeded, but I think we should at least reserve judgment.
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