Posted on 10/10/2006 10:39:24 AM PDT by SmithL
Judges and prosecutors make mistakes, a Justice Department lawyer told the Supreme Court Tuesday, but sometimes those errors are so minor that they don't warrant reversing a conviction in a criminal case.
A jury convicted Juan Resendiz-Ponce of attempting to enter the United States illegally from Mexico. But the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Resendiz-Ponce's conviction because his indictment by a grand jury did not set out any specific acts showing how he tried to enter the United States.
The omission was so serious that it required automatic reversal of the conviction, the appellate court said.
Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben told justices Tuesday, however, that Resendiz-Ponce received a fair trial at which the government proved that he had displayed two false pieces of identification in an effort to enter the country. Resendiz-Ponce presented his cousin's green card and driver license when he approached the border crossing at San Luis, Ariz., on June 1, 2003.
Dreeben conceded that prosecutors should have included more information in the indictment and, when they didn't, the trial judge should have dismissed the charge before the trial began.
Even so, he said, the conviction should stand.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I wonder if the Supreme Court has a macro in their word processors for immediately reversing any ruling of the 9th Circuit.
"9th Circus" bump.
I'll restate something I've said before. Ignorance is no excuse. Unless you are a federal judge or a prosecutor.
ok the indictment
but during the entire process did the defense attorney object? was the objection specific of just a pro forma?
How about some harmless quartering of soldiers in this guy's house until he changes his mind?
What a cavalier attitude toward the Bill of Rights.
Illegals have no U.S. Constitutional rights. Those are for citizens.
But why is it the 9th Appeals Court doesn't understand and enforce this? I think the 9th is the looney bin of justice and a royal pain in the a** to SCOTUS, and gets reversed more than any other court in the USA.
Hmm...The Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless ..."
So persons who are accused of entering the country illegally are unentitled to this protection?
That would include, then, the one's who are charged and found NOT GUILTY? They, too, have no rights?
Do we have to wait until the end of the trial to decide if they have rights? If they have no rights, so they are denied a fair trial, then it will be quite easy to find them guilty.
Do "criminal" have rights? If we find someone guilty, in a trial which denies them the protections of the innocent, then we know that they are criminals, so we were correct to deny them rights? Is that how it should work?
"the people" spoken of in the Consitution are "the people of these United States", not those who "break and enter" into our fine country against the law.
And that's the way it is (at least from my knothole).
Fine. But the protections of the Fifth Amendment aren't there just to do a favor to the citizens. They are there because to convict someone without due process of law is unjust.
Are you willing to deport anyone who is convicted of illegal entry, regardless of whether the protections of the Fifth Amendment were observed? No right to confront accusers? No right to call witnesses? No right to remain silent? No indictment whatever? Just start the trial whenever the prosecution wants?
Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.
Let's not get caught up in the idea that prosecuting people within the laws of this nation are really all that difficult. Our prisons are overflowing with convicted persons for whom due process was provided.
If you were kidnapped and taken to Mexico without your papers, just what level of difficulty in getting home are you prepared to face?
"because to convict someone without due process of law is unjust." Would that apply to ronery guy in N Korea too? What about those guys in Gitmo? I'm sorry but I consider non legal entry into the country a national security issue and as such I would dispose of those cases similarly. Once we start going overboard get back to me. As I see it we are a bunch of bedwetters right now....
Waging war is sometimes not a criminal act. You don't think our guys deserve to have their throats slit after they have been captured, do you? Nor do combatants captured under certain conditions by our guys deserve to be punished without cause.
If you wish to punish, then you need a trial. Saddam gets a trial. Eichmann got a trial. They were accused of crimes and due process was or is being carried out.
Most of those at Gitmo, at least at this moment in time, are prisoners of war. At such time as they and those aligned with them "make peace", then their incarceration should end.
Due process for foreigners who come into US custody outside the US is obviously not the same as due process for US citizens arrested in the US. But it is very unbusinesslike to suggest that there is no due process. Nobody should have any desire to undeservedly punish another person. Determining that a person deserves punishment is what the due process is for.
We agree that certain actions have consequences.
Six German saboteurs were executed after having come ashore in New York and Florida with intentions of destroying capabilities in the US. They were captured many days after the landing.
Even they were tried before a tribunal of US Generals prior to execution. None of those generals would have wanted to execute the wrong people. That is what due process is for.
Virtually all the people in Guantanamo were picked up outside the US. One must infer their intentions from the circumstances under which they were captured, and the information regarding their activities.
Just as I would readily believe that there are hundreds in Guantanamo who deserve execution, I can also readily believe that there are one or more who do not.
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