Posted on 03/20/2014 11:23:53 PM PDT by zeestephen
Glenn Reynolds not only runs the indispensable Instapundit website, he is also a distinguished law professor at the University of Tennessee and writes a regular column for USA Today. Today’s column is an important one, “Our Criminal Justice System Has Become a Crime.”
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
"First, prosecutors should have 'skin in the game' — if someone’s charged with 100 crimes but convicted of only one, the state should have to pay 99% of his legal fees. This would discourage overcharging. (So would judicial oversight, but we’ve seen little enough of that.) Second, plea-bargain offers should be disclosed at trial, so that judges and juries can understand just how serious the state really thinks the offense is. Empowering juries and grand juries (a standard joke is that any competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich) would also provide more supervision. And finally, I think that prosecutors should be stripped of their absolute immunity to suit — an immunity created by judicial activism, not by statute — and should be subject to civil damages for misconduct such as withholding evidence."
A typically excellent piece by Reynolds.
I’ve seen the system at work and he nailed it. BTT for later study.
Criminal statutes have proliferated to such an extent that the federal government doesn’t even know how many federal criminal statutes there are. People break laws all the time without knowing it. …No wonder Tacitus once said, “Laws were most numerous when the state was most corrupt.” The only way for this leviathan to go is straight down.
This dept of Justice under obammy and holder has become a tool for the democrat party to use against pubbies and especially conservatives.
makes one really have a fear of this federal gub mint.
Amen.
With AG Holder and his band of thugs running the justice department, corruption runs amok.
Holy crap:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11655275?source=email
“Last week, for the second time in recent months, a new hearing was ordered that jeopardizes a child-sex abuse conviction because of the belated discovery of a videotape of the medical examination of the victim. Potentially hundreds more convictions are in danger as prosecutors continue to sort through the trove of tapes made over the years by hospital staff, but never revealed to defense attorneys. Carr and many other top prosecutors have received subpoenas to testify next month about who in the office knew the tapes existed.”
Absolutely horrible in a case where the child is too young to grasp the signifigance of adult actions and motivations - on either side.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.