Posted on 12/05/2011 6:59:14 AM PST by IbJensen
Newt Gingrich came out strongly for jury trials before illegal immigrants can be deported in the December 3 presidential forum sponsored by Fox News' Mike Huckabee. But the former House Speaker has refused to favor jury trials of American citizens accused of terrorism.
During the forum Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi asked Gingrich if his proposal to create neighborhood boards to legalize the residency status of illegal immigrants would undermine the rule of law. Gingrich's campaign website proposes the following proposal to make illegal immigrants legal residents: "Applicants must first pass a criminal background check, and then the local committees will assess applications based on family and community ties, and ability to support oneself via employment without the assistance of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs."
Gingrich, who is the Iowa frontrunner (25 percent) in a Des Moines Register poll over second place Rep. Ron Paul (18 percent), replied that he wanted the local committees to be analogous to jury trials.
That is what we do in a jury trial. That's the whole point. That's why the founding fathers who distrusted judges insisted on juries. Because ultimately, in a free society, the citizens have to bear responsibility for their own culture and their own society. And ultimately, they are — I believe they are — more trustworthy. If you ask me would I trust a jury or a Washington bureaucrat, I would rather have my fate decided by a jury of my peers than have my fate decided by a Washington bureaucrat.
It was an eloquent defense of a jury trial, though a full-blown jury trial has never been legally necessary for deportation of an illegal alien. But interestingly, Gingrich has long been far less supportive of cases where a jury trial is explicitly required by both the original U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. In cases involving U.S. citizens, Gingrich has more faith in Washington bureaucrats than a jury of his peers.
In a November 22 CNN debate, Gingrich came out against trials for terrorist suspects, even American citizens. "I think it's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty, if it's a matter of criminal law. But if you're trying to find somebody who may have a nuclear weapon that they are trying to bring into an American city, I think you want to use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence," Gingrich said, concluding with the ridiculous implication that there are terrorists wandering our streets with nuclear weapons. In the case of American citizens on terrorist cases, Gingrich added, "You come up with a very different answer. Again, very sharp division. Criminal law, the government should be frankly on defense and you're innocent until proven guilty. National security, the government should have many more tools in order to save our lives. "
The idea that the United States government might apprehend U.S. citizens and detain them without the trial by jury explicitly guaranteed by Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments is not merely an academic question. The U.S. Senate voted 55-45 to approve the detention without trial of U.S. citizens accused of terrorism this past week. Only five Republican Senators, including Tea Party hero Rand Paul of Kentucky (son of presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas), voted to retain the right to trial by jury in that vote.
Moreover, several U.S. citizens have been detained by Presidents without charges or trial already. Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel were detained and tortured (beaten via a process called "walling" and denied food for days at a time) by the Bush administration for several months in 2006 at Iraq's Camp Cropper, though they later proved to be innocent whistleblowers working on behalf of the FBI. The Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals recently advanced Vance and Ertel's lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Likewise, Brooklyn native Jose Padilla served five years in prison without trial before the Bush administration faced a losing Supreme Court case over whether he was entitled to a jury trial (Padilla was later convicted of terrorism charges in that jury trial and is currently in federal prison).
But Gingrich has claimed he would ignore Supreme Court decisions defending the explicit guarantee of a jury trial. At the October 7 Values Voters Summit, Gingrich stressed that "I would instruct the national security officials in a Gingrich administration to ignore the recent decisions of the Supreme Court on national security matters, and I would interpose the presidency in saying, as the commander in chief, we will not enforce this." Gingrich added that his source of inspiration for ignoring the Supreme Court was left-wing Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "In 1942 a group of German saboteurs were landed in Florida and Long Island. They were all picked up within two weeks. Roosevelt brought in his attorney general and said: They will be tried in a military court, they will be executed, it should happen within three weeks, and tell the Supreme Court if they issue a writ of habeas corpus, I will not honor it, and therefore they should not issue it. I am the commander in chief in wartime. They aren’t."
One of those German saboteurs was a native-born U.S. citizen.
Gingrich has flip-flopped on a number of issues, and the debate played host to several of them (see below), but the right of Americans to a habeas corpus hearing and trial by jury isn't one of them. When the Supreme Court ruled against military commissions for terror suspects in the Boumediene case back in 2008, Gingrich exploded on CBS' Face the Nation, claiming "This court decision is a disaster which cost us a city. And the debate ought to be over whether or not we are prepared to losing an American city on behalf of five lawyers — it was a five-to-four decision — on five lawyers who have decided that the Supreme Court counts more than the Congress and the President combined on national security. That has never been true in American history. That ought to be a principled argument between McCain and Obama."
The Fox News forum also served as an opportunity to highlight some of Gingrich's shifting positions over the years. Gingrich advocated moving "education largely back to the states," even though he had actually voted to create the U.S. Department of Education back in 1979. Gingrich also had to repudiate his 2008 commercial with Nancy Pelosi to promote global warming legislation.
And the December 3 forum featured a false claim by the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. During the forum Gingrich claimed "I’ve never favored cap and trade." But Gingrich actually had favored carbon-based taxes in the past, telling PBS on February 15, 2007 that "I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there's a package there that's very, very good. And frankly, it's something I would strongly support."
While Gingrich's position against jury trials for American citizens is not widely known, and appears not to be hurting him politically, he is being stung by the flip-flopping charges. Gingrich's campaign is calling Republican households with a recording of his voice claiming that "Many of my Republican opponents ... are choosing to focus upon sound bytes and gotcha campaigns." That may have been a reaction to a Web commercial by the Ron Paul campaign called Newt Gingrich: Serial Hypocrisy that has highlighted some of the above inconsistencies as well as Gingrich's promotion of Freddie Mac's business model while he was a paid consultant with the housing giant. The latter has prompted criticism across the conservative spectrum, with George Will commenting on the Laura Ingraham Show that "Newt Gingrich was a willing, rented spokesman for the housing crisis."
Gingrich is the Insiders' Insider. Barf! I suppose if domestic enemies of the Constitution don't get a jury, Gingrich shouldn't get one, although I still believe in jury trials for everyone.
There is but one reason for requesting a jury........you think they will be sympathetic to your cause and the law is not in your favor.
lol
what a complete distortion of Gingrich position.
Romney supporters are really starting to panic now :)
ROFL!
Go Gingrich!
What victory are you talking about? The Cain victory? The Perry victory? The Paul victory?
Gingrich snatched nothing from any of those people. He has refused to criticize his fellow candidates, instead focusing the heat on Obama, where it belongs.
Very well said.
An article based on sophistry and contortion. This is totally disgusting drivel.
Gingrich the BiPolar Candidate’s “a jury trial for every illegal” will, if nothing else, totally overwhelm the already disfunctional Courts system. I had a Court case re. family elder abuse. The abuse went on for about two years while we waited for our Court date. The concept of a “speedy trial” will become a total farce.
Though Ron Paul is treated with Media blackouting from the One Party Press, and is controversial on foreign policy, we will vote for him now in the Primaries rather than Newt the Nut or Romney RINO.
2008 ended up with Conservatives being handed the worst candidate (McCain).
Looks like the same playbook is in store for 2012.
We would get better leadership using a dart and a phonebook rather than elections these days.
Just the beginning of the truth about Newt. Can’t believe republicans are going to be this stupid. He will lose worse than McCain did.
“Newt Gingrich came out strongly for jury trials before illegal immigrants can be deported in the December 3 presidential forum”
Nice try but no cigar. Anyone who actually watched the Forum saw Newt explain that a small percentage of longtime illegals would go before a draft board like local committee to be approved for permanent residence. The rest would self deport or be deported if caught.
So you would put your future in the hands of a judge instead of a jury?
Once again a legal genius heard from.
No there are lots of reasons for requesting a jury. One is it’s your Constitutional right.
Others include protection from biased, stupid, drunk etc. judges.
Very sorry that the article gored your ox.
What a dumb idea.
OJ Juries is what we'd have.
Juries will be selected of Latino descent, where every one will have some relative or friend that's an illegal (they all do), and would NEVER vote to deport a fellow Hispanic. You pack Juries today, using Jury Consultants, and do demographic/socio-economic placements to favor your client. If a black is on trial, you make SURE the jury has sufficient blacks to avoid a conviction, etc. The Law never matters; it's a "social statement" to those who sympathize with a Cause anymore.
The Swiss already do this. When an alien applies for citizen status, his neighbors get to vote on it.
Over 80% are turned down.
Bring back treason as a regularly prosecuted capital offense.
That IMO is the right route for home-grown terrorists plotting here on home soil.
Bringing it back into practice might shape up some of our softer pro-enemy activists as well.
The vandals destroyed Cain (with help from useful idiots here and elsewhere).
Now they will destroy Gingrich.
And we will be left with Romney. And then Obama, for another four years.
Evil people, and stupid people, are making this happen. Let’s decide to be neither. Let’s try just a bit to be clever ourselves.
This is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen from a politician.
But I wonder if those local committees will also be able to assess the illegals based upon their negative impact on the local employment situation for citizens and legal residents?
What Newt really wants here are rubber stamp local committees to give some legitimacy to his amnesty plans. If those local committees are allowed any autonomy, then some communities would approve practically every illegals and other communities practically none.
And if that happens, there would be lawsuits galore from all those who were not approved for Newt's amnesty-by-any-other-name scheme.
And not at all interested in the "it's no really amnesty" BS. If the penalties prescribed by law are not applied to a large group of lawbreakers, then an amnesty has been granted. Period.
And if the idiotic plan were ever implemented, those allowed to stay, but not become citizens, would be portrayed constantly as a victim group by the Dims and we'd never hear the end of it until the Dims regained power in DC and granted them all citizenship.
These half-thought-through brainstorms of Newt's are a good reason to hope for some other candidate to gain momentum. And this isn't the only one.
ok well, not really trying to impress, just saying that in the case of immigration, a jury would feel sorry for the person because they had kids in school, just had a new baby, have a child who is disabled, have paid taxes, never caused any trouble, etc, whereas a judge just applying the law would say “you walked over the border? not legal entry”
But yes, as the others have pointed out, the Court could be asleep, impaired, a member of the Freemasons and the immigrant is represented by a Freemason..........or the Court could be functioning ok, you never know, right?
It is a bad idea. I’m leaning toward Gingrich, but this is a bad idea.
The right idea is this: secure the border and enforce the law. Don’t talk about exceptions to the law while the border is still wide open. Seal it. Enforce the law aggressively and the problem will correct itself over a very few years. When those things are happening, and you find some special case, we can talk about it. But Gingrich is proposing a loophole you can drive 20 million moving vans through.
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