Tom was being very un-Dude in For a Few Good Men. Then again, maybe he was rehearsing for his Oprah Moment. Tom, you should just focus on keeping Katie and Surie locked up, and spouting your Scientology babble in places where most of us won't be so overwhelmed with your Crazy that we stop going to your movies. Oops...looks like that train has sailed. Signed, Knight and Day.
But while such bombast and overacting typically don't occur in your local courthouse, important things happen there every day. Based on how you all bail from jury duty (no pun intended), most of you probably haven't noticed. Even though most of you gripe and complain about how the system lets so many guilty people go free.
Just wait until its your turn in the dock, though. You're not gonna feel all "if they were arrested they must be guilty" when you're the one they haul off in the middle of the night.
I touched on this recently in my polemics on why I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA and why we should be thankful that we live in a place that would let a Casey Anthony or an OJ go free if the state can't prove their crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. I pointed out this is one of the most important freedoms that Americans enjoy. Shake your heads in disgust when our system allows monsters like that to walk, but would you rather live in Iran, where American hikers are held for years without trial as ransom pieces, or Singapore, which canes idiot teenagers for spitting on the street, or any one of dozens of other countries where "justice" is whatever the local potentate in charge deems worthy at the time?
Judge Reggie Walton, the federal district judge presiding over the Roger Clemens trial, brilliantly captured just why our due process legal protections are so important. You know, those irritating "technicalities" that let gang-bangers and high-flying fraudsters go free from time to time. As many of you know, Roge is on trial for lying under oath to Congress and various related counts. Sidebar-lying to Congress as a crime is pretty rich. As Martin Sheen said in Apocalypse Now, that's like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Anyway, Judge Walton declared a mistrial (in essence, he terminated the trial and required the government to start over) due to the prosecutor's failure to abide by evidence rulings he made before the trial began. Everyone should read the Judge's remarks to the jury as he excused them from further service. Keep in mind this was totally extemporaneous.
Unfortunately, there are rules that we play by, and those rules are designed to ensure that both parties receive a fair trial. And that is particularly true when it comes to someone who has been charged with a crime whose life and liberty, or their liberty is on the line....I apologize to you for what has transpired. It's unfortunate, but at bottom, in the United States of America we try to ensure that everybody who comes into our courthouse is treated fairly and that they get a fair shake from a jury. And when a judge reaches a conclusion that there is a possibility, a distinct possibility, that information that unfairly prejudices a defendant has come before the jury, in direct violation of a ruling that the Court has made, I have no other alternative, despite the tremendous loss of time and effort and money, to terminate the proceedings.
You think Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would get all worked up over "a distinct possibility" that a defendant could be "unfairly prejudiced"? Uh, not so much.
We can all thank God that our government, which on a day-to-day basis usually means some nimrod sitting at a desk, can't just decide who's guilty and who's not, and stick you in some hell hole for 50 years based on nothing but a whim. The mere fact that the government has to put on a case to a jury of American citizens, that the case has to meet certain evidentiary standards, that it must demonstrate the accused's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that if it doesn't do so it cannot convict, is perhaps the most important freedom we enjoy as Americans.
It might mean that thug low-lifes get away with all kinds of horrible crimes. It might mean that criminals never receive their due. But a certain amount of criminality, while horrible, pales in comparison to the darkness of a nation where the government knows no bounds and arbitrarily metes out punishment at its desire.
I'm not a black helicopter type, but does anyone think that couldn't happen here? Anyone remember Waco? The FLDS raid? Watergate? Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II? The 1968 Chicago police riots at the Democratic National Convention? Police attacking peaceful demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge? It happens today, even at the local level. In Tulia, Texas, a local federal/state drug sting basically just made up evidence to throw dozens of citizens in jail, leading Gov. Rick Perry to pardon all the defendants.
Shakespeare's King Richard III said, "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Everyone LOVES to quote that line to run down lawyers. These idiots don't know that in the play, Richard said this in describing his plan to take over England and stamp out liberty. To oppress and enslave a people, the first thing to do is to eliminate a free and fair legal system.
Congratulations to Judge Walton for his actions, and thanks to him for capturing the importance of a free and fair trial.
OK, Oprah, I'll get off your couch now. My bad.
NEXT--Let's Go to the Mall!
But while such bombast and overacting typically don't occur in your local courthouse, important things happen there every day. Based on how you all bail from jury duty (no pun intended), most of you probably haven't noticed. Even though most of you gripe and complain about how the system lets so many guilty people go free.
Just wait until its your turn in the dock, though. You're not gonna feel all "if they were arrested they must be guilty" when you're the one they haul off in the middle of the night.
I touched on this recently in my polemics on why I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA and why we should be thankful that we live in a place that would let a Casey Anthony or an OJ go free if the state can't prove their crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. I pointed out this is one of the most important freedoms that Americans enjoy. Shake your heads in disgust when our system allows monsters like that to walk, but would you rather live in Iran, where American hikers are held for years without trial as ransom pieces, or Singapore, which canes idiot teenagers for spitting on the street, or any one of dozens of other countries where "justice" is whatever the local potentate in charge deems worthy at the time?
Judge Reggie Walton, the federal district judge presiding over the Roger Clemens trial, brilliantly captured just why our due process legal protections are so important. You know, those irritating "technicalities" that let gang-bangers and high-flying fraudsters go free from time to time. As many of you know, Roge is on trial for lying under oath to Congress and various related counts. Sidebar-lying to Congress as a crime is pretty rich. As Martin Sheen said in Apocalypse Now, that's like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Anyway, Judge Walton declared a mistrial (in essence, he terminated the trial and required the government to start over) due to the prosecutor's failure to abide by evidence rulings he made before the trial began. Everyone should read the Judge's remarks to the jury as he excused them from further service. Keep in mind this was totally extemporaneous.
Unfortunately, there are rules that we play by, and those rules are designed to ensure that both parties receive a fair trial. And that is particularly true when it comes to someone who has been charged with a crime whose life and liberty, or their liberty is on the line....I apologize to you for what has transpired. It's unfortunate, but at bottom, in the United States of America we try to ensure that everybody who comes into our courthouse is treated fairly and that they get a fair shake from a jury. And when a judge reaches a conclusion that there is a possibility, a distinct possibility, that information that unfairly prejudices a defendant has come before the jury, in direct violation of a ruling that the Court has made, I have no other alternative, despite the tremendous loss of time and effort and money, to terminate the proceedings.
You think Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would get all worked up over "a distinct possibility" that a defendant could be "unfairly prejudiced"? Uh, not so much.
We can all thank God that our government, which on a day-to-day basis usually means some nimrod sitting at a desk, can't just decide who's guilty and who's not, and stick you in some hell hole for 50 years based on nothing but a whim. The mere fact that the government has to put on a case to a jury of American citizens, that the case has to meet certain evidentiary standards, that it must demonstrate the accused's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that if it doesn't do so it cannot convict, is perhaps the most important freedom we enjoy as Americans.
It might mean that thug low-lifes get away with all kinds of horrible crimes. It might mean that criminals never receive their due. But a certain amount of criminality, while horrible, pales in comparison to the darkness of a nation where the government knows no bounds and arbitrarily metes out punishment at its desire.
I'm not a black helicopter type, but does anyone think that couldn't happen here? Anyone remember Waco? The FLDS raid? Watergate? Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II? The 1968 Chicago police riots at the Democratic National Convention? Police attacking peaceful demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge? It happens today, even at the local level. In Tulia, Texas, a local federal/state drug sting basically just made up evidence to throw dozens of citizens in jail, leading Gov. Rick Perry to pardon all the defendants.
Shakespeare's King Richard III said, "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Everyone LOVES to quote that line to run down lawyers. These idiots don't know that in the play, Richard said this in describing his plan to take over England and stamp out liberty. To oppress and enslave a people, the first thing to do is to eliminate a free and fair legal system.
Congratulations to Judge Walton for his actions, and thanks to him for capturing the importance of a free and fair trial.
OK, Oprah, I'll get off your couch now. My bad.
NEXT--Let's Go to the Mall!
2 comments:
OMG can we go to Sephora? Maybe Casey will be there buying her disguise!
I think it deleted my first response because it was offended that I invited you to a Sephora spree at the mall. Lawyers are 85% sociopaths, 15% depressives who wish they were, according to my lovely recent experience. I am glad that you are still a caring nurturer.
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