Tapsearch Com EditorDuke players exonerated
April 12th 2007 00:05
Finally! A few interesting things about the attorney general's speech:
--First of all, typically, the legal system aims to prosecute those who are not only guilty but can be proven guilty. They tend not to care about innocence per se; thus the "guilty" and "not guilty" courtroom rulings. But he went so far as to say "we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges."
--Two, I'm not sold on this suggestion:
My objections are twofold. One, while it's good to have checks and balances, too many checks and balances clog the works, and the country has gotten along fine for years and years without the courts butting in on pre-trial prosecutions. Bad things will happen, and this is one of them; unless crazy prosecutions like this are demonstrably common, there's no reason to change policy and risk making it worse.
Two, the problem here was that someone abused his power. By spreading the power, you increase the chance that someone will check an abuse of power, but you also increase the chance that said other entity (in this case the court) will abuse their power instead. "Limited circumstances" tend to expand over time (as in the Commerce Clause), and who would be deciding when those criteria had been met? Presumably, the court -- it would decide whether its own judgment was needed.
Finally, a look back at my previous comments about the case, including an analysis of black-on-white vs. white-on-black rape.
By Robert VerBruggen
--First of all, typically, the legal system aims to prosecute those who are not only guilty but can be proven guilty. They tend not to care about innocence per se; thus the "guilty" and "not guilty" courtroom rulings. But he went so far as to say "we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges."
--Two, I'm not sold on this suggestion:
I propose a law that the North Carolina Supreme Court have the authority to remove a case from a prosecutor in limited circumstances. This would give the courts a new tool to deal with a prosecutor who needs to step away from a case where justice demands.
My objections are twofold. One, while it's good to have checks and balances, too many checks and balances clog the works, and the country has gotten along fine for years and years without the courts butting in on pre-trial prosecutions. Bad things will happen, and this is one of them; unless crazy prosecutions like this are demonstrably common, there's no reason to change policy and risk making it worse.
Two, the problem here was that someone abused his power. By spreading the power, you increase the chance that someone will check an abuse of power, but you also increase the chance that said other entity (in this case the court) will abuse their power instead. "Limited circumstances" tend to expand over time (as in the Commerce Clause), and who would be deciding when those criteria had been met? Presumably, the court -- it would decide whether its own judgment was needed.
Finally, a look back at my previous comments about the case, including an analysis of black-on-white vs. white-on-black rape.
By Robert VerBruggen
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