Due Process is Stupid And Should Be Waived Most of the Time

[kmoney]

This is a stupid idea. My stepfather, a policeman, makes an excellent point. Do you realize how expensive that would be? Especially given the fact that all of those tapes would be public record? Anyone could request as many of them as they like, and the State would have to provide them...probably free of charge. Plus, factor in the cost of editing all of those tapes to take out names and faces...?

While I do think that police officers having cameras could help in some situations, my post was mostly sarcastic.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Reflection on Judge Dredd: People criticize the Platonic gaurdians and auxillaries as being liable to corruption. There must be checks and balances, which are painfully missing both from Plato's Republic and the Judge system of justice in the Judge Dredd universe. This objection simply misses the point: the ideal system of law does not seek for checks and balances; the ideal system of law makes checks and balances unnecessary. Judge Dredd does not need an outside enforcer of law to keep him in line. Judge Dredd is the law, and this in two senses. First, the authority of his office entitles him to enforce law...yes, but more importantly, second: he is a law to himself. As a virtuous person, he embodies law in his very mode of life. As such, he is superior to the law, that is, with respect to servile fear of its penalties. The Academy of Law, I think, is not an unmusical (albeit fictional) institution.

But thus world is populated by real people, not comic book characters. There has only been one person to ever walk this planet with the virtue to be the policeman you seek. We nailed Him to a cross.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Alright. Let's count up the witnesses. In the cases that I've described, there's, at the very least, 1. the policeman and 2. the criminal (unless he perjures himself, and in such a case, he should be punished for that too). How many witnesses is that? Ex hypothesi, the policeman is entitled to act as a judge.

So, would you say that the standard is fulfilled or no?

No, it has not been met. If the criminal purgers himself then there is no second witness present to prove the purgery. Also, the witnesses speak to the judge. There is no judge in your scenario. You have failed to meet God's minimum standard.

Furthermore, this requirement is a judicial precept of the Mosaic Law: it was a determination of law for that particular people at that particular time. In point of fact, we don't hold to this standard now in many cases, and we don't need to do so. Think: DNA evidence and CSI.

Your proposed standard ignores DNA evidence, it ignores all evidence in favor of one mans interpretation.

 

[The Berean]

But thus world is populated by real people, not comic book characters. There has only been one person to ever walk this planet with the virtue to be the policeman you seek. We nailed Him to a cross.

Even in the Judge Dredd comics there are various corrupt and evil judges as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Cal

 

[Caledvwlch]

This is a stupid idea. My stepfather, a policeman, makes an excellent point. Do you realize how expensive that would be? Especially given the fact that all of those tapes would be public record? Anyone could request as many of them as they like, and the State would have to provide them...probably free of charge. Plus, factor in the cost of editing all of those tapes to take out names and faces...?

Who uses tapes?

 

[Zeke]

In criminal trials, there are, I take it, two things which must be determined: matters of fact and matters of law. That is, answers to two questions must be provided in order to ensure a fair verdict and sentence for the criminal: 1. What actually happened? 2. What point of the law applies?

The scope of the first question may be narrowed in a criminal case: Here is the crime of which the accused is accused. Did he actually commit that crime?

The second question: Granted that he did that of which he is accused, how does the law apply to his particular case?

Due process ensures that the criminal is treated fairly, and that these two questions are answered fairly and adequately.

For matters of fact, there are juries.

For matters of law, there are judges.

For the execution of sentences, there are executioners.

And due process is perfectly superfluous in at least some cases, namely:

When the matter of fact is evident, because the police officers are witnessing it happen, or because there is an abundance of witnesses or physical evidence, and the mental state of the criminal is not in doubt.

Consider the following case, for example: Suspects have just robbed a bank. Police arrive before the suspects can escape. Suspects fire shots at the police.

There's no question of fact. The police are certain that the suspects are shooting at them. There's no question of matters of law: 1. Bank robbery, 2. attempted murder of policemen.

There's no need for separate judges, juries and executioners. Once the police apprehend the suspect, they should be able to be judge, jury and executioner right there. The suspect shouldn't even make it to the police station alive.

In such cases where the facts are manifestly evident to the police officer, the only trial that a suspect should receive, if he should receive one at all, is in an appelate court.

Don't fret, Due process is a myth anyway so why try and make it a reality based issue, think Vegas when dealing with the justice system unless your employed by the house you are just another sheep to fleece.

 

[TomO]

Who uses tapes?

New Police issue vest cam. :chuckle:

 

[TomO]

Don't fret, Due process is a myth anyway so why try and make it a reality based issue, think Vegas when dealing with the justice system unless your employed by the house you are just another sheep to fleece.

True. lain:

 

[champdefrene]

This is flawed for several reasons, even in your most "clear cut" examples. Let's have a look at your first.

Consider the following case, for example: Suspects have just robbed a bank. Police arrive before the suspects can escape. Suspects fire shots at the police.

The facts are agreed, but as to the crimes? Is the firing of shots at police (in UK law) attempted murder, or is it using a firearm to resist arrest (Firearms Act 1968)? This would be for a jury to decide.

There are plenty of real-life cases where the facts are agreed but the law is not. One infamous and extraordinary example, which is worth a read for anyone who likes that sort of thing, is R v Collins [1972]:

Let me relate the facts. Were they put into a novel or portrayed on the stage, they would be regarded as being so improbable as to be unworthy of serious consideration and verging at times on farce. At about 2 o'clock in the early morning of Saturday 24th July of last year, a young lady of 18 went to bed at her mother's home in Colchester. She had spent the evening with her boyfriend. She had taken a certain amount of drink, and it may be that this fact affords some explanation of her inability to answer satisfactorily certain crucial questions put to her.

She has the habit of sleeping without wearing night apparel in a bed which is very near the lattice-type window of her room. At one stage on her evidence she seemed to be saying that the bed was close up against the window which, in accordance with her practice, was wide open. In the photographs which we have before us, however, there appears to be a gap of some sort between the two, but the bed was clearly quite near the window.

At about 3.30 or 4 o'clock she awoke and she then saw in the moonlight a vague form crouched in the open window. She was unable to remember, and this is important, whether the form was on the outside of the window sill or on that part of the sill which was inside the room, and for reasons which will later become clear, that seemingly narrow point is of crucial importance.

The young lady then realised several things: first of all that the form in the window was that of a male; secondly that he was a naked male; and thirdly that he was a naked male with an erect penis. She also saw in the moonlight that his hair was blond. She thereupon leapt to the conclusion that her boyfriend with whom for some time she had been on terms of regular and frequent sexual intimacy, was paying her an ardent nocturnal visit. She promptly sat up in bed, and the man descended from the sill and joined her in bed and they had full sexual intercourse. But there was something about him which made her think that things were not as they usually were between her and her boyfriend. The length of his hair, his voice as they had exchanged what was described as 'love talk', and other features led her to the conclusion that somehow there was something different. So she turned on the bed-side light, saw that her companion was not her boyfriend. So she slapped the face of the intruder, who was none other than the Appellant. He said to her, "Give me a good time tonight", and got hold of her arm, but she bit him and told him to go. She then went into the bathroom and he promptly vanished.

Whether Mr Collins committed burglary was dependent on where he was at the time the 'young lady' beckoned him into the house.

In a recent, highly controversial case which went to the European Court of Human Rights, Muktar Said Ibrahim, Ramzi Mohammed, Yassin Omar and Ismail Abdurahman were found guilty for attempting to detonate four bombs on the London Underground two weeks after the 7/7 attacks. They attempted to argue that the failed attack was a hoax. Even when there was an abundant amount of evidence as to their guilt, they were still given the opportunity to argue their case, and I think this was right. They took their case to the ECtHR arguing that their human rights (right to a fair trial, specifically) had been compromised during the trial, and lost.

Another important point is that, in common law countries at least, a court decision acts as case law to other similar cases. It is therefore important that even in the most clear-cut cases, a judicial determination is given as guidance to subsequent cases.

Finally, the line between where a crime is "clear-cut" and is not would be necessarily arbitrary and prone to error. It is better to err on the side of caution, and therefore justice, than otherwise.