At 11:32 PM -0700 9/29/96, Dale Thorn wrote:
Speaking of peers, what would the founding fathers have said about the trial of the officers in the Rodney King case? Would they, as police officers, have a right to a jury of their peers? Would their peers be the people in Simi Valley, where many or most of them live? Or would it be more appropriate to have a jury of the victims' peers? Or both?
More importantly, what's happened to "double jeapardy"? The four cops were found "Not Guilty" in their criminal trial (or at least three of them were...I forget the details--one may have been a mistrial). So, as some people then proceeded to burn down their neighborhoods, loot, and run amok in the streets for several days, a _second_ trial was held. This time the verdicts were more in line with what the street wanted, plus, all the good electronics stores had already been looted or had moved out of South Central, so no riots. (Legal purists will point out that the second trial was for "Federal civil rights violations." Harummphh. What would the Founders think of this logic: "First we try them on ordinary criminal charges. If they are found Not Guilty, we charge them in the next higher court with more abstract charges. If they are still found found Not Guilty, we hit them with "civil rights" and "being disrespectful to women" charges. And if that doesn't work, we charge them in the World Court. We've only had one guilty party get past them, and for that guy we appealed to the Pope and he put a Papal Hex on the guy and ordered him burned in oil.") Double jeapardy means the system gets one shot at proving charges, not two or three. (And, yes, even though I am sure O.J. Simpson killed those two people, I am not happy with what appears to be a _second_ trial. For sure, it's a _civil_ trial, for damages, but to this layman it looks like a second trial on the main charges. I suppose I always thought that being found "Not Guilty" on the act itself made it essentially impossible for a civil trial to redecide the same issue. Boy, was I wrong.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."