Mike Duvos wrote:
Igor writes:
Is that the end of the story? I understand it that he can appeal, and will.
One of the major flaws of the Criminal Justice System in this country is that one can only appeal based on procedural issues. No one, after a trial has concluded, may ever challenge the trial verdict. They may only argue that the proper ritual was not followed, and higher courts are very reluctant to disagree with the actions of lower courts, preferring instead to state that the errors committed would likely not have affected the outcome.
This is yet another example of the result of taking the consitution too literally. The English common law idea of trial by ones peers somehow gets transmogravated into the peculiar idea that ones peers will produce an infallible verdict. Generaly the idea of trial by ones peers has been read as a protection for the defendant and that it is open to the government to grant a new trial if they chose. Appeals based on new evidence are not a matter of course in the UK but they are not unusual either. One of the ironies of the Maguire 7 and Birmingham 6 cases was that despite being widely reported in the US as miscarriges of justice no mention was made of the fact that in the US there would be no legal recourse whatsoever. Even if it was proven beyond doubt that the evidence on which the conviction was based was fraudulent there could be no appeal on that basis.
It gets even worse than that. Many states, Texas amongst them, have a time limit for the introduction of new evidence after a trial, even if it completely exonerates the defendent, and are prefectly willing to execute someone as long as they have been given "due process," even if it has been clearly demonstrated that they are not guilty.
The trial was federal so the federal proceedures would apply.
The only difference between Tim McVeigh and Richard Jewell is that the government stopped the hatchet job on Jewell in midstream.
One other difference, Jewell saved lives by warning people of a bomb and McVeigh murdered 167 by planting one. A small detail perhaps in the eyes of militia appologists anxious to find any possible reason to maintain their fantasy world. Again why the sudden concern for the mechanisms of justice when one white guy is found guilty of murdering 167 people? Phill