Uh ... say what, now?

[unixronin]

[...] even though the jury acquitted him of the crack charge, the judge kind of figured he'd done it and therefore found, by a preponderance of the evidence that he'd done it, and sent him to prison as if the jury had actually said "Guilty" rather than "Not Guilty."

WTF?

Excuse me if I've been asleep a long time, but ... the last time I knew, the standard of proof in a criminal case was not "by a preponderance of the evidence", it was "beyond a reasonable doubt".  And then the high court refused to hear an appeal?

Somebody just got railroaded here, and if this stands up, it's a very, very dangerous precedent.  What's the next step?  Presumption of guilt instead of presumption of innocence?  Eliminating the jury altogether and going to an inquisitorial court system like, say, Italy's?  Perhaps we could allow secret evidence in all trials, not just ones where someone within a half-mile radius said the word "terrorist", and deny all defendants the right to confront their accusers, hear and contest evidence presented against them, or know the charges against them.

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

More details here (http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/acquitting_time/). I agree: this trend is deeply, deeply troubling. I will be speaking with my favorite law professor about it tomorrow to learn more.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty thorough article. Thanks for the pointer.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

The Wikipedia page on Apprendi v. New Jersey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprendi) is also interesting. That’s the case I was musing on earlier, the SCOTUS precedent which I said seemed to be staunchly opposed to this practice.

There seems to be a conflict between two principles. The first is that Congress has established there is no limitation on what information may be considered at sentencing. The courts have interpreted "no limitation" to mean exactly that. The second is that SCOTUS has established "[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt."

I suppose the big question is whether the imposed sentence was within the allowable range for the crime for which he was convicted. Apprendi concerns itself only with judges moving penalties beyond those set by the laws broken by the now–convicted defendant. Movement within that range is still left up to a wide range of judicial discretion.