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]

The definitions you are using are unknown to the legal system.

My favorite law professor is my father, who sits on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and until recently served as Chief Judge of that court. He also teaches political science at Cornell, and intermittently teaches law school courses.

He's the guy who drilled into me from an early age that the courts serve the people and not the other way around. As such, for the people to say of a court decision, "they ruled that way, hence it is correct" is an abrogation of our civic duties. It turns the courts into the people's master instead of the people's servant. The people are allowed and even encouraged to scream at the top of our lungs, "how could you rule that way, it is so obviously incorrect." We are not allowed to contest the fact a decision was reached: we are encouraged to contest the rightness, the legality, the fairness, the equity and the justice of the decision.

Edsger Dijkstra warned programmers that code audits can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence. The appellate and Supreme level is the exact same way. They can find problems -- but they cannot prove the case is correct.