Posted on 06/29/2015 8:23:31 AM PDT by don-o
All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.”
Why Do The Due Process Concerns Of Innocents Outweigh The State Interest Of Convicting Those That Are Responsible For The Shooting In Waco?
The Blackstone Ratio, a concept attributed to a famous jurist of the 1860’s named Sir William Blackstone, is commonly accepted as a cornerstone of civil liberties and a free society. Closely related to the idea that an individual is innocent until proven guilty, the Blackstone Ratio means that democratic societies do not sacrifice the liberties of the innocent in order to punish the guilty. Democratic societies accept that prioritizing civil liberties of individuals means some guilty people will escape justice in order to preserve a free society.
In a totalitarian society the opposite is true. Totalitarian governments consider the state’s interest in punishing criminals more important than the collateral damage created by innocents suffering in the process. Totalitarian governments believe that casting dragnets to capture the guilty is justified because it is motivated by the goal of reducing crime and insuring the safety of its citizens.
Certainly it is true that all governments have a compelling state interest to reduce crime and punish the guilty. This is even true in democratic societies. It is even reasonable to say that this interest is based on the belief that people in society have the right to be safe from criminal activity. But the state, in an attempt to accomplish its interests, will eventually come in conflict with personal liberties. So how does the American democratic system determine which interests are more important?
Oftentimes rights come in conflict and compete for priority. When they do, the American criminal justice system says we must balance these rights based on the intent and purpose of the Constitution and the impact on civil liberties generally. The Bill of Rights irrefutably places critical priority on the sanctity of individual rights over draconian police arrests and incarcerations justified by state interests like reducing crime or general public safety.
There is no better example than Waco to demonstrate how the state’s interest in punishing the guilty has come in conflict with the civil liberties of innocents and potential eyewitnesses. Regardless of what the currently unreleased facts ultimately reveal about what happened in Waco, it defies reason to assert that more than 170 individuals could possibly have committed a crime or be deserving of $1 million dollar bonds.
As has been widely reported, the Waco PD made it very clear that many of the more than 170 individuals arrested were arrested because of their associations with motorcycle clubs allegedly involved in the Waco shooting. There was absolutely no evidence specified, other than mere organizational association, establishing particularized or specific probable cause for any of the individuals arrested. This is evidenced by the fact that every single arrest was based on an identical and generic fill-in the name affidavit.
It has also been made clear, in complete violation of an individual’s 5th Amendment right to remain silent, that prosecutors and judges imposed $1 million dollar bonds on every individual arrested based on the gravity of the crime scene and the non-cooperation of those arrested. Bail is intended to insure that an individual does not flee. It is not intended to be a punitive measure. And the right not to be forced into statements of self-incrimination is elementary, understood by almost everyone, particularly those that work in the judiciary system like prosecutors and judges.
Mere membership in a group, even a group that contains convicted felons, does not establish probable cause. As articulated by a recent ACLU press release related to Waco, “While all the facts of this tragic incident are still unclear, we do know that if any of the more than 170 arrests were based solely on membership in a group, the Constitution demands more, including probable cause. Mere membership in a group should never be the basis of an arrest. And dragnet arrests raise the specter of overzealous police work, just like we’ve seen at our border and in cities around the country.”
It cannot credibly be argued that the Waco arrest and punitive bond tactics employed by law enforcement and government authorities is not resulting in the suffering of innocents. While incarcerated, innocent people are separated from their families, loved ones, employers, and the enjoyment of every civil liberty enjoyed by free citizens. Many of the accused are still incarcerated. And even those that have been released had to pay a bond and agree to further restrictions on behavior and associations.
So how should this have been handled? It’s not my job to decide how law enforcement does its job beyond demanding, and hoping that others demand, that whatever tactics employed respect baseline constitutional principles and individual liberties in order to protect the innocent and the foundations of a free society.
There is a reason the Blackstone Ratio is a critical component of a democratic criminal justice system. Everyone, not just bikers, should be deeply concerned about tactics that cause innocents to suffer. And this is true even if it means the guilty escape prosecution. Sure, rounding up and arresting every biker, or catholic, or Muslim, or teenager with a trench coat, or eyewitness to a crime will most likely include those responsible for the crime being investigated. But these draconian dragnets also ensnare innocent people that suffer from damage to their families, employment, reputations, finances, and the enjoyment of the basic freedoms intended to be guaranteed to every American.
In the real world, when someone knowingly makes a clearly false statement in an effort to deceive, that is a LIE, not some “style thing”. The LIE stating ALL WERE INNOCENT brought the lie to the level of absurd.
I can understand loyalty, but criminals, like those that perpetrated the trouble at Twin Peaks and which routinely commit many other crimes, are not deserving of loyalty from persons claiming to be law abiding Constitutional honoring citizens.
You can glean as much info as possible and you won’t have to guess
“I feel like saluting every damned biker I see, patched, “cut,” or not. I pray local lamen stand strong with the righteous, even if some of those righteous do have a few busts in their pasts.”
Finny, I can call you “dear” because you are younger than I am.
Dear Finny, you seem to be “stuck” in the idealism of the 60s of rebels and rebellion. OK how funny to sing out of tune back then! But this is far more serious than can be combated by merely singing out of tune, or praising “rebels.” I am responding not only to this post, but to others you have made. The biker gangs, in your opinion, are mere “rebels” . . . to be somehow praised and honored?? OH?
The rebels of the 60s and to this day, can exist ONLY because their freedom to do so has been bought and paid in blood sacrifices of generations who preceded them.
Immigrants who rightfully FLED Tyranny in Europe, wanted ONLY to be left alone in their pursuits as small holders, tradesmen, etc., to earn a living in order to support their families. THEY fought in the French and Indian Wars, the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War . . . they bled, they suffered life fore-shortening disabilities, they died, they left widows and minor children. I have evidence in my own lines.
I submit it would be quite foreign to their experiences, to learn that they died for “rebels” of the present, who do not deign to take up the shovel and the mule to earn their honest living off the land. But instead just “ride free” — OK MY ancestors died so that bikers can “ride free” — so that they NEED NOT do as those who bled for their freedom — the FREEDOM to earn one’s own living and support one’s own family by the sweat of his OWN brow, within the law, without interference of the Government. Somehow, the 60s allow people to just ride free, not support society, just ignore any and all responsibilities. AND just how is that honorable, leaving OTHERS to found the small businesses, to hire the people, to earn their livings, to support their families and in the best American case, without government interference?
Somehow YOU think is is NOBLE to be a rebel?? When our ancestors bled and died so that Americans could earn an honest living? Somehow, you believe yourself in consonance with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, while supporting Biker Rebels? and what are they indeed Rebels against? if not the honest labor of honest freeholders in an honest society?? WHY are they REBELS? I ASK YOU. And is not their decision to NOT be productive members of society, as rebels, in itself, an indictment of they who rebelliously refuse to submit — to honest labor? Riding Free is a chimera. Everyone has to earn his own living. OR?
NO, dear (remember I am older than you are.) The founders, my and your ancestors, suffered and died for no such thing. Being a REBEL is a LUXURY life style, bought and PAID FOR by the blood of others.
IF the rebels were to be truly noble, they would take up the plow and earn an honest living.
Finny, you seem to be stuck in the 60s. Go back a few hundred years into American History. I have. And hundreds of years back into their European experiences.
Servus, of course
ALL Americans have the right to free-association with bikers, children of the 60s, rednecks, hippies, slobs, shady characters, felons, tattooed people, beer drinkers, smokers, and others of whom you and people like you disapprove.
At Waco, 117 people with ZERO criminal record were punished so severely that their personal and financial lives have been destroyed and they now have arrest records with a very serious charge, that will prejudice police, employers, and others against them for the rest of their lives.
As for being a rebel -- you're darned right I value rebels.
Rebels are WHO CREATED THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
” Even with the minute amount of info we currently have; it’s obvious criminal wrongdoing happened on both sides - bikers and LE. “
What is the obvious criminal wrongdoing by the LE?
Concurring bump...it he has a parsel-tongue, plain and simple.
“Rebels are WHO CREATED THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”
PATRIOTS are who created the United States of America.
Farmers, merchants, tradesmen.
You have a right to associate with bikers, children of the 60s, etc.
But rebels by definition do not partake in building a free productive society — they as you described “opt out” for personal reasons.
Yea, try to get a vehicle back after the motion has been filed. Next to impossible. What about all their cash, personal belongings and legal weapons that were confiscated? They are gone to the accused.
Ah the moral superiority argument. Got it. As long as someone is guilty of one thing they are guilty of everything.
Ok, let’s follow your feeble contention -
From 94 - Personally I am happy to give criminal bike gang thugs the same rights they give their victims of terrorizing, intimidation, denying others the right to association, beating someone with a hammer for some ‘rocker’, murdered for ‘disrespecting’, selling kids the really bad drugs like crack/meth/heroin, stealing and destroying peoples property. Oh, and how about the rights of the girls they force into prostitution?
When they begin respecting everyone else’s rights, they can have theirs back. Otherwise as long as they and any of their sniveling groupies are presenting themselves in public dressed like and acting like hoodlums, they will be treated as hoodlums they so diligently try to portray.
Although that is pretty much Law of the Jungle, how does that not make your incontinent reply incorrect?
Your moral superiority argument is most valid. Those that do break the law, or who violate other citizens civil liberties are certainly morally deficient.
And knock off the ad hom bullshit. If I am a “fanboy” of anything it is the rule of law. How will you feel when church goers are singled out for being anti homosexual and given the same treatment? That day is on the horizon.
Most church goers would be in church on a Sunday intead of having a gunfight at a breastaurant ...
People were exploiting people long before motorcycles were even thought of - now that I think about it long before the wheel was thought of.......
That is without any doubt true.
Now that said, it in no way is a pass for those bike gangers that started and participated to some degree in the shoot out at Twin Peaks. Those you are not eloquently attempting to excuse are the ones that declared themselves “judge, jury and executioner”, that day, for being (of all things) ‘disrespected’. To pretend otherwise makes you at best an anarchist, or worse as someone wanting to enable these outlaws to go scot free and continue violating the law, endangering the public and degrading the very spirit of the Constitution.
There is no ‘good’ way to defend the lawless biker gangs. They should and will get what they deserve.
“What about all their cash, personal belongings and legal weapons that were confiscated? They are gone to the accused.”
Now you’re just making stuff up. When you are arrested, personal property that you had in your possession is returned to you when you are released.
Maybe, maybe not. Especially cash if they think it was from a “criminal enterprise”. Most likely none will ever get their guns back. No, I am not making stuff up. It is you who are uniformed.
https://www.ij.org/texas-civil-forfeiture-background
In many cases the only way to get property back is to sue the police. So the rightful owner has to incur more costs due to the action - often more than the asset is worth.
“Maybe, maybe not. Especially cash if they think it was from a “criminal enterprise”. Most likely none will ever get their guns back. No, I am not making stuff up.”
Then you can link to the forfeiture filings for this property (besides the vehicles)?
“Boogieman has made it clear that motorcycles are the tool of the devil in his mind, and that riding one is proof that an individual is both a drug dealer and a Pimp.”
Hogwash, I’ve never said any such thing. It may come as a surprise to you, but I have friends who ride. There is a difference between ordinary enthusiasts and outlaw bikers. I’m sorry you can’t seem to distinguish them, but that isn’t my issue.
(ps, if you are going to talk about another FReeper, you should ping them)
Your late in the game equivocation falls flat.
Ample evidence has been presented that the Cossacks are not a drug dealing gang. Even government spokestodies are admitting that they consider the Cossacks to be a militia at this point.
Except for you.
You bear the implications of the posts you have been making, troll.
“You bear the implications of the posts you have been making, troll.”
Hmm, but this isn’t about posts I have been making, this is about the falsehoods you stated in your post about me. You can’t attribute those statement to me, because I never made them.
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