Posted on 05/29/2014 8:05:11 AM PDT by Bratch
Almost always the Supreme Court chooses to take a case (called granting a writ of certiorari) from a federal appeals court or a state supreme court by setting the case for briefing and argument. The Court receives 8,000 petitions for certiorari per year, and it grants fewer than 80.
Yet in this case of Martinez v. Illinois, the justices took the very rare step of deciding the whole case just based on the petition filed with them requesting review. The Supreme Court summarily reversed the Illinois Supreme Court for flouting the Constitution and allowing an egregious violation of the Fifth Amendment.
As far as the High Court was concerned, there was no need to read legal briefs or hear arguments. It simply reversed the lower court's decision in what is the judicial version of a slap upside the back of Illinois’ head.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The justices also noted that Illinois could have dismissed the case. Then if prosecutors later found Binion and Smith, they could have re-charged Martinez and brought him to trial. Instead they went through the jury selection process and did not request the case to be dismissed. Once the jury was sworn in, there was no going back.
Some lawyers are not very bright.
WOW! Just damn. I can't fathom how someone, an "educated" person of the law, would just spout something like that as acceptable practice. Liberal truly don't care about the Constitution or this nation's laws unless they suit their needs.
Sounds like he got off on a technicality.
A court isn’t supposed to let the prosecutor have complete unquestioned discretion and just hold the trial whenever he sees fit? Shocking!
Couldn't agree more. It is not unusual for a "victim" to avoid going to court. It happens a LOT in domestic violence cases. If the case was that important, the prosecution should have dismissed the case and waited until it found Avery Binion and Demarco Scott. They could have been held as material witnesses until after the trial. But by getting a not guilty verdict, any hope of prosecution went up in smoke. Pretty dumb.
Yeah, you can call it a technicality. But the Double Jeopardy clause is in the Constitution, and the rules that govern it are very clear. There’s no “penumbra,” here.
The supremes made this one pretty clear. Now if they could only follow suit on the second amendment.
"The jury was sworn in, and the judge ordered Illinois to make its case. The prosecutor refused to do so."
He got off because the prosecutor didn't understand the dilemma at this point, or didn't care. Once a jury is sworn in, if there is a not guilty verdict, even if it is directed by a judge, the case is over and can not be refiled.
Prosecutorial hubris.
Prosecutors think every single citizen is guilty.
WE have degenerated to guilty until proven guilty.
If this is the case, then the supers took this on and decided as they did in the manner they did just for show.
Something for FReepers to say, "Wow ... way cool" .. when it was all just a show.
If all Justices were "Penumbra Deniers" the Court workload would be a small fraction of the current schedule. Libs are using the penumbra concept to emasculate the Constitution.
A not-guilty verdict in a judge trial can usually be appealed in most states, especially if there was a misapplication of the law by the judge. The judge must enter findings of fact and conclusions of law. A jury has no duty to explain its verdict.
Read the complete story.
**The trial court acquitted him of the charged offenses. Perhaps the most fundamental rule in the history of double jeopardy jurisprudence has been that a verdict of acquittal could not be reviewed without putting a defendant twice in jeopardy, and thereby violating the Constitution.**
yes, the second technicality was that the prosecutors were imbeciles.
This itself seems to run afoul of the sixth amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial,...". Four years between indictment and trial is not speedy.
That might be true, but in this case, a jury was impaneled. Once found not guilty, the case is over. There will be no successful appeal.
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