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To: ApplegateRanch
The purpose of bail is to insure the accused’s appearance at trial; and rarely, (supposedly, but more and more often not) denial to protect the public from a particular and imminent menace. I see a very disturbing trend in wanting to use it as pretrial punishment, as well as a steady escalation of what constitutes the Constitutionally mandated “reasonable bail”.

In the days when a speedy trial really meant a speedy trial, and the victims on the sparsely-populated prairies were armed with shotguns and could shoot trespassers without themselves being strung up legally, your scenario worked a lot better. Now, alleged killers, rapists and child abusers are out on bail for months and years of legal maneuvering, discovery and orchestrated delays in densely populated, disarmed and indifferent urbs and suburbs with superhighways and virtally unpoliceable beltways and dozens of ways to search and intimidate victims, witnesses and even jury members. Even after a wrongful acquittal such as the OJ trial, legal "victors" can continue to harass and stalk victims or their families, and it OJ's case, wrest custody of his children from a secure home and raise them with the man later convicted of wrongful death of their mother. It's a different world.

I see nothing wrong with extended stays when there is a preponderance of evidence: in this case, eyewitnesses who were complete strangers and video. It might make the lawyers hurry up a little and go with the truth instead of shredding it into microscopic layers to find a loophole for a felon to walk through.

56 posted on 07/13/2014 11:57:44 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few." -- Walid Shoebat)
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To: Albion Wilde
It might make the lawyers hurry up a little and go with the truth instead of shredding it into microscopic layers

Same can be said about prosecutors with thin cases.

Either we believe in Constitutional protections, or we're no different than Libs and activist judges and their "living document"doctrine,which is how we've arrived at the point we're at regarding other lost liberties.

Something Ol' Ben said about safety and liberty comes to mind, also.

66 posted on 07/13/2014 12:16:26 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Love me, love my guns!©)
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