Posted on 11/05/2003 2:31:03 PM PST by MrLeRoy
Well, you can bet a defense attorney will try to get it in (eg. the Kobe case). But the judge shouldn't allow it.
But here's the interesting part. Let's say your Jenny Lee's braces guy committed a crime that, if found guilty, carried a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. Now what?
As a defense attorney, you don't want the jury to convict a guy trying to help his kid. The prosecutor doesn't want to have this kind of reputation. Neither does the judge.
Actually what would happen is what happens in drug cases. Knowing the braces story, and knowing the mandatory minimum, either the prosecutor would not bring the charge, or he would bring charges that didn't carry a mandatory minimun (say, shoplifting instead of robbery, I don't know).
What the mandatory minimum laws have done, therefore, is shift the penalty decision making from the judge to the prosecutor. And the prosecutor is a wheeler-dealer with an agenda, not an impartial judge of the facts.
Something to think about.
Yes he was. A jury without the full facts of the crime.
<sarcasm>
And, by God, there would be a whole lot more convictions if the state prosecution could just keep any evidence from the jury that's awkward.
Hell, let's just get rid of trial by jury. We don't need 'em to ponder the facts and the law when the DA & judge can suppress either to suit the moment.
</sarcasm>
The evidence that was withheld was not "awkward" -- it was irrelevent.
If, for some reason, Rosenthal was being tried in a California state court for growing marijuana (a legal state activity) and the prosecution said that the jury should find him guilty because of some federal law, you'd be screaming to high heaven that federal law was irrelevent in a state matter.
But you insist that state law is relevent in a federal court, despite the fact that Article VI of the US Constitution says that, in federal criminal matters, federal law trumps state law when the two conflict.
They're in violation of federal law, dickie-boy! I suggest, dickie-boy, that you acquaint yourself with Article VI of the United States Constitution, which you've sworn to uphold, which states that "This Constitution ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land ... and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby ..." Dick Durbin, Sam Farr, and every co-sponsor of this bill should be tried for treason. It is a deliberate subversion of the U.S. Constitution.
Are you willing to show this much outrage towards congresspeople who sponsor gun control legislation, CFR, No Child Left Behind, etc. or are you just trying to satirize constitutionalists?
It was late in the day, Little Dickie is from my state, and he's slime, and we don't need additional laws telling us what we can do, and his law is restricting this to medical marijuana only, and he's basically asking jurors to void federal law, ... for starters.
Btw, we don't need to muddy up this issue with questions about gun control legislation, CFR, No Child Left Behind, etc. Save that for those threads.
With Rodney King it was (state) assault and (federal) civil rights violations (to be free from unreasonable force, to be safe while in custody, and not to be punished without a trial).
One can then ask, if the cops were found not guilty of the first, then how can they be guilty of the second? Easy. The federal jury only has to reject the findings of the state jury.
IMO, this is double jeopardy. Simply calling the act (the beating) two different offenses doesn't make it so. The cops were railroaded.
Also, I think if they were found guilty in the first trial, the second, federal, trial would never have been called.
Actually, it's not. Why can cities like New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., etc. ban guns? I mean ban as in "not allowed to own one and keep it at home" ban. Have you ever thought about that? Talk about unconstitutional!
Actually, the reason they're allowed to do that is that the 2nd amendment only applies to the federal government. Yes, the 14th amendment "supposedly" applies the BOR to the states, but the 2nd amendment has never been incorporated.
"Another important factor in the small arms-control debate is federalism. Like all the other Bill of Rights Amendments, the Second Amendment was originally added to the Constitution to limit the power of the federal government only. Both the 1876 decision of United States v. Cruikshank and the 1886 decision of Presser v. Illinois recognized this and explicitly stated the Second Amendment limits the power of the federal government only.
The basic liberties of the Bill of Rights did not become applicable to the states until after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Among other things, the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited the states from depriving "any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Through a tortuous, decades-long process, the Court eventually adopted the view that certain fundamental liberties in the Bill of Rights could be incorporated through the due process clause and turned into limits against the power of the states also.
In separate decisions, the right of free speech, the right to freely exercise one's religion, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and so on, were made applicable to the states by the Justices. The Second Amendment right to bear arms, however, has never been incorporated by the Court into the Fourteenth Amendment. The result is that today the Second Amendment, whatever it may mean, operates to restrict only the power of the federal government. The states remain unfettered by the Amendment's limitations. They remain essentially free to regulate arms and the right to bear them as they choose, in the absence of strictures in their own state constitutions and laws."
-- time.com
In your state constitution it reads:
Right to Bear Arms Section 21.
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.
In my fascist, Dickie Durban state it reads:
SECTION 22. RIGHT TO ARMS
Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
That's why we have FOID (Firearm Owner's Identification) cards and you don't.
Actually, it's not. Why can cities like New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., etc. ban guns? I mean ban as in "not allowed to own one and keep it at home" ban. Have you ever thought about that? Talk about unconstitutional!
Yes, I've thought about that a lot, and it really chaps my hide.
Actually, the reason they're allowed to do that is that the 2nd amendment only applies to the federal government. Yes, the 14th amendment "supposedly" applies the BOR to the states, but the 2nd amendment has never been incorporated.
This is all new to me...now I have another soapbox for my already extensive collection. I had no idea IL had firearm ID cards. Yikes. Of course, if Fast Eddie Rendell has his way, we might soon.
Okay, I'd like to see our pubbies in Congress take Dickie up on his idea -- but use the argument that it must be extended to all state/federal law conflicts, including firearms.
This is so true. I've recently become an opponent of mandatory minimum sentences for this very reason.
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