Posted on 07/17/2007 7:55:33 AM PDT by Calpernia
It basically says that the government, or anyone, cannot take someones life without due process of law. In practice it means law enforcement officers are not judge, jury and executioner and if they decide to become so, the law treats them as they would (almost) as any other individual.
There are strict rules governing when an LEO can fire on a suspect (and all LEO’s fire to kill whenever they draw their weapon). These are in place to protect the innocent as well as guilty, but someone isn’t judged guilty until they have had a trial. It’s not up to the LEO to determine guilt and mete out justice in the field, it’s their job to apprehend the suspect so that person can then be subject to our judicial system. It is the basis of all western democracies and is what separates us from dictatorships and tin horn despots.
An LEO can only fire when there is an imminent danger to the officers, innocent bystanders and/or substantial loss of property. Period. In this case the BPA’s stated reason was that they thought the fleeing perp had flashed a gun at them. The problem is they then went on a concerted effort to destroy evidence and cover up the shooting which raised doubts about their story and ushered in the investigation.
At the conclusion of the trial the jury voted against the officers story. IMO, anyone who has read the transcripts would be hard pressed to side with it. IMfurtherO, anyone who does so is blinding themselves to the facts of the incident in order to further a separate cause. To me, this is sad because they are sacrificing our constitutional legacy and liberties to move the dial on what will in ten years probably become a transient issue (within ten years the border issue will be taken care of one way or another).
But that isn’t the salient point. Whether you want to agree or not, everyone in this country, citizens, aliens, alleged murderers and thieves, all are protected from having their lives taken from them by the government without due process. And according the the jury decision, that is exactly what Ramos and Compean attempted when they fired on OVD.
Now I could care less for OVD, he should be in jail. But I do care about our Constitution and the rule of law. The funny thing about that is we have to protect it for everybody, not just for selected classes or against despised groups. If it is not protected for everyone than it is protected for no one and none of us are safe.
If you had an intruder and you killed him after he had left your house and was running away, you would prosecuted in the same way as R&C with the exception that you didn’t do it under the color of authority.
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