Posted on 03/15/2014 9:01:05 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
Texas prosecutors are applauding a decision by the State Court of Criminal Appeals which provides police officers a second chance to present evidence which has been gathered contrary to Texas law and the 4th Amendment. The ruling literally offers law enforcement a “do-over;” an opportunity to secure a search warrant AFTER a home has been illegally searched and AFTER evidence has been improperly obtained.
In 2010, police in Parker County, Texas received a call from a confidential informant (CI) who claimed that Fred Wehrenberg and a number of associates “were fixin’” to cook meth. Hours after the call–at 12:30 A.M the following day–police entered the Wehrenberg home without a warrant and against the wishes of Wehrenberg. Police handcuffed all of the occupants, held them in the front yard and proceeded to perform what the officers described as a “protective sweep” of the residence. An hour and a half later, after finding no meth being made on the premises, police prepared a...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
The police view of “exigent circumstances” is quite broad and may often extend beyond the limits of the law. This may certainly mean that criminal activity lies beyond their reach, at least temporarily. Such is the price of liberty and freedom.
If their warrant was found to be improperly granted, then they never should have set foot in the place to begin with. No goal.
Obviously the marijuana should not be, as it was planted — this in itself is evidence of the ill-will of the police.
Given that they planted the marijuana, what basis do you have for believing that the person there was the kidnapper? The police, having already been willing to fabricate evidence to frame their target could just as well have been the kidnappers and planted the child and note.
Therefore, no; the evidence should not be used.
As for you, your'e advocating Nazism, and trying to deflect the loathsome things you've posted by calling my character into question isn't helpful to your cause, it's just more Nazism.
You can't defend what you've posted on its merits, so you go ad hominem instead.
Bullshit!
To Assert that the jury cannot try the law is to repudiate all jury nullification — and if that be the case then the jury cannot but find guilty all who are accused by the law if that law is sufficiently broad. Moreover, if a contraconstitutional law were to be passed (like, say, gun-control [the NFA or GCA or CT's new registration]) the jury could not regard the "law" as invalid but would be constrained to enact only the will of the state.
From Juries Are Allowed To Judge The Law, Not Just The Facts:
In order to guard citizens against the whims of the King, the right to a trial by jury was established by the Magna Carta in 1215, and it has become one of the most sacrosanct legal aspects of British and American societies. We tend to believe that the duty of a jury is solely to determine whether someone broke the law. In fact, it’s not unusual for judges to instruct juries that they are to judge only the facts in a case, while the judge will sit in judgment of the law itself. Nonsense.Moreover, Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary says:
Juries are the last line of defense against the power abuses of the authorities. They have the right to judge the law. Even if a defendant committed a crime, a jury can refuse to render a guilty verdict. Among the main reasons why this might happen, according to attorney Clay S. Conrad:When the defendant has already suffered enough, when it would be unfair or against the public interest for the defendant to be convicted, when the jury disagrees with the law itself, when the prosecution or the arresting authorities have gone “too far” in the single-minded quest to arrest and convict a particular defendant, when the punishments to be imposed are excessive or when the jury suspects that the charges have been brought for political reasons or to make an unfair example of the hapless defendant…
JU'RY,
noun [Latin juro, to swear.]
A number of freeholders, selected in the manner prescribed by law, empaneled and sworn to inquire into and try any matter of fact, and to declare the truth on the evidence given them in the case. Grand juries consist usually of twenty four freeholders at least, and are summoned to try matters alleged in indictments. Petty juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petty jury is called a verdict.
This is nothing more than they kind of perverted cost/benefit analysis that criminals employ in their decision making, and we should reject it out of hand.
Sorry, but too many police officers already have significant personality/authority issues without giving them the incentive to develop a criminal mentality as well. Even with the current strictures, too many already do.
In the ordinary course of jurisprudence, jurors should not try law.
That they have the authority to do that in the Common Law I do not dispute. Nor do I disapprove of it in cases where the law is repugnant to common sense or the consensus understanding of our Constitution [or constitution.]
That said, those are extraordinary circumstances, and in the routine practice of law, juries should not try law. That is what you are advocating, and it is a short road to legal chaos and all manner of criminal misbehavior by law enforcement and prosecutors.
I disagree, if the law is good there should be very few who would dissent to it: e.g. how many people think there should be no law prohibiting murder?
Virtually none, because it is universally recognized as immoral.
How many people think there should be no federal law prohibiting, say, drugs?
Quite a few — indeed you cannot be a constitutionalist and a supporter of the War on Drugs simultaneously, precisely because the justifications for them are rooted in Wickard (saying that congress may regulate intrastate commerce because it impacts interstate commerce); they [the USSC] has even said that noncommerce is, in like manner, under the purview of congress (Raich).
End of the 4th 5th & 8th amendments. People say Texas is the bastion of Constiutionality, but I don’t see it. More like CA Lite.
In one of the most notorious [and wrongfully applied] jury nullifications of all time, OJ's jury found that murder was just fine, as long as a white cop peripherally connected to his investigation might have used the word nigger once in the last ten years.
Racist juries in some states routinely acquitted Klansmen. They also saw no "universality" of murder as instrinsically evil, as long as untermenschen were being killed.
We have well-recognized ways to repeal unjust laws. We have well-recognized ways to modify or overturn anti-Constitutional laws. In the routine practice of those refinements, juries are not, and should not be, involved, except possibly to highlight when the corrective reforms are needed and effect them in the proper channels.
Advocating that every citizen be a legislature unto himself is an idea abhorrent to the very meaning of law, and would have been justly deprecated by the Framers as mob rule.
“Some people on this thread are happy to stomp on Texas but it is FEDERAL LAW that caused this judge’s decision. Texas law is second to federal law just as every state is.”
WRONG!!! BZZZZ Fail civics, go to the back of the class. No State must follow an unconstitutional law. Their JOB is to not uphold the laws they believe are unconstitutional and let the feds sue the State to force them to follow it.
“Again, Texas shows the way to fight criminals.”
So, you’d be all for standing naked out in front of your house each evening while the State searches your home to be sure neither you and your naked family are criminals or in
possession of “contraband” all in the name of “law enforcement”?
I don't remember too much about the trial, but there was one freeper that said that he thought OJ was taking the rap for his son; another thing I seem to recall is that there were improprieties taken with collecting/handling the evidence (I vaguely remember something about a blood sample that may have contaminated evidence).
I'm not prepared to unilaterally say that the jury was wrong in that case.
Racist juries in some states routinely acquitted Klansmen. They also saw no "universality" of murder as instrinsically evil, as long as untermenschen were being killed.
They will have to answer to the Supreme Judge.
We have well-recognized ways to repeal unjust laws. We have well-recognized ways to modify or overturn anti-Constitutional laws.
Oh? Like ObamaCare — riiiiight.
In the routine practice of those refinements, juries are not, and should not be, involved, except possibly to highlight when the corrective reforms are needed and effect them in the proper channels.
How stupid — just because some law
hasn't yet been recognized as contrary to the constitution binding its originating legislature doesn't mean that the accused should be found guilty. For example, New Mexico's Constitution says No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense
, yet the Statute NMSA 30-7-2.4 does precisely that.
So, should a jury convict for violation thereof? That is, a citizen who kept firearms in on-campus housing thus violating NMSA 30-7-2.4 — remember that the constitution explicitly prohibits this law.
Advocating that every citizen be a legislature unto himself is an idea abhorrent to the very meaning of law, and would have been justly deprecated by the Framers as mob rule.
I haven't said that [every citizen should be a legislature] at all.
But your arguments perhaps show a misunderstanding as to the nature of authority: the laws are established by the legislature which is established by the Constitution… if the Constitution prohibits certain laws and the legislature enacts such anyway, are they legitimate? If they are, then there is no sense in having a Constitution, because there is nothing that can constrain them (except, perhaps, violent revolution) — but if they are nullity, then how can a judge constrain them to try the facts
when the fact is that the law is illegitimate?
“No State must follow an unconstitutional law.”
So far, that federal law has not been ruled unconstitutional so it isn’t at this time.
That federal law is the law until it is ruled unconstitutional by a court/judge or the supreme court or is changed by congress.
You can check my posts, I am not a fan of what cops are doing these days by any means. People need to bring them under control. However, the left wing judges who let murderers go free because some cop didn't do it right weren't doing it to protect us, or civil liberties. They were doing it as part of a leftist, decades long effort to destroy the US, one left wing goal at a time. The decisions on the exclusionary rule were wrong. Get rid of it now, however, and you may just see the jackboots go hog wild. The proper response is to pass some very severe laws punishing violations of civil rights by law enforcement, to make sure they are enforced, and provide private rights for those who are harmed. Do that, and the purpose for the exclusionary rule, to deter bad acts by cops, no longer exists. At that point, it becomes a lot easier to deny a murderer freedom just because the cop made a warrantless search that leads him to a dead child.
Then you are a fool.
The defense contention that contamination of evidence by improper handling would lead to the one single individual with motive, opportunity, and additional corroborating forensic and circumstantial evidence, to the exclusion of all but one in 67 million other DNA profiles was a preposterous contention that only a simpleton's simpleton would accept. Contamination does not make evidence MORE specific; it makes it LESS SO.
Your other points are simply arguing in circles. You are advocating that any juror should be firm in a belief that he is entitled to nullify any law at any time. This is a patently ridiculous proposition. Juries are assumed implicitly in both our legal constitution and Constitution, and explicitly in specific wording of our Constitution to be triers of fact and not of law. Were it otherwise, there would be no reason for judges to instruct juries on the narrow application of law to the instant case, nor would an appeals system exist which deals almost exclusively with errors in law.
Cases in which juries intervene in law must be extraordinary or there is no such thing as law at all.
The rest of your post is nonsense.
We have clear cases of law enforcement exceeding their authority already, in full possession of the fact that their actions will make their case impossible to successfully conclude, and now you actually want to revert to the angels of their better nature to enforce "strict civil rights laws" against ... themselves?
So your contention is that we should reward people who are currently engaged in what is criminal behavior by awarding them with enforcement of those very standards.
Please have some coffee or get some sleep, or something, and come back to post when you're sober.
Why? Because I admitted that I don't remember the trial all that well and am hesitant to unilaterally say the jury was wrong?
Contamination does not make evidence MORE specific; it makes it LESS SO.
That is no excuse to say that the contamination does not impact the integrity of the evidence.
If there was contamination then the jury correctly decided to weigh that evidence as less than conclusive; as you yourself admit.
Your other points are simply arguing in circles. You are advocating that any juror should be firm in a belief that he is entitled to nullify any law at any time. This is a patently ridiculous proposition. Juries are assumed implicitly in both our legal constitution and Constitution, and explicitly in specific wording of our Constitution to be triers of fact and not of law. Were it otherwise, there would be no reason for judges to instruct juries on the narrow application of law to the instant case, nor would an appeals system exist which deals almost exclusively with errors in law.
Good job ignoring Noah Webster, contemporary of the founding fathers who said it was the juror's job to try the law.
But, you know, maybe we should take a look from someone involved with the law:
I know, he was one of those dirty lawyer-types… how about this?It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty […] to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.
— John Adams
Oh, wait… he was a lawyer, too......it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.
— Thomas Jefferson
Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction...if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong.
— Alexander Hamilton
That’s why I had the sarcasm tag. Hardly a week go by that some nut case deputy dawg tropes on their residents rights. Open carry is legal in the state. They sat on their ass and let clinton walk all over them at Waco. Texas has a long way to go to catch-up with some of the other states in citizens rights.
That includes you. It does not include me.
I note you don't touch on the acquittal of Klansman as a matter of nullification abuse at all, except to say they will answer to God. That is already true [or false] the question of nullification notwithstanding, with which it has nothing to do.
As for the rest, there is nothing in your quotes that indicates that the Framers believed in wholesale nullification. Their position is the same as mine, and it isn't yours.
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