Posted on 07/11/2019 7:15:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The American justice system works well. It does not work perfectly. Like a well running, expensive automobile, a single malfunctioning part can result in minor inconvenience or, sometimes, disaster. Our justice system has several defective parts in it. At the least, they undermine confidence in our system. At worst, they can ruin your life — yes, your life.
They have been used against President Trump in an effort to destroy his effectiveness as president and even to seek his removal from office.
A few recent cases, well publicized, have provided an oil dipstick by which we can measure the threat.
One of them involves the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It states that, among other protections, no "person [shall] be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb."
The ordinary, man-on-the-street interpretation of this, is that if someone is charged with a particular crime and acquitted, he cannot be charged a second time for that same incident — but there are several ways to get around that expectation. One of them is for a separate jurisdiction to file charges. Oftentimes, this means that if a defendant is found not guilty in a state court, he can then be tried by a federal court for essentially that same exact incident. The power to do this undermines the power of President Trump to issue pardons. Presidents can pardon only those charged with a federal offense, not with a state offense. This means that if President Trump pardons Paul Manafort, a state court can try him and convict him, sending Manafort to state prison and rendering the federal pardon inconsequential to Manafort. His political connection to President Trump, not the crime itself, seems to be the primary purpose of the charges.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Complicating the matter, there are borderline cases, involving something called “severance.” A single incident may violate more than one law. Robbery and assault, for example, can be charged as separate crimes, even for the same incident, especially if one law is state and the other is federal. The scandal is that severance can be selectively applied based on political considerations.
Over-charging is a common ploy in high profile cases. The practice of over-charging puts pressure on those accused to accede to plea bargains, even when the accused is innocent of any crime at all. It has been successfully used against both Martha Stewart and General Michael Flynn for lying to federal investigators. Of course, the crime is serious and deserves punishment, but in both cases, the prosecutors had ulterior motives. Ordinarily, such cases do not result in the level of punishment that occurred. Flynn was punished essentially as a means to harm the Trump presidency.
Well, not ‘forever’, just until you’re dead.............
Over-charging is a common ploy in high profile cases
It is also the Textbook Definition of Felony Extortion!!
The article mentions Trayvon Martin and how Gov. Rick Scott “ignored the local DA” and brought charges.
As I recall, the Trayvon Martin case become such as politically correct cause celebre, that immense pressures were brought against Rick Scott to appoint a special prosecutor in the case. It was this special prosecutor, not the local DA who had already closed the case, who brought the charges against Zimmerman. And did so because Al Sharpton and all those people brought strong pressures to bear on that case.
Then when Zimmerman was found not guilty, then Sharpton and company went into outrage meltdown mode, about how our justice system is so racist, etc.
You can’t win with certain people.
Just change your name to Clinton, Kennedy, or Obama. You can do anything with impunity.
No one with above room temp IQ trusts the Just-Us Department any more. Yes, Trump and Barr are trying to change this, but it’s like being in a leaky canoe in a lake of sh*t trying to bail the sh*t out - but more liberals - er - sh*t keeps pouring in.
Additionally, DAs who withhold exculpatory evidence should be charged and convicted of 2nd degree felonies (2 to 20 years) and jailed. Pull their licenses permanently as they are not fit to be attorneys.
That's why Scott should not have caved like the RINO pussy he is.
We haven’t had an “American Justice System” in 50+ years.
We have a badly broken “Legal System”.
There is no "US Justice System", there IS a Us, JustUs System or Mob Rule, and YOU don't even get a choice between those two.
If they want to put you in prison, they will find a way. The US system is as corrupt as that of any other country, but the people have the perception that it is lily-White clean.
The US Justice system is imperfect. But I can’t think of another system I would rather live under. France for example does not have the presumption of innocence. And executed all the aristocrats.. Germany? LOL
The phrase “justice system” in this context needs to be completely done away with because it is so poorly descriptive of the process. It is, at best a ‘legal system’, where ‘justice’ is not even given a passing nod of consideration.
Being tried in federal court for same exact incident is OK only when the states have expressly constitutionally given the feds the specific power to make laws dealing with such an incident imo.
Otherwise, if feds have no express constitutional authority to make law then law is unconstitutional imo, based on state powers that the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification feds have stolen from the states.
The congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had put it this way about the fed’s constitutionally limited powers to make peacetime penal laws.
"... our Constitution never conferred upon the Congress of the United States the power - sacred as life is, first as it is before all other rights which pertain to man on this side of the grave - to protect it in time of peace by the terrors of the penal code within organized states; and Congress has never attempted to do it. There never was a law upon the United States statute-book to punish the murderer for taking away in time of peace the life of the noblest, and the most unoffending, as well, of your citizens, within the limits of any State of the Union, The protection of the citizen in that respect was left to the respective States, and there the power is to-day [emphases added].” —Rep. John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1866. (See bottom half of third column.)
A previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting Supreme Court justices had likewise clarified the fed’s constitutionally limited powers.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Patriots need to elect a new patriot Congress in the 2020 elections that will not only promise to support PDJT's vision for MAGA, now KAG, but will also do the following.
New patriot lawmakers also need to promise to work with PDJT in deciding the fate of people in prison for breaking a federal law that the feds never had the express constitutional authority to make.
Remember in November 2020!
MAGA! Now KAG!
This article is ridiculous. We have the best legal system that money can buy.
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