You folks are thinking that this guy was found guilty because of his silence. I’d say that the conviction was because of the facts. He did have a drunken blood/alcohol level, he was the driver of the car, he did kill the little girl and injure her mother and sister.
There is ZERO dispute about those facts. Zero.
The appeals court overturned his lower court conviction, and they were going to let this killer (67 mph in a 35 zone) WALK. Nothing against him. Nada. Free as a bird even though there is NO DOUBT that he killed that little girl.
The ‘silence’ was not about the certainty of the case against this killer. It wasn’t even crucial evidence in his behavior being calloused behavior. The 67/35 and the drunk driver are already evidence of callous disregard. That the man’s behavior (silence) is cited as additional circumstantial evidence of his state of mind is not even crucial. What do I think it meant? I think his behavior meant that he was trying to legally protect his butt from the consequences of what he’d just done, even though he knew he’d just done it.
EVERYONE knew he was guilty.
Do you want him to walk away from a murder, over which there is no dispute as to his guilt, over a legal technicality, when the court says he hadn’t even been arrested and people are free to infer what they want from his behavior prior to his arrest and Miranda reading?
Huge difference.
Actually his silence was used as evidence to support a higher charge, first degree manslaughter or second degree murder involving a reckless disregard for human life. It was the difference between a slap on the wrist and a long well deserved prison sentence.
There was no doubt that he was speeding and no doubt that he was drunk, but the silence following the accident was used as evidence to support the charge of reckless disregard for human life.
In this case his silence was construed as him saying to everyone around, “hey, I don’t give a damn about those people.” If he had shown some kind of remorse instead of just trying to hide the fact that he was drunk then it might have mitigated the charge down to involuntary manslaughter. Instead, because he showed indifference to his victims, his silence was highly relevant to the charge of reckless disregard for human life and as such the evidence should have been admitted and it properly was. In other words it was interpreted as saying “I don’t care about that little girl.”
I suspect that the mere fact that he was drunk shows a reckless disregard for human life, but sometimes a jury will only convict on that if the defendant is fall down drunk and in this case I believe the prosecution felt that additional evidence was necessary and fought for the inclusion of his callous silence as evidence of his state of mind.
I have yet to see a single poster give me a valid constitutional argument for his silence prior to being given his Miranda warning as violative of the original intent of the first amendment. It was evidence of his behavior and his mental state. It was the nail in the coffin to prove that he really had no concern for either his possible victims while driving the car drunk, or the actual victims that he killed and maimed.
Amazingly I suspect that if this thread were over on DU or some liberal site, that I would get the same arguments from the liberal posters over there that I have been getting from the Conservatives here, i.e., that this man’s CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS were violated by the evil prosecutors.
What a bunch of malarkey. He violated some 8 year old girl’s right to life. He should not be given the benefit of the doubt as to whether his silence was the exercise of some right or an attempt to shield himself from the consequences of his actions. His silence in this case spoke volumes about his mental state at the time of the accident. You don’t incriminate yourself when you show compassion for the dying victims in a car wreck that you caused. However it is clear that you do incriminate yourself when you callously ignore their plight and think only of yourself and button your lip to the point where you clearly show no concern for anyone other than yourself.
In the absence of the evidence of his silence, then he might have gotten away with a slap on the wrist rather than a well deserved prison sentence. The Fifth Amendment was never intended to prevent the introduction of evidence of callousness towards the victims of the crime. He may have been attempting to preserve his constitutional right to remain silent, but sometimes invoking your constitutional right says a lot about your state of mind and where it is relevant and in the interests of justice, it should be admitted.
The point I am raising is that to use silence as a means to even contribute to a guilty verdict is morally reprehensible because of the inherent injustice.
See Posts: #150, #163, #168.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Court of Appeal did not order him freed. They ordered that he be re-tried, with all of the same evidence against him (the speeding, the blood alcohol level, etc.), except for the prosecutor's argument that he should have asked about the occupants of the car he hit.