The "beyond the shadow of a doubt" standard....
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/07/professor.terror.ap/index.html
This is the reason we can't be putting enemy combatants through trials in the U.S. Our system is designed to ensure that we should allow most guilty people to go free rather than condemn an innocent person, in following the "beyond the shadow of a doubt" doctrine.
I, for one, would feel better about UBL being tried as an enemy combatant and hidden in a secret CIA prison than tried by the Orenthal J. Simpson jury. I realize we are talking about two extremes of a continuum but, if we simply legislate that the CIA cannot have secret prisons and incarcerate enemy combatants, then we've gone to the other extreme. What would keep us safer? I'd appreciate any arguments that do not contain any references to Japanese Americans in WWII, as I have already read the "joke of the day" for today.
posted by Centerline @ 10:00 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Come on CL, "our system is designed to ensure that we should allow most guilty people to go free rather than condemn an innocent person"? That's an exaggeration in the extreme.
Quite frankly, it sounds like the government did not prove their case. I quote, "A juror said he did not see the case as a First Amendment issue, as defense attorneys had claimed, explaining that the decision came down to lack of proof. 'I didn't see the evidence,' he said. Jurors names were kept secret by the court."
I am so pissed off about these secret prisons... If they are not a big deal, why in the hell do we not bring them here? That is such BULLSHIT!
We will not be safer if we all become fascists in the process.
Of course the system is designed to do just that. Beyond the shadow of a doubt is an extremely high standard to meet. Think about it - our entire legal system is predicated on the fact that the entire burden of proof falls on the accuser.
This is not, by any means, an indictment of the system. Rather, it is a recognition that it is inadequate to treat enemy combatants. In defending their interests, nations must by necessity set the standard below that of the criminal justice system.
If someone like Abu Hamza Rabia gets captured and brought to a prison in the U.S., it is obvious, at least to me, that we would either (a) not get a conviction; or (b) significantly compromise the operational processes and methods that led to his capture or, more likely (c) both.
I refer you once more to Orenthal James Simpson. Or perhaps Robert Blake. I can see UBL walking out of the courtroom with Ramsey Clark by his side suing the U.S. for wrong imprisonment.
Agree with Centerline here....our tort system here is based on the fact that it is better to have 10 guilty men walk than one free man go to jail. Let's not ignore the fact that people we caught, sent to Gitmo, and released were met again on the battlefield. So yes, Carl is right...the prisons are bullshit....shallow graves would have worked better for me!
First, it's not "beyond the shadow of a doubt", its "beyond REASONABLE doubt". Second, if you want further proof that innocent men going to prison in our system happens all of the time, look at all of the people released from prison over the past few years after DNA exonerated them. One was just let go in Georgia today.
Transparency of government is one of the keys of our success. I don't like secret courts, secret prisons, secret police, or secret anything as it relates to "protecting" us. The Nazi's justified almost everything they did in their rise to power by pointing at the dangers of communism. No, I'm not comparing the current administration to Nazi's. However, using a perceived threat to change established norms of society is a very, very old strategy indeed.
We're going to have to agree to disagree, Mr. Spackler. Semantical differences will not change my basic argument.
Secret CIA prisons have just now come to light. But who is to say they haven't been around? And we may all have been fat, dumb and happy about them until the CIA itself leaked it - in an obvious attempt to add more fuel to the anti-Bush fire.
What we do know for sure is that the enemy we are fighting is not subject to the Geneva convention - nor, when captured off-shore, protected by our Constitution.
We also know that torture is a very relative term, as of yet undefined in law. As an example, Saddam Hussein thinks of not changing his underwear for three days in a row as torture. Meanwhile, I doubt Monsieur Chirac has the same definition. I think of listening to "It's all about the Benjamins," from P-Diddy, instead of NPR, while riding Nym Pseudo's car, as torture - whereas he clearly enjoys it. The death penalty is neither cruel nor unusual in the U.S. - but it is both in Europe. And so forth.....
And, under their definition of torture, Rummy, Cheney, Condi and Bush contend that it is illegal. And that when it happens it is isolated and prosecuted. Do you have any information to which I am not privvy?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against using "coercive" means to get information from these guys in some situations. In fact, I really have no problem with much of the stuff that went on at Abu Ghraib. However, the furtiveness of the entire thing is what is undermining our credibility.
By trying to hide what we are doing, we are admitting that we basically think it's wrong. What other reason would there be to hide it? We should want the terrorist's to know what will happen to them if we catch them.
The way I look at it, terrorists are like a tractor trailer heading for our USA Chevrolet. If we do not stay alert, that tractor trailer will flatten our vehicle and us in it. However, secret prisons and torture, are like slow salt water corrosion to our Chevy. It may take longer, but if we don't stop it, our Chevy will still be a pile of junk. We may still be alive in this scenario, but it will not be the life we have come to expect for over 200 years.
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