Friday, March 11, 2005
When will they ever learn?
Maybe when it gets personal?
Listening to coverage of the judge-killing in Atlanta.... Cavuto and Bill Bennett talked straight. Refreshing. I was genuinely surprised to hear that the Insane Clown Supremes now require defendants to be brought in unshackled and in street clothes.
Obviously this leaves plenty of room for mistakes. This rule wasn't imaginable in 1969. I was a nerdy little 120-pound white guy charged with smoking pot, but they had me thoroughly shackled and guarded the whole time. Exactly as it should be.
[Nerds aren't strong, but they are wily and rather famously vengeful. :) ]
At some point we really need to rethink the whole idea of presuming innocence. IT IS NOT, REPEAT NOT, REPEAT NOT, REPEAT NOT ANYWHERE, IN THE BLOODY CONSTITUTION, it's just a habit. And there's no proof that this habit actually helps anyone; when prosecutors feel their Wheaties, no amount of due process will stop them short of a conviction. But this habit does cost plenty of lives, as we've seen today. The idiot DA actually said that this Nichols dude "had no history of violence."
Utterly loony. ¶ 3:21 PM
Listening to coverage of the judge-killing in Atlanta.... Cavuto and Bill Bennett talked straight. Refreshing. I was genuinely surprised to hear that the Insane Clown Supremes now require defendants to be brought in unshackled and in street clothes.
Obviously this leaves plenty of room for mistakes. This rule wasn't imaginable in 1969. I was a nerdy little 120-pound white guy charged with smoking pot, but they had me thoroughly shackled and guarded the whole time. Exactly as it should be.
[Nerds aren't strong, but they are wily and rather famously vengeful. :) ]
At some point we really need to rethink the whole idea of presuming innocence. IT IS NOT, REPEAT NOT, REPEAT NOT, REPEAT NOT ANYWHERE, IN THE BLOODY CONSTITUTION, it's just a habit. And there's no proof that this habit actually helps anyone; when prosecutors feel their Wheaties, no amount of due process will stop them short of a conviction. But this habit does cost plenty of lives, as we've seen today. The idiot DA actually said that this Nichols dude "had no history of violence."
Utterly loony. ¶ 3:21 PM
