Don't agree with a single word you just wrote -- not a single one.
Tragedies include all sorts of situations where people have to exercise cold, sober decision making to stay alive. Happens all the time and people exhibit those properties.
I also believe the US Constitution, federal laws, state laws, county and municipal statutes all contain various expressed rights of people. The entire court system is predicated upon the notion that burden of proof is upon the accuser or prosecutor.
Without question many people are acquited who likely did the crime. Few are convicted who are actually innocent. A few more are convicted and then have their convictions later overturned due to changes in evidence or upon appeal process. Many times, these people acquited join the first category I described.
Ken
Ken, have you ever been arrested or given an extremely large ticketed fine for something you haven't done?
A scenario for you: You are home alone in the middle of a week. You're happy that you've been given a day off, and you're positive you're going to screw around on the computer for a little while. You hear a muffled gunshot. You sit thinking about whether it could've actually been a gunshot for a few seconds when you hear another. You're almost positive, but it sounded funny to you, so you head out to your backyard. When you look over the fence into your neighbor's yard, you see him there dying so you immediately dial 911. After a brief search, the police turn up the murder weapon in a nearby field. There is virtually no evidence and the gun has been wiped. You give your statement as the police treat you professionally, but you're able to pick up a slight air of contempt from them. A few weeks later, you're brought in for questioning much to your surprise. They ask you about 'your' 9MM pistol. You tell them that you haven't had one for a long time and they roll their eyes. You're frustrated and confused, so you start being rude to the cops about how you didn't do anything wrong and you were the one who showed up to help. They think the murder weapon is yours because you live in a state where pistols aren't registered and they don't know what happened to the one you used to have. His survivng family members have pointed out that you and the victim had neighborly arguments from time to time, and that he complained about you. They know you had an old 9MM.
Now you're arrested and subsequently shocked, embarassed and angry. There is no evidence that you've done anything wrong, but their circumstantial reasoning and evidence points to you as their only lead.
This can and does happen to people all the time. I know quite a few attorneys, and it's never as simple as having not enough evidence, especially in smaller jurisdictions. They can and will try you, and you can only hope the jury realizes that there is a HUGE reasonable doubt, but the family members of the victim are SURE you did it now. They trust that the police are doing the right thing because they've arrested you, and they're promised justice.
It's easy to talk about how the criminal justice system is supposed to work if you've never been through it. Grand Jurys assume that police have done their research and will put indicte just about anything. Rarely do warrants get denied, because they want to remain on a good working basis with officers.
Prosecutors don't worry about what's right and wrong, they worry about the task set before them.
Ciminal defense attorneys are not the scum of the earth, they are the last line of defense from having our rights stolen from us by politicians.
People assume that they could never be on the wrong side of the fence, because a lack of a criminal history and clearly it's 'a different kind of people' that get into trouble with the law. Having elitist beliefs are all fine and dandy until you get steamrolled.
Why should people not be allowed to carry sparkplugs?
