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Among other reasons, because the DOJ accidentally leaked their internal communication about the case to the defense which turned out to be fairly exculpatory: h
by nullc 3y ago
Among other reasons, because the DOJ accidentally leaked their internal communication about the case to the defense which turned out to be fairly exculpatory: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6345276-Backpage-DOJ-2013-Memo.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6345276-Backpage-DOJ... https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6345275-Backpage-DOJ-2012-Memo.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6345275-Backpage-DOJ...
The defendants are precluded from using or mentioning any of this information even though it shows that the case is being wrongfully prosecuted because it is the state's attorney client privileged material which was released by mistake.
- reaperman 3y agoIt's crazy to me that our judicial system would be happy to knowingly find innocent people guilty, just because they feel like it's more important to pretend that exculpatory evidence simply doesn't exist.
- bawolff 3y agoI think its the lesser of two evils.
- starspangled 3y agoThe greater evil being what?
- Hendrikto 2y agoNot following due process.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Nevermark 2y agoDue process should always fall on the side of protecting the innocent. That would have been a nice constitutional / Bill of Rights principle. Or a Supreme Court standard. Instead many ways in which clearly innocent (or very likely innocent) people have been convicted or had appeals denied have been upheld, at the alter of not just due process, but at having no principle or procedure of adjusting due process in these cases. In this case, how can there be information that was not submitted directly to the court given its relevance to the case? Who had that information and withheld it? That should itself be criminal. (Some information may be sensitive - but courts already deal with that in other circumstances.) Due process adjustments for an "innocence protection principle" would still be reviewed by higher courts, so this could be a standard but rare practice with its own due process, without being a Wild West. -- No system for any large organization should provide no process for exceptions to accepted practice at the ground level to be escalated. Corporations, governments, social media sites, banks, etc. all end up crushing powerless people when they provide no recourse for unanticipated or ignored harm by the organization's current rules. Individual humans do not have a legal pass to say, "well I have these rules for myself, and they don't include effective review or action on information about my unjustly harming you." If an individual is notified of harm, their culpability starts then. Courts would consider systematically ignoring such communication to imply a significant increase in culpability - for an individual. Throwing away such communication would be interpreted as a conscious intention to continue harming.
- reaperman 2y agoI’d agree if we were talking about prosecutorial evidence. Citizens rights need to be respected by the state and police do have to do the hard work of real police work correctly. But for exculpatory evidence I’d really rather we just focus hard on not sending innocent people to prison or worse.
- BlackFly 3y agoIf you want a silver lining then consider that, unlike most trials, you know with much more certainty which is the just result. When that is not reached, or reached in a roundabout uncertain way (like the ongoing money laundering conviction) then you learn about the ways in which the legal system fails to be a justice system. Arguably we learn about things we should fix.