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In 1995, a group of men burst into a New Orleans home in search of money and drugs. They ordered those inside to lie down and then opened fire, killing five innocent people. One man, Larry Boatner, survived the violence and identified Juan Smith as one of the assailants.
Boatner’s testimony was the only evidence presented at trial, and it proved persuasive enough to convince a jury. Juan Smith was convicted of murder.
There was, however, a problem. The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office decided to hide relevant information from both Smith’s lawyers and the jury: mere hours after the slayings, Boatner told police he could only describe the gunmen as black men, and five days later, Boatner said he never saw the intruders’ faces.
Smith’s conviction was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the conviction yesterday in an 8-1 ruling. The court majority found that the relevant evidence obviously needed to be shared with the defendant’s attorney as part of the discovery process. The question before the court was whether the disclosure of the evidence would have affected the outcome of the trial, and eight of the nine justices endorsed common sense and said it would.
As Adam Liptak reported, Clarence Thomas disagreed.
Justice Thomas’s dissent, at 19 pages, was almost five times as long as the majority opinion. “The question presented here is not whether a prudent prosecutor should have disclosed the information that Smith identifies,” Justice Thomas wrote.
Rather, he wrote, the question was whether Mr. Smith had not shown a reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different conclusion had it known of the undisclosed statements. Justice Thomas said a careful review of the balance of the evidence demonstrated that nothing would have changed.
Has Thomas never heard of “reasonable doubt”? Prosecutors had no fingerprints, no weapon, no DNA, and no physical evidence of any kind. They had one witness, who said he never saw the faces of the murderers.
A Supreme Court justice believes a jury wouldn’t have cared about these details at all?
How did this guy end up on the bench?
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kama on January 11, 2012 12:41 PM:
Need some kind of adjective thingy in the first sentence there young man.
SadOldVet on January 11, 2012 12:42 PM:
How did this guy end up on the bench?
Rhetorical question, I hope!
G.W. Bush needed a minority to appoint and Clarence had proven that he was a good n!gger from a republican, corporate perspective.
Plus Antonin Scalia needed a shadow!
MBunge on January 11, 2012 12:42 PM:
Perhaps Jeffrey Toobin could chime in and explain how this demonstrates the awesome intellect that is Clarence Thomas.
Mike
mk3872 on January 11, 2012 12:44 PM:
Perhaps the spineless Dems in Congress in the 1980's should have given in and approved Bork instead?
If they had, Bork would be in his mid-80's nearing retirement by now
c u n d gulag on January 11, 2012 12:45 PM:
Well, he may be a self-hating black man who was a judge, but he was their self-hating black man who was a judge!
Somewhere, Thurgood Marshall must still be asking Honus Wagner what it felt like to look down and have Mario Mendoza play SS for the Pirates.
No, from what I know, at least Mario Mendoza was a nice guy.
So this analogy doesn't quite work.
Mario Mendoza would have to have been a sociopath for this analogy to work.
There's something seriously wrong with Clarence Thomas. I don't think even Freud would want to analyze that mind.
schtick on January 11, 2012 12:46 PM:
How did this guy end up on the bench?
Haven't you heard of republicans? Facts, truth, common sense and reason has no place in anyone that even resembles a republican.
crapcha....Yasha drawkg....who is Yasha? Yoshi's twin?
JS on January 11, 2012 12:51 PM:
The people who put Thomas on the bench were tired of getting criticized for always saying "The Justice is near" when Thurgood Marshall's name came up.
Old Uncle Dave on January 11, 2012 12:52 PM:
Thomas disagreed with Scalia? Now *that* is surprising!
Sgt. Gym Bunny on January 11, 2012 12:53 PM:
Has Thomas never heard of “reasonable doubt”? Prosecutors had no fingerprints, no weapon, no DNA, and no physical evidence of any kind.
Please! Only if there's a poor black conservative cowering at the mercy of a big, bad white librul lynch-mob is "reasonable doubt" applicable... even if there is a coil of pubic hair suggesting otherwise...
JS on January 11, 2012 12:54 PM:
P.S. ... GONG!!!
stormskies on January 11, 2012 12:59 PM:
I bet he fucks his white wife with that liberty hat thing on her stupid head ......
a on January 11, 2012 1:07 PM:
How does Justice Thomas know what a jury would have decided? The point of a trial by jury is that the jury weighs the evidence, not the judge. Thomas doesn't get to come in after the fact and weigh evidence they didn't hear and come to a conclusion on their behalf.
c u n d gulag on January 11, 2012 1:12 PM:
stormskies,
Was that necessary?
Now I won't be able to get that image out of my head.
And after seeing what she looks like, I suspect he throws a flag over that face, and f*cks her "For Old Glory!"
And probably looking at porn, knowing she can't see what he's doing.
ottercliff on January 11, 2012 1:18 PM:
Maybe Thomas could help us further understand his reasoning. Oh, wait, he doesn't speak.
majun on January 11, 2012 1:21 PM:
The New Jersey Courts just decided a major case this past summer, Henderson v. State of New Jersey, which thoroughly revamps the way in which eyewitness testimony and eyewitness identification is handled in criminal cases in New Jersey. Clarence Thomas needs to read that case and see how real judges decide the issue, then reconsider his dissent. Or better yet, maybe Chris Christie will consider a straight out swap - one of the judges from the Henderson case for Clarence Thomas.
Josef K on January 11, 2012 1:25 PM:
How did this guy end up on the bench?
Mind control of the Senate Judiciary Committee is about the only rational explanation I can conceive.
Or Specter and company simply found him sufficiently non-threatening (and making sufficiently sympathetic noises after the Hill testimony) that they approved this idiot.
Joseph P. on January 11, 2012 1:29 PM:
Thomas is of course wrong on the point of whether the information in this particular case would result in reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt.
But Thomas is also wrong on the more general question---is the burden of proof on the defense to show that prosecutor misconduct was instrumental in his being found guilty. If that was true, then there would be no reason for prosecutors not to withhold evidence, misrepresent, etc., because the only consequence would be if the defendant could show that their misconduct resulted in his conviction. And this is provided that the defendant even finds out in the first place about the misconduct.
If prosecutors are found to have done such improper acts as hiding evidence in a case, then the whole case can be thrown out, regardless of whether or not that misconduct had an effect on the case's outcome. The defense does not have a burden to show anything at all in this regard.
That the burden of proof lies on the defendant to show that prosecutorial misconduct resulted in a negative result is really an outrageous opinion for anyone interested in a fair court system (let alone a Supreme Court Justice) to entertain. What is this man thinking? Where did he go to law school?
Robert on January 11, 2012 1:29 PM:
"How did this guy end up on the bench?"
Nominated by a republican President, confirmed by the senate with some significant help from one Joseph Biden.
One more reason I would not mind a different VP candidate on Obama's ticket in 2012.
Mudge on January 11, 2012 1:31 PM:
Ahh..the New Orleans prosecutor's office again. Withholding evidence again. Must be a coincidence, though.
Brian R. on January 11, 2012 1:35 PM:
"How did this guy end up on the bench?"
By being a black man willing to say that a vague statement that "it was a black man" is grounds enough to convict any black man of any crime. That was good enough for the GOP.
Julie on January 11, 2012 1:40 PM:
stormskies and c u n d gulag, your comments are wildly inappropriate.
Think before you post.
rh on January 11, 2012 1:44 PM:
The real question isn't how this guy ended up on the bench. It's how someone who is capable of an opinion like this ever had the nerve to declare himself a victim of a "lynching."
c u n d gulag on January 11, 2012 1:46 PM:
Julie,
Yeah, but stormskies STARTED it!
Seriously, though - you're right.
I got carried away.
AGAIN!
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 1:46 PM:
Any of you people actually, you know, read Thomas' dissent?
Anyone?
Thought not. There is ample room to disagree with Thomas' reasoning without resorting to denigrating his competence.
The account Liptak provides is, by necessity, limited. It doesn't do justice to the entirety of Thomas' reasoning.
As for those of you who'd rather resort to slimy speculations about interracial sex, do us all a favor and go join the Klan.
Andrew J. Lazarus on January 11, 2012 1:47 PM:
Thomas thinks they all look alike
schtick on January 11, 2012 1:50 PM:
After thinking about Thomas getting on the court, I was recalling the Anita Hill part of the hearings. IMO I think she was harassed by this guy (Herman Cain reminds me of him) and I believe every word she said. Which is why I think he got confirmed.
Did anyone notice, besides me, how she was asked the exact same question about the "long dong silver" crap by every single member of that committee, not once, not twice, but several times and they all had one hand under the desk?
They all moaned yes and I don't think they were confirming HIM. Ahem.
Julie on January 11, 2012 2:05 PM:
c u n d gulag: :)
Quaker: There's a point at which a person takes expert opinion and believes it. What that point is and how "expert" the expert actually is vary wildly. When I see something posted by Benen, I believe it. He is an "expert" I have decided is a reliable source.
In addition, I have read legal opinions and come to one conclusion, and then had a lawyer friend explain to me why I am wrong in my interpretation. Ergo, on legal opinions, I am especially circumspect.
The whole idea of running down your sources has only limited value.
Justice Thomas has consistently shown himself to be a bad justice, in my opinion. He got on to the SCOTUS because the Republicans wanted to disprove charges of racism - exactly why an idiot like Herman Cain ("Libya..?") could rise so high with them. I find Thomas incompetent, and it's tragic for this country.
Do you want to get into a point-by-point argument of his incompetence? The burden seems to be on you to prove that he *is* competent.
(And yes, absolutely there are inappropriate comments here. Let's ignore them as much as we can. Inappropriateness is a universal, human trait.)
Nathan on January 11, 2012 2:14 PM:
Time limits on all federal judicial appointments please. Something reasonable like 12 years, perhaps 15 for the Chief Justice, with the option of being renominated by a future administration.
Ron Byers on January 11, 2012 2:18 PM:
Quaker in a Basement, you are right, none of us have taken the time to read the entire 19 page dissent. Apparently his reasoning wasn't sufficient to persuade any of the other justices. I don't think you want to live in a world where Prosecutor misconduct (and this is exactly what we are talking about) doesn't result in a mistrial. There are a lot of people who believe the ends justify the means so a Prosecutor is free to lie, hide and cheat, but the true end in the case of our justice system is not a conviction, but justice. The duty of any prosecutor is to insure justice is done, not to obtain an unjust conviction.
SadOldVet on January 11, 2012 2:36 PM:
re Ron Byers...
There are a lot of people who believe the ends justify the means so a Prosecutor is free to lie, hide and cheat, but the true end in the case of our justice system is not a conviction, but a television job for Nancy Grace after she get caught lying, hiding evidence and cheating as a prosecutor.
Booyah on January 11, 2012 2:40 PM:
Thomas is far and away the most incompetent jurist in the multiverse. Next to him Harriet Miers is a genius.
cmdicely on January 11, 2012 2:40 PM:
But Thomas is also wrong on the more general question---is the burden of proof on the defense to show that prosecutor misconduct was instrumental in his being found guilty.
Thomas appears to, at that level of analysis, be correct in stating the applicable standard that has been adopted in Brady, that a conviction will be overturned when evidence is withheld the evidence withheld is material to conviction, meaning that there would be a reasonable probability that conviction would not have been returned had the withheld evidence been presented. The majority opinion in the instant case recites the same standard that Thomas's dissent refers to here.
The essential disagreement -- is that the majority apparently (and, really, the majority should be chided for not calling this out more explicitly) finds that the nature of the evidence withheld in this case is sufficient, given that it would impeach the only evidence (the witness testimony) linking the defendant to the crime, to meet the burden of persuasion on reasonable probability and to shift the burden to the State to rebut, while Thomas purports not find the burden of persuasion met.
I say purports here because what Thomas actually does in his opinion is present a number of rebuttals based on speculation of what other information might have been provided by prosecutors, what different witnesses might have been called, and how those different witnesses might have testified, which amounts to granting that the burden of persuasion had been met and presenting arguments that might rebut the conclusion.
I'm not at all convinced that it is appropriate to consider what other evidence that prosecution might have presented as rebuttal to the reasonable probability argument; the appropriate standard is the evidence that was actually presented plus the direct impact of the withheld evidence. To credit the prosecution with evidence (physical or testimony) that they did not present in trial -- and thus which the defense had no proper opportunity to cross-examine or otherwise impeach at trial -- is improper, and compounds the violation of rights for which the reasonable probability test is merely a test for remedy, not for occurrence, with a further judicial violation of the right to confront witnesses.
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 3:07 PM:
The undisclosed evidence in question were the investigation notes of Det. Ronquillo, the lead investigator of the crime. It was in these notes that Det. Ronquillo wrote that Boatner was unable to provide a description of the assailant.
Nevertheless, Ronquillo himself testified at trial that Boatner provided a description of his attacker. It seems the detective is the one contradicting himself, not the victim of the crime.
Now you can disagree with Thomas about the significance of the withheld evidence. Or you can just go with the stories we like to tell ourselves about the awful Justice Thomas.
Folks too lazy to read anything more than Benen's retelling of Liptak's retelling of the Justice's opinion will take the easy way.
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 3:11 PM:
And thanks, cmdicely. That is how you make a case against Thomas' dissent. Very well played.
mudwall jackson on January 11, 2012 3:11 PM:
julie,
when it comes to the law, steve benen is no more an expert than you or i. that's not a put down of steve. he's not a lawyer. supreme court opinions and dissents generally are written well enough for a layperson to grasp the reasoning behind them. we're not talking about critiquing an astrophysicist's theoretical modeling of the universe here. you don't have to have a jd to know that bush v. gore was crock, for example. (oh and just cause a lawyer said your interpretation of an opinion was wrong, doesn't make it so.)
not to defend clarence thomas but ... there is a difference between being a bad justice and an incompetent one. thomas isn't an idiot. to call him that is just taking the easy way out and negatively labeling someone with which we vehemently disagree. thomas will go down in history as a justice consistently on the wrong side of the law. that doesn't make him incompetent. just wrong.
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 3:33 PM:
Here's the deal, folks.
Mr. Boatner was a victim of a terrible crime. He was assaulted, had a gun shoved in his face, was pistol-whipped, and he saw five of his friends murdered.
Boatner provided police with a description of his assailant at the scene, at the police station, in a photo lineup, and at trial.
The defendant in the case claims that the failure of the prosecutor to turn over one detective's notes invalidate the verdict. The legal question the Court decides is not whether the notes should have been turned over--all nine agree on that point. The question they decided was whether there is sufficient reason to believe the verdict would have been different if the evidence had been shared.
Reasonable people can argue that eight justices are right and Thomas is wrong. Readily throwing the victim of a murderous attack overboard isn't the best way to go about it.
Diane Rodriguez on January 11, 2012 3:35 PM:
How was Thomas elevated to the Supreme Court? I suspect liberal guilt, via fear of being labeled racist, was the strongest motivator.
Jimo on January 11, 2012 3:51 PM:
"Any of you people actually, you know, read Thomas' dissent?
Anyone?"
Actually, yes. And it was very unconvincing.
The question is a distinction from evidence that merely suggests the possibility that the evidence in question would have altered the jury's finding of facts vs. the reasonable probability that the evidence would have lead to a different verdict. (Burden of proof on the accused, a/k/a, the convicted.)
Because the suppressed evidence does not clearly show that the eye-witness was a liar or certainly confused, Thomas believes that the 'mere possibility' option is the correct one. Discrepancies in eye-witness statements are hardly unheard of.
Nevertheless, Thomas' evaluation is incorrect. The suppressed statement directly contradicts the substance of later statements on a key point. There is no obvious way that both the initial and later statements can both be true. The discrepancy is not 'de minimus.' The evidence was suppressed by the prosecutor precisely for this reason. The jury was unable to evaluate fully the credibility of the witness and therefore the entirety of the conviction is tainted.
Thomas' dissent is not incompetent nor does it betray his responsibility as a Justice. It does, however, show considerably poor judgment in balancing society's interest in the finality and certainty of judgments versus society's (and the defendant's!) interest in not having those accused of crimes be railroaded by prosecutor's taking advantage of their inherently superior knowledge and access to all the evidence available.
chi res on January 11, 2012 3:56 PM:
stormskies and c u n d gulag, your comments are wildly inappropriate
Hell, did that SOPA bill already pass?!?
Looks like we've been assigned a guv'mint censor!
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 4:02 PM:
Actually, yes. And it was very unconvincing.
And the rest of your post is convincing, Jimo. You argue against Thomas' dissent appropriately. Taking a predictable whack at a favorite villain--as Steve and commenters have done--is cheap and lazy.
royalblue_tom on January 11, 2012 4:06 PM:
According to Thomas's own dissent
So to categorise it as "one detective's notes" is a bit unfair, especially after taking the forum to task for not reading the dissent.
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 4:26 PM:
So to categorise it as "one detective's notes" is a bit unfair,
Congratulations on enduring the difficult slog through the actual opinion. Let's hope your experience gives others courage.
There were many notes withheld that provided evidence that could have been favorable to Smith's defense. However, only one officer's notes related to Boatner's ability to identify Smith. So "one detective's notes" is not only fair, it is accurate.
chi res on January 11, 2012 4:26 PM:
You argue against Thomas' dissent appropriately.
Oops! Make that two!
(good thing americanist isn't here; s/he'd be jealous!)
Old Uncle Dave on January 11, 2012 5:04 PM:
How is it one eyewitness is enough to prove a crime and send someone to prison, but multiple eyewitnesses are not enough to prove the existence of ufos?
theAmericanist on January 11, 2012 6:26 PM:
I don't think you guys are characterizing Thomas' dissent right.
Translated into English, he seems to have essentially said: 'Okay -- but so what?' You're all taking for granted that 'so what' is established by stating what you think, but that's not his argument.
All the justices agreed that the prosecution should have turned the notes over to the defense. But only Thomas said -- nobody proved that would have made any difference.
None of YOU proved it would make any difference; you've all just said 'well, of course it would have.'
If you want to actually engage Thomas' argument, either prove that it would have made a difference in this case (granted, that's hard to do, but that's not his point), or show a case where turning over evidence like this WOULD have made the difference between guilty and not-guilty, but the logic of Thomas' argument would mean that the prosecution wouldn't turn it over.
Thomas merely said: nobody proved that the defense lost this case because the prosecution didn't give 'em the notes. Somebody came close to engaging that argument by saying it would have convinced THEM if the defense had been able to show that a witness's contemporaneous notes contradicted their trial testimony, but that's not proof. Besides, SCOTUS isn't re-trying the case. So that argument ain't worth anything (which is doubtless why Dice likes it.)
So -- to actually refute Thomas' argument -- you have to show an example where turning over evidence like this WOULD have made the difference for a not-guilty verdict, but Thomas's reasoning would have excluded it.
Since Thomas (along with the other 8 justices) all agree that THIS evidence should have been turned over, there really isn't much to your 'argument' such as it is, except a slightly elevated version of the slurs by gulag, et al.
Quaker in a Basement on January 11, 2012 6:39 PM:
Good comment, theAmericanist.
A little more: the majority decides the undisclosed evidence is material because it potentially impeaches the testimony of the only eyewitness. According to the majority, under the Brady decision, this is a sufficient basis for materiality.
On the other hand, Thomas cites Strickler v. Greene and writes that the majority is looking at the burden of proof backwards. The majority places the burden on the state to discount materiality. Thomas interprets Strickler as placing the burden on the defendant to demonstrate materiality.
Is Thomas right? I have my doubts, given the lopsided nature of the outcome. In the end, I'm just happy to see the discussion elevated, however slightly.
theAmericanist on January 11, 2012 7:14 PM:
Like my father before me, I' m a 'dese, 'dem, and 'dose kinda guy. If you can't explain something in simple terms, I figure it's not because I can't understand it -- it's because YOU don't.
Somebody is presumed innocent -- until they are proven guilty. Once they're convicted, the courts assume they were guilty unless and until somebody proves that the original conviction was SO flawed that it doesn't count anymore.
I haven't seen that any of his 8 colleagues disagreed with Thomas' dissent. They decided the case the other way but that doesn't require that they even engage his reasoning. In fact, the whole point of being the sole dissent to a decision may be that one Justice saw something the others did not.
But I'm doing something here that's distinct from what the rest of you seem to want -- basically, you think the Supreme Court should have decided (should have been deciding) whether the defense could have won if they had the notes, cuz that is the issue that Thomas raised. I don't think that's the issue he raised.
I'm noting that he merely said (granted, for like 17 pages): "So what?"
The proper response to that isn't "This what! asshole", which is more or less the erudite version of every other poster here.
It's to show how evidence like this, withheld by the prosecution like this, would have determined guilt or innocence -- but the logic of Thomas' dissent would uphold a guilty decision by affirming the right of the prosecution to withhold it.
Since Thomas agreed with the other 8 Justices that New Orleans should have turned over the notes, I don't think you can make that argument.
But if you were serious, you'd TRY.
ET on January 11, 2012 10:02 PM:
Thomas is EXACTLY wrong and I have to wonder if he actually understands the Brady decision.
AND this isn't the first NOLA/Connick conviction that Supreme Court has reversed though not with an almost UNANIMOUS decision.
jonas on January 11, 2012 10:02 PM:
Thomas isn't an incompetent judge -- that's true. Just a nakedly partisan and ideological one. But that's a little bit like saying "Bob isn't a bad pilot, he just refuses to land the plane at the designated airport if he doesn't feel like it." So what's the point?
CDWard on January 12, 2012 2:56 AM:
Thomas should be impeached for failing to recuse himself in Bush v. Gore while his wife was working for the Bush transition team.
Patango on January 12, 2012 9:19 AM:
Just because a person goes to law school and puts on a robe for a living , that does not recuse them from being an idiot...
I also like how no one is allowed to have an opinion on any ussc case unless they read everything that was said , I take it the snoots in here did that , before they attempted to degrade others for not reading everything available ?..
Some people have jobs and family with little time to do the foot work in understanding such cases, so we rely on journalist we have come to trust, to at least give us an over view so we can understand it some what , I would rather be able to discuses this with others who also have an opinion , limited , entertaining or vulgar as they may be , than just deciding everyone is to stupid to discuss ussc decisions at all , you might want to be thankful people bother to even get a little informed for that matter ....
theAmericanist on January 12, 2012 9:54 AM:
Patango: technically, what you're bitching about is an 'argument from authority'. That is, you say something like, 'gee, they should have known that Tebow was going to throw a Hail Marius on the first play in overtime', and somebody responds: well, I played high school football, so you're an asshole.'
If you choose to argue the point anyway, the effective way is to essentially reject the appeal to authority: 'who cares if you played center on a 5-6 team of teenagers ten years ago?' It doesn't make any difference -- they should have known Tebow was gonna go deep.'
Once you've rejected the other guy's appeal to his authority, you've basically got two disconnected assertions: he's said you're an asshole (implying that you're wrong), and you've said (twice) that they should've known what Tebow was going to do.
I'm pointing out that NEITHER of those engage the argument, which is pretty much parallel to what's been going on here about Justice Thomas's dissent.
Anybody can have an an opinion on anything, based on knowledge or ignorance as they choose. But I've found a whole lot of folks (notably some commenters here: they know their names) are essentially educated beyond their intelligence -- they make elaborate or implied arguments based on authority, when they've never really thought about it -- 'well, I read the case/went to law school/know the issue and therefore...', more or less like the guy who says he played high school football, so you're an asshole cuz you thought they shoulda known that Teebow was gonna throw deep. It's possible that their high school football knowledge is relevant, and even proves a point -- they just didn't make one.
It's usually simpler than that. You don't have to read the dissent to recognize the issue: Thomas entirely conceded that the prosecution should have turned over the notes, and added: 'so what?'
Folks who cannot explain simply what their response to that IS, not in terms of case law and stuff they've read but you haven't, generally don't actually understand it themselves -- sorta like a doctor who tells you that your problem is a series of invented terms derived from Greek that boil down to you need to take aspirin for a week and pay him $400, and we'll see if it goes away cuz he has no clue why it hurts.
If you want to refute Thomas' actual argument, you have to show an example where withholding evidence (as the prosecution did in this case) that would have made the difference between guilt or innocence to the jury, and YET by Thomas' reasoning, the prosecution would have been justified in withholding it.
Since Thomas concurred with the other 8 Justices that the prosecution should have turned over the notes in this case, I don't think anybody's done it.
What's more telling, though, is that nobody has even TRIED.
Quaker in a Basement on January 12, 2012 2:04 PM:
I also like how no one is allowed to have an opinion on any ussc case unless they read everything that was said , I take it the snoots in here did that , before they attempted to degrade others for not reading everything available ?..
Well, excuse us "snoots". Feel free to pontificate to your contentment without an understanding of the simplest facts of the case.
Tell us, should we point and laugh at all lone dissenters or only when it's Clarence Thomas?
toowearyforoutrage on January 12, 2012 2:58 PM:
So, just so I'm clear on this...
If there were DNA evidence exonerating the defendant, someone ELSE's prints on a gun that was matched with ballistics, video of three guys that looked nothing like the defendant, and a contradiction by a nun who was hiding in the closet and the prosecution had not revealed ANY of this to the defense,...
THEN Justice Thomas gets to decide that the defendant was entitled to a conviction by jury? In less extreme cases, justices can determine the likelihood of a unanimous verdict of 12 random citizens who are cleared by the defense attorney rather than struck? We are content allowing a government appointed official well versed in law to decide on a man's fate whether it be a few weeks in the poke or death?
Okay. I suppose that system would work too. It's common enough in many nations and we don't hear citizens of THOSE countries complaining.
I'd been under the impression that Jefferson was on to something when he would have those judging subject to the same government authority as the defendant; I think empathy and detachment may have been the goals (I don't claim psychic channeling of founding fathers like conservatives often do.) Such common citizens would be in a position to counter law enforcement's historical fealty to those that employ them and the temptation to abuse their power over the populace.
I may be guilty of closed-mindedness on this point. Can we envision the possibility of allowing judges provided all relevant evidence to decide the fate of our citizens instead of 12 peers with the same facts? If so, why do we bother with the 12 yokels missing a day's work for $25 and lunch? I think what I'm hearing is that AFTER a conviction by a jury, tainted or otherwise, the defendant is no longer subject to the "reasonable doubt" nonsense. Judges have some OTHER standard they can choose from. One NOT outlined in the paper straightjacket we call our Constitution. An end-run around this inconvenient tradition is awfully useful and I'm sure will be used more and more frequently if we can just get more people to see the light that Justice Thomas finds so illuminating.
It'd be a whole lot cheaper and produce more efficient results to do away with the sixth amendment. This case would not even have arisen! Perhaps Mr. Thomas would like to have one of his little seminars on other advantages in striking down ill-advised "rights."
Patango on January 13, 2012 1:51 AM:
Quaker in a Basement on January 12, 2012 2:04 PM:
"Well, excuse us "snoots". Feel free to pontificate to your contentment without an understanding of the simplest facts of the case."
I'll refer you to the article by steve, the guy who successfully does this for a living , while your regulated to the back pages of no wheres ville, with an over rated opinion of yourself :)