Comments on: California Punishes Wrongfully Convicted Man a Second Time

By: chris

chris — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:06:55 +0000

hmm, if I commit mal-practice and some very ill person gets more ill, I lose my house. Why are these lawyes/judges treated so differently.

If a judge makes a terrible decision, or worse commits outright crime, where is the punishment?

Finally, why are lawyers and judges the ones responsible for managing lawyers and judges? Anyone think, just maybe, they’ll look out for their own?

By: Mark Z.

Mark Z. — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:30:28 +0000

Jimi G: You’re arguing for making the law unpredictable. This is a bad thing. The law is complicated enough without every single judge pulling a different interpretation out of his ass. Can you imagine writing a contract under that system?

By: Jimi G

Jimi G — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:45:13 +0000

“Plea bargains should be abolished. If the state can really prove a person committed a crime, the person should be punished. If the state can’t prove it, the person should go 100% free. Plea bargains serve to ‘equalize’ the treatment of the guilty and the innocent, never minding that their treatment isn’t SUPPOSED to be equal (or even close to it).”

I’ll up the ante. Stare decisis, the principle of using established case law as precedent, should be eliminated as well. Every case should be decided fresh by actual individuals involved in adjudicating the case.

By: chsw

chsw — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:44:39 +0000

Perhaps James Ochoa should contact the attorney for the Duke lacrosse players. Same s@#$, different state.

chsw

By: tarran

tarran — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:58:13 +0000

Lloyd Flack, it is already illegal: it’s called denying someone their civil rights under color of authority, and is a federal felony.

of course, it is rarely enforced.

By: matt

matt — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:01:31 +0000

i see what fitzgerald did to ochoa as a form extortion. i know it wasn’t for money or property, as the actual definition states, but he did intimidate and coerce ochoa to obtain a guilty plea. what else you would call it?

By: Lloyd Flack

Lloyd Flack — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:37:22 +0000

How about making it a criminal offence for a prosecutor and possibly a judge to obtain a guilty plea from an innocent person? The prosecutor would have to show that it was reasonable at the time to believe beyond reasonable doubt that the victim was in fact guilty. Recklessness and tunnel vision should at the very least cost prosecutors their jobs.

By: supercat

supercat — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:51:23 +0000

Plea bargains should be abolished. If the state can really prove a person committed a crime, the person should be punished. If the state can’t prove it, the person should go 100% free. Plea bargains serve to ‘equalize’ the treatment of the guilty and the innocent, never minding that their treatment isn’t SUPPOSED to be equal (or even close to it).

By: Burdell

Burdell — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:44:01 +0000

It’s also worth noting that the exact opposite argument was use against Genarlow Wilson in Georgia. There the prosecutor argued Wilson deserved to be in prison because he could have taken a plea bargain and didn’t.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

By: Burdell

Burdell — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:41:43 +0000

If two private parties entered into a contract under similar circumstances as that plea bargain, very few—if any—courts would blink twice before holding it voidable.

If the principles of duress and undue influence protect you from other private individuals, why shouldn’t they protect you even more so from the state, which wields much more awful power?

By: Leshrac

Leshrac — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:23:44 +0000

I can’t understand where there is obvious and provable evidence of a malicious prosocution that the DA’s don’t lose their jobs. IMMEDIATELY!!

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:28:34 +0000

I live in Buena Park. A lot of the cops here are a-holes so it doesn’t surprise me that Ochoa got the treatment. Typical CAlifornia BS. The OC Weekly has done a great job of exposing police brutality, psychological and physical.