Just saying???

http://www.saccourt.ca.gov/general/public-cases/people-vs-hirschfield.aspx

However, I would love to know where the supposition that the prosecution doesn’t have any evidence put together for the case yet came from. The Bee just says it was postponed; I can’t find anything that says why it was postponed. I don’t doubt that it’s true, I’d just like to be able to back that up with fact…

The main change consisted of ending the practice of videotaping the interrogations (er, interviews) of the children as they were coerced into concocting lurid stories. Seeing the videotaped interrogations helped jurors come to the conclusion that the children’s testimony was coerced, so investigators stopped making the mistake of documenting the process.

As we see in Mr. Anderson’s link, the folks in the Lookout Mountain judicial district apparently weren’t smart enough to learn the lessons of the 1980′s. No doubt, that’s part of the reason Tonya Craft was acquitted.

True. A conviction is not necessary. The prosecution need merely insinuate that I obtained the money in those accounts illegally, and they can swoop down and steal it without proving that I did anything illegal at all.

But maybe that’s not what you were looking for.

A civil Servant that abuses his position to railroad a man into prison has a right to his pension? That is an interesting position. Care to defend it?

There is already solidarity among the cops. What is needed is some sense that by violating the most basic tenants of common decency, government functionaries risk serious punishment.

Defendants can ask for delays but that’s not the same as waiving a speedy trial right. Whether asking for a delay amounts to waiving the speedy trial right depends on a host of things, not least of which is whether we’re talking about the federal constitutional right, the state constitutional right (if there is one), or the state statutory right (if there is one).

The best that the defense lawyer can do is to argue that the delay has resulted in a violation of the right to a speedy trial. This is a complex issue and I don’t have the time to write an essay so here’s the executive summary: He’ll have to wait until a year has passed from the arrest or indictment before he has a chance to win that argument.

Can’t speak to this case because I know very little about it. But, as a generality, defense can expressly waive the right to a speedy trial. I’m not saying that it happened here, but it isn’t uncommon.

“…and complete loss of their pensions”. Do you lose your 401-k, IRA etc if convicted of a felony? Of course not. So why should a civil servant? The threat to a cop of losing his pension hardly stops police transgressions, but it surely helps solidify the solidarity, because a cop losing his pension is financially screwed.

Thank you for your response. I suspected that that was so, but wanted confirmation.

The nonsense of immunity really must cease. If this case is as it has been presented here (and it looks to me like it is), then everybody connected with the prosecution, and the judge who failed to throw this travesty out of court the instant the prosecution failed to produce the evidence, should be facing decades in jail and complete loss of their pensions. This. Must. Stop.

No.

The best that the defense lawyer can do is to argue that the delay has resulted in a violation of the right to a speedy trial. This is a complex issue and I don’t have the time to write an essay so here’s the executive summary: He’ll have to wait until a year has passed from the arrest or indictment before he has a chance to win that argument.

Ya know, in civil cases there is this thing called “summary judgment”. The idea is that one files a motion that says, in essence, “put up or shut up”, and the other side has to point to evidence that, if accepted by the jury, would win for him. If the other side can’t point to such evidence, the case is thrown out. Maybe it’s time for this in criminal cases….

Judges usually are in bed with prosecutors, and especially judges that are dealing with preliminaries as we see now. For all of the “innocent until proven guilty,” all of the stages from the arrest to the preliminary hearings to indictments are something akin to the old Roman Code in which the burden of proof was on the accused, not the accuser.

By merely claiming that Robert Adams is a child molester, the state has created a huge barrier that is impossible for him to overcome in these stages. When the state says it has a case, even if it does not have a case, it still has a case, according to the law. It is not right, but that is the system we have.