The Courts under Trump - Mega Thread

[ZRod]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

Did you consult Ric on this?

No, but he did watch an episode of Law and Order.

[knapplc]

18 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

When due process is thrown out, we've thrown out any pretense of being a country that believes in justice.

 

How was Kavanaugh denied due process?

 

Do you believe the FBI investigation which was limited by Trump and failed to interview either Blasey Ford or Kavanaugh about her testimony is evidence of justice?

[BigRedBuster]

32 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

They're ridiculous on their face

So, any woman who accuses a man is blatantly false.

 

Is this just with men who are Rs beside their names?

[Ulty]

31 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

no collaborating evidence

 

CORROBORATING evidence. The word is "corroborate." Jeezus Christ.

[TGHusker]

Just now, knapplc said:

 

How was Kavanaugh denied due process?

 

Do you believe the FBI investigation which was limited by Trump and failed to interview either Blasey Ford or Kavanaugh about her testimony is evidence of justice?

With due process the emphasis is on the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof is on the accuser's side and not the defendant.  The other way around is trying to answer the

question "When did you stop slapping your wife?".   The assumption is that you were slapping your wife.   All you have is denials - as it is impossible to prove a negative outside of your wife's own testimony. 

 

The testimony of both are now public record. Add to that the previous investigations by the FBI.   I do believe it would have been beneficial for the FBI to interview both again - It would be nice to get the FBI's take on a person to person interview.  Since this is basically a 'he said, she said' situation, the next step is to interview 'collaborating witnesses' or other collaborating evidence.  Which the FBI did and it produced nothing solid to support Ford. 

 

Again, I didn't have a horse in the race.  Do I think Kav is the best choice - No.  I think was is too tied to the hip to the Republican party but the same could be said of Obama's two nominees - presidents are more likely going to nominate people who are 'true to the party' besides being qualified jurists.    Again, elections have consequences and one of those consequences is that the elected president has the right to choose the person closest to his ideology and party.  The Repubs denied Obama of that right during his last year.   I had 2 others in mind who I felt were more qualified and would have been even more 'anathema' to the Dems. 

 

My concern is that the process is broke.  It is systematic of the bigger problem which is nothing new (Andrew Johnson, FDR both for example tried to stack the courts in their own unique way) - the SC is too political and what the Congress doesn't get done via law they (name the party) try to leave it to the court to rectify.  Thus every nomination becomes a political life or death nomination and the political battle is on.  I think Sen Sasse stated it well a few weeks ago - the problem lies with the Congress not doing its constitutionally mandated job well and punting too much responsibility to the courts and to the executive branch.

[TGHusker]

11 minutes ago, Ulty said:

 

CORROBORATING evidence. The word is "corroborate." Jeezus Christ.

WELL EXCUSE ME.  I'm typing too fast for my brain to think.  Thanks for the correction anyway. 

Oh, and Jeezus is spelled Jesus and he is The Christ.  Get to know Him. 

[knapplc]

14 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

With due process the emphasis is on the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof is on the accuser's side and not the defendant. 

 

This is what happened.

 

So how was Kavanaugh denied due process?

[Ric Flair]

9 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

This is what happened.

 

So how was Kavanaugh denied due process?

 

Not from the Dem/protestor side. The whole #BelieveSurvivors BS means that as soon as a woman accuses a man. She is presumed to be telling the truth and a “survivor,” which makes the man she has accused presumptively guilty.

 

It turns due process upon its head.

[TGHusker]

11 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

This is what happened.

 

So how was Kavanaugh denied due process?

Maybe this is just me personally, but it appears to me, Kav was deemed unqualified for the court (by the dems, the press, the protestors, and too many others) based on accusation and not by actual 'conviction'.  The conclusion was made based on the 'seriousness of the allegation' (yes that is a phrase from decades ago - 1980 - Tom Foley (D) House Speaker who said: "The seriousness of the charge mandates that we investigate this." "Even though there is no evidence," he said, "the seriousness of the charge is what matters." )

 

Related, here is a interesting article on  the subject I just found regarding  "the presumption of innocence".

 

http://time.com/5417005/presumption-of-innocence-history/

 

Quote

 

The news has also drawn attention to a fundamental principle of law that, it turns out, is more complicated than it seems: the presumption of innocence.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has defended Kavanaugh on the principle that he is innocent until proven guilty, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made the point that the hearings are not a lawsuit and thus the legal presumed innocence rule is basically irrelevant. The two senators, despite working within the same system, are able to find very different guidance from the same concept. But that gap isn’t what’s surprising, says François Quintard-Morénas, a lawyer and the author of a 2010 article on the history of the presumption of innocence in The American Journal of Comparati

What he does find “ironic” is which senator is on which side, as the narrowing of the concept is due in part to decades of effort by American conservatism.

“Schumer is not technically wrong,” Quintard-Morénas tells TIME. “Over time, the principle in the United States has been weakened considerably, for various reasons and mostly by conservative justices who didn’t want to expand the principle beyond the court of law.”

In examining the history of the idea, Quintard-Morénas went way back. He found that the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi put the burden of proof on the accuser; that the ancient Greek statesman Demosthenes wrote about the importance of not calling people criminals before they were convicted; that a key third-century Roman legal document set forward rules about the evidence an accuser must supply; and that a Medieval European legal principle specified that conviction, not accusation, defined a criminal. Roman legal codes with clear analogs in U.S. law instructed judges to allow bail, treat defendants respectfully and conduct trials as speedily as possible so that the guilty and innocent could be properly sorted. An accused person was entitled to benefits that might be denied to a convict, such as conducting business or passing down an inheritance. The basic idea is, to Quintard-Morénas, a necessary logical premise for a functioning legal system.

ve Law.

 

The article gives more history lesson and concludes:

 

 

Quote

 

But in today’s world, of course, that fundamental principle isn’t simple either. For one thing, it would be extremely hard to actually enforce the presumption of innocence as anything other than a rule of evidence. Quintard-Morénas says he thinks that perhaps what the U.S. and the world need is a culture of respect, whereby both accuser and accused are heard properly without anyone jumping to conclusions either way. Echoing a position taken by other commentators, he says he’s glad that more sexual-misconduct accusers feel comfortable coming forward, but that he urges people at the same time to be careful about the impact of their words. Of course, he acknowledges, the better situation he envisions requires that accusers are listened to and not intimidated, and that both sides have faith in the judicial system working properly.

“I might be naïve. At the end of the day, everybody has an agenda, and you can see it in the Kavanaugh hearing,” he says. “I think we can get there and we’re probably not doing a good job today.”

 

 

[knapplc]

Just now, TGHusker said:

Maybe this is just me personally, but it appears to me, Kav was deemed unqualified for the court (by the dems, the press, the protestors, and too many others) based on accusation and not by actual 'conviction'.  The conclusion was made based on the 'seriousness of the allegation' (yes that is a phrase from decades ago - 1980 - Tom Foley (D) House Speaker who said: "The seriousness of the charge mandates that we investigate this." "Even though there is no evidence," he said, "the seriousness of the charge is what matters." ) 

 

You're saying we shouldn't have looked into the accusation? 

 

I'm confused. If a woman claims a man assaulted her, what is supposed to happen in this due process world you're talking about?  And how does that differ from what happened with Kavanaugh?

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

So, any woman who accuses a man is blatantly false.

 

Is this just with men who are Rs beside their names?

 

Nice strawman. I think accusers deserve to be heard and respected, not automatically believed.

 

The facts and evidence should determine who is ultimately believed.

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

 

Nice strawman. I think accusers deserve to be heard and respected, not automatically believed.

 

The facts and evidence should determine who is ultimately believed.

No, you said specifically that the accusations were "ridiculous on their face".  That means they were clearly false from the very beginning.

 

So....that could only mean that your mind was made up the minute they were put out......and you gave no ability for the accuser to be heard.

 

 

[Landlord]

12 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

 

Nice strawman. I think accusers deserve to be heard and respected, not automatically believed.

 

The facts and evidence should determine who is ultimately believed.

 

 

 

Says the guy with no evidence whatsoever of hearing/respecting Dr. Ford as an accuser, but seems to have automatically disbelieved from the second the accusation became public.

[Ric Flair]

17 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

No, you said specifically that the accusations were "ridiculous on their face".  That means they were clearly false from the very beginning.

 

So....that could only mean that your mind was made up the minute they were put out......and you gave no ability for the accuser to be heard.

 

 

 

On Swetnick’s allegations? Of course. The idea Brett Kavanaugh and his friends were drugging girls and engaging in industrial-scale gang rape, where there would be dozens of victims and hundreds of witnesses and that was never reported and never even hinted at in 6 FBI background checks?

 

Yeah...anyone with a brain knew that one was crazy from the start.

[BigRedBuster]

1 minute ago, Ric Flair said:

 

On Swetnick’s allegations? Of course. The idea Brett Kavanaugh and his friends were drugging girls and engaging in industrial-scale gang rape, where there would be dozens of victims and hundreds of witnesses and that was never reported and never even hinted at in 6 FBI background checks?

 

Yeah...anyone with a brain knew that one was crazy from the start.

 

We haven't been talking about Swetnick.  Are you