Strange American Verdicts

[En_Route]

If you want a pair, a mobster was acquitted of paying a bribe that a judge was convicted of taking.

are you thinking of f theAleman case?

Uh, it's been a while.

excellent. it can remain one of thhe great legal conundrums of themilennium.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't use conundrums. Religious reasons.

[En_Route]

not even the sherbert- flavoured ones?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

not even the sherbert- flavoured ones?

Is that the ones Sherbert George Wells invented?

[Collector1337]

The Zimmerman verdict wasn't strange or ludicrous. Anyone who would say that, doesn't know the facts of the case. It was absolutely appropriate and expected.

[mistermack]

If you want a pair, a mobster was acquitted of paying a bribe that a judge was convicted of taking.

are you thinking of f theAleman case?

Whatever, it illustrates the faults with the double-jeapordy rule.

Sounds like the mobster got to the jury as well.
If you can't be re-tried after an acquittal, it's a gift to mobsters.

[Collector1337]

If you want a pair, a mobster was acquitted of paying a bribe that a judge was convicted of taking.

are you thinking of f theAleman case?

Whatever, it illustrates the faults with the double-jeapordy rule.

Sounds like the mobster got to the jury as well.
If you can't be re-tried after an acquittal, it's a gift to mobsters.

No, double jeopardy is a great rule, especially for regular guys like you or me. If you doubt this, then you've never gone through an exhausting and stressful trial that will decide the rest of your life. When you are finally acquitted, it would be insane to put someone through that again. We should be lucky we have that rule. Remember, 10 guilty men going free is worth 1 innocent man being exonerated.

[Daedalus]

If you want a pair, a mobster was acquitted of paying a bribe that a judge was convicted of taking.

are you thinking of f theAleman case?

Whatever, it illustrates the faults with the double-jeapordy rule.

Sounds like the mobster got to the jury as well.
If you can't be re-tried after an acquittal, it's a gift to mobsters.

No, double jeopardy is a great rule, especially for regular guys like you or me. If you doubt this, then you've never gone through an exhausting and stressful trial that will decide the rest of your life. When you are finally acquitted, it would be insane to put someone through that again. We should be lucky we have that rule. Remember, 10 guilty men going free is worth 1 innocent man being exonerated.

This is absolutely true, IMO, but even more because a government is ALWAYS going to have the resources to grind you down to powder in the process. A private citizen can't compete with the resources of a nation to defend themselves endlessly, and from a humanitarian and fiscal standpoint it would be insane.

[En_Route]

The DJ rule is now qualified in England and Wales for inter alia murder and rape where the Courtof Appeal finds that " new and compelling evidence " has come to light. It is clearly intended to apply only to a small number of virtually open- and -shut cases. Not so simple of course. The obvious moral is to carry out your felonies in Scotland or N Ireland.

[mistermack]

A convicted person has ALWAYS had the option of an appeal, if new and compelling evidence arises. So the argument of the guilty going free to protect the innocent is false in this context. If someone is falsely convicted, and it becomes obvious, they can get out. ( That's the beauty of having no death penalty ).

But to have someone for whom it becomes obvious that they are guilty, completely immune from prosecution, is obscene.

And it's being abused every day. If a cop illegally kills someone, they mount a pathetic prosection, intended to fail, and put the cop beyong the law. They do it all the time.

And not just cops. Crimes that have a political element, such as gun-crime, can be put to bed by an incompetent prosecution.
It's dead easy, and virtually impossible to prove.
Scrapping double jeapordy protection, in the presence of extremely strong evidence, would put a stop to that.

[Coito ergo sum]

Following the Zimmerman verdict, I wonder if anyone has any more examples of ludicrous US verdicts.

The next silliest that I can find after the Zimmerman verdict is a monkey, that was convicted for smoking, in South Bend, Indiana, in 1924. The monkey was ordered to pay a fine of $25 plus costs, which was a heck of a lot of money for a monkey, back in 1924.

Weirder still, they then passed a law making it illegal to force a monkey to smoke in Indiana.
So it's not just Florida.

Post your own examples here.

The Zimmerman verdict was not strange at all, or ludicrous. It was in line with what every legal expert who looked at the case expected, and what made sense given the standard of proof involved (beyond reasonable doubt) and the defense of self-defense. "You know, this is a case that should never have been brought in the first place, certainly not as a second degree murder prosecution," Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told CNN's "State of the Union With Candy Crowley.'

But, it's interesting that the next silliness you can find is from 1924. Wow. You've sure shown how often "silly" verdicts are in the US. And you have no credible source for the monkey conviction. It's probably an urban legend, and probably a mischaracterization of what actually happened, which is often the case with legal matters.

[Coito ergo sum]

Black woman attempts to stand her ground. However, warning shots are illegal, you have to shoot the guy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... er-ground/

That is an entirely different case, and like the Zimmerman case does not involve "Stand Your Ground" laws at all.

Are you really advocating a society where someone would be lawfully entitled to go retrieve a gun from a car (while he is not being attacked) and return and fire shots, unprovoked, in the direction of his wife and children (or her husband and children, as the case may be)?

I think people need to look to the actual facts of the cases they're talking about...

[Coito ergo sum]

And it's being abused every day. If a cop illegally kills someone, they mount a pathetic prosection, intended to fail, and put the cop beyong the law. They do it all the time.

Name your three best examples.

[Sean Hayden]

A verdict that was shocking to me was Casey Anthony being found innocent. It seemed to me that she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of killing her daughter and leaving her body in the woods by her dad's house. I don't know how the defense won that case. That was in Florida as well.

[Seth]

Black woman attempts to stand her ground. However, warning shots are illegal, you have to shoot the guy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... er-ground/

Yeah, that one is totally fucked up. It's an artifact of mandatory sentencing laws. At worst the warning shot might have been careless or negligent, but because the crime was committed with a gun, there's a mandatory 20 year prison sentence. But if she'd shot him she would at least have gotten to argue self defense and stand your ground.

She shouldn't have said it was a "warning shot," she should have said "I tried to shoot him and missed."

Cautionary tale: When the police ask you what happened, SHUT THE FUCK UP and ask to speak to an attorney, right away.

I hope somebody helps her appeal.