Nasor said:
WTF? So if I'm playing my music so loudly that it violates noise ordinances and my neighbor trips and breaks his neck while walking to my door to ask me to turn it down, I'm responsible for his death now? I seriously hope this guy doesn't mean what it sounds like he means
That's a possible interpretation, though the real test would be whether a jury believes it. To the other, juries are sometimes instructed in such a manner that it doesn't matter what they believe. In the end, though, I think the interpretation is a bit oversensitive.
There are other questions that arise, though. Consider the dangers of long-term exposure to electromagnetic fields, or the known harmful byproducts of coal mining. If I'm a utility company owner, and know that EMFs increase the potential of cancer and other illnesses, or that the runoff from my coal mine makes people sick, and if I do nothing to reduce the EMF potential or contain the mine pollution, how long does my liability last? Does the blood of someone who never smoked, ate vegetarian, exercised well, and so forth, and ends up dying of cancer fall on my hands? What if I'm a teenager who talks my fourteen year-old girlfriend into having sex with me? Am I liable if she dies of cervical cancer twenty years later? (I may be a teenager in this case, but I can still be found to have committed statutory rape.)
The thing is that the defendant committed a certain act. That act has been brought before a court and he has been convicted of a crime for that act, and he has served the prescribed time for that act. The state is now seeking to try him for that act a second time, in order to punish him for the extended consequences of that act. This doesn't seem right.
Read-Only said:
In case you've never noticed, it's not at all uncommon to charge a criminal with more than one offence that occured during the comission of a single act. For example, one might be charged with breaking and entering, theft of property, assualt AND murder. At trial, they may be found guilty of all or one or more than one. Same exact situation here, the only difference being the element of time.
The breaking and entering is a separate act from theft of property. The assault can be a separate act from the murder. For instance:
(1) Enter the residence (B&E)
(2) Steal from within the residence (theft)
(3) Attack homeowner upon discovery (assault)
(4) Subdue, bind homeowner (illegal imprisonment)
(5) Slit homeowner's throat before making escape (murder)
If, on the other hand, we get into an argument, and I deliver one blow to your head that also kills you, the state won't get me on both assault and murder. It might include the assault charge because the DA doesn't feel confident she can prove intent to commit murder, but she's not going to get both. In lieu of getting both, the DA will win get the murder charge.
What most clouds the situation is that public officials for years have been upholding the Constitution by violating it. The one thing about major court decisions that can be affected regularly by the average citizen is the idea of how the public feels about something. If the sense of the nation changes over time, nothing else need change for the Supreme Court to reconsider its prior decision. Thus, consider the irony of "free speech". Certainly, we understand that something like child pornography faces a reasonable argument against in the sense that someone generally must be hurt or exploited in order to create the information transmitted. Yet the simple notion of offending Christian sensibilities has, historically, been enough to bring down legal condemnation of speech. In the end, public officials sworn to the Constitution prosecuted people for distributing (selling) rap albums.
With double jeopardy, dual sovereignty is about the only exposure I've accepted on principle. The current issue seems to reflect something the public won't necessarily accept in other cases. Is it because the victim was a cop? Is it because people think they get to feel justified in seeking another pound of flesh?
Trying Barnes a second time for an act he's already served time for is zealotry. I wish I had the time and money to fly out and sit in on jury selection. That process is one of the first hints we'll get as to how strong the prosecution's case is. More than likely, DA Abraham's office will have to rely on the impression of stupidity: the less they think a potential juror knows or understands about law, society, and humanity, the better.
