From: Anonymous <nobody@REPLAY.COM>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 10:35:46 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Bell vs. Woodward--justice?
Message-ID: <199711120215.DAA28008@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>Leaving aside the problem with a system where a judge can overturn the
>decision of a Jury (I have not seen all of the evidence so have no idea
>if she is guilty or innocent but if you enter a country you implicitly
>agree to abide by their laws and legal system, however what is the point
>of having a Jury if the Judge can do this sort of thing?) then the actual
>problem is the length of time that Jim is spending in prison and nothing
>to do with the Woodward case at all. It just goes to illustrate, once again,
>how laws are selectively enforced and procedures slowed in order to punish
>people who can not otherwise be punished as much as the administration would
>like to.

Throwing the woman in jail for eight months without her ever being convicted
is itself an injustice. She should have been aquitted because of that bit of
bullshit alone. Yes the same goes for anybody else who is punished in any
way before they are convicted.

That aside, you ask what the point of having a jury is if the judge can
overturn a conviction. There's no problem with the judge overturning a
conviction if the evidence warrants it, if the trial was a joke, or
something along those lines. We don't convict people in this country based
on what the public thinks of them, and that includes a jury. If the jury
convicts somebody when the evidence doesn't warrant a conviction --
regardless of the reason why they convicted them, which may be as inane as
"But he *might* have been gay, and Jesus doesn't like that" -- it is the
judge's duty in the interests of justice to overturn the conviction.

If the judge is overturning aquittals, then we have problems. And I would
suggest we lock and load if the judge had done that and thrown her in prison.
As it is, I only suggest that everyone lock and load because they threw her
in jail before she was convicted. She hadn't yet had her trial, so she
shouldn't have been in jail, period.

The same goes for Jim Bell, his "crimes," and his waiting 7 months for
sentencing.

Lock and load.