No, it doesn’t. Over the last 50 years the Supreme Court has ruled that certain guarantees (most of them, actually) of the Bill of Rights are applicable to the states via “incorporation,” that is, the idea that when the 14th Amendment guarantees due process in actions by the states, “due process” includes these guarantees. However, there are parts of the Bill of Rights which have not been amended. For instance, the right to a grand jury and the right to a jury trial in civil matters have not been applied to the states (although who knows – someday they might be). As the law stands today, a state can indict and bring to trial a defendant without empaneling a grand jury if it wants to, despite the fact that were the federal government to do that it would be unconstitutional. (Indeed, Mr. Petersen isn’t getting a grand jury, as was discussed in the grand juries thread linked to above.)
If you’re right that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a speedy trial mean no more than 60+10 days (and you have yet to provide a cite), then I’m guessing that applies only to federal crimes prosecuted by federal authorities, and does not apply to the states.
Sorry – 2d sentence: “Bill of Rights which have not amended” – last word should be “incorporated.”
Also, the guess in my second paragraph turns out to be correct, as verified by Bricker, who actually did the research instead of shooting from the hip. (You tryin’ ta make me look bad?)
The time limit for holding a suspect without charge in the United States is IIRC 72 hours. More precisely, I believe SCOTUS ruled that 72 hours is “not unreasonable.” As for the detainees held post-9/11, they are not charged with crimes AFAIK but are being detained as “enemy combatants” and the like. The circumstances surrounding those detentions are not germane to the general discussion of the legal principle and, if brought up, will undoubtedly get this thread kicked to GD.
Going back to the OP: it appears that you are under a common misapprehension that “not guilty = innocent.” In the U.S., all citizens are presumed innocent until a jury or judge rule otherwise. A verdict of “not guilty” simply means that you are “not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” not that you are innocent.
IANAL, but the time limits in NY are that generally, (with an apparent exception for homicide cases), the prosecutor must be ready for trial within six months for a felony, ninety days for a misdemeanor punishable by more than three months incarceration, sixty days for a misdemeanor punishable by not more than three months, and thirty days for a violation. But some periods of time are excluded from that calculation - for example, if a defendant is incompetent for six months, that six months doesn’t count against the time limit. If the defendant is incarcerated in another jurisdiction , that period of time doesn’t count. And there are quite a few other reasons to exclude time from the calculation.
You are right, although my mistake was a slip of the tongue.
A small nitpick, though. One remains innocent upon receiving a not guilty verdict. The legal crowd made a point of that after the Simpson verdict.
And the right to an impartial trial is not about “clearing your name”, but about protecting your life, liberty or property from being taken by the State. If the State finds it’s not worth its time and money to nail you, they have no obligation to spend it so you can do P-R damage control.
Something about your post just annoyed me, JRDelirious. :dubious: I know what you say is true and all, but try telling that to all those people in Texas. And yes, I also know that’s different. They were taken beyond “wrongly accused”.
