That’s not the American way. We’re way more passive than that. We call in sick.
Real shotgun approach you got.
Juries can’t nullify if they refuse to participate. No idea what punishing judges for ignoring precedent has to do with anything. And you have to explain why everyone should get treated like a spouse, not have me explain why not.
Accusing other posters of trolling or calling other posters trolls is not permitted in this forum.
You’re new so I will refrain from issuing a warning, but I suggest you familiarize yourself with the rules of the forum that are stickied at the top of the forum page as well as the general rules for the board in ATMB.
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My contention is that our judicial system allows for single people to protest the system and the laws, whether that be from the box, the bench or the witness stand without fear of imprisonment and it still manages to work. I see no reason why this particular case somehow threatens the system when other examples of people doing similar things do not.
Yeah, I am saying they are not similar.
My Lord and Savior was killed unjustly by the death penalty.
Anyways, I do think that Horatius makes a good point. Her work was done for the defense in order to prevent the death penalty from being applied. However, I also do think that she is being asked to testify as to her work. Her objection, while principled, I don’t think rises to the level of an exception being made for it.
@senoy, I wanted to complete that last thought:
Juries vote guilty, not guilty/nullify. That is performing their required function.
Judges make decisions. That’s their function. Bad decisions must be overturned by higher up judges.
And I fail to see how a spouse not testifying is protesting anything.
No, it takes 12 on a jury to acquit. Jury verdicts, either “guilty” or “not guilty”, have to be unanimous.
If a jury splits 11 guilty, 1 not guilty, it’s a hung jury and a mistrial results.
In about what percentage of cases does a hung-jury mistrial result in another trial as opposed to dropping it?
There are many variables (severity of the crime, number of NG votes, etc) but in my experience around two-thirds get retried or a plea is entered.
Well, historically the next step was torture followed by burning at the stake if she refuses to repent of her heretical views. However, I am not licensed to practice law in Colorado so can’t say if that’s a possible outcome in this case.
She’s being called as a witness. She has to testify or face contempt. Open and shut case.
At first I was on her side, but on thinking further about it, this is where I come down. Religion’s got nothing to do with it: if the law says you must testify, then your job title or religion or political beliefs have nothing to do with whether you must give testimony.
She may well decide that suffering the penalty for contempt of court is worth it to maintain her beliefs. She may also decide to risk perjury to maintain her beliefs. I could honestly respect either decision. But I think the law must be able to compel testimony without carving out a religious exemption.
I don’t think she is being consistent. If she was willing to do the investigation, she should be willing to testify. If it was moral to investigate because it was not her intent to further the death of another, it should be moral to testify about the investigation when it is not her intent to further the death of another.
This assumes that her testimony about the investigation will help the prosecution more than the defense. Maybe everyone she talked to said “hell yes, he’s as guilty as Cain” and she didn’t disclose that.
Regards,
Shodan
Except the law already has carved out a religious exemption. Priest-penitent privilege exists in most legal systems. Once you have one religious exemption from testifying, why not two?
I thought about this point. It seems to me that if she chose to participate in the legal system as all, she was facing the possibility that she might be part of sending somebody to an execution.
Yes, she works for the defense. But she’s supposed to be looking for evidence in an impartial manner. Which means that when she investigates a crime scene, there’s a chance she’ll find evidence that incriminates her client rather than exonerates him. She has no way of choosing to only work for innocent people who have been wrongfully accused.
If she doesn’t want to be part of a capital case then she shouldn’t work as part of an investigative team, for the prosecution or the defense. She shouldn’t go looking for evidence of crimes unless she’s willing to accept that sometimes she’s going to find evidence that a person committed a crime.
Because an investigator isn’t a religious adviser. This investigator had already completed the investigation is now being asked to testify about what she learned. It doesn’t sound like that information was acquired with any privilege. If this woman is a true believer she’ll spen a little time in the local jail and that will be the end of it. I doubt this will rise to the level of criminal contempt (though I’m not sure how the line between civil and criminal contempt is drawn other than how pissed off the judge is).
I’m finding the principle that Mennonites can not testify truthfully in court a little doubtful. This is not the same as serving on a jury in a death penalty case. If that were the case she would surely be rejected by the prosecution in voir dire, and if not the judge would excuse her based on her religious belief. To be analogous to this case it would be like the woman saying she could serve on the jury and be impartial even in a death penalty case, but then asking to be removed from the jury once it looked like the defendant would be found guilty. However, if that was the case she would be removed from the jury and I doubt suffer any more than a tongue lashing from the judge.
Hey, lawyer-client privilege exists so why not accountant-client privelege? Why not hair dresser-client privilege?
Priest-penitent privelege is not a religious exemption from testifying. It is a private trusted counsel exemption. If we want to extend that to every person who works for the defense team, that’s not totally unreasonable. But “my religion says not to follow court orders” is not.
Note that the priest-penitent privilege, much like the doctor-patient or lawyer-client privilege is not for the benefit of the priest (who may have information on the accused) but of the penitent.
The priest-penitent privilege is required as part of the priest’s function, much like that of a psychologist or psychiatrist. It’s the same reason that the more enlightened militaries will not block a member’s career for consulting with a therapist: They figure that if they did, it would have a chilling effect on the use those helpers (priest, psychologist, psychiatrist) which would ultimately result in fewer people seeking psychological/spiritual help and more problems in the aggregate.
There is no such issue for a witness.
+1