Interesting thread. So, let me know if this is about right. Florida’s drug laws don’t require the possessor to possess the drugs intentionally or knowingly (i.e., why they are possessing them doesn’t matter anymore). Instead, that’s now a defense the possessor must present at trial (should they chose to). Nothing changes with the presumption of innocence - although it can be confusing I suppose - what the State has to prove has changed, not the presumption of innocence. You’re still innocent, there’s just less elements to your crime than before and thus less to prove to make you guilty of that crime.
I read the article, not the SC opinion. I’m lazy. Did Florida change the law, or was it “changed” through the Florida Supreme Court (as hinted by the OP).
It was changed by the legislature in 2002, and the change was upheld as constitutional by the Florida Supreme Court last week.
Miranda rights come directly from the Fifth Amendment, but the Miranda warnings are not required by the Fifth. The Miranda court noted that legislatures were free to substitute some other guarantee that waivers were knowingly given by defendants.
Levels of judicial scrutiny originated with “Footnote Four” in Carolene Products. Strict scrutiny originated with Korematsu. Levels of scrutiny are not required by the Constitution at all; they’re just something the Court decided were a good idea. They could go back to rational basis review for everything tomorrow if they wanted to.
The practical difference between a constitutional imperative - such as Miranda - and any other rule of law is that the legislature can modify or even repeal the latter. This distinction is addressed, among other places, in Dickerson v. US.
Because it is a he said/she said situation in the case of rape.
Technically you have the same issue when a police officer says “X” and you say “not X”.
I’ll leave it to you as someone who has more expertise in this area how those are different.
I suspect most possession cases are a matter of the police officer saying they found drugs on the defendant. I am unaware of successful defenses being made by nothing more than the defendant saying, “No he/she didn’t!”
In the case of one person (not a police officer) making an accusation and another denying it can a court assess guilt? In the absence of any other evidence beyond one person making a claim and another denying it how can a determination be made beyond, “I just believe her more than him”? I think it is different when a cop makes a claim of what happened in the course of their duties.
If a cop pulls you over and finds drugs in your car the ONLY evidence is the cop’s say-so that you had drugs in the car. If it is just you and the cop is that the end of it because the cop cannot make a he said/she said case? Given the number of possession prosecutions in the US it would seem this is not a problem for the state. I’d wager many if not most possession cases have little more to go on than that.
Well, that is the crux of this thread no?
Prior to this ruling in Florida the state had to make a case beyond mere possession (i.e. the cop says they found drugs in your possession). They would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt other elements (chain of custody, knowledge…whatever).
Now they shifted the burden. The defendant has to prove their innocence.
As I noted earlier in the thread in a rape case there is still room for the defendant to slip under a reasonable doubt bar. Lack of DNA, lack of opportunity, character of the people involved and so on.
In the possession case the cop says you he/she saw you in possession of drugs and that is about the end of that.
Note: I think a discussion on whether statutory rape should be a strict liability crime could be an interesting one. Honestly I see two sides to that discussion and think it would be interesting to hash out. This of course is not the thread for that though.
As a matter of law – you know, the thing you were complaining about when you started this thread – there is no difference.
In each case, the jury must evaluate the testimony and reach a conclusion as to which version to credit. Plenty of rapists have gone to prison on the strength of nothing but the prosecutrix testimony. And plenty of accused drug possession cases have gon south when the jury did not believe the police testimony.
That sentence is what frustrates me the most about you and has caused me to heap abuse on you in this thread.
I myself am unaware of the impact of gut microbial communities on insect health. But guess what I don’t do?
You don’t have any expertise, training, professional experience, academic experience, or anything that would make your lack of knowledge remotely useful in concluding anything, but that doesn’t hold you back one bit.
Of course a court can assess guilt under those circumstances. It’s been done a zillion times. Why not?
Why?
What portion of the evidence code instructs the finder of fact to credit the testimony of police over the testimony of others?
No, you fucking brain dead asshole.
And if a woman says, “That man raped me,” guess what? Also not “the end of it,” since that testimony, without more, is legally sufficient for a conviction.
And if a man says, “That dude robbed me at gunpoint,” that is not “the end of it” either. The state can convict the robber on the basis of that testimony alone.
Admiral Mole, your flagship Invincible Ignorance awaits.
It doesn’t matter where I would place it. It’s not in the Constitution, and isn’t implied by any of the language in it. There is, of course, every chance that if Congress attempted to dump the presumption SCOTUS would find it to be a “deeply rooted in this nation’s history” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty”, and thus a fundamental right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
You mean, would Judge RNATB hold that it was a constitutional right? Certainly.
Under the tests SCOTUS has previously articulated for the determination of what fundamental rights are, I think it’s clearly a liberty interest protected by the 14th Amendment substantive due process malarkey*. I also think it was a massive oversight on the part of the Founders to leave it out of the federal Constitution, and I was really surprised to discover it wasn’t actually somewhere in the text.
It’s also arguably implicit in the concept of procedural due process**, and thus protected by the Fifth Amendment too.
*For the record, Judge RNATB would also hold that this procedural and substantive due process stuff was a band-aid over a gaping error (the Slaughter House Cases) and apply the privileges and immunities clause instead.
