Really. No offense to any prosecutors here, but so many seem to be more worried about their conviction percentage than justice.
I don’t understand why the DA would be able to override the judge’s release order and keep him in jail. How long is the appeal likely to take?
I heard this live on CNN and my cynical fucking mind went, " Well, now we’ll see just how long it takes the State to throw out the Judge’s ruling and appeal. "
It took ** only two goddamned hours** for me to find out.
That kid is going to be made to pay and pay and pay and pay and pay becaues it’s Georgia and by god we sure know who really runs the shit behind the scenes down there.
How long will the appeal take? Oh, if the Attorney General is at all clever about it, it will take about 7 1/2 years.
:mad:
Cartooniverse
From the web site of the State of Georgia Attorney General
I fucking kid you not.
Okay, you spineless fuck hypocrite, operate openly and tell America who jerked your chain to make you shove that kid back into his cell when he had a foot out the door today.’
Operates openly indeed. You make real Americans puke, you heartless sub-human.
We do? Who is that, do you think? Seriously, what are you implying?
I’m pissed off about Thurbert Baker appealing this order, but I suspect his motive is nothing more sinister than a slavish devotion (even a thick-headed devotion) to enforcing Georgia law as written. (A trait he has shown before.)
As spoke- pointed out, the Georgia State Attorney General, Thurbert Baker, who threw out the judge’s ruling and appeal is himself African American.
This is going beyond racial discrimination stupidity and into some level of mulishness I can’t even fathom.
Uncle Tom is alive and well and holding down a high post in Georgia state government.
Libelous bullshit. There are fair criticisms you can make of Thurbert Baker, but he is nobody’s “Uncle Tom.”
A more accurate characterization/criticism is that he is hidebound when it comes to enforcing the letter of the law. Always has been.
And actually, it has always been the mindset at the Georgia AGs office to vigorously defend the letter of the law (even when it seems like a silly law).
Wasn’t the law that the kid was convicted of changed because of this case?
Yes, but the new law doesn’t apply retroactively.
I understand that. However, a judge voided the sentence (under the original law) so the kid should be released. Yes, the prosecutor in in his rights to appeal, but the fact that the law was changed based on this case and the fact the verdict is voided, appealing is a jerkish thing to do. Making the kid stay in jail is flat out wrong.
I thought that going against the ruling of a judge was something that was supposed to be fraught with problems.
Point of clarification: We’re talking about the state attorney general (not the prosecutor). (You may be confusing “attorney general” with “district attorney”.)The attorney general is stepping in to “uphold” the Georgia law. Presumably, Baker is arguing that the judge doesn’t have the authority to void the earlier sentence.
And I couldn’t agree more that the kid should be released, and that the attorney general should have exercised some discretion and butted out.
Ah. Here is Baker’s own justification for stepping in:
As I suspected, he is motivated by a stubborn devotion to the letter of the law. And I’m sure he is technically correct – that a judge in one circuit can’t modify the sentence of a judge in a different circuit.
The fact that Baker feels compelled to write an editorial to the Atlanta Journal to justify his actions should tell you that he did not step into this case to pander to Georgia voters. Quite the opposite. Voters (like me, for instance) are upset that the kid is still in jail. Baker is feeling the heat. Hence the editorial.
Upon reflection, I can sort of see Baker’s point. This may be a good example of the maxim that “hard cases make bad law.” It would not be a good precedent to let a judge ruling on a habeas petition in one circuit void the sentence of a (coequal) trial judge in another circuit.
CNN has been airing this story all morning-- the “victim”'s mother has accused prosecutors of threatening her with charges of neglect if she didn’t testify against Wilson.
Bah. The law always seems to offer plenty of opportunity to be an asshole, and so very few opportunities to be humane. I find the notion that Baker made this extremely controversial decision out of simple “hideboundness” extremely suspect.
It would have been so easy to not file in this case and let the kid go. But Baker didn’t do that, did he? He’s sucking up to the conservatives who run the state, who want to see the kid kept in his place, as a naked demonstration of the right’s power to opress.
He’s a freakin’ Uncle Tom, all right.
Well said. THIS is what I meant by my post. Yes. Thanks. I provided the goddamned link to his web page, so yes, I know he is African American. The fact that he is African American miraculously excludes him from being a human who can be corrupted by power and is happy to oppress the wrong person for the wrong reasons * just because he can* ?
Wow. Who’da thunk. :dubious:
I didn’t give a flying fuck is the A.G. is African American. Apparently I made the mistake of seeing him as human before I saw him as black. 
Evil Captor, Cartooniverse, it’s obvious that neither of you has a fucking clue about Thurbert Baker, or about the law, or about the political situation in Georgia.
Baker stepped into this case at great political risk, since overwhelming voter sentiment in Georgia is that the law was draconian and that the kid should go free. (This is why the law was changed after the verdict by democratically-elected legislators. Most of whom are conservative Republicans, by the way.)
Baker is catching all kinds of heat from Georgia voters for his decision. Which is why he felt compelled to write an editorial defending himself. Who, exactly, do you think Baker is kissing up to? Because it sure as hell isn’t the voters. Please, do give us a flow chart of the dark conspiracy you have imagined.
Baker’s logic is this: you cannot have a judge who did not preside at trial modifying the sentence set by a coequal trial judge. Otherwise, the superior court judge sitting in the county where a convict is imprisoned sits as a de facto appellate judge with authority over every other superior court judge in the state. That precedent would invite chaos, abuse, and political gamesmanship between judges with opposing criminal philosohies. “Hmmm. The sentence imposed by Judge Jones over in Barrow County seems lenient to me. I believe I’ll enter an order re-writing it to add a couple of years.”
I don’t like the result of Baker’s position as it applies to this particular case, but I certainly understand the problem that has him worried.
Hard cases make bad law
And Cartooniverse, I don’t believe for a minute that you knew Baker was black when you made your post. You have to poke around the AG’s website before finding his picture, and it doesn’t appear on the page you linked. You were predisposed to assume racism, as your post so clearly suggests. You said nothing about Baker being an Uncle Tom in your original post. Nice attempt at revisionism, though.
And besides being black, Baker is a Democrat, while most other elected officials (including the governor and a majority of both houses of the legislature) are Republican. Please explain how your presumed conspiracy manages to cross both party and racial lines.
Or were you just talking out of your ass?
Because I thought I smelled something.
There is a bond hearing set for July 5. Stay tuned.
Is it true that Georgia state Governors cannot pardon people?