I’m not sure of where to put this but I keep on hearing in sensationalist news stories that
And I was always quite sceptical about those reports, especially after reading a bit about how the media distorts criminal cases. But what actually is the technicality? Did they not have enough evidence to convict? Did the cops not follow proper procedure? Was the lawyer so good that he got off on a genuine technicality? If so, why isn’t the law being amended to make it harder to slip by on technicailitys?
A real one I know of is that a person cannot be charged and imprisoned for a crime for more than 180 days (I believe it was) in Baltimore without trial. So if the next “open reservation” for a court is two or three months down the line (60 to 90 days) just two messups–for instance if for one there was a clerical error and the courtroom wasn’t booked properly, and then the next time the prosecutor is detained in another trial that went over schedule–well then there may be no chance for a third trial and the defendant is going free.
For this example of “getting off on a technicality” it isn’t so much a matter of poorly conceived law but rather that there aren’t enough courts and/or judges–probably due to budget limitations that keep the number at an absolute minimum based on the ability to still get people tried within the 180 day limit 99.99% of the time.
Other versions of getting off on a technicalities are things like getting off because the officers didn’t inform you of your Miranda rights, or by commiting a crime in a different state from the one you were arrested and charged in, by police who had no jurisdiction in the state where the offence was commited (though I have a feeling like the case I heard of where this may have gotten the guy off free was still up in the air.)
I don’t know how common this really is, but one example I saw of improper procedure being handwaved away as a technicality was on Cops.
They were running a sting operation on prostitutes. The officer explained for the camera that in order to make an arrest that will stick, the 'tute has to clearly offer to perform a sex act in exchange for money. If the officer does the asking and/or offering, and the prostitute just says “yeah, ok” then it’s entrapment and doesn’t qualify as a valid arrest.
The same officer (riding in a limo) then picked up a young guy waiting by the road waving at passing cars. He says to the guy “You wanna party? I’ll give you 50 bucks.”
Young guy: “ok”
Officer: “I’m a cop, you’re under arrest.”
Me at home: "waitaminute… "
Next was the courtroom scene.
Officer: “I said ‘You wanna party? I’ll give you 50 bucks’ and he said ‘ok’.”
Defense attourney: “Did he ever offer to have sex with you for money?”
Officer: “No.”
They then cut to some other case that was being followed before returning to the verdict.
Smarmy voice-over guy with big teeth: “But the creep gets off on a technicality.”
The law is a technicality. No one was ever convicted on a “generality”; every conviction is based on a technicality. If it were otherwise, we would have only one law; “be nice”. Whining about “getting off on a technicality” is just sour grapes when a case doesn’t turn out the way one side wants it to.
I recall one from the ordinary Michael Douglas movie The Star Chamber. At the time that I saw the movie I was sure that I had read about the same event in the news some time earlier and the scriptwriter had stolen it. It went like this.
Two cops see some suspect dump some incriminating evidence in a garbage bin out on the sidewalk. One cop goes to open the bin and grab it but his partner warns him that they need a warrant to search the bin because it is private property until dumped in a garbage truck. So they wait for the garbage truck to arrive and when the bin is emptied intio the back of the truck they grab the item of evidence.
However in court the defense attorney gets the cops to admit that the garbage was in the rear hopper of the garbage truck, separate from all other garbage. The judge has to rule that the cops have effectively searched the contents of the bin unlawfully and the evidence is inadmissable.
So to review the examples given as technicalities so far in this thread:
[ul]
[li]detaining an individual in jail and not providing a trial within 180 days, as required by a statute passed by the elected representatives of the state of Maryland (which I would assume was passed to implement the guarantee of a speedy trial, as required by the 6th Amendment);[/li][li]failure to give a Miranda warning, as required by the 6th Amendment to the Constitution;[/li][li]police from one state exercising the power of arrest in another state, where they had no lawful power of arrest;[/li][li]a person not being charged under the law of state A, because the alleged acts occurred in state B;[/li][li]a person being acquitted of a charge of prostitution because he never offered to have sex for money - in other words, he didn’t commit the crime;[/li][li]police oficers conducting a search without a warrant, as required by the 4th Amendment to the Constituion[/li][/ul] Are you seeing a pattern here? The “technicalities” are the heart of the law: an individual cannot be convicted of a crime he did not commit (the prostitution example), nor by a government that has no jurisdiction over the territory where the alleged crime occured. Nor can police officers ignore the statutory and constitutional provisions that the elected representatives of the people have enacted to ensure that the criminal system is fair overall, and does not degenerate into a police state. These “technicalities” are not some minor points - they are the heart and soul of the idea of a government under the law.
IANAL, but this is different from my understanding of current caselaw; I thought garbage, once it was left for pick-up, was considered abandoned by the owner, and therefore fair game. Any criminal-type lawyers know for sure?
How I wish more people could see that. As it is, we have populist sensation-mongers like Geraldo Rivera and Bill O’Reilly caught in some bizarre game of one-upmanship where the goal seems to be to heap the most scorn possible on scumbag criminals (apparently child molesters are O’Reilly’s big thing now), the attorneys who defend them and the ACLU that tries to preserve what freedoms we have left.
a) a genuine miscarriage of justice, the perp is clearly guilty and should have gone to jail
b) a true technicality. The perp was guilty but a legitimate law stopped him from being convicte
c) the perp was innocent.
The Supreme Court ruling that trash left at the curb is no longer private property was around 1989. The Star Chamber was made in 1983, so the it’s in keeping with the law at the time (at least on this point).
As Piper and others have made clear, your list isn’t useful. When someone is said to have gotten off “on a technicality,” it typically means that the cops or court system violated his constitutional rights. For someone to be convicted in such a situation is a miscarriage of justice regardless of whether he did it or not.
I think this example deserves a bit more consideration as a “technicality.”
Miranda warnings are intended to advise a person subject to custodial interrogation about his constitutional rights. If I, a person who has practiced criminal law, tried cases involving Miranda warnings, were arrested and interrogated without being warned of my rights as required by the Miranda decision, whatever inculpatory statements I made would be inadmissible. Yet I know my rights, and the case law surrounding them, likely better than the officers interrogating me.
Because determining whether a person knows his rights before waiving them is a difficult process, the Warren court sought to establish a prophylactic rule: to be safe, every custodial interrogation must be preceeded by the warnings. When applied to a person that may or may not know his rights, it’s indeed a vital part of the constitutional protections we should all support. But when applied to someone who really does know his rights… I think “technicality” is a fair analysis.
I would add, in case it wouldn’t be clear : It’s extremely important to let people “get off on technicalities” because if you don’t officers, court, will begin to ignore the law.
I’m sorry, but I’m going to give an example from french law, since I hardly could give one from US law.
In france, you can’t put cameras in your company’s building without informing the workers/employees. You can’t fire a worker withot a cause, eiter. Let’s assume you secretely put cameras in your shop, and you catch the cashier stealing money on film. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t fire him, and it would be pointless to try to bring charges because your evidence (the film) will be inadmissible in court.
In this case, everybody knows that the perp is guilty, but he will get away with it. And it must be so, because otherwise, business owners would begin to ignore the law and put cameras everywhere.
In a much more serious case, involving, say, a child rapist and a search without warrant, it’s the same. People may be schocked that said child rapist is going to get away with his crime, but otherwise, police officers would begin to make search without warrants whenever they feel like it, expecting the suspected person to be sentenced anyway if they find something.
More generally, you can’t have a statute, constitutionnal provision, etc… and ignore it when it’s convenient to do so. Well… You can’t but then the concept of “rule of law” just went down the toilets.
And
And as someone mentionned, everything in law is a technicality. The way murder is defined is a technicality. Your right to have a lawyer is a technicality, etc… It’s only because some peope feel that in some cases, some technicalities are…err… too technical, or not important enough by comparison with the crime commited in some people’s opinion that people rant and rave about technicalities.
If they want to keep whatever rights they have, they should shut up. Or alternatively, not complain if they arrested without a cause, beaten up until they admit to some crime and hanged at the nearest tree because they’re “obviously guilty” according to a couple police officers. It’s not up to anybody to choose when the law should apply and when it shouldn’t.
You could if you followed the law, and informed all the employees of the presence of the cameras, which would then presumably render the video evidence admissable. What is so hard about requiring employers to obey the law? Why should the employee be prosecuted for stealing, and the employer get off scot-free for installing illegal cameras?
True, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments do not call for the Miranda warnings per se; they’re case-law-mandated insurance that the rights protected by those amendments are in fact secured.
The problem lies in what you consider a “technicality” – yes, you as a practitioner of criminal law should be expected to know your Miranda rights. But what about me, layman with a pretty clear awareness of the rights and the case law behind them? The scriptwriter for a TV show that deals with the issue? A fan of that TV show? A casual watcher of one episode of that TV show? A high school kid distracted by the tight clothing of a classmate while the teacher was “doing” the Miranda case in high school history? There’s a point at which “technicality” turns into “essential protection of a right” and real life has a lot of gray area in which to draw that line.
One might make a case that the “standing” rule is often used to deprive an appellant of his or her constitutional rights, too. Or that the Dale case was improperly decided on the basis of a right nowhere explicitly guaranteed.
To me it seems that “technicality” is a very imprecise term. And that’s probably more grist for GD than GQ – but I believe the OP was in a way raising just that point.
There was a very interesting case here in MA recently. a "dominatrix’ was admisitering some kind of B&D to a client. They guy had a heart attack and died. The dominatrix and an associate panicked, and disposed of the body 9it was never found). Later, the dominatrix confesses to disposal of the body-but was not advised of her miranda rights properly. hence her videotaped confession was ruled inadmissable. She walked!
Although I’m not sure she could be convicted on anything other than “abuse of a corpse”, and possibly, illegal disposal of human remains.
"waitaminute… "