But you can force Chris Rock to testify. A lot of people are equating Rock not “pressing charges” with having to go forward without his testimony. That’s wrong. A victim can be subpoenaed to court and called to the stand for questioning. Does anyone think Chris Rock would perjure himself by lying for Will Smith on the stand? Or face contempt of court for refusing to answer?
It really is up to the prosecutor’s office.
And if I were a DV victim in California whose abuser had been charged when I didn’t want to press charges, I’d be pissed. DV victims know that pressing charges on minor offenses often puts them in more danger. But it’s done against their will. And even if they do perjure themselves on the stand, often they’ve said something to police that is used, or the abuser fixes on some other random thing to blame the victim.
Not charging Smith, if that’s the outcome, would seem problematic to me.
The way the court deals with this is to impose a jail sentence if the defendant is convicted at trial, but accept something less (probation) for a plea.
The threat of jail, especially when coupled with damming evidence, usually leads to defendants pleading guilty if the prosecutor will also agree to a lighter sentence. This is how the judicial system avoids wasting people’s time with a simple case like this.
Besides the concept of “fairness” in enforcing the laws, there’s another really good reason to still arrest and prosecute so-called small cases. Even if they are resolved with something simple - a fine, an anger management class, maybe community service - they create a trail of documentation of violence or mayhem. As a person develops a track record, their punishment increases.
The thinking being that - hey, you lost your temper, we’ll make it simple - but if you routinely go around punching and slapping people, maybe you need to do a stint in jail.
It is usually even worse. A typical situation is where the police are called and the woman has obvious marks. She tells the police the man hit her, man is arrested. She calls the prosecutor days or weeks later saying that she doesn’t want to “press charges.” According to funding from the VAWA Act, the prosecutor cannot drop the charges. They must press forward.
The issue happens when the woman says that she will take the stand and deny that the man hit her. The prosecutor could impeach her with her prior police statements, but my state and many others have the rule that “impeachment evidence cannot be used as substantive evidence.” In other words, her prior statements may suggest that she is not telling the truth in her in court testimony, but may not be used as positive evidence to convict the man. Juries are instructed of this and many prosecutors try this ruse to get the jury to disregard its instructions.
Defense attorneys object at the outset to this ruse and a good judge will forbid the testimony in its entirety. So then the prosecutor threatens the abuse victim with obstruction of justice for “lying” to the police. You have an abuse victim who is now being taken to task by the state.
I think this is wrong. In this case, the police will not deny Rock his “agency” by forcing him into court. They will do exactly that to an abused woman with no particular finding that she is in the subset of victims where such a thing is chronic and that her boyfriend/husband is forcing her to do this. I’m all for combating domestic violence, but these policies have spawned a life of their own, destroying relationships and marriages over drunken tit for tats because the state insists on this couple remaining adversaries and forbidding contact.
I agree with all of what you said, but the huge problem with this is that known guilty people get a lesser sentence than the innocent person who rolls the dice and loses. It is also very coercive in that it can be described as nothing more than punishment for exercising a constitutional right to trial. But I realize that argument sailed about 50 years ago.
If you subscribe to the “Broken Windows” view of criminal science and want to expand on it, the theory would be that catching and punishing criminals early on is a deterrent, not only for the arrested but also those in the neighborhood that know about the arrest. FTR I am not a believer in BW theory but I know people who are.
Pretty much here where I live, every traffic violation is pled down to “Driving an unsafe vehicle” with 2 points. I fought mine and got totally screwed by a judge that testified to what the officer must have seen (the officer could not state what he saw as his view was blocked AND it was a dark morning with no streetlight) following it up with, “He gave you the ticket so you must have done it.” I think the judge decided to find me guilty because I didn’t take the plea.
In a lot of first time/minor cases, one of the enticements to get a plea done is to ensure that it is something that can be “sealed” so it will no longer be on their record.
That is usually coupled with some form of “treatment”. This oftentimes applies when the conduct involved alcohol or drug use.
So, it’s not so much a shaming/deterrent idea as much as “get them in early for treatment” but if that doesn’t take then maybe we need more punitive measures.
Now, I can’t vouch for the effectiveness of things like “alcohol evaluation and treatment”, but it is routinely the type of requirement that is made a part of a misdemeanor plea.
Is it really that easy? Is, “I don’t remember” the get out of jail free card it seems to be?
If Rock cannot show disability (e.g. Alzheimer’s) and it can be shown he talked about the incident on numerous occasions since it happened can he just claim, “I don’t remember” and that is the end of it?
That would be perjury, unless you think he might actually forget. I think there’s a big difference between saying he doesn’t want to press charges and actively lying to protect a person who hit you.
I don’t have any reason to believe that Chris Rock would commit perjury or risk contempt of court to protect Will Smith if Rock were subpoenaed and called to testify.
If someone made a widely public cruel joke about the visible side effect of my wife’s disability I’d clock the insensitive bastard where he stood. If Will Smith has to take “lumps” (pun intended) over this so be it, but I don’t blame him one bit. If Rock doesn’t want to press charges that’s likely because he’d rather forget the whole thing and knows he was being a total a**hole and wants the matter to slide.
Oh, you’re definitely right that he could be “impeached” with other evidence. And the prosecutor will have other evidence (witnesses, a video) to prove the case. And Rock would likely come across as disingenuous, and a jury almost certainly wouldn’t believe him.
I was just responding to the idea that he couldn’t get on the stand and say it didn’t happen. I’ve seen “victims” who don’t want to see the case go forward, and they aren’t helpful when testifying - “it wasn’t that bad” (but at the time you were crying!), “I’m not sure how he touched me” (but there was a mark left on your face) - and they don’t get in trouble for their unenthusiastic testimony, even if it comes across that they are simply trying to stonewall.
(I guess I should include the caveat that it probably depends on the judge - contempt was mentioned, and I could see a judge threatening that if a witness was just refusing to engage with the questions - “I don’t know” repeatedly)
To beat the analogy to death, you’re trying to catch good fish to bring home and make a meal of, not some scrawny Sunnie that’s all bones.
This is exactly the type of crime a cop could watch happen in person and not make an arrest. Two guys with a beef, one slap thrown, and it’s all over. That’s a talking to, not an arrest. That’s a “let’s make sure nobody is coming back with a .38 to settle it for good” type of incident. The police don’t exist to make as many arrests as humanly possible.
But yeah, let’s arrest the millionaire black man and force a different millionaire black man to testify against him. That’ll turn into a good use of public resources. It’s not like Chris Rock hasn’t publicly complained about being harassed by the police for being black, I’m sure him and his legal team will be very subpoena friendly for this important prosecution.
I’m with you on that. Some weird stuff might happen in West Virginia but in my state a misdemeanor non-domestic violence assault that the victim wants no action on would never be prosecuted. I don’t care how many witnesses or cameras there are. It doesn’t matter if the people involved are billionaires or dead broke.
Along with that it wouldn’t be a jury trial as was being talked about above. The prosecutors office would not be involved. Misdemeanors (or more accurately disorderly persons offenses as they are called here) are heard at the municipal level in front of a municipal judge with the part time municipal prosecutor.
I really think this not true. If it was just pushing, shoving and swearing, it might be. But if someone strikes another guy right in front of cop they are getting a cuffed and a ride in a cop car. What happens after that is debatable, but they are seeing the inside of a cop car in cuffs.
That said, IMO if I was going to choose one case of the privileged few getting away with something other people couldn’t because they are rich and well connected, to make an example of, this would not be it.
That hasn’t happened in my last 24 years. Maybe it will in the next year.
Without a victim willing to cooperate assault would not be charged. If the suspect continues to engage in tumultuous behavior in front of the cop he could be arrested for disorderly conduct. The state is the victim in that case.
This thread is about the legal issues, and as we’re in FQ, should stick to the facts as much as possible. What you would personally do and what Chris Rock’s motivation may or may not have been is more of an IMHO thing. Feel free to post this in a more appropriate thread/forum, perhaps IMHO or GD.
This seems to be a good argument that we should take into account the victim’s desire for prosecution, which I think is the opposite to what you were arguing above.
If it’s bad for prosecutors to railroad women who are victims of minor domestic violence into this situation, it’s bad for them to do it to anyone, right? Or is consistency so important that we should want the justice system to be consistently unjust to everyone?
I agree with this. You don’t want a generally lawless society where people are using violence to solve their problems, but also, sometimes minor violence occurs and then everyone calms down and realizes that it’s not a case where the state needs to intervene. A big part of that is going to be a judgment call on the part of law enforcement in interpreting the victim’s desire for state intervention.
