The President calls for the death penalty on suspect before trial- what are the legal ramifications?
Thing is, Nixon realized his error. That was quite the scandal at the time, as I recall. It didn’t affect the outcome of the trial, but it certainly made the prosecution more difficult. Nixon knew better but slipped. Donald, of course, knows nothing.
And Nixon was, in fact, a lawyer. He graduated third in his class from the Duke Law School, and practiced law in California for several years.
Is there a ‘heat of the moment’ provision?
“Heat of the moment” for what?
Is Trump going to get in any legal trouble for running his fool mouth about the case? No he isn’t. Is he going to make the prosecutor’s job harder? Yes he is. But all that means is having a much larger jury pool, and taking some extra time to impanel the jury. It’s not like Trump running his mouth means we have to let him go now.
It’s inappropriate because everyone, even an obviously guilty person, deserves a fair trial. We don’t dispense with the fair trial for people who we’re sure are guilty, we hold the trial and find them guilty, because otherwise we have lynch mobs.
Trump whining and complaining that the penalties for terrorism need to be tougher is kind of pathetic as well. What punishment does he want? I guess that’s what’s behind all the “Send them to Gitmo!” talk, because the idea is that’s where we torture prisoners. I’m pretty sure this guy is actually surprised he survived.
If only he had used a gun, then the right-wing media would be complaining about how you can’t politicize a tragedy like this. I mean, if he used a gun and was white, of course.
And it’s not that unusual, either. In fact, I just heard on the news today where either the NYC mayor or the NY governor (don’t remember which) said the guys should “rot in prison for the rest of his life”. I’m pretty sure it was De Blasio, but I’m not certain.
Obama, if you remember, famously mouthed off about the cops “acting stupidly” in the Skip Gates case. I don’t know why these guys can’t just clam up about criminal cases or potential cases and just say something like “I have confidence the justice system will work in this case as it should.”
His name is Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov.
I, too, must pop in to say that this was a quality joke.
That’s true, I don’t see any reasonable argument that this will affect the outcome of the case. The point is that in the old days, we used to expect that the President would, out of respect for Constitutional norms and the dignity of his office, refrain from joining the baying mob, and many of us liked those days better.
I don’t know. I think that joke went south pretty fast.
That depends on whether the defendant is tried in state or federal court; New York doesn’t have the death penalty.
This will really hurt the president in the Red States.
Well done!
Oh, and Trump is an idiot. In this particular case, it probably won’t matter because the defendant has repeatedly proclaimed his own guilt. But if Trump tweets something this stupid in a closer trial, it would certainly be fodder for the defense.
The prosecution merely needs to point out the fact that President Trump repeatedly championed the death penalty for Bowe Bergdahl, and that piece of dog shit received 0 days in jail. That should be enough proof that what the President Tweets and shouts from the podium has little effect on court room decisions.
Not exactly-the fact that the President often made these declarations in public was used by his defense in his plea for leniency.
Correct. Nixon, a lawyer himself, swiftly realized he had screwed the pooch and issued a statement affirming he expected the jurors to independently reach their conclusions. Trump. . .er. . . hasn’t done that.
Actually, it’s possible the President’s intemperate Tweets affected Bergdahl’s sentence downwards.
The President shouldn’t offer commentary on the guilt of accused criminals prior to their trials, although, politics being what they are, many Presidents have done. Nixon’s mistake is discussed above; Obama proclaimed the guilt of Kahlid Mohammad ahed of a trial to deflect criticism of his decision to try Mohammad in the civilian courts.
Generally, it’s a very poor practice, but it’s not likely to affect the fairness of a civilian trial (as a matter of law, anyway).
But bear in mind that the President is the Commander-in-Chief. When he opines about his certainty of guilt and desire for harsh punishment in a court-martial, the concerns about fairness take on a new dimension: he is the boss and his subordinates are the judge and jury. In an effort to avoid handing the defense an appealable issue, the convening authority for a court-martial might well keep his sentence light to disarm any argument that the sentence was so harsh because of undue command influence.
This is just anther example of Trump blundering about doing stuff because he has no clue. In my view, he is genuinely frustrated that we cannot simply arm a court bailiff and conduct a trial in ten minutes, with the execution at minute 11.
I think the risk is that we will try to conform to the views of Islamists who don’t like gender mixing in public, or outdoor recreation. They want enforced separation between genders as governmental policy, and they are willing to enforce their desires with violence. There was an attack at a beach in Tunisia which was very similar to this attack. See Tunisia attack: What happened - BBC News. Ditto the San Bernardino attack,see What Happened in the San Bernardino Shooting. There is direct support for the concept that gay activities may have offended the Orlando night club shooter, see Orlando Shooting: What Happened At The Pulse Nightclub Attack (“his son had become angered recently at the sight of two men kissing.”).
Wanting separate male and female social facilities is fine; government mandate and/or violence in their behalf is not. We have successfully integrated many people. But we should be sure, as we vet immigrants, that they are committed to becoming Americans. And that they are not committed to maintaining “their way of life” while obtaining the benefits of being in the U.S.
I think you may have posted in the wrong thread.
Legal fiction, underpinning of our entire criminal justice system, potato, potahto. :rolleyes: