>>> "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com> 02/28/00 02:02PM >>>
But those ideals remain forever in the display case -- they're never actually taken out and used in difficult cases like this. What confounds me is the way all the intricate legal gears meshed so perfectly during the Diallo case to give the appearance of due process with none of the substance. Plausibility was delivered; justice denied.
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CB: I agree with you , Carl , that this case demonstrates profound corruption of American legal ideals.
The legal gears didn't so much mesh intricately as crush grotesquely and excuse the crushing. Diallo's summary execution was about as far from due process as anyone ever got. The cops' successful self-defense defense of the criminal charges had to be based upon the genocidal premise that cops in a Black neighborhood have reasonable fear of threat of death or great bodily harm from any Black man they encounter. This self-defense argument is only plausible on the most heinously racist assumptions.
CB