Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
>
> Bail isn't trial. There is no implication that an accuastion of petty theft
> results in mandatory imprisonment. I don't know the statute, but if it is
> described correctly, it says that if you accused os petty theft in that
> state, and have a prior, you can't be released on bail pending your trial.
> Bail in general is not a right, although if it is available it can't be
> unreasonably high.
>
> A more disturbing police state tendency--the real thing--is the Rumsfeld
> determination that US citizens can be held indefinitely on suspicion of
> terrorism without being charged, tried, or given access to an attorney.
One of my reasons for being increasingly unhappy with the label "fascism" is that it tends to blur the repressive power of the "rule of law" in capitalist democracies. (The other reason is a belief that fascism is not the only kind of repressive regime, and a focus on fascism puts us to sleep in identifying real threats.)
There has *never* been a "rule of law" for _all_ of the population of the U.S. Varying proportions (sometimes fairly large sectors) of the population have always lived in a police state, while other sectors have enjoyed most or all of the rights and privileges detailed in junior-high civics texts. What we are seeing now is not something at all new. Practices more or less standard for some citizens are being extended to larger sectors of citizens.
Take the instance of bail. _Any bail at all_ is impossibly large for many. This, combined with the oppressive conditions in most county jails, means that large numbers of people can be _and have been_ imprisoned indefinitely without benefit of trial. Choice: Plead guilty and receive probation, or spend 6 months in Cook County Jail waiting trial. Obvious choice is to plead guilty. Next arrest (for anything): violation of probation and off you go to prison.
Ten years on death row followed by success of appeal and release: triumph for the rule of law or utter absence of rule of law?
Carrol
A
> federal district (trial) court (without precedential force) ruling I heard
> about today--I haven't read it yet--apparently said that some or all of this
> is OK. This was by the chief judge of the Southern District of NY (in
> Manhattan), a very influential court. ANother SDNY court came out the other
> way. jks
>
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