> >Your idea that a blanket statute denying bail to everyone charged with
>petty theft who has a prior violates due due process because it should be
>an individualized determination is at least colorable, although I haven't
>researched the question. From a legal point of view, however, pretrial
>deterntion is never punishment, since the law says a pretrial detainee is
>presumed innocent.
>
>But of course a person detained in custody for no other reason than that
>they have been accused of a crime, cannot be said to be getting any benefit
>from being presumed innocent. In fact such a person is being treated
>exactly the same in all respects as someone who has been convicted and is
>presumed guilty. It would not be going too far to say that the only
>possible rationale for such a statute is that any person who has previously
>been found guilty of a petty theft *is* presumed guilty. Unless you can
>suggest any other legitimate rationale for a blanket denial of bail?
>
>The issue of remanding a person in custody for some reason is quite
>separate. In that case the courts have determined on the merits of the case
>that bail would entail an actual risk. That isn't what we're talking about
>here.
>
> > Your characterization of the predicament is therefore legally
>inaccurate.
>
>It isn't sufficient for the law to make empty proclamations that a person
>is presumed innocent, if it is meanwhile treating an accused just the same
>as if he was presumed guilty. If a person is presumed innocent, then there
>is no legitimate reason why the question of bail cannot considered on the
>merits.
>
>But in this instance we see that all such accused are detained for no other
>reason than they are accused of a crime. There is no need to establish that
>the person is a flight risk, a risk to society, or so forth, In fact, even
>if an accused could establish that they were none of those things, they
>would be locked up. The only thing that needs to be established is that the
>accused has previously been convicted.
>
>In effect this amounts to stripping a convicted person of their civil
>liberties for life. Effectively a person is henceforth treated as guilty
>until proven innocent. The state's claims to presuming innocence, being
>inconsistent with the state's actual behaviour, are therefor merely a
>transparent pretense.
>
>It is not enough to merely protest that an accused is innocent until proven
>guilty. While prescribing mandatory imprisonment for these "innocent
>people". If presumption of innocence means nothing in practice, then it is
>ridiculous to assert that it is the active legal principle. The law in
>California must walk the walk, not just talk the talk, or California is a
>police state. It really is quite simple.
>
>Bill Bartlett
>Bracknell Tas
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