Reasonable (affordable) bail.
>...And what about people accused of horrible violent crimes,
>including those caught red-handed pumping bullets into their victims?
Including the Amadou Diallo cops? Anyway, pretrial detention where release would involve a real risk to society is not at issue though anyone should recognize it as punishment. Even the Law deducts time served pretrial from the eventual sentence for those proven guilty. At issue is the use of "pretrial detention" as punishment for the innocent (in New York its called "putting you through the system")
How to reconcile the rejection of administrative punishment with the fact that even honest cops sometimes make mistaken arrests? For a start, how about decent compensation (say $200 per day or fraction thereof) for all time under arrest not otherwise compensated by a reduction of sentence after proof of guilt at trial?
Shane Mage
"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner)
>Would you feel happy saying, well, sir, you're presumed innocent, so
>please show up for your capital trial (or, in a civilized society)
>your trial for life imprisonment, happily for you due process
>prohibits pretrial detention, so we'll just have to hope you don't
>kill anyone else before your trial, and that you dos how up.
>
>Sheesh, sometimes I think being on the left turns your brains to
>oatmeal. I'd like you to meet some of our defendants: the 6'5%" bank
>robber whose prior involved boddy slamming his 5'2" ex girlfriend on
>an asphalt parking lot; the Gangster Disciple who beat people up for
>his pals' crack operations and used minors to (as he hoped) avois
>criminal liability for hso own activities' the rich businessman who
>ebaded million in taxes--oh, I forget, he's a rich white tax evader,
>so there;s no presumption of innocence for people like that . . . .
>
>jks
>
>
>
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