h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bush clippy was shown to me by someone I work with and I decided to share. I don't know who made it.

"If that is the case, then I suggest the police should have done their job correctly in the first place. By presenting such cruicial evidence so far after the fact indicates incompetence. The whole point of not being able to try someone more then once is to ensure the police have a case before they charge an individual. And thus:
1) Makes the "charge" itself more serious.
2) Does not overburden the legal system with "light-weight" evidence charges."

That ignores the point of my argument which is what *if* evidence appears after the trial? The police are not superhuman and cannot find everything by the trial. Evidence can and often does appear at a later date. What then?

The point about "allow guilty to go free to stop innocent being imprisoned" is spurious. As I have already said, innocent people who are wrongly jailed have a chance to overturn the wrong conviction. Guilty party's who are wrongly freed stay that way. It's an unfair situation and thus needs rectified.

Anyway, double jeapoardy is (righty) being scrapped and there's nothing you can do about it. So ha!

Incidentally, this is not the issue of the thread. The issue of the thread is the potential war with Iraq. Let us return to the subject in hand (there's an actress-bishop joke there, but I won't bother).

"Anyway, surely to get a re-trial more evidence will be needed. If more evidence shows up, what is your problem?"

Yes, but who decides what is or isn't relevant new evidence?

Here's another way to look at hounding. Suppose you can retry someone for the same crime if you present new evidence and suppose you have 10 pieces of evidence. Consider situation 1: the police present all 10 pieces of evidence in the trial and there is either a guilty or innocent verdict. Consider situation 2: the police present one piece of evidence at the first trial, two pieces at the second trial, and so on until the 10th trial. At each trial there is a chance that they will find the defendant guilty. By releasing the evidence in a trickle, the police substantially increase their chance of at least one guilty verdict which is all they need. In other words, allowing retrials for the same crime creates a perverse incentive for the police to hold back evidence and repeatedly prosecute for the same crime. In other words, allowing retrials (a) probabilistically biases the legal system towards finding people guilty, and (b) induces an incentive for the police to hound suspects.

Re Colin Stagg: my point was not about a stain on someone's character (that's pretty unavoidable), but about the possibility that they will be tried again at any point for the rest of their life, which I can imagine would cause extreme discomfort.

This isn't (or at least shouldn't be) a left versus right issue, so let's put that aside. If you want to see it as strong versus weak (which I think is a bad way of looking at it) why not see it as the innocent (the weak) versus the state (the strong)? This sort of thing doesn't get us very far.

"...otherwise we have the absurd situation of "yes, we eventually found a witness and a murder weapon with his fingerprints, but we can't try him because he's already been found innocent.""

The thing is, when changing a piece of legislation, it isn't enough to point at one example where things would be better after the change. You have to look at all the likely effects (positive and negative) of the change and decide on balance whether it is good. Of course I think the situation you described is absurd, but the alternative is worse.

>I was went on a tour of the UN recently and it was said when we went into the main council chamber that the UN couldn't make I don't think she used the word laws but she said something along the lines that the UN could only make sugestions in how to deal with things....does anyone know what if anything she ment by this?...I didn't think to ask further at the time and I don't think I wanna go through the tour again so soon just to ask,

Tacs, She is right the UN is not a Governing body over any Nation or peoples in the world. It can not make Laws over any sovergn nation. It can make resolutions {suggestions} Relying on political clout,and financil insentives {bribes} and penalties {sanctions} It is only as powerful as the member nations make it.

I've always wondered if conservatives were paid representation here


(bookmarking)

Double Jeopardy laws were set up to stop the State {or people who control it} from using the legal system to persecute a person. When one is accused of a crime it is up to that person to secure legal representation and time to defend against the charges. This is a costly and time consuming process which even if the person is found innocent can not be recouped. If double jeapardy was not in place a over zealous or corrupt state body could just keep retrying a person until they were ruined or convicted. While it is very frustrating at times and does work in the favor of some who are guilty the cost of not having it is to high.

>>Where would Sadam be now without US government help? <<
birth, as John Pilger reliably shows in his book, Saddam Hussein's armoury was supplied by the US - biological weapons by Fort Detrick, for instance..

He was helped to power by the USA, and when Kurds and Shi'a Muslims tried to overthrow him, they were stopped by US troops, because Saddam was too useful! Now, those same groups are being told by Dubya to risk life and limb by over-throwing Saddam, when they no longer wish to!

Della you are right I am not denying that the US has supplied saddam in the past. What I said {and I take fault for not making clear} is that he rose to power with his own cunning and with or without the US he would be still where he is.

>>If double jeapardy was not in place a over zealous or corrupt state body could just keep retrying a person until they were ruined or convicted. While it is very frustrating at times and does work in the favor of some who are guilty the cost of not having it is to high.>>
Wow, birth, we agree again! What gives? Woo-hoo!

Double blue moon della. By the way we are expecting over 6" of snow starting early morning so I will have plenty of time to resume our adversarial relationship

Arriving to the debate a little bit late.. What does double jeporady have to do with Irag?

Della, Yes the US supplied Saddam in the late 70's with weapons in order to help him in the war against Iran. The goal was to keep the aytollah (spelled wrong) out of power. However aid was cut off to rather quickliy in the early 80's most of his weapons and training came from the USSR. Evidnced by all the russina tanks, and equipment we destroyed 11 years ago.

The UN is utterly useless, it allows countries to make useless gestures without consequences...france and germany come to mind. They attack what the US would like to meanwhile enjoying the freedom and peace of mind from the fact the US has a military to do things they can't/won't do. Sorry if sound bitter but I work 3 block from the World Trade Center and this has made recent events slightly more real for me. I personally do not feel the we (the US) needs a "Coalition" to do what needs to be done. In all honesty I think that the Bush administration is only doing it to buy time for preperations. Sadam will never comply with the resolutions he has not done so for 11 years why would he start now?

A very swift reminder from this mornings Grauniad about the man who *really* stands to gain from any war in Iraq;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,848585,00.html



Btw guys, if you really want to discuss Double Jeopardy ( A fantastic movie with 'Hardboiled' Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyk and Edward G. Robinson ), could I ask you do it in another thread?

I hear you Jolly I live about 70 miles from the wtc {used to be} and have family and friends in the city. The town I live in lost several people who were headed to disney {so mostly kids} I watched the thick black smoke from my back yard which contained my neigbors. I still can see it in my mind and it bothers me also.

sure you can blueshark,I would NEVER go of subject unless inticed by provocaters {most likely New Zealanders}

Jolly Roger: "I personally do not feel the we (the US) needs a "Coalition" to do what needs to be done."

Starbirth: "I hear you Jolly I live about 70 miles from the wtc {used to be} and have family and friends in the city."

Could you please explain what relevance the twin towers attack has to this thread? Has Saddam been reliably implicated? If not then stop clouding the issue.

And if the war goes ahead (I say 'war', but let's face it, it's going to be as much of a war as the Afghanistan turkey-shoot) then in a few years time you may well find Iraqis having conversations about smoking ruins, and the US getting what's coming. Open your minds, fools, war is not a solution.

"Starbirth, as John Pilger reliably shows in his book, Saddam Hussein's armoury was supplied by the US - biological weapons by Fort Detrick, for instance.."

As reliable as John Pilger's information often is then . It's something of a new urban myth that "Saddam was armed by the West". The majority of Saddam's armoury came from the USSR. He was equipped with some Western equipment when he was at war with Iran but his greatest supplier has always been Russia and Eastern Europe. I haven't seen a single Western tank, APC or helicopter in his armoury. Come to think of it, in the last few years we've seen precious few of *any* of these in his armoury.

"He was helped to power by the USA"

Modern myth no.2. Saddam was not helped into power by the USA. He became President in the 1970s through the ruling Ba'athist Socialist Party (the "socialist" bit suggest an attempt to appeal to the Soviets although Hussieins socialism is very much National in flavour ).