| Bush and Gonzalez should not work so hard to diminish the rights of defendents in criminal trials. Soon they may BE defendents! |
| Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, will ask a judge this week to reverse his conviction for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.
Mr. Craig is hardly alone in deciding that he likes defendants’ rights after he became a defendant. Among law-and-order conservatives, it’s the norm. Oliver North got his Iran-contra convictions thrown out, with the A.C.L.U.’s help, on a relative technicality. This year, an official of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, James Tobin, got his conviction for jamming Democratic Party lines in New Hampshire on Election Day reversed on a fine point about what his “purpose” was. The best thing that Mr. Craig has going for him may be that his case is being heard by a Minnesota state court, not a federal one. The last kind of judge Mr. Craig would want to appear before is one with the harsh legal philosophy he and his Republican colleagues have been foisting on the rest of us. Source: "Larry Craig’s Great Adventure: Suddenly, He’s a Civil Libertarian" By ADAM COHEN - NY Times - September 24, 2007 Stranger things have happened. Ask John Mitchell. Four years ago in Liberia, in an attempt to preserve his corrupt authority, President Charles Taylor adopted the Bush administration’s phrase “unlawful combatants” to describe prisoners he wished to try outside of civilian courts. Today Mr. Taylor stands before The Hague accused of war crimes. Source: "Do Unto Your Enemy…" By PAUL RIECKHOFF - NY Times - September 25, 2006 |
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| Comments | Contributor | Date Submitted |
| They seem to assume that anyone arrested and sent to trial is guilty, and therefore deserves to have no rights. History is full of innocent people sent to prison. | Linda Denton |
8/16/2006 |
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