Rule of Law

Forum to discuss issues pertaining to the organisation and operations of the judiciary.

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Publius Crabgrass
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Post by Publius Crabgrass »

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":1epdb06t]How do you interpret the word "established"?[/quote:1epdb06t]

Good grief! Next we will be debating what the [url=http://www.slate.com/id/1000162/:1epdb06t]meaning of the word "is" is[/url:1epdb06t].

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Ashcroft Burnham
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Post by Ashcroft Burnham »

[quote="Publius Crabgrass":htfx2j03]Good grief! Next we will be debating what the [url=http://www.slate.com/id/1000162/:htfx2j03]meaning of the word "is" is[/url:htfx2j03].[/quote:htfx2j03]

I meant [i:htfx2j03]in this context[/i:htfx2j03], since Beathan's idea was for the rules to be made up afresh each time - that does not seem much like "established" procedure to me.

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Beathan
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Post by Beathan »

Ashcroft asks [quote:3doh2000]
How do you interpret the word "established"?
[/quote:3doh2000]

To sink to another new low, and argue not from poetry but from American television, "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

That is, the general criminal law is enforced by at least two sets of procedures -- the procedures under which police investigate crime and procedures under which prosecutors prosecute crimes. Both these procedures are "established" and interact with each other -- but they are not the same set of procedures. Rule of law is not threatened by this multiplicity.

Further, in America, most criminal prosecution is conducted at the County level in the name of the States. We have speedy trial rules and established general procedures for following those rules. However, in almost every case (at least almost every felony case), defendants opt to waive their speed trial right. The specific procedures worked in in the face of such waiver typically varies county-to-county -- even case-to-case -- but because the same substantive law applies, and applies consistently to reach consistent results, there is no "rule of law" problem.

Beathan

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