General Law/Politics

I'll bite. How did YOU protect BC's constitutional rights this year?

Constitution? What Constitution?

[/bitter]

So? What was your secret to defending BC's rights?

How to defend BC's Constitutional Rights.

Plan #1 -- rejected:

Use the exclusion of BC from her jury trial to show that the State had breached it plea deal with BC and move to strike the plea deal.  This had the drawback of ending the trial before it began and hence everyone getting zeros.

Plan #2 -- worked pretty well

Use Alford and residual doubt for the theme that BC was innocent and innocent people should not spend time in prison.  Hence, she should have probation, and leave it for future legal proceedings at the appellate level to handle the unwarranted guilty plea.

Variations:

One unused approach was the theory that BC finally plead guilty (in Oct ?) because she realized that with HIV her sole chance to get medical treatment was to be a ward of the court.  If she fought the charge, she would win but that would be equal to a death sentence as she then would have no meds.  Therefore, her plan was to plead guilty and then get probation as a ward of the court so she could get HIV meds.

As you can see there were some approaches which would not disregard BC's constitutional rights and bring to the jury's attention that there is no proof that she was guilty.  The fact that the prosecution's plea offer did not say that the prosecution had any evidence that BC knew her HIV status was important.  If brought to the court's attention in any rational jurisdiction, the sentencing phase would probably halt while the defense team filed a motion to over turn the guilty plea.

Francis was the best defense witness as one could get her to admit that she did not see BC stab her.  Lots of people thought that was silly, but in reality it showed that there was no evidence of BC's mens rea.  The lack of any evidence of mens rea was the heart of the trial.  People who ignored the state of mind requirement, simply gave up 1/2 of BC's rights without a fight.

Francis did not see BC until she was flying towards Max. BC said nothing to Francis beforehand and Francis did not see BC.  Thus, there was no evidence that the puncture was purposeful or inadvertent.  Remember that the Francis affidavit said the pain was in both her arm and side.  That was consistent with the wound being lower down on Francis body where the needle would be if BC's were running after Max.  When the victim is standing, intentional stabs tends to be higher on the body, in the chest, shoulder or upper back.  The facts which were added by Officer MacDonald were the facts that had to be in Francis affidavit to have a factual foundation to even argue mens rea.

Dr. Montana:

Dr. Montana was helpful in two important ways:

(1) As an expert she could testify that the only way to know if BC has HIV is by  test and that it cannot be done in 20 minutes. That last testimony nullified the idea that when Micah took BC to the doctor and he had to leave the room that a quickie HIV test was done.  While it was rank speculation that BC was HIV tested during those few minutes, it was good to totally close the door on that silly idea.  Micah's testimony was consistent with BC's having a pregnancy test while Micah was out f the room.

(2)  Dr. Montana was also very helpful in the defense as she had no evidence to rule out Francis' spouse as the source of the HIV infection.  This worked well when Francis was a female, a her spouse would be a male.  In an extreme case of cross examination, there were the questions to Dr. Montana: (1) You do not know whether Mr. Francis was faithful to his wife, do you? (2) You do not know whether Mr. Francis operated on the down-low, do you?  Whether extreme questions were used, it was always possible to show that Montana had no BASIS under 702 and 703 to offer any medical opinion about Mickey's HIV status.  Then it was a short step to show that based on Dr. M's own statistics, it was much much more likely that a wife would get HIV from sexual relations with her husband than from a needle puncture.  Such a cross examination not only would have required BC's acquittal if she had had her Guilt Phase Trial, but also was legally sufficient for her to receive probation.

This use of the facts and law kept in mind that BC's Constitutional rights had been seriously transgressed and she merited the strongest possible defense.  Assuming that her guilty plea meant that she was guilty was substandard legal work. The deprivation of her Constitutional rights was intermingled with the issues of burdens of proof.  One cannot full appreciate the travesty done to BC unless they grasp the importance of burdens of proof. Nonetheless, mockers could have used these concepts to analyze the case and to put on a credible defense.   

Fir the most part, the weak defenses were put on because mockers had no concern for the Constitution, which is applicable in Midlands per MRE 101  "Midlands is recognized as being in the United States and as governed by the U.S. Constitution."

you do realize that constitutional arguments are forbidden, right?

Correct. Section 5 of the FRE's are removed. No documents enumerating power are recognized unless explicitly provided.

Hence why in 06-07 they provided the 14th Amendment, I believe (when it was still an equal protection case early on in the year).

So basically, the only way you ACTUALLY protected (and not just "talked about it") BC's rights was by going through with the case and hoping it got overturned on appeal? I'll be sure to call you if I ever need my rights defended!

 

And I was waiting for someone to confirm that the Constitutional provision that had made its way into the MRE a few years ago had been excised. Which makes this even more ludicrous.

[What sniveling cowards!]

If AMTA, like the Bush II Administration, would like to excise the U.S. Constitution from jurisprudence, then AMTA has to change MRE 101 which expressly says that the State of Midlands is subject to the entire US Constitution.

You should really step back and take a look at yourselves -- arguing for the end of constitutional rights.   What sniveling cowards!  If AMTA has done away with the Constitution, you should be outraged and fighting for the Constitution.  Even bin Laden wouldn't have any respect for dweebs that sell out their own heritage.  In fact isn't it his claim that Americans are too cowardly to fight for their own values? 

There was no rational reason for AMTA to attack on the Constitution this year, yet almost every mocker went along with it.  99% of the mockers were too afraid of losing a point or two to even mention the problem.

Maybe there will be some divine justice and you all be in Louisville some day and falsely arrested and railroaded into prison.  In the end, it may not be so pleasant.

This. Isn't. Real.

Look, I'm plenty pissed about the Constitution ceasing to exist, but it doesn't. For that matter, I'm plenty pissed about this case (I nearly quit my program when it came out this year), but the way to handle that isn't to make obscure, illegal arguments based on case flaws that my opponents aren't responsible for. It's unfair to them, and it's unfair to the activity as a whole. This isn't Moot Court.

Also, how did your team act when you were prosecution? I assume you simply conceded those trials out of apology for trampling on Bobbi Campbell's rights.

Like I said before...

Pathological. What bizzarre behavior. (PS: I guess "mike" doesn't have a problem with ad hom attacks after all! And here I thought he was such a principled guy.)

Makes one wonder why you participated in mock trial at all this year, mike.  After all, you could have used the time better to protect a real person's rights.

Maybe there will be some divine justice and you all be in Louisville some day and falsely arrested and railroaded into prison.  In the end, it may not be so pleasant.

Yes, I suppose that would be justice -- real people getting punished, due to pad karma, for participating in a fake case. 

You've demonstrated yourself to be a colossal asshole, and your arguments aren't worth further response.  I'm done.

[whore to]

An ad hominem attack is when there is a rational argument which has points that need to be addressed but instead, an attack is launched on the writer.  I was not responding to any argument; I was expressing my contempt for those who so readily kiss ass to AMTA after it has spent months intellectually abusing them.

I saw some terrible prosecution cases where they lied about BC saying she hid in the corner and leaped out at Dawn Francis (pre MacDonald) and made up other BS with no factual foundation. One even argued that she had an HIV test during the 20 minutes she was with her doc without Micah. There were defense cases which stooped to this low level rather than doing any hard research or analysis.

I saw some decent prosecution cases where they basically cxed Ash and Rube to paint BC as a psychopath. I recall one prosecution closing after a defense team's Rube had said that BC suffered from startle response that that caused her to attack Francis (utter psychological BS).  In closing the prosecutor pointed out that BC needed to be in prison since she would attack people just because she got a little frightened. Suppose she was driving a car, would she run down little old ladies carrying groceries mistaking them kidnappers? That prosecution approach avoided the issue that BC's defense team should be making a motion to set aside the guilty plea. BC can be Not Guilty and a psychopath.

As someone pointed out to me, AMTA doesn't train students to think legally -- in fact it does not really train them to think at all.  All it asks is that the students mindlessly memorize certain lines and regurgitate them.  Stop a lot of mockers, and they cannot get started again because they've lost their place in their memorized lines. 

The United States is 11th in educational achievement among industrialized nations and with the help of AMTA and a lot of mockers, I'm certain we can dive to the very bottom of the list.  This is not an ad hominem attack; I am expressing disgust at the extremely low level so many mockers set for themselves and how they fight for even lower standards.

As a friend told us, Dorothy Parker said, "You can lead a whore to culture but you cannot make her/him think."

             Give me demerits!  I've got to go out of town on business and I need to rack up over 30 karma demerits in order to beat Hova.

Makes one wonder why you participated in mock trial at all this year, mike.  After all, you could have used the time better to protect a real person's rights.

Yes, I suppose that would be justice -- real people getting punished, due to pad karma, for participating in a fake case. 

You've demonstrated yourself to be a colossal asshole, and your arguments aren't worth further response.  I'm done.

Well put. here, here!

How do we regulate Assholism on perjuries if people aren't afraid of negative Karma? Jayz, Herb, Jaggers, can you guys find another way?

REGULATE????

This isn't the private school playground. I didn't realize you needed to make sure the teacher was watching.