Ghislaine Maxwell Prosecution Reveals Nearly 3 Million Pages of Evidence
(www.newsweek.com)
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My issue with the "due process" has more to do with the defense being allowed a grossly extended pre-trail review before the actual trial. I understand that evidence needs to be presented to the defense. But the defense should not be allowed to stall a trial either. Stalling a trial is also a violation of due process in my opinion.
There are only (X) number of charges being presented. The time allotted for a defense to review evidence before a trial should be based on the number of charges, not the amount of evidence the prosecution has.
That doesn’t make sense.
Let’s say I bring one charge against you, but it involves hundreds of thousands of documents. The key to proving your innocence may be on only one of those pages, but you run out of time in your search.
Still think that’s a fair idea?
That's not how the law works. I am innocent until proven guilty by the prosecution. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to make a case.
Innocent people do not need loopholes and legal technicalities to "prove innocence."
The defense only need defend against the evidence that the prosecution presents to the jury, or judge, in the courtroom. They don't need to waste time before the trail begins to review what the prosecution has, because they have the defendant. If the defendant has not been forthright with her lawyers in detailing her crimes- or explaining her innocence, then that's her problem.
You have absolutely zero clue how legal procedure works.
It’s not Law and Order: SVU.
As someone who has personally gone through the discovery process and the trial process, you absolutely need both sides to have had access to everything before you get in that court room. You can’t put a time limit on examining the facts. I’ve seen an insurance adjuster intimidate a jury so that they could try to get a mistrial declared after they learned the plaintiff’s strategy.
Imagine if they told Derek Chauvin’s legal team, “Oh, you didn’t get to examine the witness testimony because the prosecution didn’t provide it earlier? Too bad, your trial’s tomorrow. Good luck.”
Get out of here with your “retribution” idea of what justice looks like. Due process and equal protection under the law cannot be something we pick and choose to apply if this republic is to survive.
So you’re saying you should get the same amount of time for review for two charges of class 1 misdemeanor drug possession as two charges of involuntary manslaughter?
No.
I also agree stalling is a violation of due process. The way Nathan is handling this entire thing is a violation of due process in many ways the way she’s picking who to protect information-wise.
But the whole point of what happens pre-trial is so that there are zero surprises and everyone-theoretically-gets their ducks in a row to make things as even keel as possible.
I am actually suggesting that the time allocated for pre-trial review should be based more on the number of charges, and modified by the complexity of the case related to the charges, rather than how much evidence the prosecution has gathered. That's all.
There simply needs to be a legal procedure in place to prevent a defense from stalling a trial (exploiting due process) based solely on the quantity of evidence that the prosecution has gathered.
The defense has had access to the defendant, who has (should have) direct knowledge of the charges against her. If she has failed to give her defense the details needed to prevent a prosecution from proving her guilt, then that's her problem, and it needs to be resolved in the court room, not years before the case goes to trial.
To be clear, I am not saying that a defense doesn't need time to review evidence. But they have direct access to the defendant, and that should count for a large part of the allocated pre-trial review time. They don't need, nor deserve years to review evidence when the defendant can explain what did or did not happen related to the charges.