0 posts 6/14/2010 5:23 pm
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Where is the Birth Certificate
Until the most recent election the major issue deciding elections was the one of abortion. Abortion is the wedge issue of the Republican Party, but you may have noticed that they never actually accomplished anything in spite of controlling houses of Congress, the Executive, and a majority of Judicial nominees. There is however several small concessions that they have offered their fundamentalist pawns.
One of the concessions offered to assuage the demands of the religious right was defining an unborn as a person for the purposes of criminal prosecution. Unfortunately this leads to an ambiguity of law because the exact date when a cellular mass becomes a person is a matter of arbitrary interpretation. If the press runs the case up the public<b> flag pole </font></b>then it is a person, but if no brownie points are to be scored then a pregnant woman is just a solitary individual, this brings me to the case of Scott Peterson. Scott was convicted of a double 1st degree in the death of his wife and their unborn .
Prior to the change in law I could give you a list of both men and women that have killed their mate, served their time and walk the streets today. Because Scott almost got away with it, (assuming he got away with anything at all) the press ran him up the nightly flagpole and fanned the flames of public outrage. Had the press not stuck their nose into what was a rather routine case it would have come to a rather routine conclusions, a plea out on a single count of manslaughter, 2nd or 1st degree murder. Because he came under so much coverage the DA was compelled to bring the full weight of law against him. I do not want to lessen the responsibility that we all have to Laci Peterson. Laci deserves justice and had an absolute right to life, she did not deserve to have it cut short.
Justice should be based upon the various forms of evidence, not upon the emotional need to make someone pay so that we can feel good about ourselves by vilifying another. I will get back to the defining an unborn as a person issue here in just a few paragraphs, but first I want to review some of the objectionable evidence that was used to convict Scott. The first thing I found objectionable was using the boat anchors he made as proof that the alleged crime was premeditated. Because hairs were found in the cement used to make the boat anchor it was used as evidence that they were made for the purpose of weighing a body down. Go out and sweep your garage and what do you see in the pile? A lot of human hair! You can do almost nothing in your home without getting hair into it. The human body sheds hairs like a sprinkler spreads water. Finding hairs in anchors that he made is proof of nothing and should never have been allowed into evidence.
The second thing I objected to was the accusation that because he could see the location where the body was later found from the window of a room where he was staying, that this served as some form of inspiration to commit the crime. What I take from this is do not own a home on a hill because it makes you suspect in any crime that happens in the town below because you could see it from your room.
Ultimately the statements he made to his fling girlfriend Amber Fey are enough to convince me that he is a snake, but prosecutions overkill with the evidence is now going to give him plenty of grounds for appeal. Scott Peterson is headed for an overturned conviction or a retrial/plea, is there anyone who wants to make a wager? Although in all probability Scott is guilty of being involved in the death of his wife, no actual cause of death was established, so it is impossible to say whether is was premeditated or accidental. Mr. Peterson should rightly be in prison, but he does not deserve to be on death row.
I want to now double back to the birth certificate issue. Anyone who goes whining that President Obama must have a birth certificate to be a citizen should also say that the Peterson�s unborn was also not a citizen/person for the same reasoning. The whole issue of defining an unborn as a person is nothing but pandering to a constituency without regard to consistency in the law. On what date did the Peterson�s unborn become a person, well let me answer that rhetorical question, on whatever day is convenient for prosecution? This law needs to be overturned and Scott�s conviction should be reduced to a single count.
Ultimately if Scott wins on appeal and has his sentence negotiated to a single count of second degree he would still be in prison 10 years from today. Before you go thinking that I am some kind of misogynist who defends only men I should point out that I also have defended Susan Smith when I wrote How Sensational, and Susan Polk when I wrote, Seven Degrees of Separation. My goal is to see that the law is applied equally to all and not let the press fan the flames of public outrage just so they can get more viewers/readers.
I take on the hard issues, because they are hard not to seek approval from you, I don�t need your approval. I bet when you read the title of this post you thought you were going to get another tea bagging belly aching whiner. |
I Swami Johnny see's all, knows all, tells very little.
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