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| Drew Peterson Photo by Paul Huebl |
Joliet, IL—A jury convicted retired Bolingbrook police
sergeant Drew Peterson of murder yesterday.
Peterson very publicly proclaimed his innocence and in the process
became an absolute public pariah. The
media he used to assert his innocence redundantly exposed Peterson’s troubled
marriages with much younger women. The
self-generated publicity backfired.
Police and prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to take
action against Peterson under existing law.
There was no way to proceed with a prosecution.
Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow quickly lobbied a special legislative bill
that would retroactively allow him to use normally outlawed hearsay testimony
as evidence in court. Additionally, it
was a special law that was designed and promulgated just for the prosecution of
him and was given the popular moniker of The Drew Peterson Law.
The Constitution provides three protections that should have
precluded this law. The law was a
prohibited ex post facto law. This was
also a prohibited bill of attainder. The
biggest problem of all was that it denied Peterson his right to confront the
evidence used against him in court.
Apparently there is no amount of pre-trial publicity that
will cause today’s courts to take steps to prevent the outside influences from
reaching a sitting high profile case jury.
Nothing interfered with the jury from their Internet access to hundreds of
articles and videos related to the matter under examination throughout the
trial. Juror’s very human inquisitive
nature makes judicial admonitions to avoid such exposure unenforceable and
totally meaningless.
I’m not clairvoyant and cannot tell you what happened to
Kathleen Savio eight years ago inside her locked domicile. The expert’s disagreed and that normally
should have been reasonable doubt enough. Police only bothered to look at one suspect.
The troublesome hearsay statements are never made under oath
nor a guarantee that the witness repeating the statements are both accurate and
truthful when they offer this kind of testimony.
The capable lawyers representing Drew Peterson were placed
into a grossly unfair disadvantage with this unprecedented hearsay
prosecution. They even had to somehow create
new and untested jury instructions for this trial.
Hearsay was popular evidence in another infamous criminal
justice system from history, The People’s Court of National Socialist Germany 1933-1945.
The Drew Peterson case endangers every American and their
loved ones to the kind of tyranny we have just seen in Will County, Illinois.
Comments
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed, and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.
Contrast this with the subtly more modern variation of the Texas version: Article 1 (Titled Bill of Rights) Section 16, entitled Bills of Attainder; Ex Post Facto or Retroactive Laws: Impairing Obligation of Contracts: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made".
When I heard of the verdict on the radio, I was happy for the family of the victim, but very aware that this verdict will most probably be overturned if and when it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, several years from now.
Your commentary, Paul is correct. If hearsay became a national standard in criminal court, this is no long America.
Not just Will County - Remember the Los Angeles County Phil Spector Case! The way that case was handled also endangers every American to tyranny
In Spector’s case the scientific evidence was admitted and disputed, but what prejudiced the trials & made them unfair was that all his old girl friends from 20 years prior were allowed to testify against him especially those who had an axe to grind.
Their testimony that the County of Los Angeles court allowed in - is DAMNING EVIDENCE for an unsophisticated jury, and what ever Spector DID or DID NOT do to his ex girlfriends, does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt his murder of Lana Clarkson.
In addition his New York Lawyer, Bruce Cutler, was prevented from properly cross-examining Phil Spector's ex-girlfriends by County of Los Angeles Judge Larry Fidler.
So this evidence admitted in - by County of Los Angeles Judge Larry Fidler was very prejudicial - to the question which was - Who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed Lana Clarkson on Feb 3 2003? And was the firing of the gun accidental or not?
Remember the first jury in the first Phil Spector trial was hung. The fact that Phil Spector was tried a second time by the Los Angeles prosecutors and Judge Larry Fidler sent a strong message to the NEW jury that the jury should convict Phil Spector.
Nobody should rely on the illegal Brazilian chauffeur’s testimony since he has been BRIBED and REWARDED by Los Angeles County for being the Los Angeles prosecution Star witness with a US residency which makes his testimony influenced, coerced and with a BIG possibility of being corrupt - since he stood to gain with the offer of a green card. (i.e. Staged Star Witness)
So I would say that whether in Will County or in Los Angeles County once the decision has been made to prosecute, then the prosecution takes on a life of its own, and will do everything in its power to keep their vision, their version of events so they can convict the person they are prosecuting, & WILL COVER UP anything and EVERYTHING that points to the contrary.
That is not Justice, that is INFLUENCING A NAIVE JURY AND WINNING A CONVICTION, AT THE EXPENSE OF INTEGRITY AND MORAL PRINCIPLES.
You are spot on about how this puts every one of us at risk, and moves us a notch closer to being a police state elected to power by the foolish and kept in power by the gun.