- Joined
- Nov 6, 2007
- Messages
- 71,335
- Reaction score
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- Location
- Rolesville, NC
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
Unfortunately this is, to a good extent, a biproduct of our jury of your peers system. While that may seem like "well charge them anyway" is good policy, the charges have to still be very well supported even if your chances of getting a conviction are only 50/50. All it takes is for one juror to be a stringent supporter of whoever the person is to cause a hung jury/mistrial. Chances are in a population where 1/3 of the people believe a certain person can do no wrong, is being framed, some even believe is Jesus, wrongfully persecuted, you are going to have a very hard time finding 12 completely or mostly impartial jurors, who really would consider the facts, evidence and not let their feelings/beliefs interfere.Oh, no doubt the average citizen would be ****ed. But let's get real, ex-presidents are above the law for the most part, like it or not (I don't like).
And I realize that the opposite could be true too, where one or just a few insist that they must be guilty based on their own bias, but having that is far less likely to get a conviction (you have to get all 12 to agree to convict) than having the other way is to get enough mistrials to get acquitted/charges dropped.