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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (68682)	3/14/2003 12:11:49 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Zonder, I think the issue is that in the US a person is convicted by the "Jury of his peers". "peers" is meant as the society at large and is normally taken from the same city and with the same racial/class mix. The idea is to ensure that there is a unanimous verdict of guilty by the society the accused belongs to. It is considered a fair verdict because presumably the society is aware of the general conditions, cultures, and pressures the accused was under. It is also a way of getting the law to be in tune with the times. What one jury may find acceptable (e.g the jurry by a city with a lot of retired cops in it), sometimes is found unacceptable by another jury (like the city of LA). I think it is a great concept. Your comment about the Rodney King case actually proves that. This doesn't mean that the Belgium court's decision is necessarily wrong. It just means that such a court is not the best judge of the events. That said, I think it is impossible to achieve peer representation in international courts. America has certainly tried many absentee cases where there is no way the judges could be even remotely aware of the cultural and political pressures of the accused. I've never cared a dime for whatever an American court has decided about someone else half way around the world. They have always been too partial and too biased to the American wants and perspectives. It could not be otherwise. Similarly, it is unlikely that the Belgium court is not party to such biases. As it stands, we live in a world of "we do it and so do they". And there is no way to say who is closer to the truth one way or another. But they serve a good purpose in publishing the evidence so others can see it for themselves. The real solution is creation of international courts. It will not be the "peer" representation that America believes in. But it is the best solution. In any event, the cases tried in such courts are not of the nature that would demand complete peer judgment. But nor is it right to have all the judges from the same country. jmo, ST

To: zonder who wrote (68682)	3/14/2003 1:02:22 PM
From: Cary Salsberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

RE: "Really? Is this "long history"..." No! Recently, the Governor of Illinois changed the sentences of evey prisoner on death row. It was a complete indictment of the criminal justice system including the myth of "fair trials". The legal system is a beautiful thing in concept. Too bad we only have human beings to implement it. RE: ""They are not Jewish" is not enough, I am afraid." "Not enough" for you, but "enough" for me. Consider that you believe "Israel has refused to act", while I believe that Israel has acted and there is no "unfinished business." You have the additional problem that after the Palestinian cries of massacre at the Jenin refugee camp, I don't believe any Palestinian will give honest testimony. Why don't the residents of the camps in Lebanon "seek justice" in Lebanon against the Lebanese Christians? RE: "Sharon as one of the individuals who "bears personal responsibility" for the massacre. Yet neither Sharon nor any other official has been investigated criminally for this evident atrocity." Sharon bears "indirect personal responsibility." Check the text of the report. With hindsight, it is obvious that he erred in his decision to send Phalangists into the camp. The commission suggested that he should have known better. There was a valid military objective for sending troops into the camps. The Phalangists were a formal army and an ally. There is no basis for criminal prosecution. I have read no suggestion for the military response Israel should have taken when word of the massacre filtered back to them. Should they have entered the camps and engaged in a firefight with the Phalangists to stop the killing? I have not seen that suggestion.