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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (3644)	9/18/1998 4:09:00 PM
From: dougjn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Betty, I think the underlying facts in the Grand Jury evidence can and should be made public. Accordingly, leaking is less an issue. Its the prejudicial emotional impact of the raw information, such as a videotape of the President reacting under star chamber (grand jury) conditions which the American people have no familiarity or standards to judge. Without any of the protections of normal testimony in open court. People frequently break down under the sort of unmoderated, unrestrained attack, without any intervention or protection from one's own side that characterized grand jury testimony. Those scenes are not then used to unfairly prejudice a jury against the witness in a court proceeding. The President, I gather, gets mad. People will not have enough of a frame of reference to evaluate that. Unless they have seen many brutal grand jury investigations, and witnesses responses. Which very few people have. It certainly does not show up in T.V. courtroom scenes. It's very hard for me to understand how someone cannot understand that there is something wrong, and unfair, with this. (I mean, I guess you can argue that it needs to be done anyway, for various reasons, but to not even understand the unfairness and abuse involved puzzles me. And makes me wonder if minds are so made up that nothing will open them even a crack.) Judges do not allow unlimited badgering of witnesses in open court before a jury. Nothing stops a prosecutor in a grand jury setting. Judges do not allow unreasonably prejudicial questions which are too remote from the central issues at issue. Nothing prevents a prosecutor from going there. Judges allow a witness subject to extended barrage time to collect himself. No such protection before a grand jury. Judges allow the defense attorneys to bring out exculpatory information, or the other side, right away while the bad impression is still brand new and subject to easy re-evaluation. There is NEVER such an opportunity when grand jury questioning goes on. And won't be fore some time here, in any detail, after this wholesale dump by the House Republicans. It is a manifestly unfair process. With the express purpose of creating maximum prejudicial effect. And with scant regard for a fair and even handed approach to discovering the truth. Without undue, unnecessary, and unfair prejudice. Doug