Comment by bravoetch
18 hours ago
You ask how else could it possibly work. How about charge him with a crime first, then detain him if he's convicted. The idea that you can imprison someone forever without a charge is insane.
18 hours ago
You ask how else could it possibly work. How about charge him with a crime first, then detain him if he's convicted. The idea that you can imprison someone forever without a charge is insane.
You can't resolve criminal liability without compliance to judicial authority. It's not even a meaningful demand. If you don't trust the judiciary you can't trust any other component of the system!
The “system” is comprised of normal people. These normal people are vastly more concerned about furthering their own career,ie “Winning”. No one should trust this system to ever find any real justice. It is a joke.
What happens when you are not guilty and/or not in posession of whatever you are supposed to hand over?
Such systems must be built in a way that allow to correct errors, because it's well known that errors are made.
A jury could have decided whether his refusal to disclose made him guilty of a crime deserving of that punishment. Authority and power are two different things. Lots of people have authority without the power to unilaterally throw people in prison indefinitely.
That's not how court works. It's not a democratic vote of a group of people just making up their own mind. The judge intricately controls what the jury does and does not hear, and how they are instructed, based on the rules of evidence and of criminal or civil procedure. No, you can't just "let the jury decide" if a party to a case simply decides to ignore the judge.
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Then you can charge him with the crime of contempt, and allow that charge to be proven or disproven through actual due process.
There is no such thing as a valid reason to skip the part where you have to prove guilt. Even for a judge. Frankly especially for a judge. Everyone else has the excuse that they aren't lawyers. What's a judges excuse?
Per a different article, he pled guilty to the contempt charge: https://apnews.com/article/tommy-thompson-gold-coins-shipwre...
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You can't prove or disprove anything with someone who refuses to comply with the courts. This is due process.
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“The only way people can trust the system is if judges can put anybody away indefinitely/permanently without trial” is such a funny idea. That is the premise of Judge Dredd. It’s like saying “Judge Dredd needs to exist”.
I am not a law genius but it seems like in real life since judges can charge plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers, and witnesses with contempt the whole “infinity jail is on the table for every person in the room” thing would make people less likely to want to engage with the civil or criminal justice systems.
Total BS. You can do anything. We have politicians to create meaningful laws. What we have instead in this case is a fucking faschists.
They charged him with contempt of court, which is a crime, after 3 years where he'd been avoiding demands to appear in court.