Re: active practice in America [RANT]

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

Marc J. Wohler wrote:
> At 11:19 PM 9/30/96 -0700, you wrote:
> >I'm glad you asked.  I wouldn't pretend to have *the* answer, but rather
> >than screw around with basic Constitutional enumerations, I think the
> >"authorities" should have had the guts to challenge those cases (at
> >least the most obvious ones at first, to get the ball rolling), by
> >investigating and declaring mistrials based on some kind of jury
> >manipulation which showed bad faith on the part of the locals.

> Theory sounds great, but what if, as often was the case, the
> "authorities" were the major part of the problem.

I presume heirarchical authority.  That's what we had in the U.S., even 
in the 1960's.  The specific authorities running bogus juries were 
generally county-level.  One could argue that the states, and by 
extension the feds, looked the other way as long as they could, and 
indeed they did.

Once they could no longer look the other way, those higher-level 
authorities should have proceeded against the local governments as I 
specified, rather than undermining the Constitutional enumerations.

If there should happen to be a good argument that the feds and states 
couldn't proceed against the locals because these higher-level 
authorities were somehow compromised (other than general scumbagness), 
I'd like to know how.