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Re: Hidden cameras to catch speeders



elandau@cais3.cais.com (Eric Landau) wrote:

>Our Constitution gives the accused in a criminal proceeding the absolute 
>right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him [and] to have 
>compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor."  In other 
>words, in this great country of ours someone accused of a crime cannot be

>convicted without being given the opportunity to confront his accuser and

>to force his accuser to testify to facts which may be in his favor.  This

>has nothing to do with your opportunity to appear before a judge or 
>magistrate or the Supreme Court; they are not your accusers.

>That's why, no matter how dead-to-rights a cop had you when he stopped 
>you, the case will be thrown out summarily if he doesn't show up in 
>court; a conviction without that opportunity to confront would be a 
>direct violation of the Sixth Amendment.

>To say that when the evidence against you has been collected entirely by 
>mechanical means, with no human being involved, "all avenues available to

>you had the violation been detected by an officer are still available" is

>truly specious.  Can you cross-examine a camera?  Can a machine be 
>required to answer your questions truthfully, under oath?  Can an 
>electronic device be held in contempt of court, or prosecuted for
perjury?  

I'm afraid you just don't a basic concept:  not all evidence must
presented by a living human "witness".  If evidence IS provided by a
witness, then of course you have certain rights, such as
cross-examination, etc.  

Under your mistaken understanding, though, it would be impossible to
convict someone, for example, for most white-collar crimes (well, no one
actually SAW him sign that check/illegally transfer those funds/etc.); or
how about a bank surveillance camera recording someone breaking in?  In
these cases, you cannot obviously cross-examine the fraudulent check or
the surveillance camera.  Yet documents, videos, skid marks (ever try to
cross-examine a skid-mark or a blood stain??) are considered evidence. 
Sorry if this comes as a suprise.  It would be a sad day for justice if
only personally-presented evidence (in the form of cross-examinable
witnesses) counted.

This is a completely different subject than the original (also incorrect)
argument about "just cause".  I suppose you couldn't refute my argument on
that issue, so you moved on to an equaly incorrect argument about
confronting the witness.  Keep trying -- try another issue.



S. Pierre Paret
Washington, D.C.  "Through Reason, or By Force."
spierre@aol.com


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