Sunday, February 15, 2015
Accomplice witness rule protects against false convictions
Grits fails to understand the logic behind state Sen. Joan Huffman's bill to eliminate the accomplice-witness rule - which requires corroboration to secure a conviction based on the testimony of an accomplice - in human trafficking cases. Have we not seen enough actual innocence cases in Texas without authorizing convictions based solely on the word of a member of a human trafficking ring? God knows none of those guys might ever have an incentive to lie in exchange for immunity.
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7 comments:
I suspect the good senator has been told that cheap/quick convictions are nearly impossible without relying on accomplices, the victims rarely want to get involved out of fear for themselves or family members.
The accomplice witness rule also interferes by sometimetime making an accomplice of an officer who has a duty to stop a crime from occuring and makes no reasonable effort to do so. In these cases where the officer could be a statutory accomplice, the state would then need to have corroboration in order to admit that testimony.
Some people ignored slavery when it was taking place. Now we ignore human trafficking.
Houston ranks No. 1 among U.S. cities thought to have the most victims of human trafficking. The rank comes from new numbers released on the total calls made to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center tip line.
The fact that slavery exists in America today is embarrassing. It’s frustrating, frightening and tragic,” Mayor Annise Parker, D-Houston, said.
Who is ignoring human trafficking, 4:01?
This language throws human traffickers a bone by giving them a get out of jail free card if they name someone - anyone - and when they do that person may be convicted without corroboration of the trafficker's testimony. Aren't you ignoring that this bill gives benefits to traffickers and encourages them to accuse innocent people?
Be careful of what precedents you set in any criminal justice endeavor lest you find it applied to much more as the details get lost. Some time back, politicians started using the "it's for the children" to negate long held rights and rulings, allowing the modern day equivalent of witch hunts. Now it's all about human slavery/trafficking, every prostitution bust tied to the term when sheriffs deputies or constables raid massage parlors or truck stuck hookers. Guess how many trafficking "victims" such raids have netted in this, the "No. 1 ranked city" (by questionable stats by the way), that's right, ZERO proven cases.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen but you'd think everyone involved in sex work was doing so at the end of a gun when the truth is, most are not. For better or worse, they do it because they never learned the skills needed to work a real job, dropped out of school, or otherwise were too lazy to bust behind at a low paying job like many of us. Now they are all victims to some of you...
Not passing this bill defies the constitutional mandate to make it as easy as possible for the state to convict people.
This isn't a difficult question. Joan Huffman is a product of the Harris County DA's office. She never had much use for any pesky rules that interfered with convictions.
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