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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31395 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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That's an extremely low bar, because nearly any human activity can be part of a plan to commit a crime. Visit a bank - maybe that's evidence you're casing it and plan to rob it. Go to work - maybe you're planning to sell drugs to someone you know at work. Buy a 2l soda bottle - maybe you're planning to turn it into a illegal silencer. Given the correct context, basically anything can be evidence of acts that haven't occurred yet. Maybe this is by design - certainly it would make the job of police and prosecutors a lot easier if they can convict based on a Minority Report-style supposition about what people 'intended' to do.

If you visit the bank, and stock your trunk with balaclavas and zip ties, and text your friends about how great it would be to have more cash on hand…maybe they should?

Jurors aren’t automatons. They are capable of judging intent, just as you are when you assume these protestors had the purest of intentions.

Visiting banks? Desiring money? Owning an extremely common item like cable ties? This sounds like it could cover literally millions of people.

No, it is not an extremely low bar. Because first there needs to be an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime, and its existence has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Then, there has to be an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Although circumstantial evidence can be used to prove the existence of an agreement, And here is what CA jury instructions say about circumstantial evidence:

before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to find the defendant guilty, you must be convinced that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that the defendant is guilty. If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions points to innocence and another to guilt, you must accept the one that points to innocence.

Someone visiting a bank might be casing the place, but that is hardly the only reasonable conclusion. So, your concern is misplaced.

The trouble here is that if you’re of the right frame of mind, or can be convinced as such by the prosecutor, almost anything that a person says can be taken as pointing to a the reasonable conclusion that there’s a conspiracy.

Me going to a bank, when I have money problems, and perhaps talking or texting about banks and money problems can be taken several ways. And especially if the crime in question hasn’t been committed at all, it’s really hard to prove they were going to commit the crime.

Aren't you ignoring this part: "If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions points to innocence and another to guilt, you must accept the one that points to innocence"?

And that would depend on the framing the prosecution uses and the quality of the jury. If you select properly, choosing people who aren’t able to tell the difference between vague discontent and an actual plan. It’s not at all clear that the usual retirees and unemployed who usually populate jury pools are going to make the fine distinctions that would allow that standard to actually hold. Especially given that the PF imagery and public statements would be off putting to most jurors. If the prosecutor is smart, when he’s talking about the flag poles, he’s going to make sure that the fascist symbols are clearly visible. Those kinds of things can be provocative in the minds of jurors.

To go to the bank example, if you and I visit a bank, and then I text you about money problems, and how a sudden windfall of money would solve my problems, and you say something like yeah that would be nice, in the hands of a good prosecutor, that’s motive right there. Now either one of us caught with common items that could have some use in a bank robbery are potentially in actual conspiracy. After all, why would an innocent person have these items in their trunk.

that’s motive right there.

Motive is not an element of conspiracy. An agreement to commit a crime is.

Now either one of us caught with common items that could have some use in a bank robbery are potentially in actual conspiracy.

I note that now you have added facts to your original hypothetical. What kinds of items? Guns and ski masks?

Look, are innocent people sometimes convicted of crimes due to an unfortunate accumulation of apparently incriminating circumstantial evidence? Yes. If that is all you mean to be arguing, I agree. But you seem to be saying that that is particularly common re conspiracy charges, and that people are convicted of conspiracy based on ridiculously ephemeral evidence. Where is your evidence for that?

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