dagblog - Comments for "Conspiracy is in the details, but nobody likes details."

the defendant can waive a

jollyroger — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 08:48:51 +0000

the defendant can waive a jury, but in most jurisdictions for all but the lowest level misdemeanors the right to a jury is constitutionally guaranteed. police charged with crimes frequently opt for a" bench" trial where the factual issues are left to the judge.

Are there juries for

erica20 — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 04:48:51 +0000

In reply to the trial judge can ask, and

Are there juries for misdemeanor trials, or just for felonies?

(A few holes in my legal understanding...)

That's about right. The

Richard Day — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:26:32 +0000

In reply to the trial judge can ask, and

That's about right.

The recent MSM proceedings concerning the husband killer underline your statement.

And the Feds can always come in when the State screws up.

There has to be some basis for Federal Jurisdiction of course in order for further proceedings to proceed.

the trial judge can ask, and

jollyroger — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:49:54 +0000

In reply to Ok, this is a weird question,

the trial judge can ask, and in some ( few) jurisdictions the members of the jury can submit questions. otherwise, no.

Thank you. (I may need to

erica20 — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:28:11 +0000

In reply to I'm the elf. We occasionally

Thank you.

(I may need to make some additional modifications--the link is old and some details of the story itself need to be updated. But I wanted to get it out there. I so wish that somebody in Harrisonburg would pick this up and really run with it, interviewing co-workers and such.)

Ok, this is a weird question,

erica20 — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:25:39 +0000

In reply to Conspiracy is in the details, but nobody likes details.

Ok, this is a weird question, but is there any way to force the prosecutor to ask more questions? Or would this be something that another source, like the AG, would have to investigate?

For President, yes. But the

erica20 — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:24:03 +0000

In reply to I forgot all about this

For President, yes. But the county prosecutor is a Republican, as is the AG.

The felony charges against Small, which had to do with disclosing personal information, were dropped. I guess if you put personal information in a dumpster, it's not disclosure!

Small still has to face the misdemeanor charges. I suspect he will plead guilty, but I sort of wish he wouldn't. I'm pretty sure Small's story, which is that he got flustered on the last day of his job and didn't think he could get the forms filed on time, is a lie. The place where he would have had to file the forms is only a 5 min drive from where he dumped them, and it was still early in the day. Heck, he could have mailed them--it says in the rules that items postmarked before 5 pm that day would be accepted.

The idea that Small did not know the filing times/policies is not credible. Small is a very bright kid who had worked on campaigns before and was a supervisor in this particular job. And, he was a young politics student at Catholic University of America when the whole ACORN controversy was swirling around the 2008 elections.There is NO WAY that Small did not understand the rules for how to deal with these forms--it would be like a kid who went to college in the 70's not knowing that there was a war in Vietnam!

I think the key to this case lies in the type of forms these were--and by that I don't mean Republican or Democrat. Small's attorney says they were expired, doubles, or in one case, a form that was mistakenly filled out for a felon. In other words, they were the type of forms that got ACORN into so much trouble. My theory is that there was an unspoken policy that these forms should be quietly disposed of, not filed along with a note that they were spoiled, the way the ACORN forms were.

Small made it all the way to the last day before finally getting caught disposing of bad forms. But, caught he was, and now he's probably going to walk away by pleading guilty to a minor misdemeanor charge and explain himself by saying that he's the dumbest guy on the face of the Earth.

At which point, Nathan Sproul will breathe a sigh of relief, because he got away with it again.......

I'm the elf. We occasionally

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:44:30 +0000

In reply to Um, did one of you guys

I'm the elf. We occasionally make minor edits when we put stuff on the front page, usually just grammatical and formatting. I moved the update to the end b/c it didn't make sense if hadn't read the main article first.

I forgot all about this

Richard Day — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:45:41 +0000

In reply to Conspiracy is in the details, but nobody likes details.

I forgot all about this scandal.

Now I am curious as to how the criminal proceedings progress!

We took Virginia anyway, right?

I would bet that more than 8 votes were involved though.

There must be some gremlins

Resistance — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:51:53 +0000

In reply to Um, did one of you guys

There must be some gremlins behind the scenes. The other day the "Resistance is futile" message came up for no reason and I havent been able to press enter for a paragraph break and have been unable to paste anything for a few weeks.