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Garcia Zarate: Prior Convictions Are Best Evidence
The Kate Steinle verdict last Thursday by an uninformed San Francisco jury was our criminal justice system’s latest affront to common sense.
Much of the furor about this miscarriage of justice relates to Zarate’s status as an illegal criminal alien who had been deported five times before sneaking back into the country, stealing or possessing a stolen weapon, and killing Kate.
The most outrageous circumstance arising from the trial of Garcia Zarate, however, is that the jurors were not permitted to know the details of Zarate’s seven prior felony convictions, nor were they allowed to know about his five prior deportations.
Zarate had just been released back on the streets of sanctuary city San Francisco on April 15, 2015 after serving a 46-month federal sentence. It only took him 75 days before he committed more felonies, this time resulting in Kate’s death.
The Federal Code of Criminal Procedure, California and other state criminal statutes have codified the following irrationality emanating from Michelson v. United States, 335 US 469(1948): Unless a defendant takes the stand, the jury cannot know about his prior criminal convictions.
Pharisaical law professors and legal apologists are experts on what the law says, but apparently have no sense. They say the defendant’s prior criminal record is not relevant to the charge on which he is being tried, or if relevant, it is outweighed by the resulting prejudice against him.
Baloney.
Imagine being prevented by law from inquiring about your contractor’s record as a builder before he starts on your house. Wouldn’t you like to know if he had built defective houses or declared bankruptcy?
Prior acts and activities of your contractor is probably the best evidence of how he’s going to do building or renovating your house. But, current criminal law provides that if a person is on trial for burglarizing your house, the jury cannot know about his seven prior burglaries unless the evidence is offered to prove motive, system, or intent. In other words, unless the burglar used a distinctive “signature” in his prior burglaries that matched yours.
Jury consultants are paid big bucks to investigate every aspect of prospective jurors’ lives, including work and marital history, social media posts, etc. Thus the defendant, through his lawyers, gets to know everything about each juror. But the juror gets to know nothing about the defendant’s criminal convictions prior to the crime for which he is being tried. Isn’t that backwards?
The US criminal justice system has evolved to become so “enlightened” that the guilt or innocence of the defendant takes a back seat to whether the defendant’s growing number of rights have been protected.
Defendants are presumed innocent of the crime with which they are charged, but are not be entitled to be presumed to be an innocent. Jurors should know about the defendant’s past criminal history regardless of whether he testifies or not.
The criminal jJustice system is also a swamp that needs to be drained.
Published in Law
The Feds have an option here, and it is time for Jeff Sessions to drop the the good old boy, soft spoken demeanor act, and become more like Trey Gowdy:
Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 922[g][1-9]) prohibits certain individuals from possessing firearms,ammunition, or explosives. The penalty for violating this law is ten years imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine. Further, 18 U.S.C. 3565(b)(2) (probation) and 3583(g)(2) (supervised release) makes it mandatory for the Court to revoke supervision for possession of a firearm.
Specifically, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1-9) prohibits the following from possessing, shipping/transporting, or receiving any firearm or ammunition:
(1) a person convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment exceeding one year;
(2) a person who is a fugitive from justice;
(3) a person who is an unlawful user of or who is addicted to a controlled substance;
(4) a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been admitted
to a mental institution;
(5) an alien who is unlawfully in the United States or who has been admitted to the United States under a non-immigrant visa
So you want to bring in the Feds for what is a local crime?
Is that your idea of limited government? Is that your idea of federalism?
Additional question:
What is your general guiding principle on which local crimes should involve federal intervention?
To the extent that the statute regulates the conduct of non-immigrant aliens possessing firearms, it is an exclusively federal issue and federal prosecution is entirely appropriate. That does not contradict my support of federalism or the Second Amendment.
A felon in possession of a firearm is a Federal crime. He has met the elements of that Federal crime that I highlighted in bold type.
My guiding principal is a reasonable belief and probable cause that a specific crime has been committed according to the elements of that crime as specified in the statute.
People in general have a very hard time processing probabilities and resisting confirmation bias. I don’t exclude myself, although having studied engineering risk analysis in grad school perhaps makes me more aware of the pitfalls. Classic examples are the Monty Hall Problem and the Sally Clark case. Medical screening for diseases tend to have really counterintuitive results, and a similar principle applies in many court cases. And of course there’s the Prosecutor’s Fallacy.
Others have already pointed out that established patterns of behavior, or “criminal calling cards”, are circumstantial evidence if the present case fits the pattern, But they are not direct evidence, and therefore I dispute your statement that it “absolutely does mean that the defendant was most likely guilty of the current crime.”
@Michael C. Lukehart Well, complete closure you can never have. As you point out the void will always be there. But justice is not closure. Justice attempts to exact some level of account to the criminal’s actions.
My sympathies on your brother. It sounds like a great tragedy.
So, you admit that you would be more likely convict solely because of past criminal behavior, but then you claim that you wouldn’t hold past criminal behavior against the defendant. Which is it?
It is human nature, everyone has the tendency, to believe that past behavior predicts subsequent behavior. But according to you, a convict could never escape being accused and convicted again because you’ll be the first to vote to convict despite a lack of evidence for a specific crime.
I do not want to imply that a defendant should be convicted “solely” on his past behavior. It should just be one piece of the puzzle that leads to the truth. Why should the police be allowed to develop a suspect based “solely” on his past behavior, when a jury is not even allowed to consider this as one part of the overall case? Are police different psychologically than jurors?
Convicts do in fact never escape suspicion until they demonstrate good behavior for a reasonable amount of time.
I would say yes, they are professionally trained. And they are not bound by the reasonable doubt standard, rather they are encouraged to act in hunches and instinct. The jury is the final check on the inferences of the police.
An interesting non-sequitur. Police and jurors do different things.
Yeah. Police close cases. Jurors (supposedly) seek truth. But they’re not psychologically different. They both jump to the conclusion that the guy with a criminal record is guilty. Bummer for you if you have a record.