Warning: I'm about to flaunt my knowledge of the American justice sytsem. This a formidable feat, considering how I'm not an American so, please, if what I say is inccorect,
correct me! Thank you...
Quote:
Originally posted by water_boy1999
Quote:
|
Police arrested Catalan in August, alleging he killed Martha Puebla, 16, in the San Fernando Valley on May 12, 2003, because she had testified against his brother in another case.
|
Ok, so there is a bit of evidence, but circumstantial.
|
They
must have had more evidence than this. In America, the prosecutor can't go to trial without a
prima facia case. That is, you're not allowed to go to trial unless you can convince a grand jury that you have enough evidence to have a
reasonable chance of winning the case.
Quote:
Quote:
|
He said he had ticket stubs from the game and testimony from his family as to his whereabouts the night Puebla was killed. But police still believed he was responsible, saying they had a witness who placed Catalan at the scene of the slaying.
|
Why is he not allowed to use his own evidence to corroborate his whereabouts?
|
Nowhere in the article did it say that he wasn't allowed to use this evidence in his defense. It merely says that the cops didn't believe him because they have eye-witnesses that place him at the scene. The disbelief of the cops does not preclude him from using said evidence in court.
Quote:
Quote:
|
Catalan said he asked to take a lie detector test, but was refused.
|
He is refused a lie detector test. Why? This should have been presented by Catalan's lawyer to aid in his defense! Why would he be refused? Anyone with a legal background know why this wasn't used to keep him out of prison?
|
I have absolutely no legal background but if television has taught me anything it's that lie detector tests are not admissable in court. You're not allowed to waste the court's time with irrelevant testamony, you know...
Quote:
Ok, so he wasn't convicted, but I think there is something wrong with our legal system if someone loses 5 1/2 months of his life in prison because he is "Guilty until proven innocent".
Hope he sues the crap out of them!!!!
|
There is much that is wrong with your legal system but I don't think this is one of them. He had the unfortunate luck of coincidentally having enough evidence to build a
prima facia case against him. This is pretty rare. He he couldn't convince a judge he wasn't a flight risk
and he couldn't afford the bail. I don't think this is too common (it's obviously not uncommon but why does everyone here know what a bounty hunter is?). These two things coupled together make it unlikely that anyone has to suffer unnecessary jail time during their trial. It's just that there are more than 300,000,000 people in the US so, yeah, a couple of people do...
Obviously, the article didn't give you all the facts of the case. All they're concerned about is that you (purchase and) read (the ads that came with) the article . They're not going to waste their (time and, thus)
money writing a book about it so they left out everything that wouldn't help them (sell more copies and show more ads and) gain greater readership...