A judge who was appointed by Donald Trump himself has slapped the administration with an order against manipulating evidence related to the shooting and killing of an ICU nurse in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, broke the news early Sunday morning Eas...
Again, how is there not precedence in law of or being illegal to alter or destroy evidence? You have a confident response by tone, but respectfully, I don’t hear any substance you’ve offered?
It’s as if a judge explicitly ruled that murder is illegal… Nice to reestablish, Y but yes, that’s established. I’m just trying to understand what this does distinctly?
Are you familiar with how common law systems in the US and other former English colonies work? Essentially the way it works is
Party A does something they believe is within their rights under the law. In this case, trying to destroy evidence. Now, the crucial part here is that Party A can be wrong about their claim, but our legal system determines that courts are the ones that have to decide whether that is true.
Party B sues in court claiming that Party A did something illegal. In this case, the state of Minnesota is claiming that Ice is trying to do something illegal by trying to destroy evidence
The judge looks at the facts of the case and determines if Party A did in fact do something illegal, taking things like precedent into account.
If the judge believes that Party B is right and Party A’s actions were indeed illegal, like they did in this case, they issue a judgement that both parties must abide by.
In this case, it is blatantly obvious that the actions are actually illegal but our legal system is set up in a such a way that this must be proven in court.
I appreciate the expansion. Again though, we go to court to convict an accused murderer and the judge/jury rules eventually, but is there a preliminary statement by the judge in every case to reestablish for the record, the illegality of murder as an act?
My point is that it feels odd that there isn’t established law that states this clearly prior to the act where a judge is required to make a preliminary statement like this, where they wouldn’t with a murder charge in my experience.
Ah I didn’t see what was tripping you up. In this case, this is normally not noteworthy at all. Consider a case where a local car dealership owner is accused of committing tax fraud. If he was taken to court over it, the judge would issue an order like this saying not to destroy evidence that could be used. The noteworthy part is that our judicial system, particularly Trump appointed federal judges, has been mostly unwilling to reign in Trump’s abuses at all and so something like this feels like a win