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This is just incorrect.
You don't need anything more than hearsay to arrest and charge someone with a crime.
In fact criminal complaints are by their very definition hearsay.
Judges set bail, people sit in jail and plead guilty to crimes based on nothing more than hearsay.
You don't need anything more than hearsay to arrest and charge someone with a crime.
In fact criminal complaints are by their very definition hearsay.
Judges set bail, people sit in jail and plead guilty to crimes based on nothing more than hearsay.
Misdemeanor & felony complaints set out allegations. These allegations are hearsay.
At arraignment, judges decide whether to set bail on the basis of these allegations. If they do, and you can't make bail, you are held in jail.
At arraignment, judges decide whether to set bail on the basis of these allegations. If they do, and you can't make bail, you are held in jail.
In New York, prosecutors have approx. a week to substantiate those allegations.
If you are charged with a misdemeanor, you might be able to get out of jail at arraignments so you could "choose" to plead guilty even if you are innocent so you don't have to stay in jail.
If you are charged with a misdemeanor, you might be able to get out of jail at arraignments so you could "choose" to plead guilty even if you are innocent so you don't have to stay in jail.
If you are charged with a felony, after one week the prosecutor has to present their case against you to the grand jury and secure an indictment or you get released.
It is beyond easy for the prosecutor to secure an indictment against you, unless you are a police officer.
It is beyond easy for the prosecutor to secure an indictment against you, unless you are a police officer.
This is why on that date, the prosecutor will sometimes make an offer before they go into the grand jury, often of years in prison (1 or 3 or 5 or 10 years in prison) and you may "choose" to take it rather than risk an indictment.
You may "choose" to take that offer because the alternative if you are indicted may be twice that and because if you "chose" to go to trial and were convicted there are mandatory minimums so you could be sentenced to life for an offense like simple possession of a gun.
So someone who pleads guilty at arraignments on a criminal complaint or on their grand jury date before the prosecutor has gone into the grand jury is pleading guilty to a crime based purely on hearsay.
So Senator Graham spare me the parking ticket analogy. I have clients who have gone to prison for ten years for crimes based purely on hearsay.
Impeachment? I guess it is some small reckoning for a person who is guilty of crimes beyond anything I can begin to fathom.
Impeachment? I guess it is some small reckoning for a person who is guilty of crimes beyond anything I can begin to fathom.
This president has grossly abused his power and impeachment proceedings are long overdue.
But there are 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country because untold numbers of police and prosecutors and judges see the criminal legal system as a game.
That's also a massive abuse of power and it's just as urgent and compelling that we do something to fix it.
That's also a massive abuse of power and it's just as urgent and compelling that we do something to fix it.
