Spirituality
28 Oct 05
29 Oct 05
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment06/04.html
England by the reign of Henry III (1200's) had juries of local people to help present and evaluate the evidence during trial, both for and against the accused. By the reign of Henry VI (1400's) the jury had evolved into the full fledged fact finding body it is now. The Inquistion never had any juries for any purpose.
England 2 Inquistion 0
29 Oct 05
Originally posted by no1marauderDon't be so childish.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment06/04.html
England by the reign of Henry III (1200's) had juries of local people to help present and evaluate the evidence during trial, both for and against the accused. By the reign of Henry VI (1400's) the jury had evolved into the full fledged fact finding body it is now. The Inquistion never had any juries for any purpose.
England 2 Inquistion 0
29 Oct 05
2 edits
Originally posted by ivanhoeLH has demanded that I show specific procedural protections that legal systems provided before the Inquistions that the Inquistion did not. You also claimed that the Inquistion was an improvement over existing judical systems. Do you wish to retract that claim vis-a-vis the English legal system in the period before the Spanish Inquistion? If not, I intend to find any and all provisions of due process that the English system gave and the Inquistion did not. I intend to keep score so you guys won't get confused as to how many I have found.
Don't be so childish.
29 Oct 05
2 edits
Even LH concedes that torture and the threat of torture was a common way to extort confessions from the accused in the Inquistorial regime. By contrast,
Unlike a number of European countries, England did not use torture as a regular means of coaxing confessions from criminal defendants [Foucault, 1977:35]. Langbein's [1977:73] exhaustive investigation of English criminal trials through the Restoration found only 81 cases of tortured confessions.
http://www.fsu.edu/~crimdo/forfeiture.html
Langbein's book Torture and The Law of Proof: England and Europe in the Ancient Regime covers the period of history from before the Magna Carta (1215) to the Restoration (1660). That's 81 tortured confessions in about 450 years. The Inquistion had thousands.
England 3 Inquistion 0
EDIT: All for now; but they'll be more.
29 Oct 05
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderGo ahead, it'll keep you off the streets. The world will be a safer place this way.
Even LH concedes that torture and the threat of torture was a common way to extort confessions from the accused in the Inquistorial regime. By contrast,
Unlike a number of European countries, England did not use torture as a regular means of coaxing confessions from criminal defendants [Foucault, 1977:35]. Langbein's [1977:73] exhaustive inve ...[text shortened]... Inquistion had thousands.
England 3 Inquistion 0
EDIT: All for now; but they'll be more.
EDIT: Sometimes I wonder how you are able to produce all the necessary fluids for all these pissing matches.
29 Oct 05
Originally posted by ivanhoeYou guys either lied or made no attempt to find the truth. I'm helping to purge you of your error just like the friendly Inquistors did to Agnes Francou.
Go ahead, it'll keep you off the streets. The world will be a safer place this way.
EDIT: Sometimes I wonder how you are able to produce all the necessary fluids for all these pissing matches.
29 Oct 05
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderYes, the right to confront accusers is sacrosant.
Yes, the right to confront accusers is sacrosant. Your examples are violations of that right that have been created over the last few decades and allowed erroneously by judges who don't take fundamental rights seriously enough. What other due process rights that are enumerated in the US Constitution (ENUMERATED, NOT created; they existed prior to 1787; ...[text shortened]... from the Roman records that says Christians were persecuted for not believing in the Roman gods.
Why? Because the US Constitution says so?
Your examples are violations of that right that have been created over the last few decades and allowed erroneously by judges who don't take fundamental rights seriously enough.
I'm sorry - I don't get your point. Are you saying that judges who interpret the right to face one's accuser to mean that rapists have the right to face their victim (i.e. chief witness) are in error? Or are they correct? Clarify, please.
My examples are intended to showcase situations where the interests of justice are IMO harmed rather than served by adherence to your 'sacrosanct' right.
What other due process rights that are enumerated in the US Constitution ... do you feel are not "sacrosant" so that if I point out other legal systems had them and the Inquistion didn't, you intend to dispute their validity?
I don't actually know what other due process rights are enumerated in the US Constitution. Is there a list somewhere?
You've mentioned jury trials in subsequent posts, so I'll tell you right away that the right to a jury trial is not something I consider 'sacrosanct' - even less so than the right to face your accuser:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#Pros_and_cons
I want to save time; if your conclusion is NO due process rights are sacrosant and thus the Inquistion was perfectly fair in disposing of any or all of them then I won't waste my time researching.
I do hold certain due process rights to be sacrosanct - like the presumption of innocence, for instance.
EDIT: BTW, I would appreciate a link from the Roman records that says Christians were persecuted for not believing in the Roman gods.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/tacitus.html
Christians were accused of disloyalty for refusing to worship the Emperor as a god.
29 Oct 05
2 edits
Originally posted by lucifershammerYou've pulled this s**t before and I'm through with it. You made a claim that the Inquistion's judical protections were an improvement over prior systems, but when presented proof that important protections were used in legal systems before but not by the Inquistion, you simply deny their importance. The right to confront your accusers is important because "cross-examination is the best tool to establish the truth"; it's easy for anyone to make an accusation if they know they won't have to face the one they're accusing. A jury trial with your peers is fair fairer than a system of Inquistors making a decision on your guilt. You know this and so does everybody else. Your playing your BS sophist game again; play with yourself.
[b]Yes, the right to confront accusers is sacrosant.
Why? Because the US Constitution says so?
Your examples are violations of that right that have been created over the last few decades and allowed erroneously by judges who don't take fundamental rights seriously enough.
I'm sorry - I don't get your point. Are you saying that j ...[text shortened]... itus.html
Christians were accused of disloyalty for refusing to worship the Emperor as a god.[/b]
I spent several hours of research finding those sites and that specific information; you're a jerk to change the goalposts in the middle of the game. But you've done it before.
29 Oct 05
Originally posted by no1marauderA Grand Jury had to approve the filing of any charges against a person.
http://www.countylaw.com/JuryHistory.html
In 1166, England set up a system of local grand juries. These were very much like grand juries today except they actively investigated allegations rather than merely hearing evidence. A Grand Jury had to approve the filing of any charges against a person. The GJ was composed of your peers i.e. people who ...[text shortened]... rs with ulterior motives appointed by Rome who could be from anywhere.
England 1 Inquistion 0
Any person? Or only freeholders? The relevant Magna Carta article only protects freeholders, not peasants.
The GJ was composed of your peers i.e. people who lived in the same area as you. It was not composed of professional Inquistors with ulterior motives appointed by Rome who could be from anywhere.
Were the members of the GJ trained in legal matters? Or matters of collecting evidence?
Did the GJ consist only of freemen and nobility, or were peasants also included?
England 1 Inquistion 0
Funny - of all the institutions and procedures you could've chosen, the first one you chose was the one where the US is practically the only remaining country in the world where that institution - i.e. Grand Juries - remains.
Britain abolished Grand Juries in the 1930s.
Aside: OTOH, Britain still has the system of 'inquests' for investigating deaths.
29 Oct 05
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderThat's 81 tortured confessions in about 450 years. The Inquistion had thousands.
Even LH concedes that torture and the threat of torture was a common way to extort confessions from the accused in the Inquistorial regime. By contrast,
Unlike a number of European countries, England did not use torture as a regular means of coaxing confessions from criminal defendants [Foucault, 1977:35]. Langbein's [1977:73] exhaustive inve ...[text shortened]... Inquistion had thousands.
England 3 Inquistion 0
EDIT: All for now; but they'll be more.
Correction: That's 81 tortured confessions in 100 years. In Prof. Langbein's own words*:
"We have record of more than eighty cases from the century’ 1540 - 1640 in which the Privy Council or the monarch ordered torture (or the threat of torture) to be used against criminals or suspected criminals."
That's an average of one a year. Prof. Langbein says there were "thousands of felony investigations each year", so the incidence of torture (for the purposes of confession) in England during the period is clearly less than the 2% for the Spanish Inquisition.
What's interesting is why England had such a low incidence of torture:
"England was ‘not very far from torture in the days when the peine forte et dure was invented. How then did medieval England escape the Roman-canon law of torture’? Maitland’s well known account has never been doubted. The English were not possessed of any’ unusual degree of humanity’ or enlightenment. Rather. they were the beneficiaries of legal institutions so crude that torture was unnecessary.
The Roman-canon law of evidence was devised on the Continent em of adjudication by for a system professional judges. The English substitute for the judgment of God was the petty jury, an institution that retained something of the “inscrutability” of the ordeals. The collective judgment of an ad hoc panel of the folk, uttered as the voice of the countryside, unanimously’ and without rationale, seemed less an innovation than the principled law of the medieval jurists.
‘Our criminal procedure . . had hardly’ any place for a law of evidence.” In lieu of the ordeals the common law accepted “the rough verdict of the countryside. without caring to investigate the logical processes. if logical they were, of which that verdict was the outcome."
On the Continent, torture came to the relief of a law of evidence which made conviction well-nigh impossible. ...
To this day’ an English jury can convict a defendant on less evidence than was required as a mere precondition for interrogation under torture on the Continent."
So, the same body of evidence that would get you killed in a jury trial in England would not even make it past the criteria for interrogation by torture on the Continent. Why torture them to confess a crime for which you have partial evidence when you can just kill them without any, right?
---
* A sizeable extract from 'Torture and the Law of Proof' can be found at
http://phoenixandturtle.net/excerptmill/langbein.htm
29 Oct 05
2 edits
Originally posted by lucifershammerMore lies.
[b]That's 81 tortured confessions in about 450 years. The Inquistion had thousands.
Correction: That's 81 tortured confessions in 100 years. In Prof. Langbein's own words*:
"We have record of more than eighty cases from the century’ 1540 - 1640 in which the Privy Council or the monarch ordered torture (or the threat of torture) to ...[text shortened]... ure and the Law of Proof' can be found at
http://phoenixandturtle.net/excerptmill/langbein.htm[/b]
I was wrong about the time period, but you are grossly misstating Langbein's views by selective quotation a speciality of yours and Ivanhoe. Here's the full quote about those 80 cases:
We have record of more than eighty cases from the century’ 1540 - 1640 in which the Privy Council or the monarch ordered torture (OR THE THREAT OF TORTURE) to be used against criminals or suspected criminals.
Since threat of torture was used 100% of the time in the Inquistion, which system used it more, sophist? I don't believe the 2% figure either, as it is from the self-serving documents from the RCC which has shown a willingness to edit or lose crucial documents. Where are the transcripts of Bruno's trial? Why was the original edict against Galilleo later doctored? Your main source, RCC documents, is a dubious one where the facts put the Church in a bad light.
EDIT: I suggest everyone read the the part of the link, 5 The Torture Free Law of Proof, that LH gives. When they read the part describing the English non-use of torture in criminal procedure, they will see that everything LH is claiming above is refuted by the source he gave. Langbein says clearly: "the systematic use of torture to investigate crime never established itself in English criminal procedure." The idea that professional Inquistors and torture to get confessions is superior to a jury trial and a prohibition on torture as part of the criminal procedure is so demented I have no idea how to respond but with a WTF.
29 Oct 05
1 edit
Originally posted by lucifershammerA perfect example of the type of grotesque misrepresentation LH will stoop to is this quote:
[b]That's 81 tortured confessions in about 450 years. The Inquistion had thousands.
Correction: That's 81 tortured confessions in 100 years. In Prof. Langbein's own words*:
"We have record of more than eighty cases from the century’ 1540 - 1640 in which the Privy Council or the monarch ordered torture (or the threat of torture) to ...[text shortened]... ure and the Law of Proof' can be found at
http://phoenixandturtle.net/excerptmill/langbein.htm[/b]
On the Continent, torture came to the relief of a law of evidence which made conviction well-nigh impossible
This is followed IMMEDIATELY by this sentence:
Luckily for England neither the stringent rules of legal proof nor the cruel and stupid subterfuge became endemic here.
The cruel and stupid subterfuge is, of course, torture which was endemic in the Continental system. So far from being some fairer system where convictions were almost impossible as LH implies by quoting selectively and out of context, the Continental system was based almost entirely on the efficiency of torture on getting confessions from the accused. I ask you: is that a fairer system?
BTW, the Inquistion got rid of the high legal standards of the Continental system for proof and simply threatened everybody with torture to extract confessions. Thus, the Inquistion was, again, a backslide even from the grossly unfair Continental system.
29 Oct 05
1 edit
Originally posted by lucifershammerThat no man, of what estate or condition that he be, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of law. - St. 28 Edward., Ch. 3. (1354.)
[b/]A Grand Jury had to approve the filing of any charges against a person.
Any person? Or only freeholders? The relevant Magna Carta article only protects freeholders, not peasants.
The GJ was composed of your peers i.e. people who lived in the same area as you. It was not composed of professional Inquistors with ulterior motives appoint ...[text shortened]... he 1930s.
Aside: OTOH, Britain still has the system of 'inquests' for investigating deaths.
The right to be charged by the Grand Jury and to trial by jury was extended to all by this provision. Read it slowly and you might understand what a true fair legal system is based on. HINT: Torturing people to confess ain't part of one.
Whether Grand Juries are needed today (I think they still are) is not the issue. The issue is whether a legal system requiring prosecutors to present their evidence to a group of the accused's peers is a fairer system then the prosecutors having no check by the people at all. I say the English Grand Jury system was far more protective of the accused's rights than the Inquistion and no one can seriously argue otherwise.
30 Oct 05
Originally posted by no1marauderThe disparity is worse when you think about the crimes of the English accused and the "crimes" the inguisition "investigated".
That no man, of what estate or condition that he be, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of law. - St. 28 Edward., Ch. 3. (1354.)
The right to be charged by the Grand Jury and to trial by jury was extended to all by this provision. Re ...[text shortened]... rotective of the accused's rights than the Inquistion and no one can seriously argue otherwise.
Like, Bruno getting burned for thinking.