"Brenda Ann Dyer" wrote in message
...


The release of pictures and due process don't necessarily either go
together
nor are they necessarily mutually exclusive. Pictures of crime scenes are
often shown in the press. Popular opinion rarely enters into jury
deliberations to any significant degree.


Jurors come from the public and they come to court with their own opinions.
It's hoped that they will be able to take in the evidence and the opinions
of each other. The system works about as well as can be expected. However,
there might be some justice in banning known Usenet Loons from juries.


I will, however, agree with you on
one point... if a person is supposedly innocent until proven guilty, as
one
is supposed to be in our judicial system, then their name should not be
released to the press unless and until they are found guilty in a court of
law.

That wasn't considered a problem when the Federal and State Constitutions
were written. Communities were smaller and more tight knit back then. I'm
sure everyone had a pretty good idea who had been arrested, and for what.
And the juries came out of these local communities.


Many innocent people's reputations have been ruined because of a high
profile criminal case (at least in their local area). Also, there is a
section in the Constitution prohibiting excessive bail... but excessive
bail
seems more the rule than the exception anymore. I have read cases where a
burglar has to post $20,000 bail.. if they had that kind of money in their
wallet (or even their bank account) they most likely wouldn't be
burglars...

Maybe he wasn't a burgler.. he hadn't been convicted of anything at the
time. Bail should be set in proportion to the chance of flight risk.

If the accused burgler couldn't put up the entire 20,000, he almost
certainly had the option of getting the money from a bail bondsman at 10%.

Frank Dresser