This from CNN today:
“(CNN) President Donald Trump took to Twitter Saturday to lament “lives are being shattered” by a mere allegation in the wake of the resignations of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter and speechwriter David Sorensen following allegations of domestic abuse.
” ‘Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,’ the President tweeted. ‘Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused – life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?’ “
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All I can say about this is: “Well, Mr. president, I suggest you take a very hard look at the sex offender registry, because this – lives shattered by a false accusation – is something that our (your) justice system is very good at.” Just ask Brian Banks, or Courtney Bisbee, or any of the countless others. I’ve written about many of them on this blog.
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And the false-accusation failures of the justice system are not limited to just sex offenses.
Wrongful Convictions Blog 
I just interviewed an inmate who was convicted of a sex offense in 2011. He was released from prison after 11 months. He has now served more time in prison than that for failure to report a new address because, he said, he didn’t have one. How does that make sense?
I have a guy who has been arrested many times for failure to report, the case is from 20 years ago, a juvenile case, wrongfully convicted, his mother’s home was surrounded by 20 sheriffs, dogs, shut down the park, for the second time, he was not there. goes to court next week, looking at 5 years
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Is this the same Donald Trump who reasserted the guilt of the exonerated Central Park Five who had wrongfully been convicted for rape as teenagers ? (He had once called for their execution). As Liliana Segura wrote in The intercept on October 11, 2016: “But despite the burst of outrage, the ugly truth is that Trump’s attitude is all too common in district attorneys’ offices around the country. Not only have prosecutors defended the convictions of innocent people in the face of exonerating evidence, they will often block efforts to test for such evidence as DNA in the first place. Once a conviction is overturned, DAs often refuse to drop charges, dragging out a legal fight while dangling the specter of re-imprisonment over men and women who just want to move on with their lives. If a person is officially exonerated and seeks compensation, it is not uncommon for DAs to fight these efforts as well.” Thank you Mr. President Trump. Such compassion for the wrongfully accused!
The Central Park Five http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/centralparkfive/
comment by Royal Scanlon: “This sobering film really brings home our nations need to set up Truth and (s)Reconciliation Commissions (like South Africa did). So that when wrongs are committed and injustices exposed, those responsible for those misdeeds, need, for the health of our democracy, to (at the very least), admit to their misdeeds and crimes, apologize for committing them, vow to never take part in such activities again, make restitution (when possible), and submit to having the record of their involvement in such activities (both the commission of the injustice(s) and the taking part in the reconciliation process) be a part of their permanent record.
This needs to happen regardless of the stature or place in society held by the perpetrator of the injustice. It should hold true, whether he or she is an ordinary citizen, a journalist, reporter or talking head, a minister or priest, a police officer or detective, a prosecutor, a lawyer, a judge, a member of the Armed Services, a CIA agent, an FBI agent, a corporate CEO, a Wall Street Banker, a Lobbyist, a Senator or Congress person, a Cabinet member, a Vice President or a President.
When crimes or injustices are uncovered those responsible need to own up to them, publicly, rather than allow the illusion(s) they took part in creating, the falsehoods disseminated to cover their misdeeds, whether actively or by their silence, so that members of the public do not remain misinformed, confused or at odds with each other because of the perpetrators silence in the aftermath of discovery.
Not admitting guilt or complicity when such guilt or complicity is a given, should be seen and treated as a criminal offense in itself — a crime against humanity.
In this specific case, the case of the Central Part Five, what the law enforcement officers, detectives and prosecutors did, what the members of the press and media did, was criminal. A crime against those 5 young men most assuredly. A crime against our society and, humanity at large, as well.” (5 years ago)
This is primarily due to a dereliction of civic duty of the citizen. How can a person defend their freedoms, rights and liberties if they do not know the US Constitution? There is the problem; u can’t win at football unless u know the rules by which it is governed. Too many ignorant and the ones we lend our power to have little vested interest in our well being if we r unable to hold them accountable, hence the results of Maxine Waters, John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Lindsey Graham. Fortunately we have the likes of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz; u may not like the message but your obtuse objective is but a plate of moral hazard as noted by King Solomon, Aesop, Cicero, Jesus, Shakespeare and the cumulative reasoning used by the authors of the US Constitution as they embraced human nature and how to tame it . Trump is a refreshing anomaly as he is not ideological, but practical and either group idealists will be upset dependent on how he manipulates us. I have likes most of what he has accomplished but i c it as coincidental as he does not know the fallacies of human nature as it relates to the liberties and rights of the individual. So suck it up and learn the laws so u r able to govern those that govern u by your ability to reasonably lend your power to them in accordance to all that that preserves your rights and liberties….and certainly serve society well so that you are a net contributor to society and not some egregious slug sucking the life out of the net contributors.
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