Legal Ease

 I am not involved in The Law.

     Legislatures make The Law.

     Judges interpret The Law.

     Attorneys argue The Law.

     Cops enforce The Law.

I sit in abject fearful submission to the whims of all of them. They, and their legalese¹ have the power to destroy.

Dare I comment? Well. You know me … daring to go where wise men do not tread.

Today I read of a jury's decision to find guilt on charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony.

The U.S. Supreme Court has a rule that juries must consider lesser included offenses in capital murder cases. This law’s idea is that imposing the death penalty is unconstitutional when juries are not allowed to consider lesser included offenses.

The 1980 case that created this rule involved an Alabama law that prohibited judges from giving juries the option of convicting on lesser included offenses when the death penalty was applied. Before the Supreme Court ruling, Alabama juries in these situations had to either impose the death penalty or acquit the defendant.

That Supreme Court holding plainly states “... must consider lesser included offenses.”

To my uneducated but opinionated way of thinking that does NOT mean “must also find … guilty of lesser included offenses.”

Seems to me that the practice of convicting on the maximum charge and also on the lesser charges violates the proscription against double jeopardy. (means that if a person is ... convicted ... cannot be punished again for that (same) criminal act.)

1 the formal and technical language of legal documents that is often hard to understand.