A grand jury has indicted two former Uvalde school police officers in the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, two Texas state government sources with knowledge of the indictment told CNN Thursday.
Generally speaking, any person can take anyone to court for any reason, and any prosecutor can charge anyone for any reason.
Once it gets to court is where the “but your honor the Supreme Court said X Y Z” comes into it. And in a lot of cases that’ll get you off, and in a lot of cases that will mean the prosecutor won’t even try because the law is so clear that it would just be a waste of everyone’s time to make the attempt. But, the circumstances of the case and a compelling counter argument can make that not the only outcome, and the judge and jury have a lot of leeway up to and including “hey you know what I think the Supreme Court got it wrong as hell in this case, guilty guilty guilty.”
When it’s fairly applied (which is, certainly, not even close to all the time) it’s actually a very good system.
Precedents get overturned from time to time, and the way that generally happens is when a new case comes along challenging that precedent.
Maybe this goes nowhere. Maybe a conviction gets overturned on appeal. But maybe we could see a new precedent set. Might as well try, you’re probably not going to find a better case to do it any time soon.
Wouldn’t the establishment of a new precedent require the Supreme Court to overturn their previous ruling though? I’m not super familiar with the judicial system, so perhaps someone could tell me if I’m on the right track here with this hypothetical series of events
Charges filed
Defense motions to dismiss case on grounds that police don’t have to protect anyone
Prosecution counters that that’s not necessarily what they are arguing here
Judge at the lowest level with jurisdiction decides to allow the case to proceed based on prosecutions argument that they aren’t litigating settled law
Trial
Defendants found guilty
Defense files an immediate appeal and a stay of sentence because they still feel like their clients are protected by precedent
Repeat until Supreme Court gets a writ of certiorari asking them to take up the appeal
If SCOTUS accepts the case, they will decide if A) the defense IS actually protected by precedent in this scenario B) whether previous precedent is constitutional and C) the ultimate fates of the defendents
9.1 If SCOTUS does not take up the case, the lower court’s decisions are affirmed and that becomes legal precedent.
Is that a probably series of events? Obviously the suit being allowed to continue and the defendents being found guilty are huge assumptions, but, assuming they come to pass, am I on the right track here?
Generally speaking, any person can take anyone to court for any reason, and any prosecutor can charge anyone for any reason.
Once it gets to court is where the “but your honor the Supreme Court said X Y Z” comes into it. And in a lot of cases that’ll get you off, and in a lot of cases that will mean the prosecutor won’t even try because the law is so clear that it would just be a waste of everyone’s time to make the attempt. But, the circumstances of the case and a compelling counter argument can make that not the only outcome, and the judge and jury have a lot of leeway up to and including “hey you know what I think the Supreme Court got it wrong as hell in this case, guilty guilty guilty.”
When it’s fairly applied (which is, certainly, not even close to all the time) it’s actually a very good system.
Precedents get overturned from time to time, and the way that generally happens is when a new case comes along challenging that precedent.
Maybe this goes nowhere. Maybe a conviction gets overturned on appeal. But maybe we could see a new precedent set. Might as well try, you’re probably not going to find a better case to do it any time soon.
Wouldn’t the establishment of a new precedent require the Supreme Court to overturn their previous ruling though? I’m not super familiar with the judicial system, so perhaps someone could tell me if I’m on the right track here with this hypothetical series of events
Is that a probably series of events? Obviously the suit being allowed to continue and the defendents being found guilty are huge assumptions, but, assuming they come to pass, am I on the right track here?