6th Amendment frees man after 6 years

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bignflnut
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6th Amendment frees man after 6 years

Post by bignflnut »

I know...not a 2A story...but a story of freedom and how the 2A should be upheld without a series of exceptions and pretzel twisting over the definition of how one keeps and bears arms...
Federal authorities arrested Joseph Tigano III in 2008 and charged him with running a marijuana-growing operation. Tigano entered a plea of not guilty and insisted that his case move quickly to trial. Instead he languished in pretrial detention—jail—for nearly seven years before he finally appeared before a jury, which convicted him in 2015. In an opinion issued this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit dismissed Tigano's indictment "with prejudice" on the grounds that his "oppressive period of pretrial incarceration" violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment.

The criminal justice system's treatment of Tigano is appalling. During his nearly seven-year pretrial incarceration, Tigano loudly and repeatedly invoked his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. Because Tigano kept bringing up the Sixth Amendment, he was forced to undergo three separate court-ordered examinations to determine whether he was competent to be tried. According to one of the prosecutors involved in the case, "Mr. Tigano III had been sort of demanding his speedy trial, which is part of the prompting for the Court sending him out for this evaluation." Tigano passed all three exams with flying colors.

The 2nd Circuit was correct to toss out Tigano's conviction. The framers and ratifiers of the Constitution viewed trial by jury as a fundamental right. Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution says "the Trial of all Crimes, except in cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed." Because that language was not strong enough to satisfy the Anti-Federalists, the Sixth Amendment was added to the Constitution as an extra safeguard in 1791. "In all criminal prosecutions," it reads, "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." In a 1789 letter to Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson expressed the opinion of many in the founding generation when he praised the right to trial by jury as "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
This is a NEGATIVE RIGHT...a right that requires nothing of others except not to impede on it. We've turned the 2nd into a positive right, where the citizen has a burden to jump through a series of fee-based and treacherous hoops in order to exercise a Right that is derived by his/her humanity, not the government's power.

All of this regarding a plant...not an act that impeded on the negative Rights of his fellow man...
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Re: 6th Amendment frees man after 6 years

Post by JediSkipdogg »

Very interesting case and nice that this man decided to take the stand. The question would be, who here would stand that firm vs just take the plea? Generally one of the first things the courts force you to waive when you make a request in court is your right to a speedy trial. After all, they say you can't have a speedy trial if you are asking for an extension to get experts for you defense. I'd be curious to look up the court history on this one and see what all took place and when timewise.
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Re: 6th Amendment frees man after 6 years

Post by Werz »

The pretrial detention experienced by Joseph Tigano, III appears to be the longest ever experienced by a defendant in a speedy trial case in the Second Circuit. Tigano’s experience is an extreme outlier even among the severe examples found within Sixth Amendment case law. Yet no single, extraordinary factor caused the cumulative seven years of pretrial delay. Instead, the outcome was the result of countless small choices and neglects, none of which was individually responsible for the injustice suffered by Tigano, but which together created this extreme instance of a Sixth Amendment violation.
United States v. Tigano, No. 15‐3073, (2d Cir., Jan. 28, 2018), Slip Op. 4-5.
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