According to Lady Liberty some students at Rowan Cabarras Early College High School received some condoms in their welcome bags! Oh the horror! Please, say it isn't so. Let's be serious folks, high school students are sexually active. According to the CDC 46.8% of high school students have had sexual activity and 34% of high school students have had sexual activity within the last three months. Stop distributing condoms in error and start doing so intentionally.
Walt-in-Durham
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Monday, September 8, 2014
Ray Rice and spousal privilege
The NFL has suspended, indefinitely, Ray Rice for spousal abuse. First and foremost, the NFL and the NFL Players Association have bargained punishments and the collective bargaining agreement appears to give the Commissioner the discretion to impose penalties for violations of the good conduct clause. That is not what this post is about.
Further, the Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc. has cut Rice and cancelled his contract. That too, is not the subject of this post.
What I do want to discuss, briefly, is the question raised by a poster to the NY Times story referenced above. The poster asks why did the prosecution end up with such a weak case? Especially when they had video tape evidence. That is a very good question. In this day and age of surveillance everywhere, how did this case go so badly for the prosecution?
The simple answer is Rule 501 of the Uniform Rules of Evidence. Rule 501 says: Except as otherwise required by the Constitution of the United States, the privileges of a witness, person, government, state, or political subdivision thereof shall be determined in accordance with the common law. The United States Supreme Court has recognized two different forms of marital privilege: (1)Testimonial, and (2)Communications.
(1) The testimonial privilege extends to the witness spouse. The spouse may refuse to testify against his/her spouse in a criminal or civil case. The spouse party does not hold the privilege, only the witness. That means the witness can refuse and cannot be compelled, even by a waiver from the non-witness spouse. This is the privilege problem prosecutors ran up against in the Ray Rice case. They could not compel Mrs. Rice to testify as long as she refuses. (Now of course the state has gotten a minor conviction against Ray Rice so jeopardy has attached and no further criminal punishment is possible.)
(2) The communications privilege belongs to the non-witness spouse. That is, as to what one spouse said to the other, the non-witness holds the privilege and can stop the witness spouse from testifying. This part of the privilege is not the subject of the video at least.
The question then becomes, why can't some custodian of the records for the surveillance company authenticate the video? They can. The problem is the custodian of the records cannot positively identify Ray Rice (not HD quality, or not of sufficient resolution) and certainly cannot positively identify Mrs. Rice.
The final question, why can't CSI identify Rice and Mrs. Rice? The simple answer, CSI with their bag of tricks was not called to the scene.
Walt-in-Durham
Further, the Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc. has cut Rice and cancelled his contract. That too, is not the subject of this post.
What I do want to discuss, briefly, is the question raised by a poster to the NY Times story referenced above. The poster asks why did the prosecution end up with such a weak case? Especially when they had video tape evidence. That is a very good question. In this day and age of surveillance everywhere, how did this case go so badly for the prosecution?
The simple answer is Rule 501 of the Uniform Rules of Evidence. Rule 501 says: Except as otherwise required by the Constitution of the United States, the privileges of a witness, person, government, state, or political subdivision thereof shall be determined in accordance with the common law. The United States Supreme Court has recognized two different forms of marital privilege: (1)Testimonial, and (2)Communications.
(1) The testimonial privilege extends to the witness spouse. The spouse may refuse to testify against his/her spouse in a criminal or civil case. The spouse party does not hold the privilege, only the witness. That means the witness can refuse and cannot be compelled, even by a waiver from the non-witness spouse. This is the privilege problem prosecutors ran up against in the Ray Rice case. They could not compel Mrs. Rice to testify as long as she refuses. (Now of course the state has gotten a minor conviction against Ray Rice so jeopardy has attached and no further criminal punishment is possible.)
(2) The communications privilege belongs to the non-witness spouse. That is, as to what one spouse said to the other, the non-witness holds the privilege and can stop the witness spouse from testifying. This part of the privilege is not the subject of the video at least.
The question then becomes, why can't some custodian of the records for the surveillance company authenticate the video? They can. The problem is the custodian of the records cannot positively identify Ray Rice (not HD quality, or not of sufficient resolution) and certainly cannot positively identify Mrs. Rice.
The final question, why can't CSI identify Rice and Mrs. Rice? The simple answer, CSI with their bag of tricks was not called to the scene.
Walt-in-Durham
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