politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Legalese like this is really important in terms of being precise. Say Trump tweeted it, and they can prove he didn’t (he got an assistant to do it) and that evidence may get thrown out
No rephrasing allowed, huh...
Nope, no rephrasing. That’s literally what the double jeopardy rule is about. The government gets a monopoly on violence, and we expect them to use that monopoly only within certain limits. Without those limits you get authoritarian dictatorships and really scary stuff such as found in the Catholic/Protestant wars in England’s history.
An example of how rephrasing is not allowed:
A number of years back, there was some outrage over a case where a rapist got off “on a technicality” that was headlined in various places as “the judge ruled it wasn’t rape because the severely mentally disabled victim could have objected”. The real issue was that the prosecutor decided, as a strategy to get more jail time for the guy, that they would charge him under a law against raping an unconscious person, but the truth was that the victim was not unconscious. The government is only allowed one shot at trying you for a crime though. If the prosecutor applies the wrong law, they don’t get a do over. The guy absolutely was a disgusting rapist, but he didn’t rape an unconscious person in this instance, and so he gets off scot free.
It’s vitally important that a prosecutor applies exactly the right words, because they are only allowed one shot. If a not-guilty verdict comes back for any reason, including for technicalities, that’s it. Not guilty (for that crime) forever.
Interesting, thanks for elucidating! But what is double jeopardy?
Google is your friend.
if you are found not guilty you can't be tried for that crime again.