Issue 18.15
One of the bedrock foundational guarantees against the state (Federal government) becoming tyrannical is the Sixth Amendment. The government can accuse and punish an individual and abrogate an individual’s unalienable rights, but only if they can convince a jury of that person’s peers that a serious crime has been committed and that the person accused actually committed that crime. That conviction must rest upon a standard that the jury believes the charges are true beyond a “reasonable doubt”.
The safeguards here are many. The jury must be made up of common citizens from the general area in which the crime was committed. They must be judged by the prosecuting and defending lawyers to not be prejudiced either for or against the defendant. This protects the accused from being “railroaded” by the court into a conviction without thoughtful deliberation and awareness that there may be other considerations that should be taken into account.
The accused must be fully informed of the “nature and cause of the accusation”. In other words, they must know the specific charges against them and what the standard of proof is likely to be. They must also be informed clearly what the evidence against them is so they can prepare to show countering evidence or reasons why the evidence to be used is not valid.
They must be confronted with the witnesses against them so they can ascertain if those witnesses are unduly biased or may have reason to accuse them wrongfully and illuminate those things to the judge or jury. This has become understood in part as the right to cross-examine witnesses to attempt to find inconsistencies in the testimony of individual witnesses or between two witnesses which can in turn create “reasonable doubt” about the accuracy or truthfulness of those witnesses.
The founders also realized that most individuals when accused stand against a large group of people determined to punish or incarcerate them and so, to guarantee the right to a fair trial, they stated that the accused has a right to the assistance of counsel (a qualified lawyer) to help them defend themselves and the right to compel people to testify that may have information in their favor or that might create reasonable doubt about their guilt.
Finally, this Amendment indicates that they have a right to a “speedy and public trial”. In general, this means that, as soon as the defendant and their attorney feel ready to move forward with their defense, the trial must occur fairly soon within the courts ability to schedule it. The state is assumed to be ready to prosecute the case if they have arrested and charged the defendant. We see often in modern times the tactic of asking for continuances that delay the trial. When this is done for good cause by the defense in order to prepare, it is usually reasonable. When done by the government while the accused sits in confinement or under suspicion it is usually a tactic known as “delaying justice to deny justice”. The person is in effect punished by being accused while the government spends inordinate time delaying the trial because they don’t have the evidence they need to convict. That is the tactic the speedy trial provision seeks to stop.
This is why the provision of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) that applies to “indefinite detention” of a suspect can not apply to citizens without ignoring this critical statement and guarantee of the Constitution.
Lynn West is a thinker, a teacher and a patriot. You can reach him through email at forgingthefuture2021@gmail.com or through this newspaper. Liberty is a state of being which must be continually created. These articles can help all of us discover the ways we can contribute to that outcome.