palani
20th August 2012, 04:11 AM
A good article to read thoroughly. Lack of knowledge, lack of commitment, willingness to hire legal counsel ... don't play unless you are committed to the concept of losing..
http://adask.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/affirmative-defense-confession/#more-16092
an “affirmative defense” is first and foremost, a confession.
To illustrate, consider the classic “affirmative defense”: the insanity plea.
Suppose you murdered someone and there were no witnesses, no cameras, no evidence of your guilt. If you’re suspected, you can plead not guilty, refuse to testify, and simply rely on the cops’ lack of evidence and inability to prove your guilt.
But suppose you murdered someone in front of six witnesses, and two surveillance cameras. They got you cold. There’s so much evidence against you, that you can’t very well deny that you committed the murder.
However, the section of your state’s penal code that concerns murder will probably include a subsection that says something like “It is an affirmative defense that the defendant was insane at the time he committed the murder.”
If so, you make an “affirmative defense” of claiming you were crazy when you killed that guy.
But note this very important point: Before you can claim you were crazy, you must first admit that you did, in fact, murder the victim.
There’s no point to claiming you were crazy when the victim was killed unless you were the killer. If you’re not the killer, whether you were crazy or not when the guy died is irrelevant.
Thus, your affirmative defense is first and foremost a confession.
By making an affirmative defense, you are confessing that Yes, you killed him—but—you were barking mad when you pulled the trigger and therefore you can’t be held accountable for the man’s death.
http://adask.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/affirmative-defense-confession/#more-16092
an “affirmative defense” is first and foremost, a confession.
To illustrate, consider the classic “affirmative defense”: the insanity plea.
Suppose you murdered someone and there were no witnesses, no cameras, no evidence of your guilt. If you’re suspected, you can plead not guilty, refuse to testify, and simply rely on the cops’ lack of evidence and inability to prove your guilt.
But suppose you murdered someone in front of six witnesses, and two surveillance cameras. They got you cold. There’s so much evidence against you, that you can’t very well deny that you committed the murder.
However, the section of your state’s penal code that concerns murder will probably include a subsection that says something like “It is an affirmative defense that the defendant was insane at the time he committed the murder.”
If so, you make an “affirmative defense” of claiming you were crazy when you killed that guy.
But note this very important point: Before you can claim you were crazy, you must first admit that you did, in fact, murder the victim.
There’s no point to claiming you were crazy when the victim was killed unless you were the killer. If you’re not the killer, whether you were crazy or not when the guy died is irrelevant.
Thus, your affirmative defense is first and foremost a confession.
By making an affirmative defense, you are confessing that Yes, you killed him—but—you were barking mad when you pulled the trigger and therefore you can’t be held accountable for the man’s death.