From: utzoo!decvax!watmath!pcmcgeer
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Hinckley
Article-I.D.: watmath.2867
Posted: Tue Jun 29 12:11:45 1982
Received: Thu Jul  1 00:39:24 1982

	C'mon, John.  In the first place, the Crown Prosecutor and the defense
attorney are hired hacks, even though the C.P.'s a salaried government employee
(roughly equivalent to someone working in the DA's office in the States).  As 
for the defense attorney, except in a Public Defense case, he's a hired gun
pure and simple.
	I doubt very much that Hinckley would have been acquitted in a Canadian
preliminary hearing [ For the majority of you on the net, this is a hearing in
which a judge determines whether or not there is sufficient evidence against an
accused to permit the case to go to trial.  It's received a lot of publicity in
Canada recently since a nurse at a Toronto hospital was acquitted of a murder
charge at one.].  More likely, the judge would have decided there was
sufficient evidence to send the man to trial - and, I think, here he would have
been convicted.
	In any case, our system and the American one are not dissimilar.  The
principle difference is that access to the courts is easier in the States; a
secondary (minor) difference is the absence of a preliminary hearing in most
(all?) US jurisdictions.  A final difference is that defendants can select
trial by judge and jury or by judge alone - which, if you've ever been
summonsed for jury duty, is a pleasant thought.
	However, the system here is just as adversarial.  I wouldn't have it
any other way - my best defense of freedom in a court is an open, adversarial
proceeding.