Dear Editor,
The U.S. Constitution should be the supreme law of the land. Unfortunately, it does not apply in the judiciary as evidenced by the gold-fringed flag. Judges’ and prosecutors’ oaths to this charter are rendered meaningless.
The document that laid the foundations of government must be reinstated. Total conformity to unconstitutional practices has to stop. Article 3 of this charter requires that the trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury. Therefore plea-bargaining is a total violation of this.
The vicious cycle begins when the same group of people who work directly with the law in the courts also make the law in the legislative branch. Laws tend to be interpretive, wide-ranging in scope, and highly oppressive. This by design increases the need for “power brokering”.
It is well-documented that numerous people have had to confess to acts they did not commit in a plea bargaining deal in order not to suffer from highly disproportionate punishment meted out to them by unreasonable laws and/or by a judge’s or jury’s whim based on often slanderous, circumstantial, or prejudicial evidence. Moreover, plea bargaining dealing has produced an unfortunate phenomenon: phantom witnesses and phantom accusers. Many people have had to falsely admit to harming people, who simply did not exist, in order to legitimize the plea.
Finally, many defendants have complained that the terms of their plea bargaining agreement, as they understood it, simply did not match the final submittal of “summaries of evidence” presented to the court administration. Many defendants have cited unauthorized alterations.
The US Constitution and ideals of representative governance call for public and not secret trials. People have the right to know all involved. When any matter is silenced, the credibility of adjudication becomes questionable. Transparency should take place at all times. The laws of the US Constitution should be again applied with full force.
Very Truly Yours,
Harsha Sankar
Covington, Virginia 24426
