From the Wool-sack

• Publication year: 1986
• Pages: 57
• Citation: Vol. 15 No. 1 Pg. 57

15 Colo.Law. 57 Colorado Lawyer 1986.

1986, January, Pg. 57. From the Wool-Sack

---

57

Vol. 15, No. 1, Pg. 57

From the Wool-Sack

by Christopher R. Brauchli

Boulder---443-9060

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

William Shakespeare, Henry VI.

Once again I have to express disappointment in the Attorney General of the United States. Mr. Meese and I are destined to agree on little. Just when I thought he had come up with imaginative solutions to (1) the problem of releasing hardened criminals on bail while awaiting trials and (2) congestion in the courts, he changed his mind. Here is what happened.

In a news conference conducted with U. S. News and World Report during the early fall, the following statement was made to Mr. Meese: "You criticize the Miranda ruling, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present before police questioning. Shouldn't people, who may be innocent, have such protections?" Here is Mr. Meese's answer: "Suspects who are innocent of a crime should, But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then; he is not a suspect." The unspoken corollary is, if a person is a suspect, he is guilty of a crime.

For hundreds of years there has been a presumption here and in England that a person charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Mr. Meese turned that presumption on its head in what I took to be a far-reaching and felicitous change in our law. Here is why.

When people are deemed innocent until proven guilty, they have certain rights, even if they are suspects. They are entitled to bail. That is guaranteed by the Constitution. That is why Paul Thayer, Mr. Reagan's former Deputy Secretary of Defense who was charged with stock fraud, did not have to spend his time in jail while awaiting trial. He spent time awaiting trial with his family. He had a constitutional right to bail.

He also had a constitutional right to a trial by a jury of his peers. Only after his peers found him guilty was he sent to jail. That is different from Mr. Meese's rule. Under that rule, Mr. Thayer would have been put in jail as soon as he was a suspect. There would have been no need for a trial. The taxpayers would have saved lots of money.

Another felicitous result of the Meese rule would be elimination of congestion in the courts. So long as...