Lamar Smith Wants Suspects Guilty Until Proven Innocent
It must have seemed like a good idea to U.S. Representative Lamar Smith to give a tough guy speech. He’d talk about locking up bad guys and throwing away the key. Constituents would love his law-and-order stand, and he’d sail to re-election.
There’s just one problem with Representative Smith’s calculation: His law-and-order stand doesn’t actually respect the law.
When Smith stood up to give his tough guy speech on Friday, here are the words that came out of his mouth: “Why would the Obama administration give terrorists the same rights as American citizens? Members of al Qaeda and the other terrorist groups should be treated as what they are, America’s enemies engaged in a war against the United States. Giving terrorists constitutional rights is like giving a burglar the key to your house.”
Giving terrorists constitutional rights is like giving the burlar the key to your house? In this metaphor, constitutional rights are something that make us vulnerable, freedom is weakness, and impartial justice is a stupid, reckless idea.
In evaluating the meaning of Lamar Smith’s speech against constitutional rights, you need to keep in mind that the people Smith calls terrorists are, in fact, in the eyes of the law, alleged terrorists. They have not been proven to be terrorists in any court of law.
What Lamar Smith proposes is to throw away courts of law, and merely allow public outrage to determine the guilt of people accused of crimes. Smith wants people held prisoner by the U.S. government to be judged guilty until proven innocent, to be treated as criminals before the evidence about whether they actually are criminals has even been examined.
I’m not saying that this is a problem because I’m some kind of lame-brained terrorist lover. I’m pointing out the implications of Lamar Smith’s poorly considered rant because any of us could be accused of a heinous crime at any time. Many innocent people are accused of crimes, and part of the reason that we have a Constitution is to ensure that innocent people will be punished for crimes as seldom as possible.
Everybody under U.S. authority, citizen or not, who is accused of a crime, is granted constitutional rights. That’s not some kind of soft special favor to criminals. It’s an essential protection for people who have been wrongly accused of crimes they did not commit.
In Lamar Smith’s imagination, everyone who is accused of a crime is guilty, and constitutional rights are for wimps. Congressman Smith is betting that his constituents back in Texas agree with him, and will reward his blunt, get tough without trial, approach to the law.
Is Smith right? Are his constituents that stupid? His 2010 re-election campaign will tell the tale.
He also seems to be saying that the Constitution is the source of America’s vulnerability. Huh. That’s not patriotic!
This, guy is judging people even before they are convicted of any crimes. you cant just look at people and tell if their innocent or guilty. God is the only judge, and this guy will be judged before our heavenly father one day. i will pray for you Lamar Smith.
When people are accused of crimes they did not commit it destroys their lives and their familys lives, not to mention the fact that no one will hire them for work because of false allegations on their criminal records. its not right alot of people has had their constitutional rights broken. this is not America the justice system is crooked in a lot of ways. when you are innocent of a crime and go before the jury your automatically guilty most of the time. we have detectives that do sloppy work, someone please help this country.
[...] is some very interesting background on Rep. Smith from 2009, Lamar Smith Wants Suspects Guilty Until Proven Innocent. What Lamar Smith proposes is to throw away courts of law, and merely allow public outrage to [...]