Why try em?-- We all know they're guilty.
In the matter of Kathleen Jacobson before the First Judicial Court, I have personally known her for over the last few months. She is a member of the Fort Simpson Band, a Native Canadian tribe in the Northwest, in British Columbia.
During that time, I have found her in shock over the events. Frustrating moments, largely arising from the reaction she has experienced in what seems to be a wayward process of the First Judicial Court of New Mexico. For New Mexico there is no problem with the Constitution and its assurances in trial rights. They are simply ignored-- because a prosecution lends to error on the side of safety...Most recently (Jan. 5) the Court issued a "competency evaluation" order upon her person .
It is an affront to due process to "order a competency Evaluation'. It is clearly retaliatory as she filed a Supreme Court case to the stay and review those proceedings that had previously transpired. What practically happens in those cases is that the "person subject to evaluation is picked up upon a Sherriff's warrant and placed in the jail to await a psychiatric examination. The whole process could and in New Mexico does take months.
The Court's order of an evaluation of Ms. Jacobson negates the recognition that the proceedings have failed to be prosecuted with the constitutional moorings of due process. The introduction of competency proceedings continues a pattern of failure. There was evidence that the "victim' did not live with the accused, as is part of the requirement to charge as a "battery of a household member".
The public defender has displayed no effort to an apt defense. The introduction of those evidences were by the defendant herself, to promote a dismissal to "misdemeanor charge" which is unfounded. The process has not rested upon "facts' but argumentative statements which obliterate the essences of a trial. It imposes an outcome in which a mere accusation and charge is tantamount to either being guilty or crazy.
A proper competency evaluation rests upon two factors:
A. the accused understands the charges and the originating facts,
B. the accused has an understanding of the court proceedings--the role of the judge, prosecutor, etc. and ably assist in the defense.
The process as taken, at this time and place in the proceedings, clearly attempts to "continue prosecution, despite evidences, time and particulars." It attempts to define the character so to contour an outcome which serves cover for the numerous past events in prosecuting.
As extended, it is a "witch-hunt device," ordered upon absent a probable cause--including a statement such as " she was howling at the moon" 'ranting' and raving in high decibel voice , and/ or incoherently."
There is no evidence of such a probable cause. She maintains the defense that there was an incident, and it led to a charge. She is aware of the charges. She has unequivocally expresses numerous statements that reflect a process of prosecutorial abuse, with default imposed defense. Excepting her own efforts to supply witness statements and character references, the defense has simply folded, replacing another figurehead as a stead for "effective legal assistance."
That process of prosecutorial abuse is continued in now attempting to construct the character upon the competency issues. One might say, that the Court is "doing her a favor" by providing a basis of guilt, but not competent. It does not.
It promotes a cloud, a lethal contamination to the very process of due process rights--which are balances of effective legal assistance, in a courtroom and atmosphere free of prejudices and by procedural processes which are not bent to apply but naturally fall.
A person who is "incompetent' displays such character as to commonly known as "lucid, crazy and lulu," and the Court's rationale and requirement for the order of psychological examination are based upon observed behavior which should be described in the order which is are reasoned. The design of the US Eighth Amendment is toward preserving the rights of the individual. The procedure is not a device which can be used in lieu of a trial.
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