DUI Defendants to be Tried in The Court of Public Opinion

Today I have confirmation that the media will be listing the names of folks charged, but not yet convicted, with DUI's.  To be plain - just the very fact that you were arrested for DUI will be 'marketed' to the general public by the police and media over and above all other arrests. People stopped and charged with the crime of DUI will now be much more likely to be judged in the court of public opinion  - before their first appearance and potential acquittal in any court of law!

 In this country, at least for the time being, we have prided ourselves on our beliefs.  Those beliefs include the fundamental understanding that one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. The release of names of people who are accused of DUI sounds like a 21st Century version of the pillory and stocks.  Let's shame people, simply for being accused.  There does not appear to be anything for the folks who are acquitted.  I see no mention of the need for a media update or retraction.  Even if there were, the damage is already done.  The individual has already had their name and reputation sullied.  

Most of us won't be part of a big news story like former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens when the government did not do the right thing when we are prosecuted.

April 1, Washington, D.C.-

The Justice Department moved on Wednesday morning to drop all charges against former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who narrowly lost his seat last year shortly after being convicted on seven felony counts of ethics violations.

Mr. Stevens, who is 85, had been the longest serving Republican in the history of the Senate. He had been charged with lying on Senate disclosure forms by concealing an estimated $250,000 worth of goods and services he received, mostly to renovate a chalet he owned in Alaska. Prosecutors said he received most of the goods and services from Bill Allen, a longtime friend who had made a fortune by providing services to Alaska’s booming oil industry.

But in their filing on Wednesday, government lawyers said that trial prosecutors had concealed from Mr. Stevens’s defense lawyers the notes from an interview with Mr. Allen that raised significant doubts about the charges. Among other things, Mr. Allen asserted in the interview that the work on the Stevens home was worth only about $80,000, they said.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who made the decision to move to drop the charges, said in a statement that "I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial.” He said it was "in the interests of justice” to dismiss the indictment and forgo any new trial.

Mr. Stevens’s lawyers, Brendan V. Sullivan, Jr. and Robert M. Cary, issued a statement on Wednesday welcoming the decision, decrying the conduct of the prosecutors in the case and hailing Mr. Holder as “a pillar of integrity in the legal community.” The statement called the case “a sad story and a warning to everyone” that “any citizen can be convicted if prosecutors are hell-bent on ignoring the Constitution.”

Do I need to say anything else?