YOU BET I AM BIASED IN FAVOR OF THE PROSECUTION

From the June 5 blogHouston: IN THURSDAY'S CHRONICLE, BRIAN ROGERS reported on double-jeopardy arguments surrounding the case of a man now being tried for arson after previously being acquitted of a capital murder charge related to the fire that killed his daughter. Today, Rogers reports that Harris County prosecutors asked for -- and received -- a gag order on the trial (a reaction that seems a little extreme to this layman).
　
I resonded with this comment: Not really extreme. These gag orders are designed to ensure that jurors selected for trial have not already made up their minds as to guilt or innocense by exposure to media reports.
　
A couple of bloggers going by the name of Sun Tzu and Ubu Roi got involved. Both argue that the only reason the prosecutor is trying the defendant on the arson charge is so that it will help her get elected as a district judge. And both insist that the defendant cannot be tried again because that constitutes ‘double jeopardy.’ My follow up comments to the contrary fell on deaf ears.
　
Ubu came back with: Would it be fair to say that your [police experience] might have biased you towards the prosecutorial side?
　
Here was my reply: YOU BET I AM BIASED TOWARD THE PROSECUTION SIDE. I’D SURE AS HELL RATHER BE BIASED IN FAVOR OF THE PROSECUTION THAN BE BIASED IN FAVOR OF CRIMINALS.
　
As for the double jeopardy argument, Ubu wrote: I'm arguing that the courts are wrong, not from a legal standpoint, but from a moral one, and from the intent of the founders.
　
When Sun Tzu and Ubu Roi insist that this case is only being retried to help one of the prosecutors in her quest to become a district judge, they are full of shit. I am sure that the prosecutors are retrying this case because they are convinced the defendant got away with murder and not for political reasons. So, from Ubu’s ‘moral standpoint’ let me repeat a long-standing legal community saying: LEGALLY INNOCENT, BUT MORALLY GUILTY.