Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rose and the Presumption of Innocence (w/poll)

      The senior Senator from New York State, Chuck Schumer, got together with Charlie Rose last night for a free ranging political discussion and a plug for his "first" book, Positively American.  I’ve not read the book. I can not comment on it.  And after hearing Senator Schumer speak of Joe and Eileen and his 50% solution,  I felt no urge to rush out and buy it.  I did manage, however, to find my jaw after it dropped to the floor and rolled under the sofa. And what made my head explode? Read on, especially if you know the law.  I thought I did.

      While giving his take on why Reagan came to power (Schumer's freshman year in Congress) the Senator explained how the Democrats had "lost touch" and were so "oblivious to the crime wave" going on for "ten or twelve years" that they actually allowed the ACLU to write legislation  for a judiciary sub-committee on crime (shades of K street!).  Well, I don't know about that and am not terribly interested whether it's true or not.  What I most responded to came next when, after rightfully acknowledging that the ACLU was a "good" organization and deserves a place at the table, Chuck went on to criticize (with ample gesticulation and a rising pitch in his reedy voice) the ACLU's position on crime in the 80's:

"...their view was, let a thousand guilty people go free lest you convict one innocent person.  It was looney!  Looney!"

      Well, damn.... looney?

      I thought it was the basis for the "presumption of innocence" and that the "presumption of innocence" was, uh, kind of, like, important.  And I thought I learned that in high school .  Here's the link where you can hear it for yourselves: AN HOUR WITH SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER.  He makes the statement about 23 minutes into the interview.  You'll notice that Charlie Rose doesn't react to the Senator's legal dissembling.

      I googled the phrase and quickly learned that others were apparently as confused as I, like the folks at TalkLeft:

It is better than 5, 10, 20, or 100 guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be put to death. This principle is embodied in the presumption of innocence. In 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision in the case Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432; 15 S. Ct. 394, traced the presumption of innocence, past England, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and, at least according to Greenleaf, to Deuteronomy.

      Oh wait.  The above actually cites case history.  Hmmmm...

      Okay.  I don't like Chuck much.  I'm a constituent, and I vote for him, but I'm not a fan.  I was particularly alarmed last summer when he, along with HRC, threatened to vote in favor of confirming John Bolton's renomination to the UN.  Anyone who missed that one might want to watch this appearance on CNN, care of outsidethebeltway.  But I'm not so interested in bashing Senator Schumer as in getting him to stop saying stupid things.  

      The Democrats still need to increase their numbers, and he's part of that process.  When he's not trying to sell his book or himself (attn: he needs to lose the "voices in his head" explanation of the "talks" he carries on with with his fictional middle-class couple, Joe and Eileen - for what should be obvious reasons... ahem) Schumer is capable of some winning rhetoric.

      He's a very bright man.  So why does he say stupid things?  At a time when our country has been severely tarnished by crimes of torture and illegal wars, by renditions and secret evidence, by scores of overturned death penalty cases where innocent lives were imprisoned and destroyed, and perhaps most obscenely, the suspension of habeas corpus, should Senator Schumer really be dismissing "presumption of innocence" too?

ADDENDA:

• Schumer said he had zero interest in the presidency and I believed him (whew!)
• Charlie Rose actually asked him some tough questions, though not many.
• I'm pleased to be placing last in the poll.