A legal analyst highlighted a comment by President Donald Trump that shows an alarming lack of respect for the criminal justice system.
The president who famously stalled his own criminal prosecutions until he was re-elected and got those cases dismissed demanded a speedy trial for a man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, but former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance wrote on her "Civil Discourse" Substack page that Trump's comments were problematic.
"Today, after Donald Trump announced it on Fox and Friends, law enforcement told the public it had apprehended a suspect who turned in after confessing to the murder of Charlie Kirk to his father, a former Sheriff’s Deputy and minister," Vance wrote. "Also on Fox and Friends, Trump weighed in on how criminal cases should proceed. He said prosecutions should move more quickly and that the United States should become more like China."
"We have to have quick trials," Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” “I call it quick trials because in China, they do have quick trials. You know, they don’t wait six years.”
The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is eligible for the death penalty, according to prosecutors, and Vance said that makes Trump's demand for a speedy trial even more troubling.
"Donald Trump has never read and clearly doesn’t care about the Constitution," she wrote. "This morning, he suggested that the slow pace of trials in the U.S. is leading to unsafe streets. What comes next? Declaring yet another emergency? Suspending due process?"
Criminal trials, as Trump should know, take time because defendants have the right to review and challenge evidence against them, and insanity defenses and competency issues become likely during death penalty cases, she said.
"Is Trump suggesting that the entire criminal justice system and our history and tradition of respecting the rights of criminal defendants, even those accused of the most heinous crimes, should be tossed out the window?" Vance wrote. "Apparently, if you’ve been convicted in the court of public opinion — or if the dictator thinks you’re guilty — constitutional rights are just an inconvenience."