NYC detectives get away w/ murder using legal loophole

In what is perhaps one of the most egregious examples of how miserably our legal system fails to uphold justice, a NY federal district court reversed the convictions of two NYC detectives for conspiring to - and murdering eight people because the statute of limitations had run out.

For those unfamiliar with the famous "procedural" technicality that routinely lets criminals off the hook, a statute of limitations bars the prosecution of civil or criminal cases against a defendant once a certain period of time has lapsed from the date the charged incident occurred - or in some civil cases the date it is discovered.

Though it may have some merit in the civil context, in the criminal context, it shamelessly allows a criminal who is lucky enough to evade justice for the prescribed period of time, to permanently avoid accountability - it's as if it never happened.

The statutory time period varies with different crimes and different civil causes of action. The statute of limitations for criminal conspiracy charges is five years.

The judge wrote that even though there was little doubt that Eppolito and Caracappa had "kidnapped, murdered, and assisted kidnappers and murderers," he had no choice but to let them go because the five-year statute of limitations in conspiracy cases had run out.

No matter how pained he seemed in vacating the convictions, Weinstein took the government to task for pushing the boundaries of conspiracy law.

This is the worst kind of travesty - where the law is elevated above justice. It is a tell-tale sign of the decline of civilization.