Posted on 01/04/2013 10:23:39 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
Two remarkable legal proceedings are currently wending their way through the federal criminal courts. The cases involve very different parties: Conrad Black, one of the most consequential public intellectuals and businessmen of our era, and James “Whitey” Bulger, a Boston-based alleged racketeer and serial murderer. But both cases highlight some of the same profound problems with the way federal prosecutorial business is done these days.
In both cases, as in countless others, the feds have used certain techniques that virtually assure convictions of both the innocent and the guilty, the wealthy and the poor, the violent drug dealer and the white collar defendant, indifferent to the niceties of “due process of law,” particularly the right to effective assistance of legal counsel. In order to prevent a defendant from retaining a defense team of his choice, federal prosecutors will first freeze his assets, even though a jury has yet to find them to have been illegally obtained. They then bring prosecutions of almost unimaginable complexity, assuring that the financially hobbled defendant’s diminished legal team (or, as is often the case, his court-appointed lawyer) will be too overwhelmed to mount an adequate defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hard to be optimistic anymore.
And where is the outcry over the poor schlep doing hard time for a vid because the Hildebeast had to divert attention away from her responsibility for the Benghazi murders?
The noble experiment of our Framers is not ending well.
We have a country taught by government employees to obey government from a young age. Government education is the #1 mistake America made.
God help anyone who falls under the Federal microscope especially after reading the article.
And I am sure some people in the gov’t would like to get rid of the 5th amendment.
> Anyone could be ruined by the fed judicial system.
Really. And a good number of conservative authoritarians here champion this stuff as long as it is aimed at "them". They really believe they are so superior somehow that it could never happen to themselves.
The only real non-violent solution to this is if enough conservatives are elected so we can get the leftist judges impeached.
You reflect a sad truth. Our corrupted government for a corrupted people is one of force and not one of persuasion as envisioned by the Framing generation.
A government based on the will of the people, limited by a Bill of Rights and of enumerated powers could be nothing but a mild and guiding hand hardly known or felt by the vast majority. Generations of our students were taught the Bill of Rights in school, and the innate goodness of republican government.
My gosh, what happened? How did a largely virtuous people turn on themselves?
Exactly why we have a separation of powers and a bias toward protecting the accused - political prosecutions.
Maybe it’s time for a moratorium on Ivy-League grads sitting on our highest courts. Perhaps somebody from Texas A&M law school would see these things differently.
I suspect the fundamental problem is the people themselves. They’re wholly ignorant of anything except those things that stimulate or retard their pleasure centers.
How about a moratorium of any ivy league graduate having anything to do with Gov’t whether it is the courts or elected office. Any graduate from an East Coast ivy league school need not apply !
> Maybe it’s time for a moratorium on Ivy-League grads sitting on our highest courts.
That concept is moving to the state level. See George Zimmerman for a great example. Or the Duke Lacrosse kids.
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