WE INTERRUPT THIS LOCAL PAROCHIAL DISCUSSION TO PRESENT A NATIONAL TRAGEDY
For years, the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice has been a shining light. Their job is to make sure the Government in General and the Justice Department in particular follows the law and avoids any kind of self-trading. It has been uniformly civil-service protected and non-partisan. It's only bias was rooting out corruption and prosecuting it vigorously to deter further corruption.
Interested lawyers would uniformly feel the battle against the Public Integrity Section would be hard fought within the rules. Judges deferred to the section and it's argument because of its reputation for being "down the middle".
The Ted Stevens case has blown that apart. Failure to turn over exculpatory documents is a well known duty for prosecutors. It is difficult to believe the failure by PI was inadvertent.
Why does it matter? Public Integrity was an argument against Special Prosecutors. Public Integrity could take a hot case, even against and administration official because they were built to be honest and incorruptible.
This is a slow-growing virus that will almost certainly politicize the criminal justice system and nobody wins when that happens.
I'm not minimizing the impact on Mr. Stevens. He was cheated out of an opportunity he can probably never get back. Still, the bigger victim is clean government and public confidence in our ability to administer justice.
I know this is not as big a deal as who stole a yard sign, but I thought somebody should bring it up.
posted by UMRBlog @ 09:27
4 comments
4 Comments:
The only good news is that the adults are running the country again. The fact is that the folks running the justice dept. during the second bush administration did not have any faith in the American justice system- otherwise we would not have had extraordinary rendition, torture, and Gitmo.
I'm no lawyer, but my outside view indicates this is not indicative of a slow growing virus, but a growing cancer that has reached the bloodstream. Considering the run of selectively "unprosecuted" tax cheats that Obama has tried to move into prominent positions, it seems clear the system is failing.
Mr. Stevens was almost certainly denied a return to the senate due to this apparent breakdown in ethical standards. Considering the importance one senate vote can hold in maintaining a filibuster, this most likely enabled some major shifts in national policy and spending.
I appreciate that at least one local lawyer is concerned about this to the point of writing about it. My experience, coupled with commentary from many others, is the local lawyer community is largely the basic good old boy system, where ethics are not even a close third to protecting their own, and seeing what they can get away with.
Given the billions, now trillions that are added to our debt to "save the system", it is noteworthy that our congress and their big banker buddies that got us in this mess, are still profiting and in charge. Insiders and lobbyists run this country, not the citizens.
I hope you and I and a few bloggers can make a difference, but I fear this cancer started at least 50 years ago, and has now metastasized even to justice, where good men will submit or walk away. Major changes are happening, and in a hurry.
Thanks for speaking up ...
Well, I'm still skeptical, but have just a glimmer of hope now ...
http://tinyurl.com/dgfghs
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge dismissed the corruption conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on Tuesday and took the rare and serious step of opening a criminal investigation into prosecutors who mishandled the case.
"In nearly 25 years on the bench, I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case," U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said.
and since you're a lawyer .. here is another link from comments on that topic (on a blog I read) ... you can add it to comments, or not, if you want. It is from a (self proclaimed) fed prosecutor.
It expresses my concern that justice is already politicized.
http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=285598#c4560047
I was a federal prosecutor for ten years. Career prosecutors at DOJ are mostly leftists. Career prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division are far-left, with a generous sprinkling of diversity hires, and they are and always have been blatantly, ruthlessly partisan. The left's long march through the institutions did not overlook the DOJ. There is not a doubt in my mind that this whole thing was undertaken from the beginning to get rid of a Republican senator. Is Stevens crooked? Probably. But that's a description that fits a lot of politicians -- Reid and Feinstein come to mind -- and they've been left severely alone.
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