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I think the article is well written and understandable. I just wonder why your political siding is always things against Republicans and never anything the Democrats are doing or their names. There's enough on both sides of the fence but you always slam Republicans.

I hope your journey's down the rabbit hole to bring us this wonderful information starts naming and giving a beat down to the Democrats also. I also think you are correct in your article I'm just saying you never speak against any Democrats so far in your blogs and there's enough out there.

I look forward to your next blog whether it's about planes trains or automobiles electric cars politics no matter how they lean. I think you're a very educated man with a lot of experience.

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author

Thanks for commenting! The article does point out several Democrats who have been caught up in legal issues, such as in the section highlighting removal from committees, or those who I suggest were not charged for crimes, in part at least, because of their stature. The Santos case, while maybe not historically unique, is of particular interest in that his entire campaign was a fraud, and the voters are told essentially that they made a choice, now live with it. When, in my view, it was a false choice. In my law-related articles, I explore criminal activity where there is a lot of available information to discuss and where the accused proven conduct is especially pernicious. If that tends to lean Republican then that is a testament to that party's current state of ethics. But I am happy to explore any crimes of public interest, so feel free to suggest.

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Well the most news and information you find comes from the vast majority of the news agencies out there which hate the Republicans so retrieving the information or finding it is hard if they're not publicly outing it like they drill the Republicans. So it's kind of hard for anybody except if you want to strictly listen to Fox News LOL which I will not watch any news as the only singularity in my life for information. You are the professional not me LOL I'm sure if you dug a little bit you would find there is much. But I know you're going to comment on this and say tell me what it is or pointed out or bring the facts to the table to discuss but like I said it's kind of hard because all the news agencies are liberal and Democratic aside from a few that are not even a real news channel like OAN lol 🤣 but I do stand corrected and who you drilled but I think you should point out if their democrat or republican in your articles. I didn't even know who George Santos really was or anything until this article and I had to read up on him I didn't even know if he was Republican I just did my due diligence to figure out who the people are you're talking about and I just grabbed the first one. But I love your blogs I think your information is true and factual and does make sense so I can't wait for your next article regardless of subject material. Best blogs I've ever read ! Thank you

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founding

Hmmm. You have very strong opinions about some very complicated and nuanced situations. You overlook several facts, primarily that the prosecutor’s actions will always have oversight by at least the trial court and if there is a conviction, at least one and often several appellate courts. Additionally, the press coverage, hopefully (I say this naively) accurate, will give the public the information it needs when it’s time for the DA to be re-elected. My other concern is that you paint with broad strokes. In my almost 40 years as a prosecutor, I have seen malicious prosecutions but they have been the rarity. Extreme rarity.

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author

Thanks for commenting! First, yes, these are very complicated issues, this was intended as thoughts on a general ideal, so I readily concede your broad strokes point. However, I would counter with a few points. First, if malicious prosecutions are rare (which I believe is correct among overall numbers of actual prosecutions), then it seems prosecuting willful malicious prosecutions as crimes is not especially onerous on the profession, particularly as I think there is a documented history of wrongful convictions at the life or death sentencing level, and probably more for lower-level crimes (we just don't hear about those ones as much). And that largely discounts leveraging malfeasance in pleas, as part of those numbers... getting figures on those is stubbornly difficult (and as you know, a massively overwhelming majority of cases plea). Of the wrongful outcomes, there is a large-enough-to-matter piece of those resulting from arguably malicious conduct (whether race/economics-based or simply cherry picking targets along with evidence tomfoolery). In other words, those whose rights have been violated have borne the overwhelming burden of malfeasance given that even in egregious cases, most violating DAs rarely face any consequence beyond perhaps an overturning. Relatedly, I made the point, though perhaps not strongly enough, that such a prosecution of malfeasance must require proving intentional and actual malice. The court systems are surely the ideal protectors of victims' rights, but well-executed appeals are not available to a large swath of people caught in the system, and they can take years to decide while someone sits in jail. Even then, 'actual innocence' is not necessarily dispositive to the decision to release (Shinn v. Ramirez). In any of those cases, a wronged individual suffers massive losses. Finally, on election as a tool for corrective action, I would say that it is vastly ineffective. Incumbents win races in the US over 90% of the time (historically and across nearly all levels), and only a limited portion of people pay attention to down ballot races, especially DA races. As a last concession, however, I can see that my argument may be taken as a dig at all prosecutors, which was not at all my intention. I know the difficulties of the job for those who do it right, and I think I know some of the best who've probably ever done it. (I think I can safely say I was involved enough to know, anyway!). But there is a substantial enough population who does abuse their power who have had a crushing impact on the targets of their malfeasance. My main point, again perhaps not well made, is that if we encouraged more prosecutions of political folks, which I am arguing for, those DAs who already feel empowered by doing whatever they want with largely no repercussions, would likely jump on that bandwagon in a hot minute until we also enforce with more teeth the engaging of frivolous or malicious prosecutions, whether for political purposes or otherwise. I took the risk of sounding generally anti-prosecutor here over naming specific jurisdictions, but there are volumes of studies that can identify them.

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founding

Mike Nifong. Kathleen Kane. Just two examples of successful prosecutions against corrupt prosecutors. The problem is rare but there are high profile consequences. There are also less obvious consequences, including losing one’s license to practice law.

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