I am late today on the posting...I knew something would come up...it always does...I just found this article that pushed the right buttons for me.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/19/law-enforcement-clue-jury-criminal-column/6490641/
Tomorrow or soon thereafter I am going into the heart of this matter. Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel is a very good example of prosecutor misconduct that should have been prosecuted but was immune as discussed in the USA-today article and will be discussed by me...when I get back to this computer.
_______________________________________
I am back....and I am disgusted.
The article from the link is this;
Prosecutors too often abuse unrestrained powers.
Here's how things all-too-often work today: Law enforcement decides that a person is suspicious (or, possibly, just a political enemy). Upon investigation into every aspect of his/her life, they find possible violations of the law, often involving obscure, technical statutes that no one really knows. They then file a "kitchen-sink" indictment involving dozens, or even hundreds of charges, which the grand jury rubber stamps. The accused then must choose between a plea bargain, or the risk of a trial in which a jury might convict on one or two felony counts simply on a "where there's smoke there must be fire" theory even if the evidence seems less than compelling.
This is why, in our current system, the vast majority of cases never go to trial, but end in plea bargains. And if being charged with a crime ultimately leads to a plea bargain, then it follows that the real action in the criminal justice system doesn't happen at trial, as it does in most legal TV shows, but way before, at the time when prosecutors decide to bring charges. Because usually, once charges are brought, the defendant will wind up doing time for something.
The problem is that, although there's lots of due process at trial — right to cross-examine, right to counsel, rules of evidence, and, of course, the jury itself, which the Framers of our Constitution thought the most important protection in criminal cases — there's basically no due process at the stage when prosecutors decide to bring charges. Prosecutors who are out to "get" people have a free hand; prosecutors who want to give favored groups or individuals a pass have a free hand, too.
When juries decide not to convict because doing so would be unjust, it's called "jury nullification," and although everyone admits that it's a power juries have, many disapprove of it. But when prosecutors decide not to bring charges, it's called "prosecutorial discretion," and it's subject to far less criticism, if it's even noticed. As for prosecutorial targeting of disfavored groups or individuals, the general attitude is "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
The problem with that attitude is that, with today's broad and vague criminal statutes at both the state and federal level, everyone is guilty of some sort of crime, a point that Harvey Silverglate underscores with the title of his recent book, Three Felonies A Day: How The Feds Target The Innocent, that being the number of felonies that the average American, usually unknowingly, commits.
Such crimes can be manufactured from violations of obscure federal regulations that can turn pocketing a feather or taking home a rusted bit of metal from a wilderness area into a crime. In other cases, issues almost always dealt with in civil court, disagreements over taxes for instance, can be turned into a criminal case.
The combination of vague and pervasive criminal laws — the federal government literally doesn't know how many federal criminal laws there are — and prosecutorial discretion, plus easy overcharging and coercive plea-bargaining, means that where criminal law is concerned we don't really have a judicial system as most people imagine it. Instead, we have a criminal justice bureaucracy that assesses guilt and imposes penalties with only modest supervision from the judiciary, and with very little actual accountability. (When a South Carolina judge suggested earlier this year that prosecutors should follow the law, prosecutors revolted.)
In a recent Columbia Law Review essay, I suggest some remedies to this problem: First, prosecutors should have "skin in the game" — if someone's charged with 100 crimes but convicted of only one, the state should have to pay 99% of his legal fees. This would discourage overcharging. (So would judicial oversight, but we've seen little enough of that.) Second, plea-bargain offers should be disclosed at trial, so that judges and juries can understand just how serious the state really thinks the offense is. Empowering juries and grand juries (a standard joke is that any competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich) would also provide more supervision. And finally, I think that prosecutors should be stripped of their absolute immunity to suit — an immunity created by judicial activism, not by statute — and should be subject to civil damages for misconduct such as withholding evidence.
If our criminal justice system is to be a true justice system, then due process must attach at all stages. Right now, prosecutors run riot. That needs to change.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself."
______________
From above " (When a South Carolina judge suggested earlier this year that prosecutors should follow the law, prosecutors revolted.)"
When one is victimized by criminals and then by the criminal justice system....injury to injury to injury ad nauseam one might just waste one's time with getting a Master's in Crim Justice and writing a blog and then who knows what...
The author of the article I am using has a link to this book of interest.
Related link http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/22/two-videos-demonstrate-the-immense-power-of-prosecutors/
I am finding more of these interesting links.
My experience with the Warren County Criminal Justice System was a nightmare.
BTW being found "Not Guilty" is not a bed of Roses without many very long sharp thorns which will pierce your essence and soul and likely never come out.
The prosecutor Leslie Meyer knew I was innocent but had Judge James Heath keep relevant evidence out of the trial.
Let me give you a peek into the psychopathy of Judge James Heath (Suicide)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqd_u6fZ65g
May he rot in hell along with the deceased head prosecutor Rachel Hutzel ...hmm...first time I saw this article on the criminal minded prosecutor Rachel Hutzel http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/06/23/loc_hutzel23.html These are the folks who were operating the Warren Country Ohio criminal Justice system in the 2000s. It is my opinion and that of others that Hutzel railroaded Ryan Widmer into a murder conviction. I believe Ryan still rots in prison.
To be clear about speaking of "the dead"...both were alive when I had another blog and skewered them as much as possible as often as possible. These personalities rot the justice system. See "Evil Genes" for an extraordinarily excellent description of "the Successful Narcissistic, Malevolent Machiavellian Sociopath"
"the Successful Narcissistic, Malevolent Machiavellian Sociopath"
find their ways into offices of power. They often become justice officials.
The not successful ones might end up in jail.
I have a medium successful Narcissistic, Malevolent Machiavellian Sociopath doing business too close to me.
One in 25 people are sociopaths.
We all know several but we do not know who they are, neccessarily.
Read this book to I.D. the Sociopaths next door to you.
The one most meaningful in my life is this one; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqd_u6fZ65g
He knew about the fabrication of evidence, the perjury and did what he could so prosecutor Leslie Meyer could get a conviction for her conviction rate count...she failed despite the sociopath judge James Heath.The jury was too smart.
The one doing business nearby ...not so meaningful....the one living next door....just annoying...it is when they become prosecutors and judges that society is in very deep trouble.
