Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Understanding Ferguson MO






There is an intellectual disconnect concerning Ferguson.
As a society we continue to neglect children of high risk which has consequences far more damaging than the neglect of children in general; which has never really stopped for the great majority of children of any race.



Education is of prime importance. The likelihood of such a gift being given to those who need to understand history and rage most is slim to none. It is useless to address the current system of education in the USA. Our educational system is broken beyond a fix....fort hose who desperately need it most.
















Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Ferguson After Verdict

Ferguson experiences repercussions.
http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/live-updates-from-ferguson-on-the-grand-jury-decision-in-michael-brown-shooting/?_r=0

Although there are, in the police population...as in the general population, people who have little to no ethics and morals...these bad apples are few...especially as time moves on and police candidates are expected to be better educated and to undergo testing and mental examinations.

All the evidence seems to exonerate the officer yet because he was not thrown to the wolves people all over the states are outraged.

Why?

IMO they needed a "sacrifice" for the pain they as a group have felt for far too long.
Innocence was not a variable to be examined by "the people".


From the NYT link above;
"...he (Mr Brown) looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked". said officer Wilson.

That is "RAGE", possibly murderous rage.

Why would anyone want to be a policeman in these times...?...I have few ideas about that.
The job is too dangerous. My graduate work was in Criminal Justice so I should have some idea...but I don't... at least not today.

Side note; "...he (Mr Brown) looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked". said officer Wilson.

I have seen such an expression recently. It was directed towards me but I think the fellow mistook me for the person (a woman) who complained to the BATF about his business (in the A. part of BATF) practices. He had a leaf blower clearing the sidewalk in front of his store. I approached a business next door when this man lunged at me, leaf blower going full blast into my face with an expression of such "intense aggression" I was astounded...for he is of slight build and likely had trouble holding on to the blower with which he "attacked" me. I think he surprised himself with his rage...it took me awhile to figure out that the woman made the complaint some weeks before and that her complaint had just hit...and was likely behind his rage, as he believed I had made the complaint.

Had this man been of Mr Brown's physical stature I might have been alarmed enough to use appropriate force which is never good, even in self defense...as the victim (that would be me in this example), if he fends off the attack...and survives will undergo what Officer Wilson did experience in the aftermath and may likely continue to undergo in some manner for a very long time. I know about such.

I try to be extra friendly to the officers I meet. If they are on beat I wish them to be safe. They appreciate that. They deserve that as do the citizens they are sworn to protect.





Monday, November 24, 2014

Another Innocence Project


Another Innocence Project;
Please Support ... "Justice" is a rare commodity......see http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/10/paper-required-for-graduate-degree-in.html   



Help us bring Belynda home for the holidays, David! Email not displaying correctly?
View it in your browser.
300 Exonerations — and Counting…
Innocence ProjectDear David,

On June 12, 1994, Belynda Goff walked out of her bedroom, where she had been sleeping with her three-year old son, to find her husband, Stephen, lying unconscious just inside the doorway of their apartment. She immediately called to request emergency medical assistance. The paramedics arrived ten minutes later. Despite the quick response by both Belynda and the paramedics, they were unable to find a pulse.

An autopsy revealed that Stephen's cause of death was blunt force trauma to his head.  This is a fact. When it comes to Stephen's death, very few other facts have been conclusively established. No murder weapon has been found, no witness could identify Stephen's killer, and no physical evidence has linked anyone, much less Belynda, to the murder. Yet Belynda Goff has languished in prison for two decades for a murder she has always maintained she did not commit. We are currently conducting DNA testing that could prove Belynda's innocence, but crucial evidence in her case has been lost, so testing may never be able to provide the results we need.

Urge Arkansas Governor Beebe to have his appointed parole board vet Belynda's clemency petition and grant it!

Multiple witnesses have come forward to say that Stephen’s murder was the result of his involvement in an arson scheme and that Belynda had no involvement in his death.  We believe testing on all of the crime scene evidence could have conclusively proven Belynda had no involvement, but with crucial evidence going missing, we may never be able to fully vindicate Belynda through DNA testing alone.  An order of clemency from Governor Beebe may be Belynda’s only chance at justice.

I ask you to join me in calling on Governor Beebe to grant our clemency request for Belynda Goff and release her from prison. Let’s make sure Belynda gets to spend the holidays with her family this year.

Sincerely,

Karen Thompson
Staff Attorney



Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Feguson awaits a decision from the grand jury- The Rashomon effect

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/10/us/ferguson-michael-brown-shooting/

People are afraid in Ferguson, gun sales are soaring.

From above link

"The increase in gun sales reaches across racial and ethnic lines, he says.
"A lot of black people coming in saying they are afraid of the hooliganism," he says.
"But not all of Ferguson is hooliganish. The media portrays us that way. If the world can just see this is one little street in Ferguson going crazy, they'd understand that we're not just one big burning city."
At Metro Shooting Range in nearby Bridgeton, Missouri, manager John Stephenson says gun sales are up 40 to 50% as of last week.
And lots of folks are coming in to the gun range for training, which he says is important for new gun owners.
"Every time that door opens, we're seeing new faces," Stephenson says. Many new customers tell him they're concerned about the response to the grand jury decision."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/10/ferguson-shooting-witnesses/15423143/
Partial from above seems to condemn the police officer

"The comments from the workers differ from those made by St. Louis County Police Chief Joe Belmar, who said Brown physically assaulted Wilson and reached for Wilson's gun. Some witnesses also have said Brown assaulted the officer.
Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the family of Michael Brown, said the newly released video of witnesses should be presented to the grand jury as crucial evidence.
"The video is of paramount significance, not just because these two construction workers are not Ferguson residents, not because these two construction workers are Caucasian, but because this is a contemporaneous recording of their immediate reactions after what they just witnessed," Crump told USA TODAY. "It captures their raw emotions and their outrage over what they just witnessed. It is like you are watching a live play by play of what just happened."
Crump said it is also important to note that the construction workers seem to be unaware that they are being recorded because they are filmed from behind.
"Nobody can say they have been influenced by anything, any media, or anything like that," Crump said. "And it corroborates what everybody is saying. That he put his hands up. That he was running away and the police kept shooting as he was running away. And that the police kept shooting when he put his hands up."

 from  
 http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/witness-adds-new-perspective-to-ferguson-shooting/article_ab6e1e03-c49a-5c7f-8786-b0e88ec79349.html

"HONEST ACCOUNTS CAN DIFFER
Differences in witness accounts are no surprise to researchers, who even have a name for it: the Rashomon effect. It’s derived from the title of a Japanese movie in which four witnesses’ accounts of a rape and murder differ notably.
“That’s why anyone who wants to put complete faith in his statements is foolish and anyone who wants to completely discount what Dorian Johnson saw, is foolish,” said David Klinger, a University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist. “It is entirely possible that multiple witnesses will recall different things. That’s why it’s critical to wait and see what all the evidence shows.”
Klinger, who has testified as an expert witness in numerous police shooting cases, recalls one in Houston in which one eyewitness said she saw an officer handcuff a teen, hogtie him and shoot him. Another witness, standing in nearly the same place, testified that the officer handcuffed the teen after he was shot, but the witness did not see him shot again or hogtied. “They’re not lying; they just have different stories,” Klinger said."

This is important....eyewitness accounts can be very different and be very off.
The blog author has experienced this in a Citizen Police Academy course where he and other students simulated a situation which called for firing a gun at a video scenario....while other students watched.
Those who shot had remembrances of the scenario action that usually almost always differed from what the other students related. And the other students often differed in relating what they remembered to have happened.

The prisons are filled with people who were convicted on inaccuracies.

The mission of this blog is to change our system which has proven to be totally inadequate towards "Justice".

The author posits a treatment plan here; http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/10/paper-required-for-graduate-degree-in.html    The treatment plan is the last section of the paper, skip the degree mandated discussion on drugs as the heart of the matter is near the end.




Thursday, November 6, 2014

Waldorf Schools are enrolling students for the next year....Friends don't let friends enroll their kids in Waldorf Schools

I touched on this subject in this post http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/11/continuingcriminal-justice-immunity-and.html

Do MUCH research if you are considering the Waldorf School System...it is not like Montessori, far from it.

from above link;
I have been mandated never to mention the specifics of a particular school...so, instead I will go for the root cause; The International Waldorf School System.
There are Yahoo Groups and blogs for people who are not in line with the Waldorf School System.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/waldorf-critics/conversations/topics/27816
http://thewaldorfreview.blogspot.com/
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2011/05/waldorf-school-supporter-in-us-uses-copyright-bullying-to-silence-swedish-waldof-critic.html 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/waldorf-critics/info 

From; https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/my-sad-sad-story

"How I Deprogrammed Myself
After Waldorf
 


 A friend once asked me how I managed to shake the cobwebs
out of my brain after graduating from a Waldorf school.
In an attempt to answer, I wrote the following (which I have revised slightly for use here)
I offer it only as a personal report, not as a guide for others. 
Each individual affected by a Waldorf education probably needs to find her/his own path.



What is the path to recovery after a Waldorf "education"? Nowadays, there are support groups and services for Waldorf graduates and their parents, such as the Survivors List at People for Legal and Nonsectarian schools (http://waldorfcritics.org/ ). As far as I know, there was nothing of the sort in the dim, distant year of 1964, when I graduated from a Waldorf school. The upshot was that if I was going to get deprogrammed, I would have to do it myself. This, I think, is probably why it took so long."....and much more to be read in the link.

More links.

http://quillandcamera.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/confessions-of-a-recovering-waldorf-perfectionist/
____________________________________________________

Just did another bit of research myself and found;
http://somd.com/news/headlines/2007/5675.shtml 
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2014/07/11/green-meadow-probe-details-sex-abuse-history/12539465/ 
BTW Waldorf Schools generally  have much history in coverups.
I highly do NOT recommend them.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/allegations-sexual-abuse-against-6-year-old-school/nc4ry/
I know someone who brought up such and was ignored by the administration of one school in this system.
https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/coming-undone
so true,imo

http://zooey.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/waldorf-methods-in-the-school-system-moved-discussion/

http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Staudenmaier.html

http://www.social-ecology.org/2009/01/anthroposophy-and-ecofascism-2/

From link below; "Because Waldorf is a private school, it does not adhere to the laws governing public schools, or any laws as we we would soon discover. Parents are ruled by the school. I tried talking to the teacher and different members of the faculty only to be told to do what they ask and our child will benefit greatly. Any resistance on my part would have a negative impact on my daughter's education. So we did everything they asked. Did not question the ridiculous nature of what was asked, but went along with the herd. It was beginning to feel like a cult. "  
http://carolwyatt.blogspot.com/2010/07/waldorf-rant-part-1.html    
Carol nails some of the problems you might expect at a Waldorf School.

Sure there are more positive things written about the school than negative.
That there are so MANY negative items should put your guard up.
Mine was down, very sadly.

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2012/11/steiner-schools-and-risk-factors-for-child-abuse.html

http://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/2011/01/waldorf-teaching-method-not-religion.html


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

"Reflections on a Career" by an attorney INJUSTICE in our criminal justice system

"Reflections on a Career" by an attorney is a short 1.5 page article that was given to us in the MS program.

I have two TIFF files of the two pages which need examination...so I am searching from whence this article came.  pp 239 and 240.... of  "criminal justice organizations administration and management" judging from a search engine. Authors are likely Stojkovic/Klofas.

I need to further investigate and obtain a copy from the library if I cannot find the book and/or article on the web. 

This article made a major impression on me at the time and now.

The synopsis I would offer is this;
Young attorney graduates from law school, passes the bar and is hired by a law firm.
S/he is given a low level case involving a man who had previously been convicted of a crime . A man who had no funds to pay for a good defense.

Therefore the man was not going to get one...he was not going to receive justice.
My tiff files are poor and hard to read with aging eyes. The attorney who writes this describes how s/he found deficiencies that would give the man a chance to not plea bargain as the prosecution, the detective, the judge and her/his law firm desired. 

The criminal justice system (all players) wanted to make the case quick and easy...swept under the carpet.

The young attorney would have none of it and represented the man in court...and won. He was acquitted
.
The attorney's law firm wanted her/him to apologize to all these justice players for giving them so much trouble. She refused for obvious reasons...s/he believed s/he held the high ground. S/he was fired a month later. Again...the judge, the prosecutor, the detective and the defense law firm WANTED to plea bargain this away. 

How often does this happen? No, not the attorney persisting in holding the high ground but in innocent people plea bargaining their lives away for the pleasure of the players in the system.
Often in my opinion...and personal experience...in the Warren County, Ohio criminal justice system.
I was lucky. I refused the plea bargains because the prosecutor was being used by four people to gain my assets...which I did lose...but I was acquitted of the trumped up charges...instead of pleading guilty to one of the two charges in order to have the more serious charge dropped. 

Later my attorney who saved me in criminal court won for me a defamation suit against the two people, a couple who assisted in aiding the prosecution so they could be paid by the main character in this ploy, after I was convicted. Well, I was not and they paid much by going through the civil defamation charges in court. I received a pittance of what they had taken from me.

Going through "this" is NOT an anomaly in the system IMO...it is likely the general rule. At least I could afford the attorney who was smart and had a serious ego problem with the thought of "losing". Thankfully. Survival was not easy. The jury took two days on my misdemeanor charges, to find me not guilty. It could have gone either way I now realize. At the time I KNEW I was going to be found not guilty because I was NOT guilty.
It does not work that way.



I have talked, in person, to some involved in that case, including the corrupt prosecutor Rachel Hutzel (unfortunately deceased). Widmer is innocent according to the justice system mandate concerning Beyond a Reasonable Doubt...additionally there is NO motive for Widmer to murder, and no evidence of such...however there was MUCH motive for Rachel Hutzel to convict him. Hutzel was running for office. Embarrassment for malfeasance would likely ruin her chances. Ryan went to prison so Hutzel could be elected. She was elected. Then she died of cancer. Ryan rots in prison, still, I believe, although there have been recent efforts (actually efforts never stopped) to release Widmer.

I never believed what happened to me and what happened to Widmer COULD EVER happen.
Do you feel the same way?
If so read
This book should scare the hell out of you.

"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,  




Tuesday, November 4, 2014

...continuing...Criminal Justice Immunity and the International Waldorf School System

 *"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. "



I left off here;..... BTW any attorney specializing in the constitution and would like to "fix" the problem of allowing immunity and unethical discretion for prosecutors in their doing harm to innocents can certainly find me and talk to me. Obviously I do not want to post a phone number etc. If you can't find me then it is likely I would need an attorney who could. It needs brilliance and tenacity to change a system. The Supreme Court would be the obvious venue for this end-game.

I am thinking a "donation Box" towards paying for this outcome may be necessary unless there is such an attorney who is personally outraged by the system and really desires to end the injustice.

I left off here;
 http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/11/httpourcriminaljusticesystemblogspotcom.html

which included this link to the source of much that ills the criminal justice system and other courts within the justice system http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/19/law-enforcement-clue-jury-criminal-column/6490641/
From above link; "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.  "

The immunity protections of the prosecutor allows them to do whatever s/he desires within some bounds that usually do not exclude that which are unethical...criminal bounds; sometimes but not usually...

....and therein lies the problem.

It should be criminal for a prosecutor to prosecute ONLY for conviction rates regardless of the facts of the case which are often barred from the case where an innocent could be spared much grief or his/her life) if only the prosecutor did not give a damn about his conviction rate.

The original argument was that if a prosecutor feared penalties, severe penalties brought against her/him then how could the prosecutor do his job.

Most "reformers" with a passion... are the end result of injustice.
The specific matter of "immune prosecutors" is my experience of "injustice". One of several reasons I went for a MS degree (Criminal Justice).

I used to have a blog that was about the details of my case....I named names...but I took it a step further by branching into a personal level that I regret entering. It included a corrupt private school system...and a teacher at that school...it was all true. I still, if I desired, could resurrect that old blog. A few clicks and it would be "out there again".

The consequences of doing so have been relayed to me.
If I still had the financial assets I had before the criminal Justice System allowed four criminals to get away with too many felonies I would choose freedom of speech and "fix" that facet of my problem.

When I "attack" the corruption mentioned in this link http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/19/law-enforcement-clue-jury-criminal-column/6490641/     by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor,I mean to address the entire system. However my focus is my experience in Warren County Ohio Criminal Justice System.

I have been mandated never to mention the specifics of a particular school...so, instead I will go for the root cause; The International Waldorf School System.
There are Yahoo Groups and blogs for people who are not in line with the Waldorf School System.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/waldorf-critics/conversations/topics/27816
http://thewaldorfreview.blogspot.com/
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2011/05/waldorf-school-supporter-in-us-uses-copyright-bullying-to-silence-swedish-waldof-critic.html 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/waldorf-critics/info 

From; https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/my-sad-sad-story

"How I Deprogrammed Myself
After Waldorf
 


 A friend once asked me how I managed to shake the cobwebs
out of my brain after graduating from a Waldorf school.
In an attempt to answer, I wrote the following (which I have revised slightly for use here)
I offer it only as a personal report, not as a guide for others. 
Each individual affected by a Waldorf education probably needs to find her/his own path.



What is the path to recovery after a Waldorf "education"? Nowadays, there are support groups and services for Waldorf graduates and their parents, such as the Survivors List at People for Legal and Nonsectarian schools (http://waldorfcritics.org/ ). As far as I know, there was nothing of the sort in the dim, distant year of 1964, when I graduated from a Waldorf school. The upshot was that if I was going to get deprogrammed, I would have to do it myself. This, I think, is probably why it took so long."....and much more to be read in the link.

More links.


I could go on...and I will later, at another time. 

My own personal problem is that if the Warren County Ohio Criminal Justice System had been ethical and not corrupt I would have had little to no LARGE problem with the National Waldorf School System.....my old blog reached about every Waldorf school on this planet, I made certain of that happening....the consequences of shouting out the truth were not good
because I was focused on only one school in particular, for good reason. If you check the links about the entire school system you will see the foundation of what what I was fighting without the resources I had before the Warren County Criminal Justice System exercised its immunity privileges for its prosecutors.

Sometimes the PROOF is too much....I have that proof.
Also here is a taste of undeniable corruption for Judge James Heath 
Heath killed himself.
Head prosecutor Rachel Hutzel died of cancer I believe.
That leaves the prosecutor who knowingly prosecuted an innocent man...and the Warren County Criminal Justice System to attack in court, for abusing privileges that caused great harm even though the jury was too smart for them and pronounced a verdict of Not Guilty which sure isn't the same as "innocent".....









Saturday, November 1, 2014

http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/10/prosectorial-damageryan.html

I seem to be stuck on this problem...it is serious and needs attention ASAP.
http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/10/prosectorial-damageryan.html

I wonder if anyone has considered a class action suit where prosecutor misconduct is proven...so that their immunity can be stripped from their unethical (too often unethical) machinations.

Back later.....

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Ferguson Police Chief denies resigning

from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ferguson-police-chief-tom-jackson-denies-report-he-is-resigning/

"Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson denies report he is resigning

Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson looks on during a protest of the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown outside Ferguson Police Department Headquarters August 11, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images

 FERGUSON, Mo. - The head of the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri has denied reports he is going to step down or be fired for the ongoing fallout from the shooting of an unarmed black teen by a white cop.
CBS affiliate KMOV in St. Louis reports Police Chief Tom Jackson told them the rumors are not true.
"I have not been told I must resign nor have I been fired. If I do resign in the future it will be my choice. However, it is not imminent," Jackson said.
The rumor of Jackson's removal first appeared on CNN. Citing anonymous sources, the network claimed Jackson would depart "as part of the effort by city officials to reform the police department, according to government officials familiar with the ongoing discussions between local, state and federal officials."
The St. Louis suburb was rocked by strings of often violent protests following the August 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The cop who shot Brown has allegedly claimed his life was in danger. Many locals, however, have claimed Brown had his hands up when he was shot.
Jackson was not publicly discussed at a meeting of Ferguson's City Council Tuesday."
____________________________________________________________________

L.E.O. Darren Wilson is either a badly trained incompetent cop, a brutal cop who will kill innocent people or a man trying to do his job in difficult circumstances.....like what to do when a violent man attacks the L.E.O.? The video evidence proves Michael Brown to be a violent man, that much is evident.

What is not evident is what really happened before Brown died. The testimony of eyewitnesses conflict and many would like to hang the L.E.O. on the spot regardless.

Racial disharmony continues.  A white majority elected a black man to be president yet when things go badly for the president it is because whites do not like having a black president....WTF??? You can't have it both ways. If whites were/are so racially biased then how did the president get elected?....TWICE.....

Just so... the L.E.O. is white and the dead citizen is black therefore the white L.E.O. purposely "murdered" the black man....and deserves prison without a trial perhaps?

I so hoped our country was recovering from a long history of racism.
Apparently not.

I would think any white person thinking of Law Enforcement as a vocation might reconsider the dangers of doing such.

Maybe only blacks should be allowed to be L.E.O.s

For what it may be worth, I discussed the possible solution to this madness in my class paper in criminal justice. http://ourcriminaljusticesystem.blogspot.com/2014/10/paper-required-for-graduate-degree-in.html



Above is interesting.
Many blacks might want the t shirt on the left which is about twice the price of what a white would pay for the t shirt on the right. Racism in pricing?
Granted neither t shirt should  belong to any one race or group.
They are both preposterous. Standing with "Justice" would be more appropriate.


Sunday, October 26, 2014

Prosectorial Damage..Ryan Widmer....Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel....and other injustices


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;


"Our criminal justice system has become a crime: Column


Prosecutors too often abuse unrestrained powers.

3259 790 20 LINKEDIN 43 COMMENTMORE
Here's how it's supposed to work: Upon evidence that a crime has been committed — Professor Plum, found dead in the conservatory with a lead pipe on the floor next to him, say — the police commence an investigation. When they have probable cause to believe that someone is guilty, the case is taken to a prosecutor, who (in the federal system, and many states) puts it before a grand jury. If the grand jury agrees that there's probable cause, it indicts. The case goes to trial, where a jury of 12 ordinary citizens hears the evidence. If they judge the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, they convict. If they think the accused not guilty — or even simply believe that a conviction would be unjust — they acquit.
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."
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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.