Law Enforcement

Hubris

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A former prosecutor of white-collar criminals, now hustling business for his private law practice, opines humbly:

White-collar crime is rarely about greed, in the opinion of the former prosecutors. “It is generally hubris,” Mr Owens says. “It’s a corporate culture that is detached and guarded by advisers who never challenge.”

The same could be said, with perhaps more justification, for the US culture of criminal prosecution. Businessmen are subject to criminal liability for a wide range of behaviors, and often stand to lose enormous amounts of money and their careers based on mere allegations of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, prosecutors who destroy highly productive business people out of hubris and personal ambition are almost never accountable for their most egregious actions, and indeed are likely to benefit professionally from them.

Miscarriages of Justice

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(Re this and this.)

Here’s another case that deserves renewed scrutiny.

Frank Fuster is still in prison despite numerous holes in the case against him, and despite the fact that the “investigative” techniques used to elicit the testimony of young children that convicted him have been discredited. Unfortunately, Fuster is a creepy guy without many friends, so it seems unlikely that any Florida governor will consider reexamining his case, much less pardoning him or commuting his sentence.

The Fuster case reminds me of Bill Weld and the Amiraults. What’s the point of giving executive-branch officials the pardon power if they won’t use it for unpopular defendants? Isn’t that one of the main justifications for the pardon power — that it’s a remedy for miscarriages of justice committed against unpopular defendants such as accused child molesters?

One of Those Things We Forget About the 50’s & 60’s

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When I was young, mental hospitals sprinkled the countryside. My parents read Freud in hypochondriac mode and neuroses were part of growing up – indeed, nurtured in certain groups (say among drama majors & yes, creative writers). I don’t know what percentage of the population was housed on those wards, but considerably more than today.

Update: Jonathan Kellerman, a man who went through med school as these changes were taking place, describes the arguments for de-institutionalization by doctors & ideologues such as R. D. Laing and Thomas Szasz. That in this case even those of us on this blog, non-experts, could see the problem indicates how extreme are the problems in contemporary treatment. As Kellerman notes

That is not to say that anyone who pens violence-laden poetry or lets slip the occasional hostile remark should be protectively incarcerated. But when the level of threat rises to college freshmen and faculty prophesying accurately, perhaps we should err on the side of public safety rather than protect individual liberty at all costs.

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Spin Cycle

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The headline for this news item reads “Undocumented Meatpackers Fear Raids”. The author obviously thinks it is some sort of tragedy when illegal immigrants are arrested.

Can someone please explain to me how rounding up criminals who are in the country illegally is a bad thing?