I believe that judicial error or misconduct is something we should all care about-those who have been released from sentences and even Death Row who have been falsely convicted can attest to that.
There are what are referred to as “safeguards” within the process known as appeals, that may or may not always serve their intended function-though I believe by and large they do-and the more ‘days” in court an individual has the less the likelihood they haven’t.
But how to go about remedying such things isn’t easy to speak to. I further believe when a guilty person escapes justice due to such an occurrence it is equally an error. One way, and what I think is the most obvious is to hold any who engage in such activities criminally responsible, charge and jail them all.
Say for instance a prosecuting attorney who withholds or manipulates evidence, or a cop who does likewise, or even plants evidence. A judge who should recuse themselves and fails to do so-in such a case as this they should be held accountable, removed, and a new trial ordered.
Every aspect of the legal system is intended to be equitable and fair-from the cop on the beat to the U.S. Attorney General, yet we all know this isn’t the case-that there are systemic problems. That the hammer comes down with greater force on minorities than those with wealth and influence who enjoy an insulted version, and in the case of Wall Street, banks, and big corporations it is the result of lobbyists and the loophole filled legislation they secure from their friends in the “beltway” that is never amended or studiously enforced.
Elizabeth Warren, a newly elected Senator from Massachuetts who sits on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee recently held banking regulators feet to the fire in a hearing, and the manner in which the way they went about responding when she asked them when was the last time they took a Wall Street bank to trial was disgusting and as blatant a display of obfuscation and sense of above the law as any will likely see -it should serve as a wakeup call.
“We do not have to bring people to trial,” Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of “consent orders,” or settlements.
“I appreciate that you say you don’t have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?” she responded.
“We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals,” Curry offered.
Warren turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said that the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial.
“I appreciate that. That’s what everybody does,” said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. “Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?”
“I will have to get back to you with specific information,” Walter said as the audience tittered.
Warren asked if any of the other regulators, representing the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFTC, Fed, Treasury and the newly minted Consumer Financial Protection Board, could answer the question. None could.
“There are district attorneys and United States attorneys out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it. I’m really concerned that ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial,'” Warren told them in what appeared to be a reference to a Warren constituent, open-Internet activist Aaron Swartz, who recently committed suicide after being hounded by federal prosecutors who reportedly said they wanted to make an example of him. Warren had met and said she admired Swartz. After he died, she expressed her concern by attending his memorial in Washington.
Wall Street responded angrily to Warren’s questioning, denouncing the senator and suggesting that she would lose “credibility” if she continued interrogating regulators in such a way.
Credibility-as if Wall Street has any.
Misconduct and judicial or governmental error once gaining a toehold anywhere within the legal system only sparks a flame that becomes a fire, it creates a vulnerability and back door access rivaled perhaps only by the OS Windows-and over time becomes accepted as just the way it is-that acceptance, the lack of outcry is anticipated, relied upon, to further that which is not acceptable by any standard.
The lack of such a strict adherence to this professed principle of equal justice under the law creates confusion, disgruntlement, and a lack of trust, and predictably lends itself to claims of foul when none exist. Makes it easier for a person to say they were framed or they aren’t a criminal by any standard definition but a political prisoner.
What exists in these modern times is as real a caste system as any country has or ever had -a “royalty”, a ruling class that hasn’t earned they’re position on the basis of merit, but on manipulation and the sweat of those who earn their money the old fashioned way-they earn it.
If the legal system fails in it’s duty, or facilitates any of this in any manner from the accused petty thief, to the murderer, or those who in their unbridled greed commit crimes that impact every man, woman, and child in this country, what remains? What hope can a people pass on their to their children…what future?
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