With the events in Ferguson, Missouri, the public has rightly been discussing the growing militarization of the police forces in this nation. The flip side to that coin has been the increasingly reckless conduct by prosecuting attorneys, both at the state and federal level. Radley Balko, formerly of Reason and HuffPo, and now at WaPo, has done yeoman work documenting cases of prosecutorial misconduct and overreach. Just like the police, prosecutors are protected by qualified immunity and are rarely held to the same professional standards that their civilian* counterparts.
Prosecutorial misconduct is the reason I stopped supporting the death penalty. I can’t trust that the people exercising the ultimate government power are working within the law or even in the interest of justice.
That same reckless conduct led to the overturning of the convictions of police officer convicted for the killing of civilians on the Danziger Bridge during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For those of you who don’t remember this:
From the article:
“The case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law, and corruption of the criminal justice system,” [Judge] Engelhardt wrote in his decision alluding to the Danziger prosecution. “Unfortunately, though the focus has switched from the accused to the accusors, it has continued to be about those very issues. After much reflection, the court cannot journey as far as it has in this case only to ironically accept grotesque prosecutorial misconduct in the end.”
This is unacceptable. The War on Nouns has lulled the populace into surrendering their liberty to the police and prosecutors. It’s time that those liberties were taken back and the offenders suffer the consequences.
h/t Ken Ostos, from the Book of Faces
* – Yes, I know that police and prosecutors are also civilians. It was a useful literary tool. It instantly made the dichotomy clear in your mind, didn’t it?
February 22, 2015 at 9:14 am
After reading all the steiros about the Trayvon Martin case,and Zimmerman claiming self defense.If Trayvon did hit Zimmerman as Zimmerman claims,common sense should tell anybody that Trayvon was acting in self defense.I know that if I was walking alone at night and was approached by a strange questioning me and making accusations with a gun…I would have opened a can of woop ass on him to…That’s my Life! Any human being would have done the same thing (if Trayvon hit him at all).Hands Down!
February 23, 2015 at 2:07 am
Which tells me that you do not understand either the Martin case or the laws around self-defense. First, your characterization of the Martin situation is wrong. Zimmerman never approached Martin, much less “questioned and made accusations with a gun.” Martin ambushed Zimmerman and savagely beat him. At that point, being down on the ground and getting pummeled, Zimmerman was in immediate fear for his life or grievous bodily injury. Yet he still didn’t pull his gun until Martin went after it. At that point, Zimmerman drew his gun and fired a single round into Martin’s chest while the two struggled for the gun. This is born out from the physical evidence of both men’s wounds as well as the fact that the pistol’s slide did not cycle.
I would be very careful “opening a can of whoop ass” on someone who is not an immediate threat, and I would highly recommend you educate yourself on self-defense law before you find yourself in jail.