If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people
under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. - Thomas Jefferson


Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Prosecutorial Incompetence

All charges against Alaska's favorite Senator, Ted "Why don't you ask my wife about that" Stevens have been dropped. Turns out, the team on the job from Bush's DOJ dropped the ball, time and again, blatantly. Almost seems as though they tried it. (technically, they didn't try it, but...)

Stevens roams free after decades of trading government contracts for personal favors and now we're paying for a big ol' investigation into the DOJ's incompetence...

This is whyipaytaxes.

On a side note, I sat with a friend this evening who is experiencing the frustration of a prosecutor unable to do his job. I won't go into the whole story and obviously leave out some key details, but...
Basically, this guy got busted on his third DUI 2 years ago. He demanded a jury trial, as is his right, and court date after court date has gone by. Today was to be the Big One, the jury was called and all. But the trial got delayed yet again because the prosecution was unprepared. They still had a few affairs to get in order.
1.) Had HE been the one unprepared, they would have thrown him in jail.
2.) While awaiting trial, he is being forced to submit to regular urine tests, twice weekly. This will not credit him as any sort of probation served.
3.) They called out the jury for that? Man, those must've been some pissed off jury members...

Imagine living your life knowing that on a special date in three months you might go straight to jail. On that special date, they say, well, maybe on this new special date, in three months.

1 comment:

BelieveitSeeit said...

I agree- the Stevens situation seems a bit too obvious. You can almost hear the lead prosecutor telling the over zealous paralegal to "overlook that" and "I'll take care of that, just take a long weekend". All those subtle phrases that mean that info. will be lost, mishandled and enough "mistakes" will happen to provide reasonable doubt. sing, As if THIS wasn't as old as the human race. Bet the Romans had problems with this...

My empathy goes to your friend..there's only two solutions to the problem- pay for a better lawyer or purchase more lubricant.
Didn't this type of behavior lead to the French Revolution?