Sunday, December 20, 2009

THE "BUMSTED DOCTRINE"

At the press conference follwing the announcement of his latest bonusgate indictments, gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett refused to answer what should be a fairly simple question for an allegedly corruption-busting, tough guy -- "This campaigning has been going on for years and is ubiquitous...what are you going to consider criminal acts?"

This should have been very easy for Corbett to answer, especially since he and his "professional" staff constantly cite the Superior Court decision in the Habay matter. In a nutshell, "[a public official]is not allowed to direct state paid employees under his authority to conduct campaign or fundraising related work during state paid time for his personal benefit."

There is no floor in Corbett's interpretation of the Superior Court's decision. One minute of tax-payer salaried staff time is the same as 100 hours. One email is the same 100 emails. One cell-phone call is the same as 100 cell-phone calls.

Corbett refused to say there will be zero tolerance for any campaigning on state time (as the Habay decision clearly states) under his watch, and in the absence of an endorsement of a zero tolerance policy, he refused to enunciate what would get a public official in trouble.

It is obvious why Corbett won't endorse a zero tolerance policy -- it would ensare Corbett himself. No one credible in Harrisburg will say Corbett and his staff do no campaign work using taxpayer resources, especially using taxpayer funded staff. Everyone knows there are many on Office of Attorney General staff -- notably Brian Nutt, Joe Murzyn and Becky Myers -- whose only purpose is campaign related.

For the very same reason, Corbett won't outline what exactly rises to criminal activity that his "professional" investigators will pursue.

Brad Bumsted with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review used his column today to step into the breach created by Corbett's refusal to make a clear statement on who will get arrested or not:
"Here's my [Bumsted's] view. You're in trouble with the law if:

• The activity is a pattern or pervasive in nature.

• It's directed by the boss or his lieutenant.

• There's "criminal intent" -- you know it's wrong and you have a motive to gain by it.

• You put it in writing, such as an e-mail." (Tribune Review 12/20/09)
Clearly, the "Bumsted Doctrine" allows for illegal activity to take place. In fact, quite a lot of this political activity is allowable using Bumsted's standards depending on a prosecutor's definition of a "pattern" and the word "pervasive."

Corbett would still be in serious jeopardy if the lax Bumsted Doctrine is applied to his activities, particularly his campaign's well-documented work over cell phones with the OAG.

First, the "pattern and pervasive" test. The revelation that hundreds of Corbett campaign cell phone calls were made into the Office of the Attorney General and even more troubling, hundreds of calls were made OUT OF the Office of Attorney General to his campaign cell phones certainly meets the standard of a pattern and hundreds of calls over just a few weeks is pretty pervasive.

Second, the "boss or lieutenant" test. Since Corbett himself was both making and receiving these campaign cell phone calls between himself and his OAG staff on state time, it is clear that "the boss" was directing campaign activity. Furthermore, does anyone believe that Brian Nutt wasn't directing campaign activity from the OAG?

Third, the "criminal intent" test. Corbett was elected to enforce the laws and ostensibly knows the law. Any political activity, most clearly illustrated by the hundreds of campaign cell phone calls, would definitely be recognized as criminal by Corbett as he dialed the phone and spoke with of his OAG staff at their OAG offices during the work day.

Fourth, the "writing" test. The only person with subpoena power over these matters is Corbett himself. Since no one else in Pennsylvania has the power to subpoena Corbett's OAG computers, we'll never know the amount of illegal activity occuring under Corbett's tenure. All written documentation since Corbett took over in 2005 is either destroyed or safely ensconced in the OAG untouchable from even open records requests.

Bumsted quoted Jack Treadway, a retired political science professor (what expertise he has in the law, we're not quite sure, but he still makes a good point) that "It is probably easier to tell when the line has been crossed than where it should be drawn." He is quite right!

Not only does Corbett get to set and move the line, he also gets to decide when the shifting line has been crossed. This is the very reason Corbett shouldn't be allowed to make the decision of when and how the line has been crossed as he runs for governor.

Zero tolerance or Bumsted Doctrine, it doesn't matter. Corbett will never say what is illegal or not because it protects him from entraping himself, but also because he can move the "line in the sand" back and forth as he sees fit based on who shows due deference to his campaign for governor...or who his campaign funders tell him to protect.

Most incredibly, Corbett has allowed the standards of his investigation to deteriorate to the point where, in the absence of an enunciation by Corbett of any legally consistent standard of criminality, newspaper columnists and pundits like Bumsted believe they are qualified to venture suggestions of what the standard should be themselves.

31 comments:

  1. Another Team Casa post, another "I shouldn't be in trouble because everybody does it" defense.

    Oh noes! It is not fairs!

    Boo hoos, ladies.

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  2. Selective Prosecution is never a defense, but when Corbett's own people have Campaign on State Time, he is not just a Hypocrite but a Criminal too, by his own admission.

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  3. J.D. Prose on Politics

    No comparison between Ramaley and Veon cases
    December 19, 2009

    Sorry about being absent last week, but we were too grief-stricken to write after former state Rep. Sean Ramaley skated on all of his corruption charges.

    It had nothing to do with Ramaley; we just hate to see the not-guilty verdicts give former state Rep. Mike Veon any hope that he’ll be as fortunate.

    Lots of people have asked us if Ramaley’s case is a bad sign for Attorney General Tom Corbett as Veon’s Bonusgate trial approaches.

    From what we’ve seen, the answer is a resounding NO!

    (See? The exclamation point makes it “resounding.”)

    Based on years of watching “Law and Order,” our finely honed legal acumen says Ramaley and Veon are two very different cases.

    Ramaley always seemed like a well-meaning, politically ambitious young man, who was way too polished at 28 when he ran in 2004.

    Then again, we tend to distrust anyone under 30 who’s more successful than us. No offense, Boy Wonder.

    Anyway, it was easy for us to imagine a cigar-chomping Veon putting his arm around a gullible Ramaley and saying, “This is how we’re gonna do things, kid,” and then Ramaley going along for the ride without asking too many inconvenient questions.

    It was also easy for us to imagine the Painfully Squeaky Clean Ramaley diligently working for the people and running a campaign in his parents’ house.

    Heck, just from reports and following the excellent courtroom “tweets” of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Tracie Mauriello, we probably would’ve had reasonable doubt about Ramaley’s guilt, too.

    It was he said/she said on the alleged campaign work. Ramaley’s attorney put Sean’s mother and a priest on the stand, for Pete’s sake! And, mom was bawling. Geez.

    Take away the name and we’d feel bad for any 34-year-old guy who has to put his mom under oath to tell a jury what a good boy he is. Slightly emasculating, don’t you think?

    name game

    Thanks to Mauriello, we recognized some familiar names appearing in Ramaley’s trial.

    There was former Veon minion Dennis Pietrandrea, Conway police Chief Tony Blum, state Rep. Rob Matzie and ex-Beaver Initiative for Greed honcho Dan Woodske, just to name a few.

    Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink, Veon’s co-defendant and Smirking Consigliere, was spied sitting in the audience, taking notes for her trial, no doubt.

    It was like a sad, political version of “This is Your Life, Beaver County.”

    J.D. Prose on Politics
    J.D. Prose covers government and politics. His column appears Sundays. He can be reached online at jprose@timesonline.com. Get breaking political news, links, story and column previews, and much more at twitter.com/jdprose.

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  4. JD Prose is a pussy little faggot.

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  5. "Anonymous said...JD Prose is a pussy little faggot. December 21, 2009 12:47 PM"

    II cannot agree with your language, or even your description, but there are better descriptions for JD Props.

    But Mike Veon stood with the Unions against the Beaver County Times, and they never forgave him. JD Prose carries their water for them now. A Water Boy!

    BCT once had another political Pundit but she was arrested for being a Public Drunk and letting children drink at her home.

    BCT is not the first place to be employed if you have any skills whatsoever.

    Anyone of the Defendants can out work the BCT employees anytime.

    Mike Veon was right to stand with the workers. Even if he has to take some, abuse now and fight for his freedom.

    Corbett abuse of the Grand Jury will not stand, some very powerful people are mobilizing to expose his misguided practices run by CRASS-TICK the Himmler of the OAG!

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  6. 18. We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Common criminals, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.

    LINK:
    Programme of the NSDAP, 24 February 1920:

    http://www.hitler.org/writings/programme/

    THE CORBETT PARALLEL:
    Those in power, the leaders of mainstream parties and the widely respected president, saw the danger in Hitler and disliked him.

    But they kept underestimating him until it was too late.

    And after the 1933 elections, he overcame all of them in a political negotiation in which they did not realize what he was trying to achieve and why.

    And so he got what he needed while his political opponents thought that the deal they made with him will keep him under control.

    So in 1933 Hitler did the unbelievable and became the prime minister of Germany, and his partner Goering became minister of the Police.

    The Nazi party was a minority in a coalition government, but Hitler and Goering immediately used the emergency authorities of their new roles, combined with massive street violence that totally ignored the law.

    But since by then the Nazis were the police, the law meant nothing. Hitler was the law in Germany between January 1933 and his death in 1945.

    LINK:
    http://www.2worldwar2.com/causes-of-world-war-2.htm

    THE CORBETT ANALOGOUS:
    If Corbett Becomes Governor Who Appoints The New Attorney General for Two Years?

    New Leaders in the legislatures beholden to OAG Corbett Selective Political Prosecutions, New Attorney General appointed by Corbett, Judges kept at bay for not being investigated?

    We have a Triple Play for Power with a Hat In the ring Trick, where former friends and colleagues put each other into places of power by lies, grand juries mistakes, and outright intentional abuse of the grand jury system by OAG Prosecutors.

    DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN, ONCE THEY COME FOR OTHERS, THEY WILL COME FOR YOU.

    People of Decency and the Defenders of Democracy, within the Media, Bloggers, Retired Newspaper Reporters, go and search out what has happen in the Grand Juries, how the Grand Juries have been misled, go report the true story.

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  7. The Federal Grand Jury is the 4th Branch of Government
    by Leo C. Donofrio, J.D.
    January 22, 2009

    All of us may one day serve as grand jurors in federal court, and I hope this article will educate the reader to his/her true power as granted by the Constitution.

    For that power, despite having been hidden for many years behind the veil of a legislative fraud, still exists in all of its glory in the 5th Amendment to the Constitution.

    The US Supreme Court has confirmed and reinforced that power.

    So please, copy this report and paste it far and wide.

    It is not spin.

    It is not false.

    It is not for sale, it is not copyrighted by me, so paste and quote it freely.

    This report is the truth and we need truth, now, more than ever.

    The Constitutional power of "we the people" sitting as grand jurors has been subverted by a deceptive play on words since 1946 when the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were enacted.

    Regardless, the power I am going to explain to you still exists in the Constitution, and has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court despite the intention of the legislature and other legal scholars to make our power disappear with a cheap magic trick.

    Repeat a lie with force and repetition and the lie becomes known as truth.

    In the case of the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, the power of the grand jury, to return "presentments" on its own proactive initiation, without reliance upon a US Attorney or State Deputy Attorney to concur in such criminal charges, has been usurped by an insidious play on words.

    Most of this article is going to quote other scholars, judges and legislators as I piece together a brief but thorough history of grand juries for your review.

    But the punch line is my personal contribution to the cause:

    UNITED STATES CITIZENS SITTING AS FEDERAL GRAND JURORS ARE THE FOURTH BRANCH OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

    My input into this vital fight is no more than the analysis of a few carefully used words. It only took a small sleight of pen back in 1946 to hide our power, and it won't take more than a few words to take that power back. But a proper overview is necessary for most of you who are unfamiliar with the issue at hand. So let me provide you with some history and then we'll see what went wrong and how to correct it.

    HISTORY OF FEDERAL GRAND JURY POWER

    Continued below....

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  8. Continued from above.....

    HISTORY OF FEDERAL GRAND JURY POWER

    I want to draw your attention to a law review article, CREIGHTON LAW REVIEW, Vol. 33, No. 4 1999-2000, 821, IF IT'S NOT A RUNAWAY, IT'S NOT A REAL GRAND JURY by Roger Roots, J.D.

    "In addition to its traditional role of screening criminal cases for prosecution, common law grand juries had the power to exclude prosecutors from their presence at any time and to investigate public officials without governmental influence.

    These fundamental powers allowed grand juries to serve a vital function of oversight upon the government.

    The function of a grand jury to ferret out government corruption was the primary purpose of the grand jury system in ages past."

    The 5th Amendment:

    "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury."

    An article appearing in American Juror, the newsletter of the American Jury Institute and the Fully Informed Jury Association, citing the famed American jurist, Joseph Story, explained :

    "An indictment is a written accusation of an offence preferred to, and presented, upon oath, as true, by a grand jury, at the suit of the government.

    An indictment is framed by the officers of the government, and laid before the grand jury.

    Presentments, on the other hand, are the result of a jury's independent action:

    'A presentment, properly speaking, is an accusation, made by a grand jury of its own mere motion, of an offence upon its own observation and knowledge, or upon evidence before it, and without any bill of indictment laid before it at the suit of the government.

    Upon a presentment, the proper officer of the court must frame an indictment, before the party accused can be put to answer it.' "

    Back to the Creighton Law Review:

    "A 'runaway' grand jury, loosely defined as a grand jury which resists the accusatory choices of a government prosecutor, has been virtually eliminated by modern criminal procedure.

    Today's "runaway" grand jury is in fact the common law grand jury of the past.

    Prior to the emergence of governmental prosecution as the standard model of American criminal justice, all grand juries were in fact "runaways," according to the definition of modern times; they operated as completely independent, self-directing bodies of inquisitors, with power to pursue unlawful conduct to its very source, including the government itself."

    So, it's clear that the Constitution intended to give the grand jury power to instigate criminal charges, and this was especially true when it came to government oversight.

    But something strange happened on the way to the present.

    That power was eroded by a lie enacted by the legislative branch.

    Continued Below.....

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  9. Continued from above.....

    The 5th Amendment to the Constitution still contains the same words quoted above, but if you sit on a grand jury and return a "presentment" today, the prosecutor must sign it or it probably won't be allowed to stand by the judge and the criminal charges you have brought to the court's attention will be swept away.

    And the reason for this can be found in a legislative lie of epic proportions.

    Mr. Roots weighs in again:

    "In 1946, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were adopted, codifying what had previously been a vastly divergent set of common law procedural rules and regional customs.[86]

    In general, an effort was made to conform the rules to the contemporary state of federal criminal practice.[87]

    In the area of federal grand that follow in 50% of our states jury practice, however, a remarkable exception was allowed.

    The drafters of Rules 6 and 7, which loosely govern federal grand juries, denied future generations of what had been the well-recognized powers of common law grand juries: powers of unrestrained investigation and of independent declaration of findings.

    The committee that drafted the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provided no outlet for any document other than a prosecutor-signed indictment.

    In so doing, the drafters at least tacitly, if not affirmatively, opted to ignore explicit constitutional language."[88]"

    Rule 7 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (FRCP):

    "An offense which may be punished by death shall be prosecuted by indictment.

    An offense which may be punished by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year or at hard labor shall be prosecuted by indictment."

    No mention of "presentments" can be found in Rule 7. But they are mentioned in Note 4 of the Advisory Committee Notes on the Rules:

    "4. Presentment is not included as an additional type of formal accusation, since presentments as a method of instituting prosecutions are obsolete, at least as concerns the Federal courts."

    The American Juror published the following commentary with regards to Note 4:

    "While the writers of the federal rules made provisions for indictments, they made none for presentments.

    This was no oversight.


    According to Professor Lester B. Orfield, a member of the Advisory Committee on Rules of Criminal Procedure, the drafters of Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 6 decided the term presentment should not be used, even though it appears in the Constitution. Orfield states [22 F.R.D. 343, 346]:

    'There was an annotation by the Reporter on the term presentment as used in the Fifth Amendment.

    It was his conclusion that the term should not be used in the new rules of criminal procedure.

    Retention might encourage the use of the run-away grand jury as the grand jury could act from their own knowledge or observation and not only from charges made by the United States attorney.

    It has become the practice for the United States Attorney or State Attorney Generals to attend grand jury hearings, hence the use of presentments have been abandoned.' "

    That's a fascinating statement:

    "Retention might encourage the grand jury [to] act from their own knowledge or observation."

    God forbid, right America?

    The nerve of these people.

    Continued Below.....

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  10. Continued from above.....

    They have the nerve to put on the record that they intended to usurp our Constitutional power, power that was intended by the founding fathers, in their incredible wisdom, to provide us with oversight over tyrannical government.

    And so they needed a spin term to cast aspersions on that power.

    The term they chose was, "runaway grand jury," which is nothing more than a Constitutionally mandated grand jury, aware of their power, and legally exercising that power to hold the federal or state beast in check, as in "checks and balances."

    The lie couldn't be inserted into the Constitution, so they put it in a statute and then repeated it. And scholars went on to repeat it, and today, as it stands, the grand jury has effectively been lied into the role of submissive puppet of the US Attorney or State Attorney General’s misguided Deputies.

    The American Juror publication included a very relevant commentary:

    "Of course, no statute or rule can alter the provisions of the Constitution, since it is the supreme law of the land.

    But that didn't prevent the federal courts from publishing a body of case law affirming the fallacy that presentments were abolished.

    A particularly egregious example:

    'A rule that would permit anyone to communicate with a grand jury without the supervision or screening of the prosecutor or the court would compromise, if not utterly subvert, both of the historic functions of the grand jury, for it would facilitate the pursuit of vendettas and the gratification of private malice.

    A rule that would open the grand jury to the public without judicial or prosecutorial intervention is an invitation to anyone interested in trying to persuade a majority of the grand jury, by hook or by crook, to conduct investigations that a prosecutor has determined to be inappropriate or unavailing.'"

    What is the result?

    Investigating seditious acts of government officials can be deemed inappropriate or unavailing by the prosecutor, or the judge can dismiss the grand jurors pursuing such investigations.

    Consequently, corrupt government officials have few natural enemies and go about their seditious business unimpeded.

    By the way, they made a rule to take care of runaways too, in 1946: Rule 6(g):

    "At any time for cause shown the court may excuse a juror either temporarily or permanently, and in the latter event the court may impanel another person in place of the juror excused."

    Now judges can throw anyone off a grand jury, or even dis-impanel a grand jury entirely, merely for exercising its discretion.

    Continued Below.....

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  11. Continued from above.....

    Now let me add my two cents to this argument:

    Most of the discussion about Note 4 to Rule 7 of the FRCP takes for granted that the common law use of "presentments" (as codified in the 5th Amendment) was made "illegal" in 1946 by this act. Nothing could be more false. Note 4 does not contain language that makes the use of presentments "illegal," although it had chosen its words carefully to make it appear as if that is what the legislative branch intended. But let's look at Note 4 again:

    "4. Presentment is not included as an additional type of formal accusation, since presentments as a method of instituting prosecutions are obsolete, at least as concerns the Federal courts."

    The key word is, "obsolete." Obsolete means "outmoded,", or "not in use anymore", but it does not mean "abolished" or "illegal."

    And therein lies the big lie.

    The legislature knew it could not directly overrule the Constitution, especially with something so clearly worded as the 5th Amendment, which grants a power to the people which has a long and noble purpose in criminal jurisprudence. But the federal beast legislative branch sought more power to protect themselves from the oversight of "we the people," and in its vampire like thirst for more governmental control, it inserted this insidious Note 4 in the hope that scholars and judges would play along with their ruse, or in the alternative, their ruse would appear to be legally viable.

    Continued Below.....

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  12. Continued from above.....

    Let's look at some authoritative legal resources which discuss Note 4:

    Susan Brenner,

    THE VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY: A CASE FOR GRAND JURY INDEPENDENCE:

    "Finally, federal grand juries' subservience to prosecutors was exacerbated when the federal system eliminated the use of presentments, which allowed a grand jury to bring charges on its own initiative. (N35)

    Now, federal grand jurors cannot return charges in the form of an indictment without a prosecutor's consent. (N36)

    Elimination of the presentment demonstrates the historical trend towards elimination of proactive features in the grand jury system."

    Did Brenner fall for the lie or did she cleverly further it when she said,

    "The federal system eliminated the use of presentments?"

    The federal system did no such thing.

    Note 4 said the use of presentments was "obsolete." First of all, Note 4 is not a law in itself.

    It is a Note to a law, and the law as written, does not have anything to say about presentments.

    You see the leap Brenner has made?

    The Constitution provides for "presentments", then the FRCP are enacted and the Rules therein do not mention presentments, nor do they ban presentments, and if they did, such a ban would be unconstitutional, since an administrative enactment regarding procedure can not overrule the Constitution.

    Regardless, it's irrelevant, since the FRCP does not mention "presentments."

    Note 4 simply states that "presentments" allowed for in the 5th Amendment of the Constitution have become "obsolete", or outmoded, which is not to say that they were "eliminated."

    Shame on you Susan Brenner.

    You know darn well that the Constitution can only be changed by an official Amendment to it.

    Nothing can be "eliminated" from the Constitution by an administrative note.

    The use of presentments had become obsolete because the grand jurors were not aware of their power.

    So the use of "presentments" became more and more rare, and then in 1946 the legislative branch seized upon the moment to make this power disappear by waving its magic wand over the Constitution.

    Continued below.....

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  13. Continued from above.....

    Mr. Root got it wrong in the Creighton Law Review as well:

    "Before the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which made independently-acting grand juries illegal for all practical purposes, grand juries were understood to have broad powers to operate at direct odds with both judges and prosecutors."

    The FRCP did not make it "illegal for all practical purposes."

    That's patently false.

    I don't know if Mr. Root, and/or Susan Brenner, were acting as the magician's assistant, but I can't imagine how these educated scholars could be so incredibly ignorant of basic Constitutional law.

    Give me a break.

    But if enough people repeat the lie, the lie appears to be the truth.

    But we have it on good authority, the Supreme Court, that the lie has no legal effect.

    Justice Powell, in United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343 (1974), stated:


    "The institution of the grand jury is deeply rooted in Anglo-American history. [n3]

    In England, the grand jury [p343] served for centuries both as a body of accusers sworn to discover and present for trial persons suspected of criminal wrongdoing and as a protector of citizens against arbitrary and oppressive governmental action.

    In this country, the Founders thought the grand jury so essential to basic liberties that they provided in the Fifth Amendment that federal prosecution for serious crimes can only be instituted by 'a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.' Cf. Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 361-362 (1956).

    The grand jury's historic functions survive to this day.

    Its responsibilities continue to include both the determination whether there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the protection of citizens against unfounded criminal prosecutions. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 686-687 (1972)."

    The Note 4 lie is smashed on the altar of the U.S. Supreme Court, "The grand jury's historic functions survive to this day." Take that Note 4!

    Antonin Scalia effectively codified the unique independent power of the Fourth Branch into the hands of all citizens sitting as federal grand jurors.

    In discussing that power and unique independence granted to the grand jury, the United States Supreme Court, in United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36 at 48 (1992), Justice Scalia, delivering the opinion of the court, laid down the law of the land:

    " 'Rooted in long centuries of Anglo-American history, Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420, 490 (1960) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result), the grand jury is mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but not in the body of the Constitution.

    It has not been textually assigned, therefore, to any of the branches described in the first three Articles.

    It "'is a constitutional fixture in its own right.'" United States v. Chanen, 549 F.2d 1306, 1312 (CA9 1977) (quoting Nixon v. Sirica, 159 U.S. App. D.C. 58, 70, n. 54, 487 F.2d 700, 712, n. 54 (1973)), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 825 (1977). ' "

    Continued Below....

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  14. Continued from above.....

    I submit to you that this passage sets the stage for a revolutionary new context necessary and Constitutionally mandated to "we the people," THE FOURTH BRANCH of the Government of the United States.

    Besides, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, I submit that there is a fourth branch, THE GRAND JURY, and "we the people? when sitting as grand jurors, are, as Scalia quoted in US v. Williams, " a constitutional fixture in its own right."

    Yes, darn it. That is exactly what the grand jury is, and what it was always intended to be.

    Scalia also stated, that "the grand jury is an institution separate from the courts, over whose functioning the courts do not preside." Id.

    And finally, to seal the deal, Scalia hammered the point home:

    "In fact, the whole theory of its function is that it belongs to no branch of the institutional Government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the Government and the people. See Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218 (1960); Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 61 (1906); G. Edwards, The Grand Jury 28-32 (1906).

    Although the grand jury normally operates, of course, in the courthouse and under judicial auspices, its institutional relationship with the Judicial Branch has traditionally been, so to speak, at arm?s length.

    Judges'direct involvement in the functioning of the grand jury has generally been confined to the constitutive one of calling the grand jurors together and administering their oaths of office. See United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343 (1974); Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 6(a). [504 U.S. 36, 48] "

    This miraculous quote says it all, "the whole theory of its function is that it belongs to no branch of the institutional Government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the Government and the people.

    " The Constitution of the United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, gives rise to a FOURTH BRANCH of Government, THE GRAND JURY.

    We the people have been charged with oversight of the government in our roles as grand jurors.

    And at this critical time in American history, we must, for the protection of our constitutional republic, take back our power and start acting as powerful as the other branches of government.

    The law is on our side.

    So please spread this knowledge as far and wide as you can.

    We the people have the right and power under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to charge this government with crimes by returning presentments regardless of whether the US Attorneys or the federal judges agree with us.

    As the Supreme Court has so brilliantly stated, we are the "buffer between the Government and the people."

    Take the reins America. Pass it on. The Fourth Branch is alive and kicking.

    End Of Article Located Linked:
    http://americangrandjury.org/history_power.html

    Continued As Power From People Should Be Mobilized To Take On The Misuse Of The Pennsylvania Grand Juries Conducted By Anthony Krastek Under The Direction And Approval Of Tom Corbett.

    Once The Press, People, And Judicial Branches Of Pennsylvania Learn About How The Grand Juror’s Were Misused, They Will Demand An Investigation.

    The Presentments Are Built On Lies That Could Have Been Address At The Grand Juries, But The Truth That Could Have Proven The Lies Was Ignored By State Deputy Attorney General's And Corbett Sign Off On Them With Ignorance, Or Incompetence, And Or Intentional Political Power Purposes.!

    How Many Crimes Are Permitted Simply Because The Prosecutors Could Not Endure Being Wrong.

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  15. Grand Jury Abuse by Prosecutors

    Grand Jury Abuse has been the subject of much concern.

    See Commission Report to Reform the Grand Jury Process here.

    LINK:
    http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/freeform/grandjuryreform?opendocument

    Professor Darryl Brown at Washington & Lee on the incredible prosecutorial discretion provided to prosecutors in presenting items in a grand jury.

    Every time one wants to learn about abuses of a Grand Jury the case of United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36 (1992)

    It will remind everyone of the incredible unchecked power that prosecutors have in the grand jury process.

    It is important to stress to fair-minded citizens that even though abuses in the grand jury may be overlooked on review, it does not mean that they should be tolerated.

    One would hope that the Office of Professional Responsibility of the Disciplinary Code would monitor the abuses that occur.

    If they will not act than it up to the Press and People of Goodwill to investigate and report on what is rotten in the process taking place so far in Harrisburg.

    The Duke Lacrosse Case and the disbarment of the Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong occupied media attention for over a year from the spring of 2006
    until the summer of 2007.

    As reported by a fairminded media sources, the prosecution was a fiasco, but in the end, justice was done.

    North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper not only dismissed charges but also declared the three players who had been charged with rape innocent.

    The North Carolina State Bar disbarred the prosecutor for his
    misconduct.

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  16. Although there is no legal requirement to present exculpatory evidence (U.S. v. Williams) to a grand jury, there is an ethical standard that provides that "No Prosecutor Should Knowingly Fail To Disclose To The Grand Jury Evidence Which Tends To Negate Guilt Or Mitigate The Offense."

    Corbett better check on his subordinates behavior and knowingly actions and outright mistakes before Society Nifong’s him before or after any election.

    ReplyDelete
  17. There is an ethical standard that provides that "no prosecutor should knowingly fail to disclose to the grand jury evidence which tends to negate guilt or mitigate the offense." (ABA Standard 3-3.6).

    ReplyDelete
  18. linky

    http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/guidelines/4371.htm

    GRAND JURY MANUAL



    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Introduction

    Chapter 1 - Getting Started

    Chapter 2 - The Requirement of Secrecy -- Rule 6(e)

    Chapter 3, Part I - Subpoenas

    Chapter 3, Part II - Subpoenas

    Chapter 4 - Presenting Evidence to the Grand Jury

    Chapter 5 - Immunity

    Chapter 6 - Multiple Representation/Conflicts of Interest

    Chapter 7 - Indictment and Information

    Chapter 8 - Perjury and Obstruction of Justice

    Chapter 9 - Plea Agreements

    ReplyDelete
  19. "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..." - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)

    1. The Justice Project’s Recommendations to Ensure Prosecutorial Accountability

    2. States should require that prosecutors’ offices adopt and enforce clearly defined official policies and procedures.

    3. States should require open-file discovery in criminal cases.

    4. States should require that prosecutors document all agreements with witnesses and jailhouse informants concerning conferment of benefits of any kind.

    5. States should require trial and appellate judges to report all cases of prosecutorial misconduct, including cases where the misconduct is ruled to be harmless error.

    6. States should establish a prosecutor review board with the power to investigate allegations of misconduct and impose sanctions.

    7. States should require that prosecutors participate in training and continuing education programs.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Factual Police, Prosecutorial and Judicial Misconduct:

    Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and US Virgin Islands: The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office is not an "arm of the state" and therefore can be sued under civil rights laws for the conduct of its investigators.TCan't Use Immunity to Dodge Case.

    Pennsylvania.
    For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre, PA operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses. The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench. In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have pled guilty to taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. $2.6 Million in Payoffs.

    Pennsylvania:
    Sometimes justice happens in spite of the justice system. Sometimes it only happens when the people in the justice system get their noses rubbed in their messes. On 9/11/07, Lancaster County District Attorney Donald R. Totaro did the right thing by freeing Charles T. "Ted" Dubbs from a 12- to 40-year prison term in two sexual attacks he probably did not commit. Dubbs was sentenced in May 2002. Wilbur Cyrus Brown, a serial rapist who confessed to 13 other rapes, including one on the same jogging trail where Dubbs supposedly committed his crimes, confessed to those attacks in November. But Totaro had to spin things to portray his office as a well-oiled machine that immediately turned to fix an honest error when it came to their attention. That’s not what happened.

    Pennsylvania:
    It took a Fayette County, PA jury just 25 minutes to figure out Bret Shallenberger was innocent of hiring a former employee to burn down Shallenberger's profitable business. It's the local prosecutor, who promised the actual arsonist immunity in exchange for framing Shallenberger, who should be on trial. Wrong Defendant

    Pennsylvania:
    Jay Smith was the victim of some of the most egregious police and prosecutorial misconduct ever exposed in the US. In his own words, "The Pennsylvania State Police tried to kill me." Yet when you search the internet for the truth about what happened to him, all you get are links to Echoes in the Darkness, the book and movie that were part of travesty perpetrated against him. Until now. Court Frees Jay Smith

    Pennsylvania:
    When Edward Muchinski's motion for a new trial is heard in Fayette County, PA, 3 of the county's 6 judges -- 2 of them former prosecutors who convicted him -- may be forced to testify. They will be asked why they withheld exculpatory evidence at his trials in 1983 and 1986, and in his appeal in 1992. A Pennsylvania Tradition

    United States: Purportedly Christian US Attorney General John Ashcroft thinks it is sinful to smoke, drink, dance, and take drugs (including medically-prescribed marijuana). Doing real justice as prescribed by the Bible, however, is another matter. Ashcroft and Justice: Mutual Exclusives

    Wisconsin
    Just three years ago, Winnebago County, Wisconsin DA Joe Paulus -- special prosecutor in the John Maloney case -- came within a hair's breadth of Presidential appointment as U.S. Attorney. Now his regime is imploding in scandal as the layers of corruption and abuse of power are peeled away.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Pennsylvania:
    A 1981 Philadelphia murder case is not unusual. Two pair of men confessed to it. The pair that didn't do it -- one spoke no English, the other has an IQ of 60 to 65 -- spent 20 years in prison for it. Coerced Convictions Unraveling

    Pennsylvania:
    Janine Kirk was murdered in 1988 in Erie County, PA. The investigation reached a dead end in 1990, so then-DA William Cunningham began consulting psychics and Tarot card readers. In 2000, James Fleming was charged with Janine's murder, based on evidence authorities say they obtained from a profiler. Cunningham is now a judge, and he doesn't want to talk about the use of psychics to direct the investigation. Call it Eerie
    Florida: At least 38 false

    Pennsylvania:
    The biggest "stars" converged on Adams County, PA in 1987 to convict Barry Laughman of murdering his elderly relative, Edna Laughman. State Trooper Jack Holtz--who took $50,000 from author Joseph Wambaugh for information on the case against Jay Smith, framed for a murder he didn't commit--got Barry, who is retarded, to "confess" by saying "yes" to whatever Holtz suggested. Then crime lab chemist Janice Roadcap came up with the fanciful theory that antibiotics Edna was taking at the time of her death changed Barry's blood type from B to A, the killer's blood type. Holtz and Roadcap have been exposed as frauds. Barry is Still in Prison.

    Pennsylvania: The "sheer heft of the truly damaging and irrelevant conduct" of Asst. U.S. Attorney James D. Clancy led to Darrick Moore's conviction for arson in federal court in Pennsylvania. Now the 3rd Circuit has ruled that Clancy's closing speech was not only unfairly prejudicial, but that it capped a trial studded from beginning to end with unfairly prejudicial evidence relating to alleged prior bad acts by Moore. Inflammatory Closing

    Wisconsin:
    Well, maybe the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation just followed its normal procedure in failing to discipline Charles Hausmann, who remained in good standing while serving a prison sentence for ripping off his clients. Two Winnebago County, WI judges filed complaints against Oshkosh lawyer Milton Schierland for splitting bribe money with former DA Joe Paulus in their long-running case fixing scheme. The FBI found grounds to investigate; both lawyers have pled guilty to federal charges. But the OLR kicked the complaints back, saying there was "Insufficient Information to Suggest Misconduct".

    Wisconsin:
    Back in 1997, another Winnebago County judge became suspicious of a "fix" when one of Paulus' assistants wanted to dismiss a speeding ticket for the nephew of a Paulus political supporter. Judge William Carver refused to dismiss the ticket and filed a complaint with the ethics board. "We had a suspicion somebody wasn't telling the truth," one of the investigators acknowledged. Nonetheless, the grievance was Dismissed as Usual

    Pennsylvania:
    Citing pervasive misconduct by prosecutors, a judge has reversed convictions against David Munchinski, imprisoned for nearly 20 years in a double murder case in Fayette County, PA. Visiting Judge Barry Feudale accused three former Fayette County prosecutors -- two of whom are now judges -- of "seeking and maintaining convictions to the detriment of the search for the truth" in the case of a grisly murder of two men in a Laurel Mountains cabin in 1977. "Patent and Egregious Misconduct"

    Pennsylvania: PA State Police have a unique track record for charging accidental fires as arson. They have taken this to a new low, using pizza and candy to get a 7-year-old boy to confess to setting a fatal fire at a neighbor's home that occurred when the child was miles away. The child is too young to be prosecuted, even as a juvenile. Instead, the authorities want to put him in a treatment facility for mentally disturbed kids -- Go in Normal, Come Out Twisted.

    ReplyDelete
  22. from Liestoppers Blog:

    http://truthinjustice.org/nifonging.htm

    The Case – everybody needs The Case

    1) Why do you need a case, to get elected to higher office.

    2) How to choose a case, go after politicians, works everytime?

    3) What happens if you don’t have one, make it up before the grand jury, turn normal practices into illegal acts?

    4) Demographics of your district are the key, look for right wing districts, that believe Lincoln was a Muslim because of his beard!

    5) Appealing to the most voters, say your doing it on their time.

    6) How to manufacture The Case when all else fails, just make mistakes in teh grand jury and never tell the grand jurors.

    7) The Press – learn how they will buy anything you say, so long as it is about politicians, except yourself, as you run for office.

    Learn the Nifong/Corbett Timed Bombshell.

    This technique is a sure fire way of buying time until you are ready to run for higher office.

    The press loves it as it improves ratings for them. It’s a win-win situation.

    Nifongese = Corbettese

    Mike & Tom reveals their secret technique of speaking out both sides of his mouth at the same time. You will be privileged in learning from the master himself a vocabulary of terms he calls Nifongese/Corbettese.

    To use the Bombshell technique you must learn the art of Nifongese!

    1) Pretend to care, talk how you are hurt by what you found.

    2) Appeal to base instincts, most citizens hate all politicians.

    3) Smirk and snicker, act stunned when questioned, then end all Press Conferences.

    4) Choose your words carefully-you can deny anything, after all you went to Saint Mary's Law School, The Giants Among Legal Scholars Even if it is a law school for dumb guys that could not get into a good law school.

    5) Learn Mike's & Tom's patented phrase, "To my knowledge, I do not or anything on ste time is illegal except my staffers."

    6) Learn the Art of the Stall - 101 Ways to Say "Uhm" while buying time or explain why it takes 3 years to investigate your own political party and 3 months to investigate the other party.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Case Management Strategic Tips


    CORBETT/Nifong’s disclosure tactics - how to hide exculpatory evidence – the “What report technique?” Find a dumber lawyer than yourself.

    Corbett/Nifong’s race/politician baiting - learn from the masters.

    Corbett/Nifong’s evidence gathering - investigating alibi witnesses, refuse to show them to grand jury.

    Corbett/Nifong’s photo IDs tips - don't include fillers, as many line-ups as you need, just don't keep notes, and don't videotape, just handcuff Democrats in the back, Republicans in the front, and your wives to the bed posts.

    Corbett/Nifong’s wastebasket maneuver - Dreyfus Affair (The French technique) - great for DNA avoid friends like Jubelier.

    Corbett/Nifong’s chokehold demonstration - cannot miss maneuver to generate public outrage, indict more legislators anytime you lose a case!

    Corbett/Nifong’s Grand Jury indictments - they do not even keep a transcript -a freebee!

    Corbett/Nifong’s jury selection - Voir dire? Hey, this is Harrisburg, we speak English, not Saint Mary's Law School where you slept through law classes in Spanish and still pass the Pennsylvania Bar if your daddy is a Legislator.

    Corbett/Nifong’s victim control – hide your alleged victim, cover them up in old coalmines where waste management Inc, dumped garbage from New York when you ran it.

    Summary:
    Corbett/Nifong’s Bombshells

    Technique – keep hinting you have something hidden until the election days are over, then say you forgot where you hid it?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Tom/Mike answers your questions

    Suggested Topics:

    Threatening Witnesses to lie

    Picking grand jurors that think like you.

    Keeping your own staffers/campaign workers out of jail.

    Not talking to defense attorneys about exculpatory evidence.

    Why Ethics Rules 3.6 and 3.8 are for wimps and do not apply to Prosecutors.

    How to quietly defend yourself against bar ethics complaints while campaigning.

    Testimonials:

    “It’s been a long time since I attended a seminar that I learned so much from. Tom and Mike were great and a real inspiration to me” - O.J. Simpson

    “He is so confident!” - Rob Jubelier

    “I especially liked the chokehold demonstration! I'm going to use that on Cott” - Tony Krastek

    “Well, finally…men who understands…men are assholes…and prove it by being themselves everyday” - Nancy Grace

    *LieStoppers can verify that no District Attorneys were harmed during the making of this satire.

    ReplyDelete
  25. How to Get a False Confession in Ten Easy Steps on anyone:


    This article by the author of "Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques" is a nice short primer on the kinds of interrogations techniques that are seen time and time again in false confession cases.

    It's another way of packaging the Reid technique.

    Notice that there is not even the hint of the possibility of false confessions and the complete confidence of the interrogator in his ability to read the "buy signs" of his suspect—the body language and other physical reactions that suggest the suspect's guilt and that he is ready to confess.

    Security Management
    Tuesday, October 1, 2002

    ISSN: 0145-9406; Volume 46; Issue 10

    Confessions of an interrogator:

    The following 10 tactics are generally used by experienced interrogators to obtain a confession:

    1. Begin with a firm statement that the suspect is guilty.

    2. Do not allow the suspect to deny his involvement.

    3. Offer a sympathetic series of possibilities of how and why the crime took place.

    4. Keep the suspect on the defensive by undermining his self-confidence.

    5. Give some persuasive arguments for telling the truth.

    6. Alleviate the fear of confessing.

    7. Use compliments to build rapport.

    8. Watch for "buy" signs that show the suspect is ready to confess.

    9. Move in and get the confession.

    ReplyDelete
  26. IT HAPPEN IN LA, CALIFORNIA, MIAMI,FLORIDA, CHICAGO,ILLINOIS, WISCONSIN, VIRGINIA, KENTUCKY, NEW YORK ETC...COMING SOON TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLCANIA....READ WHAT HAPPEN IN MINNESOTA...

    Crackdown on prosecutor conduct
    Minnesota's high court is targeting trial misconduct by prosecutors.

    County attorneys are crying foul; defense lawyers are applauding.

    By Paul Gustafson, Star Tribune

    Minnesota prosecutors, the people accustomed to dishing out punishment, have found themselves on the receiving end of two recent state Supreme Court decisions that targeted improper closing arguments and other out-of-bounds trial behavior.

    Prosecutors are bristling over the decisions, but many defense lawyers believe the stiff medicine is overdue.

    In one case, the court reversed a gang member's first-degree murder conviction because of what it called "pervasive" misconduct by the prosecutor, even though the state's evidence was strong.

    "You wouldn't know the truth if it hit you in the face, would you, Mr. Mayhorn?" then-Clay County Attorney Lisa Borgen asked the defendant during questioning.

    The justices said Borgen tried to play on the passions of the jury and misstated the evidence. Borgen has since said she should not have questioned the defendant in that manner.

    In another case the court changed a longstanding legal rule, putting the burden on prosecutors to prove that their misconduct didn't substantially harm defendants' rights in some criminal cases.

    "We have identified numerous kinds of trial conduct that are improper for prosecutors. ...

    Nevertheless, we continue to see cases in which prosecutors persist in clearly proscribed conduct,"

    Justice Helen Meyer wrote in September for a 4-3 majority in State vs. Ramey.

    Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said that she understands that the goal is to do justice, not just win.

    "But this is an adversarial system, and if you tie the hands of the prosecutors when they go into that arena, it doesn't serve either public safety or justice," she said.

    Many defense lawyers and legal experts, however, think it's about time that courts stop warning prosecutors about misconduct and start doing something to stop it.

    "There has to be some kind of remedy, some consequences for behavioral errors that occur over and over again," said Hennepin County Chief Public Defender Lenny Castro. "I don't think the new standard is unfair at all."

    In Minnesota, prosecutors' misconduct generally involves improper questioning of witnesses and closing arguments, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers.

    Examples are when prosecutors voice their own opinion on the truthfulness of witnesses, appeal to the base emotions of jurors or use facts not introduced in evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  27. The Minnesota Supreme Court isn't the only court expressing frustration with the issue.

    In 2003, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the convictions of two men given life sentences for their roles in the murder of a Chicago police officer, citing improper prosecutor trial tactics and arguments.

    It threatened to overturn more cases to reduce the "alarming frequency" of prosecutor misconduct, which it called "a problem that courts across the country have, for the most part, been unable or unwilling to control."

    Appeals court judges in several states "are starting to wring their hands" trying to find effective ways to discourage prosecutor misconduct, said Peter Joy, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

    Some judges have tried shaming misbehaving prosecutors by naming them in court decisions.

    But they found that it only enhanced the prosecutors' reputations among peers, "because it shows they are willing to do what it takes to get the 'bad guy' ... that they're willing to get down in the gutter," Joy said.

    In most states, even when prosecutor misconduct is found, defendants still carry a heavy burden to prove that their constitutional rights were substantially violated, he said.

    Some of the worst examples of misconduct attributed to prosecutors in other states, such as withholding evidence or hiding witnesses from the defense, have not cropped up in Minnesota courtrooms.

    Prosecutors also complain that appeals court judges keep adding -- after the fact -- entries to the list of trial conduct they consider improper.

    "Over the years, [judges] have found 20 different ways for prosecutors to commit misconduct in closing arguments. But it's a little hard to understand how it's misconduct if you didn't know that it was wrong," Anoka County Attorney Robert Johnson said.

    County attorneys are upset about what they say is an unwarranted state investigation of Borgen, who is now a district court judge in Moorhead.

    In August, the state Supreme Court reversed purported gang member Troy Mayhorn's 2003 first-degree murder conviction because of what it called Borgen's "pervasive" and "unprecedented" misconduct when she prosecuted the case.

    Borgen's attorney, Richard Pemberton, a former Minnesota State Bar Association president, said the facts will exonerate her. As a result of the court's decision, he said, "a very dangerous man" whom Borgen took off the streets is unlikely to be retried.

    Prosecutors worry that the Supreme Court's new misconduct standard will allow defense attorneys to "lay in the weeds" and raise objections on appeal instead of at trial when the judge hearing the case can address them, said Gaertner.

    Castro thinks Gaertner's dire predictions about the impact of the Ramey decision won't pan out. He recalled how prosecutors were wrong when they predicted in 1994 that a state Supreme Court decision requiring police to tape-record most suspects' statements would cause problems.

    Gaertner said the two decisions aren't the same. "It's not as if there was a bright line set down," she said. "It seems like the line is a wavy one, and we're not sure where it is."

    ReplyDelete
  28. PROSECUTORS PLEAD FOR THEIR CAREERS...Federal prosecutors just got their second punch in the gut over the Greg Reyes backdating case:

    The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has explicitly refused to back away from a finding that the government committed deliberate misconduct during trial.

    Reyes' securities fraud convictions had been the Northern District of California's highest-profile success in the war against stock-option backdating, because Reyes had been CEO of Silicon Valley darling Brocade.

    But over the summer an appellate panel threw out those verdicts, finding that Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tim Crudo and Adam Reeves misled the jury by stating that Brocade's finance department didn't know anything about backdating at the company.

    In fact, it did.

    In the aftermath of that opinion, the government didn't ask that the court reinstate the convictions.

    Rather, it just asked that it eliminate any judgment that Reeves and Crudo acted deliberately to save their careers.

    This is a big deal in Justice Department-land: a deliberate misconduct finding triggers an investigation from DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, which falls somewhere between root canal and colonoscopy on a federal prosecutor's list of preferred procedures.

    On Friday the court issued an amended order, but it only made a factual change; it didn't strike the word "deliberate."

    A U.S. Attorney spokesman didn't immediately respond to an e-mail, nor did Crudo, who has since returned to a Latham & Watkins partnership.

    Still upset they were cited for misconduct and now hiding in private practice.

    ReplyDelete
  29. The 'Win at All Costs' team:

    Investigative reporter Bill Moushey, and Bob Martinson, local news editor.

    Hundreds of times during the past 10 years, federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law.

    They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, a two-year Post-Gazette investigation found.

    Rarely were these federal officials punished for their misconduct. Rarely did they admit their conduct was wrong.

    New laws and court rulings that encourage federal law enforcement officers to press the boundaries of their power while providing few safeguards against abuse fueled their actions.

    Victims of this misconduct sometimes lost their jobs, assets and even families. Some remain in prison because prosecutors withheld favorable evidence or allowed fabricated testimony.

    Some criminals walk free as a reward for conspiring with the government in its effort to deny others their rights.

    This series of stories examining federal law enforcement officials’ misconduct grew from another investigative series that Post-Gazette reporter Bill Moushey completed in 1996.

    The Post-Gazette examines a law enforcement culture that has allowed the pursuit of a conviction to replace the pursuit of justice, no matter what the cost.

    The Post-Gazette examines the government's growing reliance on informants and criminals to make its cases, which sometimes leads to cases built on lies, paid for with cash or reduced sentences.

    The Post-Gazette continues its exploration of the government's reliance on informants and criminals to make its cases.

    The Post-Gazette examines a law enforcement culture that has allowed the pursuit of a conviction to replace the pursuit of justice, no matter what the cost.

    The Post-Gazette continues its examination of law enforcement culture.

    The Post-Gazette examines a law enforcement culture that has allowed the pursuit of a conviction to replace the pursuit of justice, no matter what the cost.

    http://www.post-gazette.com/win/default.as.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Look at today's article by Bumstead on how weird Bill DeWeese was with his staff. DeWeese, according to grand jury testimony Bumstead cites, used his staff not just to pick up his drycleaning and balance his checkbook, but to make his dates, get people to pay for his meals, cut his grass and even buy condoms for him.

    Bill knew about the bonuses; and his self aggrandizement and misuse of staff for personal chores is worse than anything Veon is charged with.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Corbett did his job, he got all that went for the pay raise. the voters did the rest.

    It started with Fumo and Veon it will end with DeWeese, Stetler and Perzel. Maybe a few more too.

    All others lost their offices and the House and Senate are far better off without them.

    Pennsylvania is free of crime from all legislators that lined their pockets over doing what was right for the citizens.

    Veon hired most of these people and Presentments were not even about personal work, it was about what was charged.

    Pennsylvania is clean and green again.

    Lets salute Corbett not condemn him.

    ReplyDelete