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Solomon "Sol" Wachtler appears to have coined the phrase. He is a retired New York judge, ultimately chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. And still l

Solomon "Sol" Wachtler appears to have coined the phrase. He is a retired New York judge, ultimately chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. And still living at 96. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler>

pohl 2mo ago
More color to this tidbit: He was a republican. He wanted to stop using grand juries to bring indictments, so he wasn’t impartial in his assessment. Unrelatedly, he had an affair with a republican fund-raiser. When it ended, started making threats to kidnap her daughter, who was 14 at the time. He sent a sexually explicit note to the daughter, enclosing a condom. He got a 15-month prison sentence. This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”. The real force behind the low no-true-bill rate for federal grand juries is that the DoJ had extraordinarily high standards for themselves before they even approached a GJ. They had to believe they could convict and sustain on appeal. They haven’t lived up to those standards for a couple years now.
- ljsprague 2mo ago
  >This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”. Do you think that only Republicans say this or something?
  - pohl 2mo ago
    No, but there’s more incentive to propagate the trope of you or your friends find themselves in a position where downplaying a federal indictment is a PR move you’d want to make. Yes, that could be anyone, but the indictment rate by party of administration sure is an interesting statistic.
    - JuniperMesos 2mo ago
      The democratic party is the party in the US more often concerned with the interests of people accused of crimes by the criminal justice system. Republicans are more often concerned with the criminal justice system being insufficiently punitive and therefore tolerating crime.
      - dredmorbius 2mo ago
        Unless the crimes are alleged to have been committed by the political classes themselves. Lists of indictments (and convictions) by administration over the past 50+ years (dating to the Nixon administration) shows a sharp majority under Republican presidential administrations. <https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/have-there-been-significantly-more-criminal-actions-taken-against-republican-presidential-administrations-than-democratic-ones/ https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/have-there-been-significant...> For a longer history: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States#Dwight_D._Eisenhower_(R)_administrations_(1953%E2%80%931961) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scan...> Note that the US has had (by general consensus) six or seven party systems, with significant re-alignments occurring at several points. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_States#Sixth_Party_System:_Divided_Government_under_conservative_dominance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_S...> The two most recent shifts, which Wikipedia traces to roughly 1980 and 2016 have substantially changed what were traditional hallmarks particularly of the Republican Party. Whilst in rhetoric the GOP remains "tough on crime", in practice it rather more consistently hews to Wilhoit's Law: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." <https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...>.
- hn_throwaway_99 2mo ago
  I appreciated the interesting info on the originator of this quote, though this sentence made no sense to me: > This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”. Frankly, I've seen all types of people use this quote, not just Republicans, which is a simple statement that there is a very low bar to indict in a grand jury proceeding, which any reasonable assessment of the statistics would deem true. The fact that the originator of the quote turned out to be a douchebag is totally irrelevant. Also, I think this part is missing a very important step: > The real force behind the low no-true-bill rate for federal grand juries is that the DoJ had extraordinarily high standards for themselves before they even approached a GJ. They had to believe they could convict and sustain on appeal. While that may explain the very high conviction rate at trial, getting a grand jury indictment was also an excellent way for prosecutors to get a plea deal if the accused was looking at decades in jail even if the "beyond a reasonable doubt" threshold would be unlikely to be met.
- rootusrootus 2mo ago
  > He was a republican. He was born in 1930, though, so it's hard to say that he shares much in common with the ideology we call republican today.
  - pstuart 2mo ago
    "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
    - rootusrootus 2mo ago
      A pithy quote from the bowels of the Internet (a commenter on a blog). Liberals love it, conservatives hate it, I don't know that it describes an old school republican very well, or even MAGA for that matter.
      - pstuart 2mo ago
        I did some cursory digging on that before I shared it. There's fundamental differences of thought for what government is supposed to be, and it's obviously mutated over time. At its core, government is power over people, and the evergreen question is "how far should that power go, and who wields that power?" I believe that there are reasonable concerns on "both sides" about that, but the reality is that power is effectively wielded by the wealthy. Democracy is an experiment that ostensibly runs counter to that.
      - dredmorbius 2mo ago
        <https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=FrankWilhoit https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=FrankWilhoit>
        pstuart 2mo ago
        Cool that he's here. Thanks! That quote is completely spot on, so any objection to it is worthy of asking why so. The problem with that is that it's not likely to have a satisfactory answer.
- snapetom 2mo ago
  > He was a republican. And Democrats were the party of slavery. Why do you bring this up? I'd think the Hackernews crowd would know history and wouldn't be surprised that on a long enough time line, philosophies change.
  - LordDragonfang 2mo ago
    He coined the term in the mid-80s. There's a whole lot of continuity between the Republicans of the mid-80s and the ones of today, even if some of the ones of the past might be horrified with what's become of their legacy.
    - snapetom 2mo ago
      Irrelevant and not my point at all. The point was that OP was making a rage-bait statement. HN is supposed to be better than that.
- dredmorbius 2mo ago
  Thanks! I saw mention of the peccadillo, but wasn't aware of the full back-story.
cwnyth 2mo ago
Ah, so it was topical!

pohl 2mo ago

More color to this tidbit: He was a republican. He wanted to stop using grand juries to bring indictments, so he wasn’t impartial in his assessment. Unrelatedly, he had an affair with a republican fund-raiser. When it ended, started making threats to kidnap her daughter, who was 14 at the time. He sent a sexually explicit note to the daughter, enclosing a condom. He got a 15-month prison sentence. This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”. The real force behind the low no-true-bill rate for federal grand juries is that the DoJ had extraordinarily high standards for themselves before they even approached a GJ. They had to believe they could convict and sustain on appeal. They haven’t lived up to those standards for a couple years now.

ljsprague 2mo ago
>This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”. Do you think that only Republicans say this or something?
- pohl 2mo ago
  No, but there’s more incentive to propagate the trope of you or your friends find themselves in a position where downplaying a federal indictment is a PR move you’d want to make. Yes, that could be anyone, but the indictment rate by party of administration sure is an interesting statistic.
  - JuniperMesos 2mo ago
    The democratic party is the party in the US more often concerned with the interests of people accused of crimes by the criminal justice system. Republicans are more often concerned with the criminal justice system being insufficiently punitive and therefore tolerating crime.
    - dredmorbius 2mo ago
      Unless the crimes are alleged to have been committed by the political classes themselves. Lists of indictments (and convictions) by administration over the past 50+ years (dating to the Nixon administration) shows a sharp majority under Republican presidential administrations. <https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/have-there-been-significantly-more-criminal-actions-taken-against-republican-presidential-administrations-than-democratic-ones/ https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/have-there-been-significant...> For a longer history: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States#Dwight_D._Eisenhower_(R)_administrations_(1953%E2%80%931961) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scan...> Note that the US has had (by general consensus) six or seven party systems, with significant re-alignments occurring at several points. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_States#Sixth_Party_System:_Divided_Government_under_conservative_dominance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_S...> The two most recent shifts, which Wikipedia traces to roughly 1980 and 2016 have substantially changed what were traditional hallmarks particularly of the Republican Party. Whilst in rhetoric the GOP remains "tough on crime", in practice it rather more consistently hews to Wilhoit's Law: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." <https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...>.
hn_throwaway_99 2mo ago
I appreciated the interesting info on the originator of this quote, though this sentence made no sense to me: > This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”. Frankly, I've seen all types of people use this quote, not just Republicans, which is a simple statement that there is a very low bar to indict in a grand jury proceeding, which any reasonable assessment of the statistics would deem true. The fact that the originator of the quote turned out to be a douchebag is totally irrelevant. Also, I think this part is missing a very important step: > The real force behind the low no-true-bill rate for federal grand juries is that the DoJ had extraordinarily high standards for themselves before they even approached a GJ. They had to believe they could convict and sustain on appeal. While that may explain the very high conviction rate at trial, getting a grand jury indictment was also an excellent way for prosecutors to get a plea deal if the accused was looking at decades in jail even if the "beyond a reasonable doubt" threshold would be unlikely to be met.
rootusrootus 2mo ago
> He was a republican. He was born in 1930, though, so it's hard to say that he shares much in common with the ideology we call republican today.
- pstuart 2mo ago
  "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
  - rootusrootus 2mo ago
    A pithy quote from the bowels of the Internet (a commenter on a blog). Liberals love it, conservatives hate it, I don't know that it describes an old school republican very well, or even MAGA for that matter.
    - pstuart 2mo ago
      I did some cursory digging on that before I shared it. There's fundamental differences of thought for what government is supposed to be, and it's obviously mutated over time. At its core, government is power over people, and the evergreen question is "how far should that power go, and who wields that power?" I believe that there are reasonable concerns on "both sides" about that, but the reality is that power is effectively wielded by the wealthy. Democracy is an experiment that ostensibly runs counter to that.
    - dredmorbius 2mo ago
      <https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=FrankWilhoit https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=FrankWilhoit>
      - pstuart 2mo ago
        Cool that he's here. Thanks! That quote is completely spot on, so any objection to it is worthy of asking why so. The problem with that is that it's not likely to have a satisfactory answer.
snapetom 2mo ago
> He was a republican. And Democrats were the party of slavery. Why do you bring this up? I'd think the Hackernews crowd would know history and wouldn't be surprised that on a long enough time line, philosophies change.
- LordDragonfang 2mo ago
  He coined the term in the mid-80s. There's a whole lot of continuity between the Republicans of the mid-80s and the ones of today, even if some of the ones of the past might be horrified with what's become of their legacy.
  - snapetom 2mo ago
    Irrelevant and not my point at all. The point was that OP was making a rage-bait statement. HN is supposed to be better than that.
dredmorbius 2mo ago
Thanks! I saw mention of the peccadillo, but wasn't aware of the full back-story.

cwnyth 2mo ago

Ah, so it was topical!