23 ms·
Federal prosecutors' primary tactics mirror those of the medieval siege. They do their best to fling arrows at the castle by generating enormous amounts of disc
by kyboren 14y ago
Federal prosecutors' primary tactics mirror those of the medieval siege. They do their best to fling arrows at the castle by generating enormous amounts of discovery material They starve defendants with insanely over-broad civil asset forfeiture laws. They charge crimes on the prosecutor's whims: HSBC bankers get away with laundering hundreds of billions for Iran, but go after Aaron Swartz with utter malice. Of course, these whims are driven (as always) by personal ambition, outright greed, and a strategy towards personal profit. They strip the defendant of all his most essential Constitutional rights, and then bully him into accepting the arbitrary conditions imposed by one in a position of power, desecrating the right to a trial by peers--a right we gained in the 13th century.
We must pass laws mandating adequate funding for the judiciary, and mandating that after the prosecution's total expenditures surpass $50,000, the prosecution must contribute the amount it spends on its own expenses, minus the first $50,000, to a legal defense fund for the defendant.
This will ensure the government will not resort to dirty tactics like inundation with discovery materials, since they will just have to pay for the defendant's lawyers to read them all. They will not be able to subjugate defendants with their might, because defendants will have the means available to them to stand up to it.
- rayiner 14y agoThis would basically mean you could never get a large company or criminal organization for anything. If you're trying to uncover e.g. systematic FCPA violations, you can't help but make the case complex.
- kyboren 14y agoFine, and so the case is complex and expensive. If the accused truly are guilty, then they will be afforded due process of law and then convicted. The case may cost twice as much for the government to prosecute, but the large company will forfeit any profits derived from that criminal activity. Besides, the DoJ consumes an absurdly low proportion of the Federal budget [1]. Even if this law doubled the DoJ's budget (impossible; they still have to pay for facilities, support staff, etc.), it is a worthy price to pay for a safeguard of the liberties we've enjoyed for nearly a millennia. 1: http://www.justice.gov/ag/annualreports/pr2012/section3.pdf#1 http://www.justice.gov/ag/annualreports/pr2012/section3.pdf#... -- page III-18. Total appropriations received: ~$27 billion, $18 billion of which went to supporting the goal, "Prevent Crime, Protect the Rights of the American People, and Enforce Federal Law". The total of Federal expenditures for FY12 was $3,538.3 billion (http://www.fms.treas.gov/annualreport/cs2012/finhigh.pdf http://www.fms.treas.gov/annualreport/cs2012/finhigh.pdf).
- mapt 14y agoI quite like this proposal.