The Reliable (?) Criminal Justice System

It has been a deeply regretted sideshow to the long and bitter election campaign that the media has savaged the reputations of the sitting President and the Vice-President – neither of whom have been on the ballot for any office during the past two years.  This has gone beyond politics or necessary trashing of the administration for political gain to unreasonable personal attacks on the public servants who have kept this nation safe for the past seven years.  I will address the President’s legacy on another day soon, but would like to take note of the Vice-President and his recent time in the press spotlight. 

You would think that the Vice-President was a member of the Duke University Lacrosse team.  He and Former Attorney General Gonzales had been indicted November 17, 2008, in a South Texas County by a rogue prosecutor who appears in my view to be abusing his office and his authority in a way which suggests, in my view, that he may be mentally unstable and should be removed from office prior to the end of his soon to expire term as a public prosecutor. 

Most people do not have reason (thankfully) to fully grasp the significant power and autonomy that is vested in the office of the public prosecutor in this country.  He has nearly unfettered discretion to determine whether a criminal charge is brought against a citizen or, in jurisdictions which use them, whether a case should be taken before a grand jury.  The grand jury is intended to be a check on the power of the prosecutor but, in reality, the prosecutor can control the outcome of a grand jury inquiry since no defense attorneys are present and only one side of a case is heard. The old joke is that  New York grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. 

So apparently it is in South Texas.  Juan Guerra, Willacy County District Attorney, led a grand jury investigation against a private prison contractor concerning abuse of inmates in which he sought the indictment of the Vice-President as an investor in a private prison contractor (not the one being investigated), Alberto Gonzales for using his position as Attorney General to stop an investigation into allegations of abuse of inmates at a federal detention center in the county, a State Senator, and two judges, two special prosecutors and the district clerk who had participated in an investigation and indictment of District Attorney Guerra previously. 

Administrative Judge Manuel Banales dismissed the local cases based on no probable cause to support the indictment and the Judge’s conclusion that Guerra’s presenting the cases where he was the victim, the witness and the prosecutor was inappropriate.  The judge initially did not dismiss the indictments against Cheney and Gonzales as neither was represented by an attorney making an appearance for the defendants.  He later dismissed all indictments in the case when an attorney for the prison contractor identified technical faults with the proceedings sufficient to request throwing out all indictments from the case. 

In my view, apparent cases of abuse of prosecutorial discretion and other abuses of the criminal processes of the government are very concerning and show flaws in our criminal justice system.  This case is just another brick in the wall. 

My sources: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081202/ap_on_re_us/cheney_indicted_3 
and http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202426420580