mycatharsis.com

With the 2008 political season heating up, and only a mere 546 days before our next election, I’d have to say that one of my greatest concerns had to do with Rudy Giuliani. Would his work experience as a former prosecutor lend him to Bush-style oppression of our civil liberties?

Personally, I think that kind of question would have seemed anathema to our founding fathers. Prosecutors, by their definition, are there to enforce our laws, and ensure equal application and protection under these laws. They are there to protect our Constitution as well. But I have been disillusioned, and made cynical, by what seems to be a prevailing attitude of moral authority among a number prosecutors at all levels. An attitude that implicitly pushes that, due to their moral authority, ANY means they use to reach their ends is permissible. And the idea that the ‘ends justify the means’, to me, is a scary proposition, no matter who it’s coming from.

Now don’t get me wrong. That attitude is not universal. There are plenty of great prosecutors that have profound respect for our constitution, and I hope that they are the rule, not the exception. Personal experience, blessedly minor that it is, reinforced this and changed it for me from a ray of hope to a well grounded belief. But it also seems clear that are a number of exceptions out there as well. Exceptions where the truth and justice plays second fiddle to ‘getting the job done’, no matter the cost.

Unfortunately, Giuliani, far from allaying my fears, has instead confirmed them. His ideas about freedom, are, well, interesting to be charitable, and twisted, to be more accurate.

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

Now I’ll grant there’s a kernel of truth there. Freedom does not work when it’s anarchy. Freedom does not include the right to infringe on others freedom, or at least it shouldn’t. And any free society still needs regulation and authority in order to ensure the peace is kept.

But should this be your all-encompassing belief of what freedom is? At best, I think it should be a ‘but’ to your belief in freedom. An aside that prevents enjoyment of liberty from cascading into anarchy. This, instead, seems to be his definition of freedom.

But as a definition of freedom in and of itself, it’s PROFOUNDLY disturbing. Especially coming from a former prosecutor, where, unfortunately, a stereotype is starting to coalesce of overly-aggressive prosecutors whose ‘win at all costs’ mentality does not mind making freedom and our constitution casualties.

Figures, too, that he is the presumptive favorite of the GOP right now. At this point, I’d vote for the ‘unnamed Democrat’ over Giuliani for president, at least after reading this speech. Heck I’d even vote for a ‘named Democrat’ whose first name rhymes with ‘pillory’ over Giuliani.

The ONDCP’s blog on New Mexico’s medical marijuana bill …

Yesterday, New Mexico passed a symbolic law that purportedly legalizes so-called “medical” marijuana.

What gets my goat here is the use of the word ’symbolic’. It shows just what the ONDCP thinks of state law.

Perhaps the bill is symbolic in essence, but only because the Bush administration is systematically killing off the concepts of states rights, to me a stunning path of action for a former governor. Raich v Gonzales is only one example. Oregon’s assisted suicide bill is another.

Sr. U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr, in striking down the 1998 COPA act …

Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.

Damn straight. If only our politicians, on either side of the aisle, felt (or had reason to feel) similarly.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, commenting on Roper vs. Weaver, a case involving improper jury instructions in a death penalty case by a prosecutor …

“if you let a person who is as guilty as William Weaver go, you’re affecting not just William Weaver, you’re affecting the whole war on drugs,” Justice Scalia asked, “What’s wrong with (saying) that?”

Doesn’t it seem clear? It just doesn’t pass the ’smell’ test to ask a jury to execute someone, not on the basis of their crimes, but rather on the need for ‘deterrence’ or to ‘teach a lesson to others’. That is a horrible, and should be illegal, basis on which to take a life. Normally I like what Scalia has to say about due process issues, but this quote follows many other recent ones by me that lead me to suspect that he has become something conservatives regularly rail against, an activist judge who looks more for justification for his preconceived notions than a dispassionate arbiter of what is and is no constitutional.

to gain some perspective on the recent news from the FBI that violent crime is on the rise, it probably helps to remember that the United States imprisons more people than any other nation on earth, both per capita and in pure numbers! its not even close. In fact, we have roughly 2.2 people in our correction system right now, whether in prison, parole, probation, etc. That number is almost more than the #2 (China, 1.5 million) and #3 (Russia, 800,000) nations put together! (source: Wikipedia article on US Prison Population.)

Considering those numbers, it seems unavoidable to conclude that simply imprisoning people at ever increasing rates alone just does not work to lower crime.

Ok, ok, his book and show deal was probably distasteful. But getting mad at him is misdirected anger. I think it’s the jury that ignored the blatantly obvious and let him off that deserves the scrutiny he is receiving right now. If they took their roles as jurors a little more seriously, we wouldn’t be in this mess and we’d have a verdict that was actually based in fact.

Ironically, I’m usually more concerned with juries not taking their job seriously and being a rubber stamp for the prosecution, but I guess this is the exception that proves the rule.

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I like this decision on the general principle that is favors individual rights over the rights of the state. You can read the actual opinions here. You can tell this was a contentious one, as six of the eight voting justices wrote opinions! Roberts dissent makes a lot of sense and is really well written, Scalia’s dissent is more just a stab at Steven’s concurrence, Thomas dissents separately apparently because he believes there is actually no Fourth Amendment issue at play here, and Breyer writes a concurring opinion that succinctly refutes Robert’s concerns and tries to dampen future efforts to make this ruling precedent-setting.
So all told, this may not set any new precedents but I do like the result in this particular case …