The American "Justice" System Strikes Again

If the Edwards matter came before the FEC as a civil complaint, it is not clear how it would rule. There are conflicting FEC opinions in similar cases. In 2000, the FEC issued an advisory opinion saying that the only way a gift to a candidate could be considered personal and not an illegal contribution motivated to help the campaign would be if there was a pattern of gift-giving before the candidacy. Yet in 2002, the FEC dismissed a complaint against Rep. Jim Moran, who had gotten a $25,000 loan from a drug lobbyist, because the loan was not used for campaign purposes. The complaint alleged the loan was an illegal campaign contribution, but Moran signed the check from his lobbyist friend over to pay his divorce lawyer. In the Edwards case, the parties have been throwing around these conflicting precedents to support their case.
But this is not a civil complaint. It's a criminal indictment. It's going to be tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Edwards was taking this money to save his campaign rather than his marriage. (In the end, of course, neither survived.) Politico reports that the prosecution has been looking around for former FEC commissioners to testify about how to interpret the campaign-finance law, and at least one of these commissioners has turned the government down, viewing the case as too murky.
If the law is so murky that the government needs an expert to testify as to what it actually means, there's a decent argument that it would be unconstitutional to use that law as the basis for a criminal prosecution. It is just too vague. (The government might have a better case against Mellon. According to the indictment, Mellon, incensed about a furor over Edwards' expensive haircut, sent a note to Andrew Young saying that "from now on, all haircuts, etc., that are necessary and important for the campaign—please send the bills to me. … It is a way to help our friends without government restrictions.")
The court of public opinion has long since issued its verdict on Edwards. In the court of law, however, it could be hard to prove the case against him.

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If the Edwards matter came before the FEC as a civil complaint, it is not clear how it would rule. There are conflicting FEC opinions in similar cases. In 2000, the FEC issued an advisory opinion saying that the only way a gift to a candidate could be considered personal and not an illegal contribution motivated to help the campaign would be if there was a pattern of gift-giving before the candidacy. Yet in 2002, the FEC dismissed a complaint against Rep. Jim Moran, who had gotten a $25,000 loan from a drug lobbyist, because the loan was not used for campaign purposes. The complaint alleged the loan was an illegal campaign contribution, but Moran signed the check from his lobbyist friend over to pay his divorce lawyer. In the Edwards case, the parties have been throwing around these conflicting precedents to support their case.
But this is not a civil complaint. It's a criminal indictment. It's going to be tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Edwards was taking this money to save his campaign rather than his marriage. (In the end, of course, neither survived.) Politico reports that the prosecution has been looking around for former FEC commissioners to testify about how to interpret the campaign-finance law, and at least one of these commissioners has turned the government down, viewing the case as too murky.
If the law is so murky that the government needs an expert to testify as to what it actually means, there's a decent argument that it would be unconstitutional to use that law as the basis for a criminal prosecution. It is just too vague. (The government might have a better case against Mellon. According to the indictment, Mellon, incensed about a furor over Edwards' expensive haircut, sent a note to Andrew Young saying that "from now on, all haircuts, etc., that are necessary and important for the campaign—please send the bills to me. … It is a way to help our friends without government restrictions.")
The court of public opinion has long since issued its verdict on Edwards. In the court of law, however, it could be hard to prove the case against him.

http://www.slate.com/id/2296188/

I don 't like Edwards because he is an anti-freedom person (leftist),
but there is no merit to this prosecution.





David

Heck, you could even argue that since revealing the affair would have derailed his campaign, that this was a legitimate campaign expense! OK, kidding there, but I don't see the merit in this case and he's already been hammered so I don't know what there is to gain here.

The point would have to be the supply of easy money to people trying to reach office... Does it not bother anyone that people who plead poverty when it comes time to pay their share of taxes have all those millions to buy the affection of office holders???

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The point would have to be the supply of easy money to people trying to reach office... Does it not bother anyone that people who plead poverty when it comes time to pay their share of taxes have all those millions to buy the affection of office holders???

That the American way and now the SC have open up the flood gate for companies including foreign companies and if the GOP can destroy the major source of democratic funding public employees unions beside what a "wonderful" country we will end up with.

We the Corporations and rich of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote our wealth , and secure the Blessings of wealth to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There is a tipping point but I know of no way of predicting where it is and the problem is that more often then not even if you get to kill one group of SOBs overlords you will end up with another.

For references see the French revolution and the fall of the Roman Republic.

Still it would be enjoyable to set up old fashion French guillotines in front of the capital and put them to work.

In any case the GOP is busy concentrating the wealth and destroying the stabilizing middle class so the old tipping point may not be all that far into our future.

Heck, you could even argue that since revealing the affair would have derailed his campaign, that this was a legitimate campaign expense! OK, kidding there, but I don't see the merit in this case and he's already been hammered so I don't know what there is to gain here.

The founders was long term thinkers even those some of them would be surprised that the framework they set up had survive for over two hundreds years.

Now the problem with changing the form is to find a form that is likely to give better results and do the change over smoothly and peacefully enough not to end up destroying the very society you wish to aid.

I think that most people can see we are going toward the rule of a small oligarchy that is harmful to the majority of the people however counter pressures within the current framework might let us go on with our current system for a time at least.

Sadly I see no path forward that will get us long term out of the mess we have been drifting into since WW2 with or without our current government form.

Side note Franklin seem to had agree with you that nothing is permanent as he set up a trust in his will to aid the education of tradesmen/craftsmen in Philadelphia but did not have it open ended but set a two hundreds years time limit afterward the trust was broken apart and the funds donated to a numbers of group who names at the moment does not come to mind.

This thread is hilarious.

1 not guilty and 5 counts no verdict....as widely predicted the state came off looking out of line and out of control. One of these days the american people are going to have to own how fucked up our "justice system" is, as well as our government as a whole.

Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The jury in the John Edwards case rendered exactly the right verdict. Of course they couldn't make up their mind on most of the charges. No rational person could. The judge essentially instructed them to get into John Edwards' mind (as well as into the minds of several other actors in this political soap opera) and to determine precisely what his intention was in receiving money from friends.
If his intention was primarily personal (to try to save his marriage and not humiliate his wife any further), then there was no crime. But if his intent was primarily political (to help him get elected president), then there may have been a crime. Precisely how many angels were dancing on the head of that pin?
No one, not even Edwards himself, could calculate the precise quantification of his complex and multiple intentions. This kind of decision should never be the subject of a criminal case, and the jury was right to find a reasonable doubt as to one of the charges and to throw its hands up as to the others.

All reasonable people should now hope that the Justice Department sees the light of day and does not seek a retrial. The jury has spoken, though ambiguously, and there is no reason to believe that another fairly picked jury will be able to discern the precise intentions of the actors with any greater certainty or precision.
This entire farce of a trial is part of a larger problem that infects not only America but other Western countries as well: the criminalization of policy differences and of personal sin.
No one can justify what John Edwards did to his family, to American politics and to himself. He will forever pay a steep price for his selfishness and arrogance. But it is not a price that all Americans should have to pay by the distortion of the criminal justice system into a Rorschach test, in which the jury is asked to interpret vague action and attribute precise intentions to actions done with mixed motives.

The criminal law should be limited to what I call "Hamlet decisions." Before a person is charged with a serious crime, the government should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually engaged in a "to be or not to be" decision -- to be a felon or not to be a felon, to step over a clear line that separates criminality from sin. There is no reason to believe that John Edwards ever made that decision, because the law governing his conduct is vague, subjective and unclear in the extreme.

At the time of the founding of our republic, there was a common expression that said that a criminal law must be so clear that a potential defendant "can read it while running and still understand it." The law under which Edwards was tried was so unclear that a bevy of lawyers could not understand it while sitting and studying it for hours.
So let the remaining charges be dropped against John Edwards. Let him be relegated to his deserved place in history, and let us reserve the criminal law for real felons who knowingly violate clear criminal statutes. If Congress wants to criminalize what Edwards was accused of doing, let it enact a clear law that gives fair warning to all politicians that they may not accept any gifts, regardless of intent. I doubt Congress will pass such a law.