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Thu 8 Jan, 2004 09:17 am
Jailing the innocent[/u]
By:Paul Craig Roberts
January 7, 2004
Every day, many Americans commit crimes of which they are unaware. Many of the crimes with which Americans are charged are absurd.
One recent case brought to light by Ellen Podgor and Paul Rosenzweig is that of three Americans sentenced in federal court to eight years in prison for importing lobster tails from Honduras in plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes. Why this matters, no one knows. Moreover, the importers of the lobster tails have no responsibility for how the seafood was packed in Honduras.
Federal prosecutors decided that Honduran law was violated by the shipment because a few tails (3 percent of the shipment) were less than 5.5 inches in length.
The Honduran government objects to this interpretation of its law and filed a brief in behalf of the defendants, but federal judges nevertheless convicted their fellow citizens for violating the Lacey Act by importing "fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any foreign law."
To ensure a harsh sentence, the prosecutors loaded up charges against the defendants by bringing indictments for smuggling, money laundering and conspiracy. Smuggling is inferred from a few of the tails allegedly being undersized and illegal. Money laundering is charged because the lobster purchase and sale required money to be deposited in a bank. Conspiracy is charged on the basis that more than one person was involved.
In other words, these are totally trumped-up crimes.
The upshot is that three Americans have had their lives ruined by federal prosecutors and judges for violating a Honduran law that the Honduran president, attorney general and embassy say is not on their country's statute books.
For reasons no one knows, federal prosecutors spent six months trying to find reasons in Honduran law to indict the American importers of the lobster tails. If it took federal prosecutors six months to find something in foreign law that they could allege the importers to have violated, how could the importers possibly have known that they could be imprisoned for the ordinary everyday business of importing lobster tails for restaurants?
Legal scholars such as Rosenzweig at the Heritage Foundation and Erik Luna at the University of Utah Law School are calling attention to the overcriminalization that has made it impossible in America to conduct ordinary business activities without risk of indictment. It is tyrannical to burden Americans with the substantive obligation of knowing how federal prosecutors might interpret every foreign law. No sane person could regard the lobster importers' conduct as criminal. Liberty is extinguished where law is so broad and vague as to entrap even the most honest citizen.
Naive Americans tend to regard miscarriages of justice, such as the lobster import case, as rare examples of legal idiocy that somehow will be corrected by the legal system. However, such cases are routine and are seldom if ever corrected. In America today, law enforcement boils down to the exercise of power by unaccountable prosecutors. Justice is not served by ensnaring the innocent.
Married men who happen to own guns are being turned into felons by wives who ask for restraining orders when they file for divorce. Prosecutors interpret restraining orders as criminalizing prior gun ownership. A restraining order turns a law-abiding gun owner into a criminal. It is an example of unconstitutional ex post facto law at its worst.
Americans are uniformed about the tyrannical nature of their criminal justice system. Until they become personally ensnared in the system, Americans believe that police and prosecutors would never convict an innocent person. Once they experience the system, Americans are terrified by the system's indifference to whether a defendant has committed a crime.
Mary Sue Terry, former attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, says the concern of the justice system "has turned from seeking truth to seeking convictions, and our post-conviction efforts are focused on denying any further review."
Ever widening arrest powers are bringing a reality check to more and more Americans. Just before Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who discovers contraband in a car can arrest every occupant if no one admits to ownership of the illicit item. Warn your teen-agers never to get into a car with acquaintances who might have alcohol, drugs or weapons. And be careful whose car you get into yourself.
In a recent Cato Policy Report, Erik Luna says that "the sheer number of idiosyncratic laws and the scope of discretionary enforcement" are making criminals out of many Americans who had no intent to break a law or any knowledge that they had.
A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world.
They were probably terrorists. Y'know, tails'o'mass destruction....
Quote:how could the importers possibly have known that they could be imprisoned for the ordinary everyday business of importing lobster tails for restaurants?
Umm.. You might just want to read up on a few other sources for this particular case. These folks were hardly "innocent". They had paid several hundred thousand dollars in fines in 1999 for violating the same exact laws they were convicted for here so they clearly new what they were doing was illegal.
Quote:The upshot is that three Americans have had their lives ruined by federal prosecutors and judges for violating a Honduran law that the Honduran president, attorney general and embassy say is not on their country's statute books.
This is the kind of misleading crap that skews this entire article. The laws they were convicted under don't exist NOW. They did at the time of the convictions and the Honduran government's interpretation of that law was testified to by the Honduran AG at the trial. Since that time the Honduran government has repealed the law.
There are plenty of cases of true miscarriages of justice but this case isn't one of them.
Two notes here:
"Married men who happen to own guns are being turned into felons by wives who ask for restraining orders when they file for divorce. Prosecutors interpret restraining orders as criminalizing prior gun ownership. A restraining order turns a law-abiding gun owner into a criminal. It is an example of unconstitutional ex post facto law at its worst."
The issue here is abuse of the request of restraining orders. If one man breaks his wife's bones he keeps the guns, until a restraining order is issued. If a woman is just mad at boyfriend or husband - same thing. The problem here is that they aren't enforced and they are over-issued (causing them not be be enforced - not every man's the bad guy). So I whole-heartedly support the intent of the law, but not the practice.
"Ever widening arrest powers are bringing a reality check to more and more Americans. Just before Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who discovers contraband in a car can arrest every occupant if no one admits to ownership of the illicit item. Warn your teen-agers never to get into a car with acquaintances who might have alcohol, drugs or weapons. And be careful whose car you get into yourself. "
This has been occurring for years, and I don't disagree with it either. If your in the car with a scumbag who stashes a bag of coke under the seat and won't fess up, well, it's the company you keep. I (still) have friends that drink beers in a car. Won't drive with them, won't drive them around. Maybe a hard lesson, but a first time possession charge is a court joke anyway. And if it's not the person's first, well, then I really don't feel bad for them.
Quote:Every day, many Americans commit crimes of which they are unaware. Many of the crimes with which Americans are charged are absurd.
In addition to fishin' s response, which points out very precisely the legal points already:
certainly no-one will expect any citizen of any country to know every and any law.
Quote:But professional lobster importers really should do their job professional:
All of these charges were predicated upon alleged violations of the Lacey Act, a federal law originally enacted in 1900 and amended by Congress in 1981, that makes it illegal to import any fish or wildlife that violates not only any United States law or regulation or any State law or regulation, but also "any foreign law."
regardless, throwing someone in jail for 8 years for violating some obscure law was hardly the purpose of our legal system.
we do far too often overprosecute people and ruin their lives.
one man i know of mistook a goat for a deer and shot it during deer hunting season. He was jailed for 6 years and his life ruined due to overzealous prosecutors!! Exactly who are we protecting.
People make mistakes. Any compassionate person should be willing to accept the fallability of others and excuse honest mistakes especially when they did very little harm. At the very least, don't throw them in jail for several years and ruin their lives.
Centroles wrote:one man i know of mistook a goat for a deer and shot it during deer hunting season. He was jailed for 6 years and his life ruined due to overzealous prosecutors!! Exactly who are we protecting.
When I was in prison (working, as a social worker, no wrong ideas :wink: ) one of my clients (not really 'innocent' like most of the others) was convited lifelong for killing a kid'd pet, a rabbit.
He always forgot to tell about the child.
Similar stories happened during my years in the probation office.
I'm rather sure that in the USA -like elsewhere- not "overzealous prosecutors" sentence an accused but a court. And that this court is (usually) forced to sentence regarding the laws.
These laws are 'made' by
us. And
we can change them, even the total legal system.
Centroles wrote:regardless, throwing someone in jail for 8 years for violating some obscure law was hardly the purpose of our legal system.
The laws violated in the example originally posted aren't obscure to anyone in the fisheries industries.
Not only in the US fishing industry - similar laws are to be found worldwide.
One thing i am surprised no one has mentioned is the appeal process. Even the indigent have the right to, and access to appeals. Were it true that prosecutors are willfully and wildly "ruining lives," the appellate system ought to be righting wrongs. If the original contention is true, which i doubt, than there is an inferential indictment of appellate review for not sending cases back or vacating convictions for which there were abuses of rules of evidence, or flawed findings of law or of fact.
Sugar pointed to that oddly out of place, and to my mind, revelatory paragraph about guns. Given that this statement is snatched from thin air around the central thesis, and no other such examples are adduced, i can only see it as an appeal to a knee-jerk reaction of those who equate gun-ownership rights to a bellweather for personal freedom. This piece reeks of an appeal to the reactionary.
Right you are Set.
btw, the case here - the lobster case - was appealed and the convictions were upheld by the 11th Court of Appeals. Now their lawyer is appealing to the USSC.
I see your appeal and I've appealed to raise you an appealing appeal.
One of Rumpole's favorite legal stories:
Mr. Justice Bullingham: "Does the condemned have anything to say?"
Defendant (mumbling): "Bugger all."
Mr. Justice Bullingham: "What did your client say?"
Solliciter for the Defense: "Bugger all, my Lord."
Mr. Justice Bullingham: "Really . . . i could have sworn he said something."
i know of the man who mistook a goat for a deer and shot it during deer hunting season winding up in prison for 6 years because my roommate's father is the sheriff. even he admitted that it was overzealous prosecution and trumped up charges that brought about the harsh sentence that ruined the man's life. these are the same prosecutors that on another occasion tried to charge a 60 year old woman with murder because she accidently stabbed an armed assailant that broke into her home threatening to kill her with his own knife while trying to defend herself. In that instance, the case got such high publicity and I believe the governor had to step in.
i believe the legal system should be changed. far too often, harmless well meaning individuals that would otherwise lead productive lives have them destroyed due to the nature of the system.
Once again, people make mistakes. Any compassionate person should be willing to accept the fallability of others and excuse honest mistakes especially when they did very little harm. At the very least, don't throw them in jail for several years and ruin their lives.
Sugar wrote:"Ever widening arrest powers are bringing a reality check to more and more Americans. Just before Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who discovers contraband in a car can arrest every occupant if no one admits to ownership of the illicit item. Warn your teen-agers never to get into a car with acquaintances who might have alcohol, drugs or weapons. And be careful whose car you get into yourself. "
This has been occurring for years, and I don't disagree with it either. If your in the car with a scumbag who stashes a bag of coke under the seat and won't fess up, well, it's the company you keep. I (still) have friends that drink beers in a car. Won't drive with them, won't drive them around. Maybe a hard lesson, but a first time possession charge is a court joke anyway. And if it's not the person's first, well, then I really don't feel bad for them.
That's a rather incompassionate way of looking at it. Are you claiming that you have never once found yourself with someone in your car or in someone elses car that you aren't such close friends with that they would tell whether or not they use drugs? Drug possession charges, even first time ones are particularly harsh. Except for in one or two states, people will end up in jail for years over them.
We can have a long winded debate elsewhere whether drug use really hurts anyone but the user, if drug possession laws achieve anything or serve any purpose. But I do not, have not and never intend to use illegal drugs. And I would be extremely upset if I go to jail and have my life ruined for a crime that I would never commit. Not only would I be kicked out of med school, I would probably have a very hard time ever finding a job, or even getting my medical certificate even if somehow manage to reenter and complete med school.
It's called "taking your chances". First time possession charges are not harsh. Quantities in the amount of possession for personal use hardly get a mention. No one goes to jail for a first time possession offense unless its a quantity large enough for possession with intent to distribute, and even then it needs to be a sizable quantity and something significant - like coke or heroin.
There is not one person that I've ever heard of in my state that has "gone to jail for years" for a bag of anything being for either in the car they are riding in or on their person - unless they've been busted for possession several other times. I know plenty of people that have drug and alcohol rap sheets a mile long, but I don't know many of them who spend any significant time in the can.
As for my own experience, I have been in cars with people that I don't know and people I do know that I also know use drugs. I am also aware that if we get pulled over and the driver is an ass, we'll all be pulled out, searched, the vehicle will be searched and anyone that doesn't own up to whatever is in there - well, we'll all be dragged down to the station. Then, if they even decide tp bother with all the paperwork for the passengers (this is a 50-50 chance as most cops will hold the driver responsible) I'll either get a dismissal or, if it was really bad, a continuation without a finding. Anyone who gets a harsher penalty has more under there belt than just being at the wrong place at the wrong time, especially here in Mass. And anyone who claims anything different is lying.
Any time I've ever looked at one of these situation in greater depth...there always seems to be other circumstances that make the decisions made seem much more reasonable.
My guess is the same thing would happen here.
Many of the things that seem incredibly stupid and unfair just seem that way because we don't know the entire story.
hobitbob wrote:They were probably terrorists. Y'know, tails'o'mass destruction....
Tails 'o'mass destruction....reminds me of two sisters I used to hang out with in Myrtle Beach...... :wink:
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