Welcome to the US Dept of Justice

[Musburger]

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer speaks the NY Bar Association at the following link.

The talk is a presentation by the Justice Department which defends and explains the current policies with respect to DPAs (Deferred Prosecution Agreements). Basically, Breuer tries to establish the point that it is difficult to convict corporate top dogs criminally, so they compromise by taking other actions such as having the corporation admit to wrong-doing and/or imposing fines. He then goes on to say these changes have resulted in more responsible corporate actions and uses Siemen's as an example.

Of course, a lot of this is BS. There have been many, many instances where corporations - most notably pharmaceuticals and banks - have paid fines and then continue committing the same offenses. Without jail time, fines are merely a cost of doing business.

Below is an excerpt from the next to last paragraph of the speech:

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[Mr. Deez]

Frankly, it gives credibility to the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world when they complain about "the system."

Some black guy off the streets can rob a convenience store of $200, and he'll get prosecuted for a very easy-to-prove crime that will imprison him for 20 years or longer. If you commit a corporate fraud and steal billions, the potential crime is very hard to prove, giving you a ton of leverage in getting a light sentence and sometimes even no prosecution at all.

Of course, Jackson and gang lose me when they take the big leap and claim that it's a big racial conspiracy, when it's actually a rich guy conspiracy. (They can't say that, because guys like Jackson get tons of corporate money themselves - sometimes through shakedowns; sometimes through voluntary contributions to his organizations.)

Nevertheless, the message is that if you're a street punk, it's OK to steal. You just need to have the right friends and steal the right way.

 

[Crockett]

In law, in medicine, in my choosing where my kid will go to college or have nice straight teeth, we have to deal with the issue of finite resources and costs centers that if pursued to the ideal would exceed available resources. It would be nice to think that when the issue is "justice" you don't let money cloud your judgement. But prosecutors don't have the resources to go to court with every criminal case and plea bargains are a reasonable and realistic response.

When you have a "nation of law and not of men" you'd think that ideally prosecutors would want a conviction for every identified crime. But sometimes, they correctly use their judgement in higher interests of what's best for the community rather than following the letter of the law. I think I trust prosecutors to exerciese prosecutorial distcretion, but when influences corrupt we need our media and other prosectors to jump in and make a stink.

 

[Mr. Deez]

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[UT1986]

I'm thinking that William Black would call ******** on this by the US Dept. of Justice.

 

[Musburger]

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[UT1986]

thanks for posting Musburger. I hadn't read Bill Black's website in a a couple of weeks. I figured he would have interesting things to say about the Justice Dept. on this.