Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
One of the main concerns we Americans should have is about the state of our criminal justice system. How a society deals with the issue of criminality is one of the ways that we all can judge its freedom from oppression. This country has been selling our “democracy” to the world for 8 decades now as an example of how a modern nation should operate.
Government employees are too often given excessive discretion, and therefore excessive power to do as they may please, at the expense of others. If the rights of the people are to be respected, that may well suggest that the laws under which those employees function are too flexible. It should not matter whether they can successfully be portrayed in the media as "good guys" and the others as "bad guys."
Consider the Duke University "rape" case and the politically directed actions of (now former) prosecutor Nifong. Consider also the media generated storm over "White Hispanic" George Zimmerman's killing of a cute little, and therefore "blameless," Black kid named Trayvon. The same Constitution applies to "good guys" and "bad guys" alike. The civil forfeiture case mentioned at the top of the article is an egregious example of governmental overreach.
Here's another case, involving governmental use of powers of eminent domain, to confiscate private property. Are there limits to governmental authority or has the Constitution become merely a porous "parchment barrier?"
Excellent article by J Turley. Shows how prosecutors use flurries of (perhaps unwarrated) prosecutions of small fry to hide that they aren’t prosecuting the big crooks.