Conviction Machine; Standing up to federal prosecutorial abuse

Americans have recently witnessed the perhaps unprecedented abuse of our federal law enforcement agencies, especially the FBI and the Department of Justice, to target the opposition political candidate, morphing into an effort to cripple President Donald Trump upon his unexpected election in 2016. In the process, the FBI and the special counsel, Robert Mueller, targeted not only the president but his closest associates and advisors, looking for anything that might be “pinned” on them. But the long-awaited Mueller Report found no “collusion” between Russia and anyone in the Trump campaign, and it did not recommend prosecution for obstruction of justice. Evidence is coming to light by the day revealing that the entire “Russian collusion” and obstruction narratives were a concoction of the political opposition and high-ranking officials in what used to be our most trusted (at least by many) law enforcement institutions. However, abuse of prosecutorial power is hardly a partisan phenomenon. It is systemic. The ability of prosecutors to “pin some offense” on anyone they choose is the subject of Harvey Silverglate’s book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (2009/2011).3 As Silverglate demonstrated, the average busy professional going about his business will unknowingly commit three felonies in a normal day because there are so many criminal laws in the code. Through statutory analysis, case law, and the experiences of criminal lawyers defending cases across the spectrum of federal statutes, he showed how federal agents and prosecutors are able to prosecute virtually any person and any undertaking or transaction on felony charges. The feds need only to target somebody who has become an object of prosecutorial interest for any reason whatsoever. Today, the federal criminal justice system is dangerously effective at turning citizens into convicts. More than twenty million Americans have criminal convictions, while nearly one-third of Americans have a criminal record. The author discusses the reforms that are needed based on real life examples of recent abuses.