Former prosecutor Stephen Lopresti will keep his law license after jurors acquitted him of fixing tickets. Lopresti was charged with felony DWI after a 2006 accident in the Bronx. Despite the testimony of two corrupt officers, the jury found Lopresti not guilty.
Lopresti is a former Bronx assistant district attorney. He has been convicted of three prior DWI charges. As a felony, this would have led to the loss of his license.
Officers Julia Goris and Harrington Marshall testified that they fixed traffic tickets.
Goris arrested Lopresti and Marshall administered his Breathalyzer test.
This is the second loss for the prosecutors. This is a case where the jury disliked the corrupt officers so intensely that they would not rely on their testimony to convict a third party.
Source: NY Post
Very interesting story. She has made some excellent points across the board. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, yes, prosecutors are dirt-bags. I know.
But the real interest in this story is the licensing process itself. Communists and criminals like lawyers are big for it. The USSR’s licensing maze was Byzantine. This helps explain why people were so poor. It was next to impossible to start up a shoe string operation because of a plethora of licenses to acquire and the time needed to meet the requirements.
If licensing worked we would not have a lawyer in the White House signing an Obamacare bill or Patriot Act renewals. And we wouldn’t have had a dirt-bag lawyer who did nasty things in the Oval Office with a young vulnerable woman whose life is now in ruins. And congress wouldn’t have been littered with thousands of lawyers dedicated to not only ignoring the Constitution but destroying it.
Licensing by the state has little to do with competency. It is just a dishonest way to eliminate competition by force of arms. Which is probably why lawyers are big for it.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe21.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory64.html
That’s pretty interesting, considering that an osteopathic physician, Jacqueline LoPresti,is facing major drug-running charges in the same area.
Suppose they’re related?
Hey pete … how are you?
Blouise
i’ve seen a local judge do just that. i don’t know what the incident was but this man was trying to sue a police officer, the police dept. and the city. the judge diffused the situation mostly by listening to the man, something the police chief and the city council wouldn’t do. it took her (the judge) all of about 5 minutes.
a.n.,
That was interesting and after reading this blog for the last two years, I can see the point she makes.
An excerpt from an article in The Nation (06/2011), comes to mind. Go directly to paragraph two…
The Trials of Janet Malcolm
by Miriam Markowitz
Attorney Gary Bostwick’s wife, “Janette, a Gestalt therapist says to Malcolm, “In my work, a patient will come in and say, ‘This is the truth about me.’ Then later in therapy, a significant and entirely opposite truth may emerge — but they’re both true.”
“It’s the same with the judicial process,” Bostwick said. “People feel that it’s a search for truth. But I don’t think that is its function in this society. I’m convinced that its function is cathartic. It’s a means for allowing people to air their differences, to let them feel as if they had a forum. You release tension in the social body in some way, whether or not you come to the truth.”
(“Gary Bostwick represented Jeffrey MacDonald in his suit against Joe McGinnis, and was later hired to defend Malcolm in her final legal battles…”)
Malcolm’s newest book is “Iphigenia in Forest Hills” — “Anatomy of a Murder Trial”…)
Gyges
1, June 3, 2011 at 10:35 am
Blouise,
When the witness is the one in charge of finding and presenting those facts, I’d say not trusting the facts is a reasonable response to not trusting the witness.
======================
I guess, but in that case, why even pursue the matter … we have stinky witnesses, the jury will hate them … go, be free
What Gyges and Tim in SF said.
I love this story. I’m glad the former DA got off. People should always get off when the police have tampered with evidence.
Blouise,
When the witness is the one in charge of finding and presenting those facts, I’d say not trusting the facts is a reasonable response to not trusting the witness.
Happens all the time, “jury nullification”. Like the law its a two-edged sword. Since he was acquitted he should keep his license.
I think we use the “job death penalty” too much sometimes. A lawyer shouldn’t lose his license over a DUI but a bus drive should. Committing fraud could fall into a gray area but probably should cost a lawyer his license.
Whom to believe…
“This is a case where the jury disliked the corrupt officers so intensely that they would not rely on their testimony to convict a third party.”
That also seems corrupt … “I don’t like the witness so I’ll ignore the facts” … ??