The Justice Department was once all too eager to announce its prosecution of Aaron Swartz and issue press releases on how they piled on additional counts against him. However, after Swartz committed suicide in response to its unrelenting prosecution, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and the Justice Department now want to keep the names of prosecutors in the case a secret so that they will not be held accountable for the abusive case. The Justice Department routinely holds press conferences in which prosecutors crowd stages to take credit for indictments. However, when a prosecution is denounced globally as excessive and cruel, the Justice Department wants to prevent the public from knowing the identities of the prosecutors responsible.
Attorney General Eric Holder left no question about the Administration’s support of the abusive treatment of Aaron Swartz by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Deputy US Attorney Stephen Heymann. Heymann was previously linked to a suicide in another prosecution. We have discussed the abusive prosecution earlier and Swartz’s suicide after months of unrelenting threats and coercion. Holder heralded the treatment of Swartz as an example of the “good use of prosecutorial discretion.” Swartz’s girlfriend has come forward to denounce Holder and the Obama Administration for its misrepresentations in the case.
Ortiz previously tried to dampen criticism with a statement that misrepresented facts in the case. For his part, Holder repeated his solemn obligation to prosecute crimes but that fervent belief in the rule of law was missing when Obama promised CIA officials that no one would be prosecuted for torture. It was missing when Holder and his aides found no ability to prosecute anyone for the torture program. Of course, torture is not just a federal crime but a war crime, but it did not rise to the level of releasing academic papers for free from a collection that MIT later released to the public for free.
Holder and Ortiz sought 35 years for Swartz and amended the charges to add new counts before his suicide.
Of course, despite the insistence by Holder that this prosecutor was a model of prosecutorial discretion and professionalism, they want to hide the names of those model prosecutors. Since they are pledging to continue such prosecutions, they will presumably hide the identities of prosecutors in future cases in the Administration’s continued campaign against citizens.
U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Christina Sterling stated that “Our argument against it is that not only does it have an effect on the people involved in the case, but there’s also sometimes a residual effect.” This is not an effort to redact personal information like telephone numbers and addresses, which is standard. It is an effort to remove the names of the prosecutors which are historically part of the public access to trials and court records. Such moves would further insulate the Justice Department from accountability for misconduct. It would also further a trend toward greater and greater secrecy in trials from the names of witnesses or alleged victims to types of evidence. Yet, Defendants are fully exposed to public review and scrutiny.
Source: Boston Herald
The bully religion at work.
They are all rogue and mavericky when prosecuting a helpless victim, but they run like hell when those they are frivolously prosecuting start killing them (see prosecutor withdraws from Aryan Brotherhood case).
Abusive prosecution is endemic to the plea-bargin process – either plead guilty to a crime you did not willfully commit or be prosecuted, at trial, where the gov’t has a 97% conviction rate to imprison the victim for an abusive long term sentence for having the balls to fight the injustice. Almost no one chooses to fight. Thus, indictment = conviction. Prosecutors and the federal government are free from liability for compensation from wrongful and abusive prosecution. Thus, no liability = no accountability It is a corrupt system that produces injustice on a daily basis.
Mr. O promised a new order of business when he ran back in 2008. He has done a remarkable job. He has taken the GWB policies and made them worse with regards how we treat “suspected terrorists”, don’t hunt them down and hold them indefinitely, just kill them with a drone. Financial fraud? Is that a crime? I’ll get back to you on that after I talk to the bankers. Pot use? We’ll leave it up to the states. NOT. Transparency? Transparency means what I say it means. Yep, Mr. O is different than GWB, he’s worse.
Funny how times have changed. A fraud like Rudy Giuliani becomes an American Idol by the use of spectacular public prosecutions, like the TV arrest of a stockbroker, only to consistently lose at trial. Ms. Ortiz hounds a good young man to death and suddenly her striving for prosecutorial glory blows up in her face. Mr. Holder, the failed Attorney General, lacking the courage to take on real criminal conduct, now wants to shield his resume building publicity seekers from the consequences of their vile behavior. Payback is a bitch and we have an Attorney General who would do Ed Meese proud. The American Justice System, so proud in conception, has become a cruel hoax played upon the people.
The wall of silence that hides wrongdoers is becoming more pervasive. I have been trying to find out the identity of the officer who nearly killed Iraq war vet and protester, Scott Olsen, by hitting him in the head with a tear gas grenade. Then when people came to assist him, the same officer thew a “flash-bang” grenade at them. The authorities have been anything but forthcoming in that incident, but sleuthing by an Oakland investigative reporter indicates it was Oakland Police Officer Robert Roche. who has already allegedly killed three people. I have been unable to find any follow up story about Roche being investigated, much less fired, suspended or prosecuted. I won’t hold my breath.
Source: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/cop-identified-in-scott-olsen-incident/Content?oid=3131933
Is that Ortiz itchBay still the Prosecutor?
What?
Not so proud to be an okie from Muskogee?
They’re public employees, therefore they have to be held publicity accountable. No running or hiding. Chickens. A few words of advice to those prosecutors: Think before you act.
Hat bout the transparency issue Obama campaigned upon…. Oh yeah… I’m in office…. Let them eat cake….
Secret memos
Secret laws
Secret evidence
Secret DA’s
Smell the transparency…
Feelin’ the heat of world-wide condemnation and not likin’ it one little bit.
“It is strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest.”
… like getting elected.
“How about ‘do no wrong’ first and not have to worry about covering anything up. It’s much easier even in the most sociopathic of political minds.”
But it doesn’t feed the needs of their personality disorder if they do no wrong to gain personal advantage, Darren. 😉
How about “do no wrong” first and not have to worry about covering anything up. It’s much easier even in the most sociopathic of political minds.
Nobody will make holder go in the present administration. Crooks protect crooks because they mutually have enough dirt on the other for blackmail purposes.
And what raff said.
Who knew Franz Kafka wrote non-fiction.
Signed,
Josef K.
Holder is Obama’s choice. This is Obama’s policy. Just call him, Obama that is, Mr. Transparency.
Holder has to go.
So much for “SunShine Laws”…..