Justice and Law Enforcement: America’s Corrupt Institutions

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research, August 27, 2014

paulcraigroberts.org

Region: USA

Theme: Law and Justice, Police State & Civil Rights

Every public institution in the United States and most private ones are corrupt.

To tell this story would be a multi-book task.  Lawrence Stratton and I have written one small volume of the story.  Our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, now with two editions and multiple printings, documents the corruption of law in the United States and has been cited in rulings by Federal District and Appeal Court judges. 

 Law is just one public institution, but it is a corner stone of society. When law goes, everything goes.

 Only about 4 percent of federal felony cases go to trial.  Almost all, 96 percent, are settled by negotiated plea bargains. Law & Order Conservatives condemn plea bargains for the wrong reason.  They think plea bargains let criminals off easy.

 In fact, plea bargains are used by prosecutors to convict the innocent along with the guilty.  Plea bargains eliminate juries and time-consuming trials, that is, plea bargains eliminate all work on the part of prosecutors and police and lead to high conviction rates for prosecutors, the main indicator of their career success. Once upon a time, prosecutors pursued justice. They carefully examined police investigations and only indicted suspects whose conviction they thought could be obtained by a jury.  Sloppy police work was discarded.

 No more.  Once indicted and provided with a lawyer, the defendant learns that his lawyer has no intention of defending him before a jury.  The lawyer knows that the chances of getting even a totally innocent defendant found not guilty is slim to non-existent. Prosecutors, with the consent of judges, suborn perjury for which they are permitted to pay with money and dropped charges against real criminals, and prosecutors routinely withhold evidence favorable to the defendant. If a prosecutor detects that a defendant intends to fight, the prosecutor piles on charges until the defendant’s lawyer convinces the defendant that no jury will dismiss all of so many charges and that the one or two that the jury convicts on will bring a much longer sentence than the lawyer can negotiate.  The lawyer tells the defendant that if you go to trail, you will be using up the time of prosecutors and judges, and the inconvenience that you cause them will send you away for many a year.

 In some state and local courts it is still possible on occasion to get an almost fair trial if you can afford an attorney well enough connected to provide it.  But even in non-federal courts the system is stacked against the defendant.  Many prisons have been privatized, and privatized prisons require high incarceration rates in order to be profitable.  The same holds for juvenile detention prisons.  Not long ago two Pennsylvania judges were convicted for accepting payments from private detention prisons for each kid they sentenced.

Judges prefer plea bargains despite the fact that plea bargains amount to self-incrimination, because plea bargains dispense with time-consuming trials that cause backed-up and crowded court dockets.  Trials also demand far more work on the part of a judge than accepting a plea bargain.

The fact of the matter is that in America today you are expected to convict yourself. Even your lawyer expects it.  The torture is not physical; it is psychological.  The system is severely biased against the defendant.  Conviction by a jury brings a much heavier sentence than conviction by a deal that the defendant’s attorney negotiates with the prosecutor’s office.  All the prosecutor wants is a conviction.  Give him his conviction for his record as an effective prosecutor, and you get off lighter.

The injustice lies in the fact that the rule applies to the innocent as well as to the guilty.
The prosecutor and often the judge do not care whether you are innocent or guilty, and your lawyer knows that it does not matter to the outcome.

The police have learned that such a small number of cases go to trial that their evidence is seldom tested in court. Consequently, often police simply look for someone who might have committed the crime based on past criminal records, select someone with a record, and offer him or her up as the perpetrator of the crime. This police practice is one explanation for high recidivism rates.

 In the totally corrupt American criminal justice (sic) system, anyone indicted, no matter how innocent, is almost certain to be convicted.

 Let’s take the case of Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.  Judging by the reported evidence in the media and testimony by those familiar with the case, Don Siegelman, a popular Democratic governor of Alabama was a victim of a Karl Rove operation to instruct Democrats that their political party would not be permitted a comeback in executive authority in the Republican South.

There is no doubt but that the Alabama Republican newspapers and TV stations are political tools. And there is little doubt that former Republican US Attorneys Alice Martin and Leura Canary and Republican US federal district court judge Mark Fuller were willing participants in Karl Rove’s political campaign to purge the South of popular democrats.

Republican US district court judge Mark Fuller was arrested in Atlanta this month for beating his wife in an Atlanta hotel.  The judge, in whose honor courts must rise, was charged with battery and taken to the Fulton County jail at 2:30AM Sunday morning August 10. If you look at the mug shot of Mark Fuller, he doesn’t inspire confidence.  http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10748 and  http:/www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39493.htm  Fuller was a bitter enemy of Siegelman and should have recused himself from Siegelman’s trial, but ethical behavior required more integrity than Fuller has.

Among many, Scott Horton, a professor of law at Columbia University has provided much information in Harper’s magazine involving the corruption of Fuller and the Republican prosecuting attorneys, Alice Martin and Leura Canary.

See: http://harpers.org/blog/2008/02/another-abusive-prosecution-by-alice-martin/  and 

http://harpers.org/blog/2008/02/cbs-more-prosecutorial-misconduct-in-siegelman-case-alleged/  and 

http://harpers.org/blog/2007/08/judge-fuller-and-the-trial-of-don-siegelman/  and 

http://harpers.org/blog/2007/06/siegelman-sentenced-riley-rushes-to-washington/  and 

http://harpers.org/blog/2007/10/karl-rove-linked-to-siegelman-prosecution/   and 

http://harpers.org/blog/2007/12/karl-rove-william-canary-and-the-siegelman-case/  and

http://harpers.org/blog/2008/02/rove-and-siegelman/   and 

http://harpers.org/blog/2007/08/the-pork-barrel-world-of-judge-mark-fuller/   and 

see OpEdNews February 6, 2012, “Why did Karl Rove and his GOP Thugs target Don Siegelman in Alabama?”  and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennett-l-gershman/why-is-don-siegelman_b_3094147.html

Google the case and you will see everything but justice.

The Republican frame-up of Siegelman is so obvious that various courts have overturned some of the bogus convictions. But the way “justice” works in America makes courts fearful of discrediting the criminal justice (sic) system by coming down hard on an obvious frame-up.  To make the fact obvious  that federal courts are used for political reasons is detrimental to the myth of justice in which gullible Americans believe.
Siegelman’s innocence is so obvious that 113 former state attorneys general have come out in his support.  These attorneys general together with federal judges and members of Congress have written to Obama and to US attorney general Eric Holder urging Siegelman’s release from prison.  Instead of releasing the innocent Siegelman, Obama and Holder have protected the Republican frameup of a Democratic governor.

Remember, what did President George W. Bush do when his vice president’s chief aid was convicted for the felony of revealing the name of a secret CIA operative?  Bush wiped out the sentence of Cheney’s convicted operative.  He remained convicted, but served no sentence.

 Remember, President George H. W. Bush’s administration pardoned the neoconservative criminals in the Reagan administration who were convicted by the Reagan administration for crimes related to Iran-Contra.

So why hasn’t the Obama regime pardoned former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman who unlike other pardoned parties is actually innocent? Siegleman was bringing the Democratic Party back in the corrupt Republican state of Alabama. He was a successful governor who would have been US senator, and Karl Rove apparently exterminated him politically in order to protect the Republican hold on the South.

It is extremely ironic that the formerly solid Democratic South, plundered, looted, and raped by Republican armies, votes Republican.  If anything shows the insouciance of a people, the South’s Republican vote is the best demonstration.  The South votes for a party that destroyed the South and its culture.  There is no greater evidence of a people totally ignorant of, or indifferent to, their history than the Southern people who vote Republican.

Obama can’t pardon Siegelman, which Justice requires, because Obama cannot confront the self-protective mechanism in the Justice (sic) Department.  Obama is too weak of a person to stand up for Justice.  Obama has acquiesced to the Republican and DOJ frame-up of a popular Democratic Governor.
Justice in America?  It is not worth 5 cents on the New York stock exchange.
If you want to stand up for justice, click here: http://www.gofundme.com/Railroading-Don-Siegelman

Police are as remote from concerns of justice as are prosecutors. Generally speaking, while there might be a few exceptions, the ranks of the police seem to be filled with violent psychopaths.  The police seldom show any self-control and their violent nature makes police a great threat to society.  Invariably, police bring violence to the scene:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlY9C6pzxKc

Killing unarmed black men seems to be a police specialty. http://truth-out.org/news/item/25815-lapd-refusal-to-release-information-on-in-custody-deaths-feeds-community-mistrust
Assaults and killings by police seldom make it beyond the local news. The lack of national coverage of crimes committed by police against the public leaves Americans with the incorrect impression that the use of excessive force by police is an occasional and unfortunate result but not a real problem.  Police apologists say that an occasional mistake is the price of being safe. But police violence is an expression of police culture, not an unfortunate mistake, and what we hear is only the tip of the iceberg.  http://rare.us/story/5-reasons-the-police-brutality-in-ferguson-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/
The large number of violent acts that police commit against members of the public are not entirely the fault of the police.  It is well known that bullies and psychopaths are attracted to the power over others conveyed by a police badge.  Considering this known fact, police should receive training in anger management.  Instead, they are trained to

regard the public as an enemy against whom the police should take no chances.  Police are trained to subdue a suspect with violence and question the suspect later when the suspect is under control in jail.  This procedure means that even those who are totally innocent bear all the risks of being confronted by police.

Governments, media, and citizens are also responsible.  They have allowed police to be militarized and to be inappropriately trained.  Indeed, city, county, state, and federal governments have removed all barriers to the use of excessive force by police.  Handed such power, the police use it.

In response to my column about Ferguson, former police officers wrote to me to report that they left the police force because they could not accept the culture of violence that is now ingrained in police departments.  What these former police officers could not accept causes no problem for the Fox “News” talking heads.  http://rare.us/story/jon-stewart-returns-with-powerful-ferguson-monologue-aimed-at-fox-news/

Can police departments be cleansed of their violent culture?  Can prosecutors serve justice instead of career?  Can Fox “News” talking heads cease being racists?  Don’t hold your breath.

Tar Sands: US State Department Assists Enbridge Pipeline Giant Bypass Environmental Review

State Department Overseers of Contentious Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline

By Steve Horn

Global Research, August 28, 2014

desmogblog.com

Region: Canada, USA

Theme: Environment, Oil and Energy

The Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and other green groups recently revealed that pipeline giant Enbridge got U.S. State Department permission in response to its request to construct a U.S.-Canada border-crossing tar sands pipeline without earning an obligatory Presidential Permit.
Enbridge originally applied to the Obama State Department to expand capacity of its Alberta Clipper (now Line 67) pipeline in November 2012, but decided to avoid a “Keystone XL, take two” — or a years-long permitting battle — by creating a complex alternative to move nearly the same amount of diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) across the border.
The move coincides with the upcoming opening for business of Enbridge’s “Keystone XL” clone: the combination of the Alberta Clipper expansion (and now its alternative) on-ramp originating in Alberta and heading eventually to Flanagan, Ill., the Flanagan South pipeline running from Flanagan, Ill. to Cushing, Okla. and the Cushing, Okla. to Port Arthur, Texas Seaway Twin pipeline.
Together, the three pieces will do what TransCanada‘s Keystone XL hopes to do: move dilbit from Alberta’s tar sands to Port Arthur’s refinery row and, in part, the global export market.
Environmental groups have reacted with indignation to the State Department announcement published in the Federal Register on August 18. The public commenting period remains open until September 17.
Jim Murphy, senior counsel for NWF, referred to it as an “illegal scheme,” while a representative from 350.org says Enbridge has learned from the lessons of its corporate compatriot, TransCanada.
“When we blocked Keystone XL, the fossil fuel industry learned that they have a much stronger hand to play in back rooms than on the streets,” said Jason Kowalski, policy director for 350.org. “They will break the law and wreck our climate if that’s what it takes for them to make a buck.”
But as the old adage goes, it takes two to tango.
That is, influential State Department employees helped Enbridge find a way to smuggle an additional 350,000 barrels of tar sands per day across the border without public hearings or an environmental review.
Thus far, those following the issue have described the Enbridge maneuver as some sort of bureaucratic snafu.
“If anyone who’s high up in the State Department actually knew about this, they’d be up in arms,” 350.org’s Kowalski said in a recent interview with EnergyWire in reaction to State’s decision.
The reality, though, is more sordid. That is, higher-ups made this call, not just “bad apples.”
One of them has a key tie to the oil and gas industry, while the other helped lay the groundwork for the controversial “extraordinary rendition” torture program as a Bush Administration State Department attaché.

Patrick Dunn’s Industry Ties

On July 24, State Department staffer Patrick Dunn signed off on a letter rubber-stamping Enbridge’s pipeline chess move. In giving Enbridge authorization on official State Department letterhead, Dunn claimed it was not a form of authorization.
“Enbridge’s intended changes…do not require authorization from the U.S. Department of State,” Dunn wrote in the letter. “[W]e will consider [your] letter and its attachments to amend and to be part of your Presidential Permit for the capcity (sic) expansion in Line 67.”
Dunn’s letter does not give his job title, perhaps leading NWF to write him off as simply a “mid-level State Department official” in an August 25 blog post. His current position and State Department background, however, tells a different story.
A February 2014 letter obtained by DeSmogBlog lists Dunn’s role as deputy office director for the Bureaus of European Affairs, the Western Hemisphere and African Affairs.
More specifically, Dunn heads up the three regions’ bureaus of energy resources, described as a “chief of staff” in an August 11 article published on Dominican Today. That article highlighted Dunn’s efforts — alongside Vice President Joe Biden — to cut deals with the Dominican Republic’s government, turning the country into an importer of gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the U.S.
Before working his way up to the powerful Bureau of Energy Resources, Dunn helped lead numerous U.S. Embassies abroad, including in Honduras and Angola as top economic adviser, and Cape Verde as deputy embassy director.
What came before any of that, though, may go a long way in explaining how he came to oversee such an important cross-border pipeline project in the first place.
According to the Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association (PESA), Dunn graduated in 1997 from the Association’s Foreign Service Officer Energy Industry Training Program, which is funded in part by the State Department and has a Board of Directors stuffed with oil and gas industry executives.
“PESA’s Foreign Service Officer Energy Industry Training Program was created in 1993 to increase the practical knowledge of energy attaches and economic officers with responsibility for oil and gas issues stationed in American embassies in countries where energy is a major issue,” reads a Program description.
A glance at PESA’s website demonstrates that industry executives regularly serve as presenters at the Foreign Service Officer Energy Industry Training Program.

Deborah Klepp’s Ties to Rendition, Corrupt Contracting

Though Dunn wrote the July 24 letter to Enbridge, he is not the only senior level State Department staffer overseeing the Enbridge Alberta Clipper file.
Deborah Klepp, whose name is listed at the very bottom of the State Department’s August 12 announcement on the Alberta Clipper, currently serves as director of the Department of State’s office of environmental quality and transboundary issues.
In the past, she has helped to head up U.S. Embassies in Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Burkina Faso, as well as in Estonia and Poland.
While working as deputy director of the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on a two-year appointment starting in July 2001, Klepp knowingly or unknowingly got involved in what many would likely consider her most controversial work at the State Department: planting the seeds of the Bush Administration’s “extraordinary rendition” torture program.

“Finnish authorities identified a single Miami Air flight…that travelled back and forth between Helsinki and Manas U.S. Air Force transit base in Kyrgyzstan in a single day in December 2002,” explains a February 2013 Open Society Foundation report titled, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition.”

The U.S. Embassy in Bishkek is only a 30-minute drive away from the Transit Center at Manas located at Manas International Airport, which served as a key U.S. military base from 2001-2009. After her time serving in Bishkek, Klepp wrote a paper for the National Defense University about how the U.S. established the base during her time working on the ground there.
Omitted from Klepp’s paper: the sheer amount of corruption and insider dealing involved in maintaining the base from the day that it opened. This resulted in a damning December 2010 congressional investigation on Manas and fuel contracting and other ownership issues.

Deborah Klepp and Guantanamo Bay

Beyond rendition and corruption at Manas, Klepp also had at least some knowledge of torture of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
In a document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), then Secretary of State Colin Powell sent a cable in January 2002 to Klepp and James Boughner, at that time the deputy director of the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan and now head of economic affairs for the U.S. Embassy in Germany.

Image Credit: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Requesting the cable be passed onto then-U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, A. Elizabeth Jones and her executive assistant at the time, Karen Decker, the cable discusses Guantanamo Bay (“GTMO”), “access to the detainees” and three congressional delegations (“CODELs”) to GTMO going on at the time.
That cable also discusses International Committee of the Red Cross (“ICRC) “technical recommendations,” but the State Department redacted what those recommendations were.

Image Credit: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
The New York Times revealed in 2004 that a confidential ICRC memo stated the “American military [had] intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion ‘tantamount to torture’ on prisoners at Guantanamo.”
Klepp’s husband Mark B. Horowitz — determined by viewing property records — also formerly served as a senior-level State Department employee. A 2012 State Department telephone directory lists Horowitz as an employee of the Office of Information Resource Management, where he served as ”ISSO (For S/ES Only).”
In the tech world, “ISSO” is shorthand for Information System Security Officer or Chief Information Security Officer, who oversees institutional computer system networks and online infrastructure.

“Local Corrupt Practices”

An October 2008 State Department diplomatic cable provided to Wikileaks by whistleblower Chelsea Manning discusses what Columbia University political scientist Alexander Cooley describes as the “local rules” of doing business in Kyrgyzstan and the Central Asian region at-large.
“[O]ne businessman said that doing business here is ‘like doing business in the Yukon’ in the nineteenth century, i.e. only those willing to participate in local corrupt practices are able to make any money,” explains the cable.
But the latest wheeling and dealing by Enbridge raises a troubling question: have the “local corrupt practices” conducted by State Department diplomats abroad snaked their way home in order to help the tar sands export industry?
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons