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Thursday, January 19, 2012

"They are just doing their jobs"

As posted earlier, when I spoke to a representative of the Georgia State Bar about the conduct of Christopher Arnt and Len Gregor during the Tonya Craft trial, she blew off what I was saying with the flip comment, "They're just doing their jobs."

When I asked if "doing their jobs" included lying to jurors, suborning perjury, fabricating documents, and general misconduct, she hung up on me. After all, the Georgia State Bar has to protect privileged wrongdoers. (The Bar is great about going after private attorneys in small practices, people who have no real political constituency. Prosecutors are a protected class, however, and the Georgia State Bar will go to all lengths to protect them, no matter how many crimes prosecutors commit and how many innocent people go to prison.)

Unfortunately, the State of Georgia hardly is alone in protecting criminal behavior on behalf of prosecutors. The National Law Journal reports a most disturbing trend with state bars all over the country:
A report issued Monday by the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law found that of the 707 cases between 1997 and 2009 in which courts explicitly determined that prosecutors had committed misconduct, only six prosecutors -- 0.8 percent -- were disciplined by the State Bar of California. Sixty-seven prosecutors committed misconduct more than once and some as many as five times. The majority of those prosecutors were never publicly disciplined, the project said.
We are not dealing with naive behavior by state bars, but rather willfulness. As I see it, the state bars across the country are sending a clear message to everyone else: Prosecutors are to be protected at all costs, and if one of those costs is thousands of wrongful convictions and the destruction of law that comes with prosecutorial abuse, then so be it. The profession is above the law.

I would challenge ANYONE on ANY state bar in this country to tell me that what I am saying is wrong. Yes, they will spare no expense going after a crappy lawyer who rips off clients, lawyers that have no moneyed constituency behind them, but if my experience with the Georgia State Bar is typical of what happens in the USA, the state bars will do ANYTHING to protect politically-connected people from facing any consequences.

As I said in my interview with Lew Rockwell, the prosecutors have "captured" the "justice" system, and we can see the sorry results.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well explained, Mr Anderson, I wish there was something we could do, but i have no ideal what it would be, The people say they will vote them out, but here we go again so lets see if they will. It's time to get rid of these crooks. Vote them out.

liberranter said...

Even if the people "vote out" corrupt, criminal prosecutards, they will merely be replaced by a fresh crop of the same. Until the system (i.e., state bar associations and the courts) really crack down hard on criminal prosecutors and make them suffer the same punishments as any other brand of non-attorney felon, nothing will change. Of course, since the foxes run the hen house, the idea of any state bar association going after such creatures who hold political power is, as Bill makes clear, a juvenile exercise in wishful thinking.

Anonymous said...

Well the first casualty of the Tonya Craft fiasco has been made public. Rumored for some time, Sheriff Phil Summers has decided not to run for re-election. We can only hope that his protege, Gary Sisk, won't be elected in his place and that Judge Outhouse will make a similar wise decision to forego the election to avoid further public humiliation.

Anonymous said...

Sheriffs election is coming up in Nov. and I just hope and pray that citizens of Catoosa Cty remember the Sheriffs employees who helped try to railroad Tonya Craft and DO NOT VOTE FOR HIM/THEM. I know Major Sisk is campaigning and had some part of her investigation. I just pray people will remember and elect someone outside the current Sheriffs Dept and outside the "Good Ole Boy" club to try and bring some Integrity and Honesty BACK TO CATOOSA COUNTY ONCE AGAIN. WE HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE. WE HAVE GOT TO DO OUR PART IN HELPING ELECT THE RIGHT SHERIFF

Anonymous said...

Mr.Anderson,have you heard that another Chickamauga city school employee has been arrested & being railroaded.Many feel that she is being set up.Read the Chattanooga free press for more.

Anonymous said...

Judge Outhouse is still at it. He is probably going to take parental rights away from a mother because his attorney buddy Michael Giglio (just happens to be occupying Outhouse's old law office) is representing the husband. Claims made without any proof, etc, etc, etc.
You see, Brian's first wife messed him over badly and he has hated women ever since.
The voters need to send him home.

Anonymous said...

Another player in the Tonya Craft fiasco Steven Keith has been given the position of Catoosa County Magistrate judge. Payment for a job well done, I guess.