Jurors Beware: prosecutors routinely compromise the truth-seeking process of our criminal justice system by introducing misleading and perjurious testimony

       November 25, 2019
       Posted by the One Percenters


       Courthouses are usually adorned with a statue of a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales which is supposed to represent that justice is blind. Meaning that the law should be applied fairly and evenly to the competing parties and claims in each case. The function of State and Federal prosecutors is not merely to prosecute crimes, but also to make certain in each and every case that the truth is honored to the fullest extent possible during the course of a criminal prosecution. However, in reality, an alarming number of prosecutors in our country believe by virtue of their education and high-powered positions that they are something of a divine, elite class of people in our society, and as a result, systematically impose their will over the interests of justice.[Fn.1] Government prosecutors are often self-promoters in a good-ol'-boy network with an ingrained us-versus-them mentality. And whether inspired by malice or excess of zeal, it is no secret that "prosecutors repeatedly have violated [their] duty in courtrooms across the nation… [and those] abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions." (Quoting Brad Heath & Kevin McCoy, "Prosecutors' conduct can tip the scales," USA TODAY, 11A (Sept. 23, 2010)).

     A renown criminal defense attorney and Harvard Law School professor testified before the House Judiciary Committee that "[o]n the basis of [his] academic and professional experience no felony is committed more frequently in this country than the genre of perjury and false testimony." And as acknowledged by courts and former prosecutors across our country, prosecutors know full-on they are effectively beyond any meaningful judicial or political review for their insidious practice of serving-up misleading and/or perjurious witness testimony. For those that understand the justice system, the consequence of this jaw-dropping, despicable phenomena, is that innocent people are convicted every day in our country as a result of prosecutors playing God.[Fn.2]


     One of the writers for this blog was on trial back in 1984 and facing 40 years in state prison. A combined total of approximately 30 to 40 witnesses testified (for both sides) over the course of a 3-day jury trial. During a court recess, two prosecutors believed they were alone in the men's room as they secretly confessed: "whatever side has the best liars will win this case." Fortunately, a jury of good citizens in Southeast Wisconsin saw right through the prosecution's "liars" and eventually found the defendant not guilty.


       State and federal prosecutors present witnesses before the courts who are allowed, if not encouraged, to lie under oath. Before taking the stand at trial, Government witnesses are not instructed to testify truthfully. Instead, prosecutors direct them to "stay consistent" with their previous testimony to the grand jury and their interviews with law enforcement. A cooperating government witness in a high-profile federal racketeering trial summed up the mindset of the typical prosecution witness. During cross-examination, this informer for the government admitted that the concept of truth meant:

"If the government said a frog was an elephant, it was an elephant."[Fn.3]


See Barry Tarlow, "Perjuring informers brought to the bar," RICO Report, THE CHAMPION   at 35 (July, 2002)(emphasis supplied). 


     When prosecutors knowingly sit quietly by while a witness they called lies on the stand, is at least the equivalent to a person standing beside you while your home is engulfed in flames that: (1) knows who started the fire; and (2) has the tools and ability to put it out, but chooses to stay silent and do nothing. This author has personally observed, on several occasions, prosecutors remaining silent (some even smiling) to what everyone else in the courtroom recognizes as outright perjury. Yet more egregious and truly conscience shocking, while complicit in perjury (as well as other crimes) the duplicitous prosecutor goes unpunished on a daily basis across our country.


     In the end, jurors must summon the courage to challenge those in the government who put prosecutor's zeal and entitlement over truth, or who would put law enforcement interests over the interests of justice. 


[Fn.1] One example of their elite mindset, a federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, commenced a "cavalier" discussion with a grand jury about his view of the laws in our country:


"Federal law, in order to be a federal crime and to have a crime prosecuted in federal court as      opposed to state court, there has to be what is kind of a stupid word, but you know lawyers; they  have to come up with stupid words to make themselves look important. And since Congress, of  course, is made of primarily lawyers, all our laws are written stupidly, and no one can understand them but lawyers, and that keeps lawyers employed."


Quoting United States v. Van Engel, 809 F. Supp. 1360, 1365 (E.D.Wis. 1992).


[Fn.2] See Sidney Powell, "Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice," 38 (2014)(Brown Books Publishing Group)("As a former assistant U.S. attorney of ten years, who served in the Department of Justice and taught there frequently, [Ms. Powell] knew how prosecutors were supposed to proceed. Doing the job right required a strong sense of honor, integrity, objectivity, and fairness. A federal prosecutor has immense, unbridled power along a broad spectrum of discretion. In the hands of the wrong people, the damage that power can cause is beyond measure. A prosecutor does play God."); see also Limone v. United States, 497 F. Supp. 2d 143, 189 - 192 (D.Mass. 2007)(During a 30-year cover-up, FBI agents' "imaginative direction and professional ingenuity," in developing a professional assassin's perjury in high-profile murder trial, "was known to, supported by, encouraged and facilitated by the FBI hierarchy all the way to the FBI Director.").


[Fn.3] Based on his cooperation, this fable-spinning deal-maker cut a sweetheart deal with prosecutors which enabled him to keep a $5 million real estate development, his home worth $2 million, and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in foreign bank accounts. In the end, the jurors selected in this case from rural Nevada "were no dupes." At the end of a six-week trial the jurors fully exonerated the defendant on all charges after only four hours of deliberations. When interviewed after the case, the foreperson said that in several straw polls, no juror voted to find the defendant guilty on a single count. (Excerpted from "Perjuring informers brought to the bar," at 35).




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