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Glory-hound prosecutors disgrace justice

March 19, 2008 on 6:15 pm | In Social & Political Issues | No Comments

Eliot Spitzer was brought down by the same sort of scum he once was when he romped roughshod over people as a U.S. prosecutor. It’s the same sort of glory hound who persecuted bumptious Conrad Black, a poor rich boy who committed no offence aside from arrogance and is now in prison.

They’re the same sort of self-serving swine as those who framed O. J. Simpson and were defeated by a jury who saw through their contrivances. But O.J.’s fame-monger prosecutors ended up millionaires as authors and TV personalities, which took the sting off their rightful defeat in front of the jury. (That’s not to opine whether O.J. actually did the deed. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The point is the prosecutors never had a case and knew damn well they had no case but knew they’d become celebrities for trying.)

Glory-seeking prosecutors are rife in North America, and that includes Mexico, which one might rightly argue is a band of warlords rather than a real nation with an honest legal system.

One might also argue that in large part there is no honourable system of justice in Canada or the U.S. After all, in Mexico even a peasant can avoid the excesses of the system with a simple bribe to bolster the wallet of an underpaid cop who is expected in that culture to use his franchise to extort enough to live on. It’s a kind of random tax.

Because theirs is a culture of family and connections, not laws, Mexicans have an innate understanding of such realities. (North Americans can’t get the same benefit unless they’re wealthy or well connected and tuned in to the mysteries of power.)

North Americans are led to believe in rule of law and that’s what we expect. Too often we don’t get that.

We get public officials bounty hunting celebrities or persons they dislike.

Spitzer, a bigheaded bozo, actually did that to prostitution rings of the very sort he patronized. Being a Democrat under the evil Republican regime that currently rules America, Spitzer should have kept it in his pants. He had to know they’d be hunting him down.

And of course the public would learn of his humiliation by the very slime who were prosecuting him and leaked the information to the media. Have they committed an offence? If so, they’ll never be punished for it in the American “system” of justice, which too often is neither systematic nor just.

For that matter, is anyone seriously thinking that disgraced and fired ex-RCMP boss Giuliano Zaccardelli will face criminal charges for disclosing during an election that an investigation was underway that might reflect badly on the Liberals and thus support the Tory regime of Canada’s dictator wannabe, Steve Harper? It’s axiomatic that those who don’t deserve to carry a badge eagerly support repressive measures and regimes. Surely a police official trying to influence an election is guilty of something more than being fired.

And surely prosecutors who pander to their own interests at the expense of persons wrongly accused are also guilty of something. But when does the law play a role?

Spitzer was brought down by another of his ilk in an unjust manner. That’s pretty close to the Mexican way of doing things. Too damn close for comfort.

Frank Touby