The DOJ went crazy on Georgia

By Douglas Berman

April 10, 2007

The DOJ went crazy on Georgia, looking for a soul to steal,

DOJ was in a bind and way behind (though still always willin’ to make a deal),

Then DOJ had a theory that smoke and mirrors makes something hot,

And DOJ trumped up an indictment and said: “Jury, let us tell you what:

We’re hope that you don’t care that we’ve invented a crime or two

And since Georgia sought a trial, we’ll enhance her sentence, too.”

With apologies to the Charlie Daniels Band and one of the all-time great songs (which can be enjoyed at this link) I cannot help but doing a (lousy?) song parody to capture my reaction to the recent remarkable reversal of the Georgia Thompson federal conviction conviction by the Seventh Circuit.

Howard Bashman has been all over this case since the Seventh Circuit’s ruling last week (coverage here and here), at Jeralyn at TalkLeft has this terrific post reflecting on the story. I did not pay the story too much attention until today’s news that the case has now been drawn into the US Attorney purge investigation. But, after now listening to the Seventh Circuit oral argument audio via this link (mp3 file), I cannot help but express how troubled we all should be that this prosecution went so far on such paper thin facts.

Only by listening to the Seventh Circuit oral argument can one fully appreciate just how crazy the case was against Georgia Thompson. In short, the feds went after Georgia essentially because how she did her job as a state purchasing employee was imperfect. Of course, I am bothered by the decision by the federal prosecutor to pursue such a weak case. But, perhaps more troubling is that none of the critical safeguards against prosecutorial overreaching — the grand jury, the district judge, the trial jury — could see clearly that Georgia’s actions were not even clearly questionable, let alone a sound basis for convicting her of a serious federal crime.

As Paul Soglin suggests here, I think we all need to make “Question Authority” a modern mantra.

UPDATE: Mark has a great comment below that which deserves to be highlighted in the body of this post. Here is the heart of the comment:

Our trial judges, our fellow citizens, and our fellow defense counsel are way too servile. They aren’t servile to an Administration; they ARE, however, servile to the bureaucratization of criminal law. When President Bush leaves office, this fundamental problem will remain. So using this situation as a chance to bash Bush obscures the problem. It deflects the problem. It avoids the problem. I don’t know the solution, but I do know that misdirected political pot shots are part of the problem.