December 14,
1997
Vin Suprynowicz
In general, prosecutors are considered immune from lawsuits for actions taken in the routine execution of their jobs. |
In the first case, a Washington
state prosecutor named Lynne Kalina had sought an arrest warrant in a Seattle
school burglary case by personally swearing that suspect Rodney Fletcher's
fingerprints had been found in a school where he was not authorized to
be, and that he'd been identified as a suspect. Both statements turned
out to be untrue. But based on the sworn statement, Fletcher was arrested
and spent a day in jail.
In general, prosecutors are
considered immune from lawsuits for actions taken in the routine execution
of their jobs. But former defendant Fletcher sued, contending such immunity
no longer applies when government agents knowingly lie.
The high court unanimously
agreed. That's good news, and the court's unanimity is reassuring. Any
other decision would have offered carte blanche to prosecutorial skullduggery.
The case could also have far-reaching
implications. For instance, it's well known that ATF agents lied when they
said they suspected the Rev. David Koresh was operating a drug lab in his
church -- the only way they could get access to military equipment and
training facilities in preparation for their infamous 1993 raid in Waco,
Texas. |
...Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's opinion in the new case Hudson vs. United States emphasizes that "only the clearest proof" should be allowed to show that a civil remedy is really a criminal punishment ... triggering double-jeopardy protection. |
In the second
new case, however, and by a slim 5-4 majority, the court sharply limited
the effects of its own double-jeopardy ruling in the 1989 case United States
vs. Halper. In Halper the court held that -- under the constitutional protection
against double jeopardy -- prosecution was barred if an earlier civil sanction
was especially harsh and disproportionate to the harm supposedly caused
to the government.
But Chief Justice William
H. Rehnquist's opinion in the new case Hudson vs. United States emphasizes
that "only the clearest proof" should be allowed to show that a civil remedy
is really a criminal punishment ... triggering double-jeopardy protection.
The case was brought by three
Oklahoma bankers, including the namesake John Hudson, who were determined
to have arranged a series of loans that violated federal banking statutes
and ultimately contributed to the failure of their banks. The three men
in 1989 agreed to pay fines of $16,500, $15,000 and $12,500, respectively,
and to quit the banking business.
Three years later the threesome
were indicted on federal conspiracy charges stemming from the same transactions.
Invoking the 1989 Supreme Court case, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
said the prosecutions could proceed, because the fines imposed by the government
were not so grossly disproportional to the government's damages in the
bank failures as to render the fines ''punishment.''
On Dec. 10, the Supreme Court
upheld the 10th Circuit, but then went much further toward reversing United
States vs. Halper. The slim five-judge majority said judges should examine
the legislative intent of a statute to determine whether it was meant to
constitute a civil remedy or a criminal penalty.
The case of civil fines and
criminal prosecutions is admittedly a gray area. If a driver pays a $100
speeding ticket but is later determined to have had the body of a murder
victim in the trunk of his car that night, no one would want to see him
protected from a criminal prosecution for the murder because he'd "already
paid a civil fine" for a related offense. |
The high court now seems to be backing away -- under political pressure related to the hysterical "War on Drugs" -- from even such mild limits as they have previously placed on prosecutors using civil fines and seizures, and then criminal prosecutions, as a one-two punch to break defendants both emotionally and financially. |
But in today's
real world, the government often does use fines, "civil" asset seizures,
and regulatory "administrative procedures" as ways of punishing accused
drug dealers, pornographers, and the like, long before they have their
day in court ... and regardless of any original legislative intent.
In fact, prosecutors often
immediately seize an accused party's bank accounts, home, and other assets,
making it impossible for the accused to retain any counsel but a harried
public defender, or to support himself and properly fund a trial defense
that could take months or years.
Such defendants are thus effectively
coerced by government-imposed poverty into accepting a plea bargain just
to spare their families from begging on the streets -- hardly a recipe
for justice.
When the three Oklahoma bankers
agreed to pay their 1989 fines, did they have a reasonable expectation
that they would then be done with federal penalties for their admitted
offenses, and could resume their lives? Is it really all right for different
federal agents to show up years later, saying, "Your deal with those guys
isn't binding on us. Thanks for the dough, but we're from a different department,
and you're under arrest"?
The high court now seems to
be backing away -- under political pressure related to the hysterical "War
on Drugs" -- from even such mild limits as they have previously placed
on prosecutors using civil fines and seizures, and then criminal prosecutions,
as a one-two punch to break defendants both emotionally and financially.
In the end, that will only
erode confidence that any defendant can really get a fair shake in our
courts. |
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor
of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at
vin@lvrj.com. Now reaching more than
a million readers, the column is syndicated in the United States and Canada
via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. Ask
the editor why your daily newspaper doesn't carry "The Libertarian."
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