The Federal Protection Racket
The Origin and Foundation of Legally Correct Disciplinary Consequences Against Prosecutors
In the American legal system, all prosecutors —both state and federal—must first become lawyers before they can be prosecutors. And they cannot be lawyers if they have not yet been admitted to practice law in the state of their residential origin. It doesn’t end there. From that point forward they are subject to the professional rules of conduct of that state of origin. Nothing can change that fact. Indeed, each of these standards are foundational to the American legal system.
The Federal Department of Justice Heads Off Disciplinary Consequences for Federal Prosecutors
To avoid the potential for disbarment consequences against wrongdoing federal prosecutors, the United States Department of Justice invented the Office of Professional Responsibility. Notably, this Office has no authority to disbar or otherwise jeopardise the wrongdoing federal prosecutor’s license standing. Why? Because that disciplinary authority resides exclusively with the state bar association that admitted him into the practice of law.
In an obvious effort to protect the wrongdoing federal prosecutor, the OPR renders opinions that may even harshly criticize him with the expectation that it will ward off any public outcry for what he did. This effort is successful because the state bar association is more than happy to abdicate from its “disciplinary” action function. Notably, this strategy lays the groundwork for federal prosecutors to get away with fulfilling the conviction at all costs mission against targeted defendants through extrajudicial publicity. This,despite the fact it contravenes the disciplinary rules of conduct.
The Ringleaders of this Protection Racket
The only way this artifice to defraud can work is if the following actors (and more) join in this protection racket in making sure that the wrongdoing federalprosecutor escapes licensure liability through the conduit of the OPR:
The United States Supreme Court
The 13 Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal
The Federal District Courts in all 50 states
The Counsel for the OPR
· The State Bar Association
All of these actors succeed in putting the blinders on so that these federal prosecutors do not have to look over their shoulders when they commit professional misconduct wrongs of the worst kind.
What is the Result?
The result is that federal prosecutors become free to illicitly target defendants particularly when it comes to their perpetuating jury nullification in their mission to get a conviction at all costs. They most infamously do this through colluding with the news media against the accuse defendant before he can even get to trial. In doing so they trainwreck the defendant’s legal right to be presumed innocent.
What is the Overarching Result?
The overarching result depends upon how the American legal system designates the duty of the prosecutor to achieve justice. All lawyers have duties under the rules of professional conduct. However, the prosecutor has the highest duty of all because he must protect the individual defendant’s fair trial rights and the interests of society as a whole. Thus, when the above actors leave the door wide open for federal prosecutors to get away with the worst forms of professional misconduct, the defendant’s rights and society as whole have to take it on the chin.
What is the Bellwether
The fact that the corruption is so widespread (with federal prosecutors) is only a tip of the iceberg in the disease of state prosecutors operating at the state level. This has been specifically documented in earlier newsletters in addition to the upcoming ones.
A diagram depicting the actors of this federal protection racket is below:
