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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (24459)	12/8/2006 7:54:07 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35834

<< "Our justice system is geared towards making money for defense attorneys at the expense of justice, it sometimes seems." >> I couldn't agree more. Although this case is far more egregious, my personal experience taught me first hand that if you have the money for a good defense attorney, you can avoid having justice served. I have written about my success in the prosecution of criminals for fraud. Though we may have been successful in getting convictions or plea agreements, we rarely saw justice properly served. When you considered the harm these people caused & how the perps profited from their deeds, the penalties assessed were pathetic. The first couple of cases I was appalled how easy they got off. I was so disillusioned that I felt like quitting. It didn't seem worth the effort. The folks I worked with agreed that crime paid in each instance. We even joked that with our expertise we could take our knowledge & set out to defraud the gov't - we'd do it such that it would never be considered worthy of an investigation, let alone prosecution. We all agreed we'd become millionaires with an endless gravy train if we went that route. In the end I chose to take the advice of an Assistant US Attorney who had similar beliefs. He said that we couldn't stop the judges from going far too easy on these people. We had no control over that. We did have the ability to stop those whom we prosecuted from continuing their crimes. We made it harder for them from doing it in the future. Plus, by making them hire expensive attorneys we caused them a huge financial burden in addition to the fines & restitution assessed. Was it fair? No! But it's better than throwing in the towel & doing nothing.