>What's your point? You think the existence of a
>crooked judge or several means that we have to give up
>the ideal of the rule of law?
No mate, I'm on your team there. I think its a shame people don't understand the concept of the rule of law and why its better than what has come before it. Just thought it was an interesting aside.
Mind you, I'm not quite sure what all the argument is about this "nullification of juries". The term is not completely familiar to me, but I assume it refers to the practice of juries nullifying particular laws, rather than nullifying juries themselves?
But if so, I can't see what the fuss is about. That seems to be one of the jobs of a jury, to nullify particular laws in extreme instances. Or extreme laws that are out of step with community attitudes. That's why juries were invented all those centuries ago, to ensure that the law was enforced in keeping with community standards. Its a safeguard.
I agree with you in principle that this can be a problem. There is still a problem with racist juries convicting people on thin or blatantly concocted evidence, or refusing to convict over racially motivated attacks, for example. So it isn't by any means all positive. But I don't think it is by any means a perversion of the spirit of the jury system, that's what its meant to do.
> After all, they caught
>this charmer. Here in Chicago, about 15 years ago, the
>US Attorney's Office put away roughly a dozen really
>crooked state court judges, slimeballs who'd (in at
>least one case) take money to fix a murder trial. My
>current boss, the head of the litigation dept (my
>dept) at my law firm, was the Chief Deputy AUSA who
>ran the investigation at the time. What we in Shytown
>don't know about judicial corruption isn't known. So
>what? That doesn't mean that there is no point in
>talking about law as opposed to politics. Besides, in
>my book, corruption, extortion, and bribery is not
>politics. Nor is witness intimidation.
The interesting thing about that case I quoted is that its a new law, designed to counter gangster-type intimidation of witnesses. But this is the first prosecution under the law there in Queensland and what do you know - the first prosecution is of a Magistrate, for doing exactly what people with supervisory responsibilities do all the time. Threaten their underlings with repercussions if they rock the boat. There's going to be a few ripples through the cosy self-serving legal profession over this.
So this isn't your normal corruption by any means. Most bosses of a hierarchical bent wouldn't regard it as corruption in the least. Certainly in the legal world covert threats and patronage are the way things work, its worse than the mafia.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas