Tuesday, October 15, 2024

"Prosecutors erode our rights with show-and-tell indictments like Eric Adams’s"

That's the title of this op-ed in the Washington Post by Abbe Lowell.

Amen!

Here's the introduction:

Recently we witnessed what has become a familiar scene, so familiar that no one apparently stopped to consider how wrong it was: U.S. Attorney Damian Williams standing at a lectern, holding a news conference to announce the indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams on charges of bribery and campaign finance offenses.

In a 20-minute publicity event, framed on one side by the agents who worked the case and on the other by a color photo of the Turkish consulate building the mayor is alleged to have helped get approved, Williams detailed the charges using phrases such as “luxury travel,” “foreign influence,” “corrupt relationships” and “grave breach of public trust.” He made sure to describe every dollar exchanged as charged in the indictment. Then he invited an FBI supervisor and a New York City commissioner to jump in and add their claims of Adams’s “perver[sion] of greed, and dishonesty” and breach of “integrity, transparency and dedication.”

All this occurred on the day the charges were unsealed, not the day a guilty verdict was issued. You might be forgiven for being confused.

This sort of trial by lectern or show-and-tell indictment is a lamentable phenomenon that needs to be eliminated — now. It erodes the presumption of innocence and subverts the requirement for a fair trial. By the time a trial starts, would-be jurors have been tainted by hearing the worst allegations against a defendant with no rebuttal, and judges can easily form initial opinions that could carry over to their rulings.

 

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:43 AM

    But the public has a right to know

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  2. Anonymous11:52 AM

    So...

    Show up for the presser and take the lecturn to offer a rebuttal...or just hold court with the press immediately after...say that these are one sided allegations, etc., and that the US Attorney is perverting the process, has no respect for the rights of people (who is next?) and is violating constitutional protections and case law designed to guarantee fair trials...then, say, which agent would like to help present this to the grand jury as a civil rights investigation...(Bueller...Bueller...?)...and suggest that the inspector general or OPR pick it up....and walk out.

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  3. Anonymous10:00 PM

    Thats the problem. The USAO cares more about pressure releases and their 10 second of fame than the fair administration of justice. Nowadays, they abuse even speaking indictments to get political points.

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  4. Anonymous8:16 AM

    The Oscar in this category has to go to Rudy Guiliani, who perfected the art form in the 1980's with his mob indictments and re-creation of the Tom Dewey persona (with a big assist from the New York Post). He then took perfection and converted it to perversion when he perp walked God knows how many innocent mid level stock brokers out of their offices and into FBI headquarters in lower Manhattan amid flashing cameras and screaming reporters only to later dismiss the charges after the media stopped paying attention. And the genre continues with Alvin Bragg's joke of an indictment of Trump and Letitia James' posting of a celebratory clock in her office/website ticking off the minutes before Trump has to post bond or else have his assets forfeited. The whole thing is disgusting but because you are the government, you can get away with such things.

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  5. Anonymous10:18 AM

    It's not like the defense attorneys don't hold their own press conferences too.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:13 PM

      The difference here is something called "the presumpion of innocence."

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