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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Jaywalking is a crime. If a NYC cop randomly pulls someone off the street for jaywalking while watching dozens of others do it at the same time, is this excusable under the notion, "Do the crime, do the time"?

I could walk into the Sphere on any given night and arrest loads of people for illegal drugs. Perhaps even finding acid or mushrooms, which are still subject to draconian penalties. Is this ok just because, oh well, it's a crime.

Would it be sane to send me to federal prison for transporting psilocybin over state lines when traveling back and for from a beach vacation? Am I a danger to society?

The IRS explicitly - as policy - refrains from doing aggressive audits on bars and restaurants because it recognizes that there's the law, and then there's what everybody in the industry does.

We live in a giant grey zone where people commit felonies all the time, intentionally and unintentionally, and law enforcement looks the other way. Indeed it must, or everyone would have a criminal record.

You are -- intentionally -- blurring civil actions, misdemeanors and felonies, and the discretionary decisions made by cops and prosecutors.

If there is a reason to think that a police officer is singling someone out for differential treatment, I have a problem with that. Who doesn't?

Abuse occurs when a prosecutor decides to cherry pick certain people for prosecution.

No. It depends on the reasons. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that you have to make decisions about which cases to bring and which not to bring. Using the word "cherry pick" is a loaded term that you're using rhetorically, without explaining your argument. It matters *why* the prosecutors are picking the cases.

Some prosecutors use their resources to overcharge people who then are forced to plea, because who has the money for lawyers. That can feel abusive, especially if they are chasing charges that they're likely not going to win.

Do you see why that paragraph doesn't apply to Trump?

And it isn't merely white collar criminals. The "tough on crime" brigade of idiot voters have for decades now convinced unethical prosecutors to aggressively go after criminals in reckless manners, and seek extreme penalties. Barry Scheck has freed how many people wrongly on death row at the this point? And how many dozens of the cases of prosecutorial cheating, (hiding exculpatory evidence, etc.) were included ih that data set? A lot.

I understand all of your feelings on this subject, which I have heard before, but none of it means Trump didn't get what he deserved. Some people commit crimes, and need to be prosecuted, and the trial showed that he was one of them.

This is a long way of saying that where a prosecution is pursued for political means, and that is irrefutable in the case Bragg brought by Cyrus Vance would not, it is abusive. It is rotten, and it properly telecasts to all that something is rotten in the system. And it is.

Please explain why you think the fact that Bragg brought a case that Vance would not shows anything, let alone irrefutably. Because you just keep referring to some undescribed set of circumstances that you think somehow taints Bragg's decision, and I don't get it. Suppose that Vance thought that (a) Trump committed crimes, but (b) it would be bad for the country to prosecute a former President, and suppose that Bragg agreed with (a) and disagreed with (b). That different of views in how a DA should do their jobs in no way tarnishes the prosecution.

You can try to argue that Biden's and Trump's cases are defensible because they resulted in convictions, but you're on an island there. People can sense what's rotten, what's corrupt, and even people who think Trump deserves every bad break he gets (like yours truly) can recognize banana republic behavior when they see it.

Saying this doesn't make it true. But go ahead, say it again.

Final point, and perhaps most important. The public should be skeptical of our justice system. It should disregard convictions and acquittals in biased forums. It should assume that findings by courts are wrong as often as right, and the system is overburdened and stupidly based on an ancient anglo saxon principle that letting adversaries fight things out somehow leads to truth. Because that's bullshit. And everybody who works in the system knows it. Cases are decided based on bias of forum, bias of jurists, bias of juries, sloppiness of the statutes under which they're brought (present in Trump's NY case and Biden's gun case), and lastly, facts. There are so many elements of luck and chicanery in the systems that anyone having significant faith in it is credulous. *Or perhaps as those of us who've done enough of it tell any client who claims he wants justice, "Well, then stay the fuck out of the courthouse."

You've already said that Trump got a fair trial, so all this handwaving about skepticism is nonsense. The trial was public. Lots of people watched. You agreed it was fair.

Your skepticism is about Bragg's decision making, not the trial, but Bragg's decision making does not change what Trump did.

As re your last quote, consider the start of Gaddis's A Frolic Of His Own:

"Justice? You'll get justice in the next world. In this world, you have the law."