Justice is a first-person-shooter game.

December 31, 2009 2:53 PM

Blackwater was cleared of guilt for the alleged unprovoked 2007 shootout which killed 17 Iraqis... for use of improper evidence in the case.

A US federal judge has dismissed all charges against five guards from US security firm Blackwater over the killing of 17 Iraqis in 2007.
As well as the 14 counts of manslaughter, they had faced 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a machine gun to commit a crime of violence, a charge that carries a 30-year minimum sentence.

posted by Liquidwolf (123 comments total)

Sometimes the grindstone of justice grinds along for a long time, and yet you end up with no fine powder.
or something.
posted by Balisong at 2:59 PM on December 31, 2009

Somehow I suspect that this case will not be mentioned in a Dirty Harry like movie where a cop has to set the record straight vigilante style because some damn liberal judge let a man we all know is guilty go free.
posted by Kiablokirk at 3:01 PM on December 31, 2009 [15 favorites]

"It really invigorates your belief in our court system," said Bill Coffield, who represents [one of the defendants].

Yeah, my belief is invigorated beyond what I could have imagined. . .
posted by Danf at 3:03 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

I was surprised by this for a moment, but then sometimes I forget that we're actually the bad guys.
posted by mullingitover at 3:03 PM on December 31, 2009 [52 favorites]

Damn it.
posted by wires at 3:06 PM on December 31, 2009

The real story is in who scuttled this case. Early favorites are the DOJ and the State Dept.
posted by grounded at 3:07 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Looks like they could afford a lot of justice.
posted by telstar at 3:10 PM on December 31, 2009 [6 favorites]

A sixth Blackwater employee, Jeremy Ridgeway, had agreed to a plea deal in return for testifying against his colleagues.

Bet he feels like a shmuck right now.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:10 PM on December 31, 2009 [10 favorites]

Here's a guy that's a decorated war hero who we maintain should never have been charged in the first place

Yeah, those guys should be able to shoot whoever the fuck they want! This is ridiculous, what's next , parking tickets for decorated war heroes?



Also: Shouldn't a lawyer know how to employ correct grammar? ( "who's" not "that's"!)
posted by Liquidwolf at 3:10 PM on December 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

Let's take a few minutes to watch the Trophy Video (not safe for sanity) of Aegis contractors firing on civilians.
posted by null terminated at 3:11 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

We're so screwed. It's too late to save ourselves.
posted by kalessin at 3:12 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Yep--all were cleared of guilt except the one guy who admitted they were guilty...hopefully he'll have a better 2010.
posted by whatgorilla at 3:14 PM on December 31, 2009

"We're obviously disappointed by the decision. We're still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options." - Justice Department

One option is firing your prosecutors. Just throwing it out there.
posted by Lemurrhea at 3:16 PM on December 31, 2009 [9 favorites]

I'm a federal employment lawyer. Let me explain exactly how this happened.

This is a case of unmitigated stupidity by the State OIG people who do this kind of work. 99% of the time, State OIG is interviewing federal employees, either excepted service (foriegn service), or career-conditional (regular federal employees). 99.9% of the time, these are adminstrative investigations which are determining whether or not an employee committed misconduct for which they could face workplace discipline, including firing. When interviewing a federal employee in a job-related matter, a Kalkines or Garrity warning must be given because the employer can order a person to cooperate as part of an interview. Because of 5th Amendment rights, the federal employee is given a warning stating that this is an information interview in an administrative action and the statements cannot be used against them in a court of law. If there is any chance of any sort of criminal prosecution, the OIG usually defers to other criminally-oriented investigative bodies.

But because of the fucked-upedness of Iraq, these guys were investigating murders in a foreign country, which is something they aren't equipped for. Usually these investigators are sworn agents of the government, GS-1811 investigators, primarily former police officers.

What happened here is that the OIG guys followed standard operating procedure for interviewing Federal employees, not non-federal contractors, who are entitled to a lawyer and full Miranda protections. So these dumbasses gave Garrity/Kalkines warnings to non-federal employees. The employees just did what they were told, signed the warnings and gave the statements. The signed warnings made the statements inadmissable in a criminal proceeding. Thus, standard protections for federal employees (good protections that are needed), were given to non-federal employees and screwed the pooch on the entire prosecution, which was apparently based on inconsistent statements between these interviews and later ones.

The OIG agents blew this one big time.

Having said that, "Blackwater" has not been cleared of guilt here. Blackwater is a corporation. It is not the persons who pulled the trigger. The people who were indicted here were individuals working for Blackwater who committed these alleged homicides while on duty for the company.

Nor were these individuals found not guilty or "cleared" in any way. What occured was that the charges were thrown out because the evidence was not admissible, in the same way that evidence seized without a search warrant in a drug raid can be ruled inadmissible. In other words, the government fucked up.

"Blackwater" (now Xe) cannot be found criminally liable for these murders as it was the acts of the individuals in question who caused these issues. However, Blackwater could still be sued civilly (and is currently being sued civilly if I remember correctly), and still be found civilly liable for these deaths under a negligence or negligent supervision theory.

Also, I am not certain, but it may be possible to bring a new indictment based on statements other than the ones at issue here.
posted by Ironmouth at 3:17 PM on December 31, 2009 [167 favorites]

In all seriousness, no sarcasm whatsoever, this is what justice looks like:

The disputed evidence concerned statements the guards gave to state department investigators, which they were told would not be used to bring a criminal case.

This limited immunity deal meant that prosecutors should have built their case against the men without using the statements.

But Judge Urbina said prosecutors had failed to do so, and that the US government's explanation for this was "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility".

That's the right outcome. To put people in jail, you have to do it right, proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt while following the rules of evidence and testimony. If the government screws this up at all, the defendants absolutely should skate, even if they actually committed the crime in question.

While we like to think that courts exist to determine guilt and innocence, that's not truly possible, since we're not omniscient. What courts ACTUALLY do is determine whether the government, following certain specific rules, is able to prove its case well enough to remove reasonable doubt that it's wrong.

In this instance, the government screwed up in its handling of evidence, and those men will go free. This is what we want to happen... even if individual people 'get away' with things, it means that the innocent among us can't be locked up without really, really solid evidence. The fact that these guys get to return to civilian life intact, despite the fact that we all think they're guilty, is a resounding success, not a failure. Next time, it might be YOU that everyone thinks is guilty. The same laws that protect these guys are protecting you, too.

The real travesty is that many people don't get this exacting a standard applied to the evidence against them. If we treated all cases this way, even ones against brown people accused of terrorism, then we'd really be getting somewhere.
posted by Malor at 3:18 PM on December 31, 2009 [86 favorites]

See, this is why we can't trust our Justice system to prosecute The Underwear Bomber...

The ironically-named Department of Justice has gotten pretty good at throwing the game in prosecuting their pals.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:19 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Boy, terrorism sure is a complicated problem. I just can't understand why these people want to kill us. Is it because they hate our values?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 3:27 PM on December 31, 2009 [16 favorites]

ARGH
posted by rtha at 3:31 PM on December 31, 2009

Also: Shouldn't a lawyer know how to employ correct grammar? ( "who's" not "that's"!)

Shouldn't a grammar nazi know the difference between grammar and lexicon? A word choice you disagree with remains grammatical, no matter how blind your hatred for the convention, so long as it remains the same part of speech. Sit down, would you please.

To put people in jail, you have to do it right, proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt while following the rules of evidence and testimony.

Amen. I love how Metafilter gets all up in arms about constitutional rights being infringed, except, you know, when they actually are.
posted by jock@law at 3:37 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Whelp, since the Judicial branch of the government failed us, this calls for a Defund Blackwater Bill. That's how things are done in this country.

We have three branches of government, because sometimes one of them needs to do the other one's job. It's like why I have two bread knives and a paring knife. They all cut, but some cut better than others on certain jobs.

When the activist judges fail to punish someone, who else can we turn to but the Legislative Branch? (Executive, of course, is currently AT WAR with America)

TEABURGER
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:39 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yes, it sucks when justice isn't served. Sometimes that happens, because justice is dealt out by humans, and humans fuck up.

I'm not clear what larger point, if any, you were trying to make here.

(If it's PepsiBlue for the JUDGE-A-TRON 3000, I'm all about the RoboJudge 37A.)
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:41 PM on December 31, 2009

Amen. I love how Metafilter gets all up in arms about constitutional rights being infringed, except, you know, when they actually are.


Funny I thought it might be because a bunch of murdering madmen just walked because of a stupid fuck up. What ever.
posted by nola at 3:42 PM on December 31, 2009 [20 favorites]

Yes, it sucks when justice isn't served. Sometimes that happens, because justice is dealt out by humans, and humans fuck up.

Keep an eye peeled for the introduction of Diebold's new Guilt-o-tron automatic justice dispensing device coming out next year.
posted by Balisong at 3:45 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Nor were these individuals found not guilty or "cleared" in any way. What occured was that the charges were thrown out because the evidence was not admissible, in the same way that evidence seized without a search warrant in a drug raid can be ruled inadmissible. In other words, the government fucked up.

Yes, and the system did work the way it's supposed to, in the sense that, if the government fucks up in this way, then charges cannot be brought. But the system did fail in the sense that the government fucked up.
posted by krinklyfig at 3:46 PM on December 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

A whole lot of the initial comments seem to think this was a miscarriage of justice. I suppose that depends on what one considers "justice". Locking up the Blackwater guys improperly is no different than locking up anyone else improperly. I suppose it all depends who is wearing the boot which is stomping a human face, forever. Because throwing guys in jail, even if you're sure they are guilty, has to be done properly. Otherwise you're just the guy wearing the boot.
posted by Justinian at 3:47 PM on December 31, 2009 [8 favorites]

The problem isn't that the defendants are found not guilty because the prosecution case against them is improperly set up, the problem is that the prosecution case against them was deliberately set up improperly, as is blatantly obvious to anyone but a partisan idiot, in order that the defendants would be found not guilty. For reasons of political expediency, or blackmail, or wherever the two cross over. In any case, it is corruption, and should itself be prosecuted ... but by whom?
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:54 PM on December 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

We're not upset that these guys weren't locked up in violation of the law, we're upset because the government fucked up. Yes, this is what should happen when the government fucks up. No, the government shouldn't fuck up when prosecuting mass murderers. Yes, mass murderers should be jailed.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:55 PM on December 31, 2009 [6 favorites]

it is corruption, and should itself be prosecuted ... but by whom?

The Iraqis? Relatives of those who died on the fateful day?
posted by Balisong at 3:57 PM on December 31, 2009

Funny I thought it might be because a bunch of murdering madmen just walked because of a stupid fuck up. What ever.

Bull fucking shit. You most likely don't even know the names of these guys without looking it up. You don't know the first thing about the facts of the case, so don't you dare sit up there with your smug ultraliberal anger and pretend like you know what's going on. You don't. You are ignorant, and I am ignorant, all of us are pretty damn ignorant of the details of criminal prosecutions unless you're there sitting in the frigging jury box.

For a group of people who repeats the mantras of "the government's infringing constitutional rights!" and "the mainstream media puts a filter on our news!" y'all sure are setting off my irony meter pretty damn hard with your accusations of murder, without a trial and jury verdict finding them guilty, based on nothing more than news reports.
posted by jock@law at 4:00 PM on December 31, 2009 [6 favorites]

"District Judge Ricardo Urbina said the US justice department had used evidence prosecutors were not supposed to have. "
This is why we can't have nice theings justice.
posted by Cranberry at 4:02 PM on December 31, 2009

The five guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas. A sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, who turned on his former colleagues and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another. Had he gone to trial, the case against him would likely have fallen apart, but it's unclear whether Urbina will let him out of his plea deal.
posted by Balisong at 4:02 PM on December 31, 2009

theings = things
posted by Cranberry at 4:02 PM on December 31, 2009

Well, after the U.S. lost the Sami Al-Arian case they threatened to extradite him to Israel. So why not extradite them to Iraq? I'm sure they'll get an equally fair and impartial trial there.

--

Does anyone think this would have happened if they'd been Iraqi's accused of shooting Americans?

Of course, not. Everyone knows that the DOJ would just put them in "military commissions" if they didn't think they could win in a trial. Or just detain them without a trial if they thought they couldn't win in a military commission.

And actually the Obama administration has actually argued they should have the right to detain people even if they are acquitted in a regular court.

A whole lot of the initial comments seem to think this was a miscarriage of justice. I suppose that depends on what one considers "justice".

Well, they shot a bunch of people and got off. We know that wouldn't happen if they were accused of being "terrorists". Do you think this would happen if there were any improprieties with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or the underwear bomber.

The problem here isn't "justice" here is on-sided. Americans illegally kill a bunch of Muslims, go through the prosecution with a fine-toothed comb and get them off on technicalities. Muslims accused of trying to blow up Americans just get locked up, put on trial in a venue where we can use the evidence we've got, or just locked up with no trial. Even if it turns out they're innocent they'll still be kept in prison for years, just because.

The pledge of allegiance proclaims an America "With justice for all", and the 14th amendment guarantees it. But clearly we've got nothing close to that.
posted by delmoi at 4:08 PM on December 31, 2009 [13 favorites]

the problem is that the prosecution case against them was deliberately set up improperly, as is blatantly obvious to anyone but a partisan idiot

Yeeeeees, I am clearly a pro-blackwater partisan idiot. As anyone who has read Metafilter knows. Go Blackwater! Go Bush! Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!

To me, it seems very likely that some flunkies screwed up in a very understandable and human way. Which has led to some unfortunate results. To believe it is "blatantly obvious" this is some sort of deliberate con job is what is idiotically partisan. I'm not saying it definitely isn't a setup. I'm not saying it was definitely a simple mistake. I'm saying that's what appears most likely.

I also think that your sort of absolutely certainty is a pretty sure hallmark of an unthinking partisan. The worst are full of passionate intensity and so forth.
posted by Justinian at 4:09 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

the problem is that the prosecution case against them was deliberately set up improperly, as is blatantly obvious to anyone but a partisan idiot

I am not partisan (I have never belonged to any political party), but I may be an idiot.

What seems to you to be "blatantly obvious" is not at all "blatantly obvious" to me. I am also wondering which party or parties you think the sheeple people who don't see what is so "blatantly obvious" to you support?
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:12 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bull fucking shit. You most likely don't even know the names of these guys without looking it up. You don't know the first thing about the facts of the case, so don't you dare sit up there with your smug ultraliberal anger and pretend like you know what's going on.

I've seen you posit this principle before: That only juries actually know enough about a case to have an opinion about the verdict. It's ridiculous. For one thing, juries don't actually even get to see all the evidence, some is hidden from them for various reasons -- including time and defense incompetence.
posted by delmoi at 4:15 PM on December 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

delmoi, I don't think the right answer here would have been for the judge to overlook the shittiness of the case against these guys, just because shitty cases have been filed against many of the people in Guantanamo--the right answer is for everyone to be subject to the rule of law, and for justice to be administered as impartially as possible for us as mere humans, yes?
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:19 PM on December 31, 2009

An appropriately shitty end to an epically shitty decade.
posted by longdaysjourney at 4:21 PM on December 31, 2009 [10 favorites]

Big question I have is whether the case was thrown purposefully or not.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:22 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

To me, it seems very likely that some flunkies screwed up in a very understandable and human way.

Yeah, Ironmouth's explanation makes a lot of sense to me; they didn't know what the protocol was, and they screwed it up.

It just doesn't seem clever enough to be deliberate. It's not at all certain that the case would be thrown out over this. It's quite clear that it was very much an open question right up until today.

I dunno, I think if they were clever enough to conspire that far ahead to throw the case, they'd have done a better job of it, something that would be more certain to work.
posted by Malor at 4:23 PM on December 31, 2009

Balisong: "The Iraqis? Relatives of those who died on the fateful day?"

Why should those 17 get any more justice than the other 100,000?
posted by Joe Beese at 4:25 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

The system works
posted by hamida2242 at 4:27 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

The real issue here is a loss of belief in the legitimacy of the entire system. It's not about the particulars of this case. If you see a routine pattern where those who are accused of terrorism against the U.S. are locked up or prosecuted based on the flimsiest of evidence (and I can't overemphasize the "flimsiest" part), while outright killings and torture of foreign civilians by our guys are either never even investigated, or if investigated then there are either dismissals based on technicalities or a slap on the wrist - well, what kind of conclusion can any fair (strike fair: how about sane) person reach? And now we hear about another case, where - whelp, somehow, yet again, mistakes were made and people walked away. Kinda like how a clerk makes mistakes with the change, except strangely it's always in the favor of the store. Do I know that these guys were guilty? I don't know a damn thing about that... except, I do know that the whole system doesn't have the credibility of a mobster. The system was never very strong, but under GWB it - for me - broke down completely wrt. credibility, and has not really recovered under Obama.

At some point, you gotta say: there is no justice, period. There are gangster rules, the rule of the strong - we understand that very well indeed - the rule of the fist. That's how mobsters operate - collusion, sweetheart deals, murder and skullduggery. Yeah, we get it. That's reality of America these last 10 years or so. Fine. What we ask is only one thing: please dispense with the high-falutin' talk about how we represent "justice". You're a gangster and it irks to hear you talk about justice. Yes, you are pissing on my head - but please don't call it spring rain.
posted by VikingSword at 4:29 PM on December 31, 2009 [28 favorites]

Considering that Blackwater asshats are/were in this not only for money but also to put notches in their belts, it's not a far stretch to believe that questions were asked and things thought out a bit prior to any shots being fired.

What Ironmouth describes sounds like a way too convenient loophole.
posted by snsranch at 4:31 PM on December 31, 2009

You're right, Joe.

They should all have their chance for justice.
posted by Balisong at 4:32 PM on December 31, 2009

Bull fucking shit. You most likely don't even know the names of these guys without looking it up. You don't know the first thing about the facts of the case, so don't you dare sit up there with your smug ultraliberal anger and pretend like you know what's going on.

You don't know me very well.
posted by nola at 4:37 PM on December 31, 2009

delmoi, I don't think the right answer here would have been for the judge to overlook the shittiness of the case against these guys, just because shitty cases have been filed against many of the people in Guantanamo--the right answer is for everyone to be subject to the rule of law, and for justice to be administered as impartially as possible for us as mere humans, yes?

Right. And it's not.

But serious question: Are flawed murder cases usually let off on these kinds of technicalities? I mean it's murder we're talking about, in front of dozens of witnesses. It's not some kid busted with some weed in his trunk.
posted by delmoi at 4:44 PM on December 31, 2009

Here is the opinion (PDF).

In so doing, the government’s trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors, assigned to the case specifically to advise the trial team on Garrity and Kastigar issues, that this course of action threatened the viability of the prosecution.

It sounds mostly like what Ironmouth described above, except that the signed warnings about it not being used in a criminal prosecution was just standard operating procedure for statements after any firearm discharges.
posted by smackfu at 4:44 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

The real story is in who scuttled this case. Early favorites are the DOJ and the State Dept.

DOJ wanted this. State wanted this. It causes a lot of problems for us in Iraq. I don't believe this was a deliberate attempt. There is no evidence it was deliberate. The persons conducting the investigation likely made a mistake because this type of investigation is so far afield of what they should be doing that this stuff falls in the cracks.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:45 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Whew, angry hive mind!

What I am wondering is what is going on at DOJ. I understand how the initial administrative investigators made the defendants' statements unusable -- but how did the prosecutors miss that? And why weren't they able to show that the investigation and their evidence was independent of the tainted (immunized) statements?

In the wake of the decisions by a very respected federal judge throwing out the case against Ted Stevens, and other recent reprimands of DOJ prosecutors for unethical conduct, there seems to be a real problem.

And it is never good when a judge, as in this case, says the government's explanations are "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility." He also said the prosecutors in this case disregarded the warnings of more senior lawyers -- how did that happen?

I also agree with everyone who has commented on the stark contrast between the full panoply of legal protections available in a duly constituted US courtroom, and the shameful mockery of a legal process that we have afforded detainees. Here' s hoping for the full restoration of the rule of law in the next decade.
posted by bearwife at 4:45 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Americans illegally kill a bunch of Muslims, go through the prosecution with a fine-toothed comb and get them off on technicalities. Muslims accused of trying to blow up Americans just get locked up, put on trial in a venue where we can use the evidence we've got, or just locked up with no trial. Even if it turns out they're innocent they'll still be kept in prison for years, just because.

Absolutely. But that's a problem with how the system treats supposed terrorists, not with how the system treated the Blackwater guys. The solution is to fix the second thing, not break the first.
posted by Justinian at 4:46 PM on December 31, 2009 [6 favorites]

jock@law if you really don't think this is fucked I'm not sure what to say to you. Happy new years and shit.
posted by nola at 4:47 PM on December 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

This is why Dick Cheney doesn't want terrorists to have fair trials. Fair trials suck sometimes.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:48 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Whelp, since the Judicial branch of the government failed us, this calls for a Defund Blackwater Bill.

That's also unconstitutional for the same reason that the ACORN defunding bill is. I support executive dropping of all of their contracts, however.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:48 PM on December 31, 2009

"To put people in jail, you have to do it right, proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt while following the rules of evidence and testimony."

But to kill innocent civilians and get away scot-free you only need to be employed by Blackwater (Xe).
posted by HyperBlue at 4:49 PM on December 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

Considering that Blackwater asshats are/were in this not only for money but also to put notches in their belts, it's not a far stretch to believe that questions were asked and things thought out a bit prior to any shots being fired.

What Ironmouth describes sounds like a way too convenient loophole.

You have no idea what the Blackwater asshats were in it for. You have never met them. You have not reviewed the evidence in this case. Hell, I don't even know what happened, other than what's in the opinion. All I'm adding is my knowledge of federal employment law and how this happened.

This isn't a huge surprise, I knew this was going to be a problem for a year. It has been talked about.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:51 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

jock@law if you really don't think this is fucked I'm not sure what to say to you. Happy new years and shit.

I'm certain that jock@law does feel that murders are wrong. So I think it best to stop with the strawmanning here.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:52 PM on December 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

What part of 'let's just rely on the evidence that we're not legally supposed to have instead of building our own case' is NOT "blatantly obvious"?
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:52 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

"To put people in jail, you have to do it right, proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt while following the rules of evidence and testimony."

But to kill innocent civilians and get away scot-free you only need to be employed by Blackwater (Xe).

This. Exactly this. This is what has been frustrating me for some time now. Its as if now, since we are in power, we should ignore the rules that we screamed about for years and just run roughshod over people we don't like. Isn't that exactly what Bush did?

You know Bush can make a lot of good conservative arguments for some of his policies--arguments that I disagree with. But what really made him wrong was how he destroyed the respect for law and order in this country. And I'm ashamed to say that I see that the lack of respect for the rules that protect us all has come over to the other side, where expectations are now that we are to throw away those rules because we don't like the results of following them.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:55 PM on December 31, 2009 [11 favorites]

What part of 'let's just rely on the evidence that we're not legally supposed to have instead of building our own case' is NOT "blatantly obvious"?

There are tons of bad lawyers out there. Remember Ted Stevens? Fucked up lawyering. Happens everyday. As a litigator it shocks me over and over again. But there it is.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:56 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

What part of 'let's just rely on the evidence that we're not legally supposed to have instead of building our own case' is NOT "blatantly obvious"?

Two years ago I was discussing this issue with a senior organized crime DOJ prosecutor. He insisted I was wrong. He was wrong.

Prosecutors often mistake their natural advantage as the representative for the state as resulting from their skill.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:59 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm certain that jock@law does feel that murders are wrong. So I think it best to stop with the strawmanning here.

I'm not certain of that at all. Read his comment to me up thread.
posted by nola at 5:00 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Justinian To me, it seems very likely that some flunkies screwed up in a very understandable and human way.
"Some" "flunkies". Yeah, right. How many people worked on this case, do you think? Do you think it says "Unimportant Flunky" on the signs outside their offices?

Because of this "very understandable" and "human" screwup setup, murderers (or in the alternative, war criminals) will go free, except for the one guy who somehow retained the scrap of integrity necessary to admit what he and they had done and therefore will probably be punished ... not because he deserves punishment for his crime (although he does), but because he broke some wretched little code of in-group protection that he scum who rule over you seem to have, that somehow in their minds trumps decency, integrity, honesty, basic justice, respect for human rights, the US Constitution, any and all oaths whatsoever, religious belief, and any common human cause.

I withdraw the accusation of partisanship. This kind of corruption is systemic, not confined to one party.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 5:01 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've seen you posit this principle before: That only juries actually know enough about a case to have an opinion about the verdict. It's ridiculous. For one thing, juries don't actually even get to see all the evidence, some is hidden from them for various reasons -- including time and defense incompetence.

Nobody said you couldn't have an opinion on it, it is a free country, of course. But I certainly don't have to take your opinion seriously under those circumstances.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:09 PM on December 31, 2009

Ironmouth, I really shouldn't speak out of school about facts. However, I have met some of these fuckers guys and many really are/were there for the "sport". FWIW I really appreciate your insight and didn't mean to turn anything around or put words in your mouth so to speak.
posted by snsranch at 5:14 PM on December 31, 2009

I'm certain that jock@law does feel that murders are wrong. So I think it best to stop with the strawmanning here.

I'm not certain of that at all. Read his comment to me up thread.

Dude's absolutely right. You read a few articles. You don't know the facts. We don't know the facts. You were there? Nope. Yet you continue to assume that you are correct and that these guys are murderers because some reporters told you it was true. We don't know the facts. There's a reason that they say allegedly, a very good reason.

The only thing jock@law is saying is that none of us have the facts other than what was in the opinion and the paper and that a jury, looking at a much larger set of facsts than we have here, could come to a different decision.

I've dealt with hundreds of cases. I've seen dozens of times where even participants in the action got the wrong impression of what was going on. These were homicide cases.

This is why a jury is supposed to decide this case, not people who read news articles.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:17 PM on December 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

Ironmouth, I really shouldn't speak out of school about facts. However, I have met some of these fuckers guys and many really are/were there for the "sport". FWIW I really appreciate your insight and didn't mean to turn anything around or put words in your mouth so to speak.

You have met the defendants in this case?
posted by Ironmouth at 5:17 PM on December 31, 2009

Its as if now, since we are in power, we should ignore the rules that we screamed about for years and just run roughshod over people we don't like. Isn't that exactly what Bush did?

If by "We" you mean "The Obama administration" then the certainly are ignoring all the rules that "we" screamed about for years. I'm a little unclear about why you think they're not.

But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States….As I said, I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. -- Barack Obama

etc.

Nobody said you couldn't have an opinion on it, it is a free country, of course. But I certainly don't have to take your opinion seriously under those circumstances.

Well, there are a lot of other people here.
posted by delmoi at 5:26 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

"in order that the defendants would be found not guilty. For reasons of political expediency, or blackmail, or wherever the two cross over."

THEY WERE NOT FOUND NOT GUILTY. THEY WERE NOT FOUND ANYTHING AT ALL.

murderers (or in the alternative, war criminals) will go free

THEY ARE NOT (convicted) MURDERERS.

I am not personally in favor of locking people up without a conviction, be they alleged murderers with white skin or alleged terrorists with brown.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 5:26 PM on December 31, 2009

THEY ARE NOT (convicted) MURDERERS.

JUST LIKE OJ!!!!111
posted by delmoi at 5:31 PM on December 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

No, OJ got a trial. These guys got an accusation and some improperly collected evidence and the charges against them dismissed.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 5:32 PM on December 31, 2009

Since I'm a Federal Employee, someone is going to have to read me a Garrity/Kalkines warning before I answer that as a statement of fact.
posted by snsranch at 5:41 PM on December 31, 2009

No, OJ got a trial. These guys got an accusation and some improperly collected evidence and the charges against them dismissed.

Uh, right. But none of them are convicted murderers.
posted by delmoi at 6:27 PM on December 31, 2009

Since I'm a Federal Employee, someone is going to have to read me a Garrity/Kalkines warning before I answer that as a statement of fact.

Get one everytime you are in that situation. It is a day in/day out thing.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:01 PM on December 31, 2009

wow I totally have faith in them to look into those silencers hidden in the dogfood now.
posted by bhance at 7:27 PM on December 31, 2009

The system works

Yep. Which makes me wonder why all the apologists are working overtime. Blackwater and its crew of cutthroat mercenaries were found innocent: So why fight so hard to defend people whom the government will let off the hook, anyway?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:41 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

After a lifetime of being bombarded with USA! propaganda, the only good thing about news like this is it cuts through the bullshit. A fucking technicality. Yeah, okay, love that 'system'.
posted by Gamien Boffenburg at 7:50 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

I mean, this goes beyond the Emperor's new clothes, into the some kind of Imperial Goatse behaviour.
posted by Gamien Boffenburg at 7:52 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

I mean, this goes beyond the Emperor's new clothes, into the some kind of Imperial Goatse behaviour.

While we obsess over how it looks to us, I also think about how it looks to the families of the Iraqi victims. First brutal killings, then what better to follow that up with than a giant middle finger? Not even a slap on the wrist. I can well imagine how a family member could have reacted in the aftermath of these killings to a suggestion "but the perpetrators will be called to justice!" "you mean American justice?" Bitter laughter follows. And today we rush to tell them "hey, guess what, blah, blah, blah technicality, and justice for all, our system is working, this is the very expression of justice and constitutional rights, and, and, and, and nobody will be called to account for the death of your father/brother/sister - sorry, happens." "Oh. That's OK, really expected no different - why go to the criminal system that delivered this war and these crimes, why go to them for justice - the result is utterly expected" - and they'd be right.
posted by VikingSword at 8:21 PM on December 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

The ironically-named Department of Justice

It's actually spelled "Just Us." No irony at all.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 8:27 PM on December 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Viking: it would be fine if we applied the same standards to them that we do to us. This IS the right outcome, given the circumstances of the case. I'll be the first to agree with you, though, that it looks horrible.

But that's not because this outcome is wrong, but rather because everything else we're doing is so fucked up. Every defendant in our system should get this kind of treatment, including non-Americans accused of terrorism.

If we followed the rules even when we got outcomes we really didn't like, we'd have one hell of a lot more credibility in the world. And this WOULDN'T look so bad, because they'd all know about that crazy Omar dude who got off on a technicality, instead of knowing about innocent Omar who was tortured and held for a decade without any ability to defend himself.
posted by Malor at 9:28 PM on December 31, 2009 [9 favorites]

Malor - I agree 100%. Nobody says there is a perfect justice system out there, or that one is even theoretically possible. Every single one is, and must be flawed, that's the nature of reality. The problem occurs when, imperfect as our system is, we don't even apply that, fairly and impartially. The deck is stacked. And therefore we have no credibility.
posted by VikingSword at 9:59 PM on December 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

In so doing, the government’s trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors, assigned to the case specifically to advise the trial team on Garrity and Kastigar issues, that this course of action threatened the viability of the prosecution.

I do not see how a case as important as this could be mishandled so badly, without that mishandling being a deliberate choice: that the prosecution didn't want to convict at all.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:32 PM on December 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

So I'm reading the outcome of this, and I'm wondering:

If two CIA "members" are killed in a terrorist attack and someone in an official capacity is threatening vengeance, what are we supposed to expect when many Iraqis were killed and their alleged murderers were let go on technicalities?

How do we go back to rule of law instead of perpetuating Bush's legacy of preemptively blowing up brown people on the other side of the world because it makes some people feel better about themselves?
posted by hgswell at 3:38 AM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

A lot of people keep talking about "technicalities" as though they inherently undermine the administration of justice. You're wrong. Technicalities ARE justice; all of the technical rules of evidence and procedure are what makes the system of justice work equally for all individuals. You can argue that in fact the technicalities have not been applied equally (or that the evidence was mishandled intentionally, or whatever), and that is unjust, but nattering about technicalities while pretending you want to support the equal administration of justice is just ignorant.

VikingSword is right, it's the even, fair, and impartial application of those technicalities that is important.
posted by miss tea at 5:06 AM on January 1, 2010 [4 favorites]

So no one can have a meaningful opinion unless they either personally know the actors in question or witnessed the events. When do TV, radio, newspapers and the internet shut down?
posted by minimii at 5:45 AM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

A lot of people keep talking about "technicalities" as though they inherently undermine the administration of justice. You're wrong. Technicalities ARE justice; all of the technical rules of evidence and procedure are what makes the system of justice work equally for all individuals.

Sure, sure. But the problem here is that you know those standards are not going to be applied for gitmo detainees, even when they are in federal courts. And even if they did win they'll still be kept in prisons. So the double standard here is really stark, especially these two groups are literally on opposite sides of the same "fight"
posted by delmoi at 6:57 AM on January 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

y'all sure are setting off my irony meter pretty damn hard with your accusations of murder, without a trial and jury verdict finding them guilty
...
This is why a jury is supposed to decide this case, not people who read news articles.

But I thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, that these Blackwater/Xe employees WERE found guilty. Only now it turns out that some of the evidence wasn't obtained in the proper manner, so they're getting out on a technicality. Is this NOT the case?
posted by inigo2 at 7:45 AM on January 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Blackwater basically operates outside of the confines of the law, they also seem to outside the confines of justice. Not surprising but it's sad that this is how it happened.
And all this devil's advocate talk of assuming their innocent because we dont know all the facts.... of course we dont knwo all the facts but give me a break already. You know damn well the chances of them not gunning down people in an excessive manner are extremely low . Like I said , they're above the law. Besides didn't the sixth dude admit guilt before he realized that they wouldn't have to deal with the consequences? What does that say?
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:28 AM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

This case illustrates the gap between being guilty of a crime, and being found guilty of a crime.

Just because I don't get speeding tickets does not mean I do not drive above the speed limit. Just because Xe's employees weren't jailed does not mean they did not slaughter a bunch of civvies.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:08 AM on January 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Is this NOT the case?

While I do not have a definitive answer, the linked article says that it was a District judge. District judges are not appellate judges. This was done during the trial stage. So no, I don't think there was a jury verdict. My best guess is this scenario: after the prosecution presented their case, the defense moved for a directed verdict on the grounds that the prosecution hadn't met their burden, which motion was granted because the admissible evidence was insufficient. But I'm pretty much pulling that out of my ass. But it is the scenario that I can best imagine fitting the facts I do know.
posted by jock@law at 9:16 AM on January 1, 2010

Just because Xe's employees weren't jailed does not mean they did not slaughter a bunch of civvies.

Yes, but just because they were accused does not mean that they did "slaughter a bunch of civvies" either; nor does it mean that, if they did do so, they did it with the requisite state of mind to be murder.
posted by jock@law at 9:17 AM on January 1, 2010

Well, jock@law, since they actually admitted to slaughtering a bunch of civvies, does that mean they actually did it? That admission of guilt is actually why they got off.

I say we send them back to Iraq for trial.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 9:51 AM on January 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Iraq sure wants to try them.
posted by Balisong at 9:55 AM on January 1, 2010

The problem, jock@law, is that this case doesn't exist in isolation. It is part of larger pattern of the US government abandoning all pretense of justice.

Bush and Cheney doesn't even get investigated, random schmoes swept up in Afghanistan get tortured, including some who were tortured to death.

Blackwater scum get off on a technicality, Obama announces that he will continue the Bush policy of holding people without charges, without trials, without evidence, forever.

This isn't simply a case of "well, it sucks but that's the system and we have to respect that", but rather yet another example of "the US government is actively shitting on the very concept of justice."

Perhaps this particular instance really was a mistake rather than being deliberate. But the really depressing thing is that I can't simply make that assumption anymore. Once I believed my nation was actually dedicated to the ideals of justice, freedom, liberty, now I know it isn't, and because of the actions my government has taken in the past the only way I can avoid feeling like a sucker is to assume that this sort of thing is not accidental, that it is deliberate. Not out of any irrational hatred of America, but out of a very rational look at the fact that in the past the US government has, deliberately, abandoned the very concept of justice.

In the environment of Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, indefinite detention, secret CIA prisons/torture camps, extraordinary rendition, and Obama's promise to continue all of the above, I simply cannot trust that this was not deliberate. Perhaps it was, but in light of the current environment it seems harmfully naive to believe that.

The US government has lost my trust, and is now actively in the business of trampling on the very notion of justice. Given that, how can I see this as anything but a deliberate protection of the murdering scum?
posted by sotonohito at 9:58 AM on January 1, 2010 [7 favorites]

I think that to be a lawyer, one must be more concerned with the minutiae of legalese, and wholly unconcerned with justice.

I understand that it necessary to be exactingly clinical in a court of law. The role of the defendant's lawyers is, of course, to make sure justice is not served, but only the letter of the law.

But out here in public it sure comes across as douchebaggery. The perps admit they slaughtered civvies. The just outcome would be that they pay for their horrendous misdeeds. All the lawyerly handwaving in the world will never make up for this injustice.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:25 AM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

The role of the defendant's lawyers is, of course, to make sure justice is not served, but only the letter of the law.

What?
posted by rtha at 10:53 AM on January 1, 2010

What what? The guys admitted to what they did. The letter of the law says this evidence is inadmissible. The letter of the law is that they walk free. Justice, if it were to be had, would be that they be punished for what they did.

I am at a loss to understand what you're "whating" about.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:08 AM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes, but just because they were accused does not mean that they did "slaughter a bunch of civvies" either; nor does it mean that, if they did do so, they did it with the requisite state of mind to be murder.

There's no way to be perfectly certain about any event. Even if it was on video, you know, the tapes could be doctored. Even if you see it first hand, people's memories are notoriously fallible. So the fact that it's 'theoretically possible' that these guys are innocent is kind of irrelevant. The fact that they signed a form that said their statements couldn't be used against them doesn't change anything about what actually happened.

I mean, what, did these guys sign the form and then figure that because their statements couldn't be used against them, make up a bunch of lies about how they actually killed all these people? Of course not.

This "technicality" has nothing to do with their guilt or innocence. Lots of investigations have been done and it's obvious that these guys shot these people. I'm not really sure what "frame of mind" has to do with it. Dead is dead. Gun shots are gun shots. Who cares what they were thinking about?
posted by delmoi at 11:13 AM on January 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

But I thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, that these Blackwater/Xe employees WERE found guilty. Only now it turns out that some of the evidence wasn't obtained in the proper manner, so they're getting out on a technicality. Is this NOT the case?

One of the defendants, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to reduced charges. All of the other defendants pleaded not guilty. The trial was to take place beginning February 1, 2010.

As for "getting out on a technicality", this was not a verdict, it was a dismissal of charges. The word "cleared" in the FPP was clearly incorrect and prejudicial. As far as I can tell there is nothing preventing a new investigation and indictment, although it will be much more difficult now.

No, I can't escape the suspicion that the investigation was designed to scuttle the prosecution, either.
posted by dhartung at 11:17 AM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

And for you skeptics thinking you have the right to formulate an opinion about what happened here, the notion that top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials has no bearing on the issue at all. Nope.
posted by minimii at 12:02 PM on January 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Can these men be charged again for the same crime? Does the DOJ ever file charges a second time in cases that get off on technicalities?
If the answers to the above are yes and they are not recharged I think people should be upset and question the DOJs motives. Is it possible for the government make a deal with the one person who admitted to the crimes?
posted by batou_ at 12:30 PM on January 1, 2010

My "what" was whatting your assertion that the role of a defense attorney is to prevent justice from being served. I'm at a loss to understand that, since that is not the role of these particular defense attorneys, or any others, as far as I know (IANAL).
posted by rtha at 12:42 PM on January 1, 2010

A defense attorney who knows his client committed a crime will still work hard to ensure that his client is not held responsible for the crime. Justice — as in "don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time" — is irrelevant.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:09 PM on January 1, 2010

Iraq to sue. We'll see how far that gets. Probably will mean that those guys can never go back to Iraq unless, you know, we need them there.
posted by Balisong at 1:22 PM on January 1, 2010

As much as I hate the outcome, this is the right decision under the circumstances. The judge has made a lot of noise suggesting prosecutorial misconduct, not the first time. I do wonder whether any of the burrowed-in Bushies allowed the original questioning to go on, knowing it would screw up the case but I'm inclined to believe the government lawyer above who suggested just stupid behavior.
And, I agree, too, with the point that a ruling like this isn't just a technicality. It is a fundamental Constitutional issue, the right not to incriminate onself.
That said, and forgive me if I've told this story before, but years ago, I was watching a local TV reporter huff and puff on the courthouse steps, complaining that someone had just "been let off on a technicality--a lack of evidence." Really, just like that.
But I hope these guys get shipped to Iraq for local justice.
posted by etaoin at 3:06 PM on January 1, 2010

I don't agree, fff. A defense attorney has a responsibility to mount whatever defense possible for his client, regardless of his own opinion of their guilt; if this were not the case, nobody would defend those believed to be guilty, which is, as I'm sure you would agree, a disturbing prospect.
posted by clockzero at 5:00 PM on January 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Outraged Iraqis vow to charge Blackwater -- "Baghdad enraged over U.S. judge’s decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team."
posted by ericb at 5:07 PM on January 1, 2010

"I think that to be a lawyer, one must be more concerned with the minutiae of legalese, and wholly unconcerned with justice."

Jesus, talk about focus.
posted by Gamien Boffenburg at 6:04 PM on January 1, 2010

No, clockzero, a defense attorney has the responsibility to mount whatever defense possible for his client, regardless knowledge of their guilt.

It's like a Catholic Priest: despite knowing your guilt, they still give you grace. Their role is not to deal out justice: it is to defend you/forgive you in the eyes of the law/God.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:20 PM on January 1, 2010

The reason we have rules of procedure, evidence and so on -- from the first stages of police investigation to an actual trial -- is to ensure, among other things, that the impression of guilt is not mistaken for guilt itself. In your conception, the lawyer "knows" his client is guilty, I understand the hypothetical situation you're describing; but the rules of process are an inextricable component of justice. It's not as though there's some special kind of guilt that exists outside the context of the judicial process.
posted by clockzero at 10:37 PM on January 1, 2010

"Greetings good people of Iraq. Today we would like to introduce you to Western Law and it's unerring perfectness. We really think you're gonna love it."

[Takes question from audience]

"Uh yes, that's right. Completely Scott-free."
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:50 AM on January 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

The central function of a defense attorney is to be a check on the power of the State; he's there to do his best to raise a reasonable doubt that the government's case is correct. And it's his job to do that even if he knows you actually did the thing the government is accusing you of. They're never supposed to knowingly lie, but they are there to make sure you get every benefit of your Constitutional and legal protections against incarceration. Proposing alternate explanations for the existing facts is one of their central functions.

Yes, this system results in people that have done terrible things escaping punishment, but when it's working, it makes it much, much harder to accidentally lock up an innocent person. The system was originally designed primarily to protect innocent citizens from government that's either abusive or simply incorrect about their guilt.

This is America. You're supposed to get away with some stuff here. It's a feature, not a bug.

Somewhere in the last twenty or thirty years, we seem to have lost our fear of authoritarianism and arbitrary imprisonment, and you see people right here in this very thread arguing that we should abandon those protections in order to 'get' these guys. It might make you feel good to see the Xe goons go to jail, but if we so lightly ignore those rules, the ugly precedent would likely mean they'd also be ignored for those who are actually innocent. To convict these guys, you'd probably wrongly lock up hundreds or thousands of people.

Think that through a minute. The rules of evidence matter most for the weakest among us. Probably, the main victims would be young black men. The justice system is so stacked against them that they need every bit of help they can get. Do you really think it's worth ruining all those lives, and doing all that damage to their communities, for a little bit of vindictive pleasure?
posted by Malor at 5:16 AM on January 2, 2010 [6 favorites]

if we so lightly ignore those rules, the ugly precedent would likely mean they'd also be ignored for those who are actually innocent.

That genie retired and moved to Florida.
posted by prak at 6:52 AM on January 2, 2010

If two CIA "members" are killed in a terrorist attack

Actually, five CIA officers and two blackwater contractors.

Is it wrong that i feel like cheering (and not just for the BW contractors, either..) because some of the OTHER bad guys got precision-bombed?
posted by vivelame at 8:37 AM on January 2, 2010

Malor It isn't that I disagree with anything you say, but the fact remains that this case illustrates that there are two classes of justice in America:

There's the kind of justice the powerless and despised get, which isn't justice at all and increasingly doesn't bother with trials, much less trials with strong standards of evidence and whatnot.

Then there's the kind of justice the powerful and liked get, which basically means "they get off without any hassles."

Obama has already said, preemptively, that in the event that ANY of the Guantanamo detainees who he will deign to give rigged trials to are acquitted he will simply "detain" them for life. And that's not counting the ones for whom he isn't even going to bother with the formality of a trial, they just get to rot, no charges, no trial, no lawyers, no nothing.

Quick question: under the system of justice that just threw out charges against the murdering Blackwater slime, do you think that any of the Guantanamo victims would be convicted? I don't, and I think that in a better world we'd admit that Bush screwed the pooch and let them go for basically the same reason the Blackwater scum were let go. Tell me, what do you think the odds of that happening are?

Or, for that matter, the odds of the USA returning to having a single system of justice anytime in the foreseeable future are?

I agree fully that the solution is not to put the people from the rich, powerful, famous, and liked tier into the "people who will get screwed sideways by kangaroo courts" tier, that ideally we'd eliminate the latter tier and let everyone enjoy the same system of justice that the rich and powerful do.

But I don't see how we can do it, we just finished electing someone who campaigned on doing just that, we fought hard for him, and he betrayed us and embraced the two tier system of justice. Short of rioting and/or having an actual revolution, what other options are available now that we've established that even people who run on a platform of equal justice will stab us in the back?

And, more to the point, I don't see how grousing, griping, complaining, and bewailing, the fact that yet again people who fall into the first tier of justice get away, literally, with murder is a bad thing.
posted by sotonohito at 1:43 PM on January 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

I completely agree with you, sotonohito. As I've said above, though less eloquently than you did there, the real tragedy here isn't that we followed the rules in this case, it's that we ignore them in so many others.

We've had a two-tier justice system for decades, and I really think it's an outgrowth of the War on BlacksDrugs. You can't control intoxicants without absolutely draconian police power; a successful War on Drugs and the existence of a free state are not compatible outcomes. (further, I suspect that successfully suppressing intoxicants is impossible, period, no matter how severe the penalties are.)

It's also related to the complete lack of empathy modern Americans seem to have; cstross was talking about this on his blog about six weeks ago. We get more and more savage with each passing year, more and more determined to demonize others and punish them for daring to stick a toe over the line of compliance. Terrorists don't hate our freedom, we do.

Problem is, I don't even know to begin attacking the problem. It's so deep and so severe that I feel despair. How do you reach people that are so locked into demonizing and punishing people who don't happen to live here, or who don't look like they do? How do you teach people that it's only justice if it applies to everybody, even those you loathe?

We managed to do it for about 150 years. Why are we failing so badly now?
posted by Malor at 3:52 PM on January 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

Malor re: the War on Drugs [1], I recently stumbled across a quote that crystalized a lot of thinking I'd been doing on the topic. Amanda Marcotte, of Pandagon, talks about it and goes into detail, but the quote is actually quite short:

Easily available chemical highs are the moral equivalent of welfare---they undercut the official culture’s control of who gets rewarded for what.

For me that pretty much says it all. And also explains (as Marcotte goes into) the link between economic and cultural conservatism, and why sex ed, abortion, and contraception are the perennial enemies of both.

Which doesn't solve the problem, I'll freely admit, but does help put it into perspective. I don't think it's wholly racial, or not so much anyway. A system that says "let's get the black people" is different from one that says "how dare those undeserving people (which includes blacks by definition, but also poor whites and other despised groups) get pleasure?!" Though, of course, there could be a lot of overlap between the two.

But, leaving the question of origins aside, I agree that what we're looking at is an inevitable evolution of the War on Drugs. The WoD finished the job of corrupting our already not so great (racist, sexist, etc) criminal justice system.

And I agree with despair. I don't know what to do, and I'm not sure there's anything that can be done. Because it's endemic now, and worse we now have a deeply entrenched system of for profit prisons which are, quite naturally, exceedingly opposed to absolutely anything that threatens to reduce the number of incarcerated Americans.

The prison industry will throw every resource it can at any measure, or politician, who proposes real reform, and they have a lot of resources to spend.

The worst part though, is that what we have is pretty much what America, the majority of it anyway, wants. People vote for politicians who speak in ultra-simplistic terms, and promise to "git tuff" on crime. A politician who works to eliminate protections on the accused will be rewarded with votes. A politician who attempts to reduce the number of prisoners will be significantly harming their chances of reelection.

I have no idea what to do, how to fix it, or anything else. I have some hope that by focusing on the most egregious examples of the problem we may be able to stir up enough public sentiment that we can get past the "git tuff" mentality so many of my fellow citizens have. Which, aside from my own personal outrage, is why I think it is necessary to publicize this outcome, to protest it far and wide, and to paint it (accurately) as an example of a corrupt and broken system of justice.

[1] a phrase which, now that I've seen The Wire, I can't hear without remembering the line "it's not a war, wars end."
posted by sotonohito at 8:33 PM on January 2, 2010 [7 favorites]

Wow, sotonohito, that's a wildly different angle on conservatism.

My instinct is that yes, there's a lot of truth to the 'pleasure' argument, but it's so very different than anything else I've seen that it's going to take some time to process. I'd figured out long ago that most staunchly pro-life conservatives aren't actually pro-life, but rather anti-sex, but I thought it was because that made women non-subservient. What if the real driver there is hating people experiencing pleasure without following the rules?

Wow. It's just so freaking bizarre, but it still rings true. That's going to take some real time to integrate into the rest of my thinking, if it holds up.
posted by Malor at 10:39 PM on January 2, 2010

By the way, thank you VERY much for posting that link, that's the best thing I've seen so far this year! (heh). But maybe last year, too.
posted by Malor at 10:42 PM on January 2, 2010

I don't think the pleasure angle is all there is to conservatism, people and movements are complex and usually have more than one motive. But I do think it's a pretty big part of conservatism.

Glad you liked the link. Marcotte usually has pretty insightful things to say, as do her cobloggers. Pandagon and the slacktivist's blog are my faves, mainly because even when I disagree with them they have great analysis.
posted by sotonohito at 5:07 AM on January 3, 2010

Well the CIA has sworn to "avenge" the deaths.

That'll work out really well for America's security, I'm sure. Nothing like a bunch of fucking CIA cowboys to get the desperate and destitute really pissed off at "The Great Satan." FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU…
posted by five fresh fish at 10:00 AM on January 3, 2010

I know this is pretty late in the thread, but:

Metafilter: smug ultraliberal anger
posted by klanawa at 5:58 PM on January 10, 2010