March 8, 2013 at 1:35 P.M. Fire alarms cleared the NYPL, Morningside Heights branch, just before I sat down to write. The letter "B" has been loosened at computer #3, deliberately, while the room was cleared.
I discovered a "Shell Oil" screen saver on what should be a public library computer. I will struggle to continue writing from public computers in New York. Harassments -- including a foul stench reminiscent of Secaucus, New Jersey -- fills the room in which I write.
Fernanda Santos, "Advances in Science of Fires Free a Convict After 42 Years," in The New York Times, April 3, 2013, at p. A14.
Susanne Craig & Jessica Silver Greenberg, "JP Morgan Works to Avert a Split of the Chief and Chairman Role," [sic.] in The New York Times, April 6, 2013, at p. B1.
Ben Protess, "MP Global Liquidation Plan Wins Approval From the Court," in The New York Times, April 6, 2013, at p. B3.
The recent exoneration of Luis C. Taylor in the arson and multiple murder case resulting from the blaze at Pioneer International Hotel in Tuscon, which claimed the lives of 29 people -- the deadliest fire in the history of Arizona -- illustrates a number of criticisms of the American legal system made, repeatedly (by me), in these blogs, and by many others elsewhere. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Race and Poverty in American Law.")
These criticisms are identical to the doubts about the legal establishment and judiciary in America's most corrupt state, New Jersey. First, the unwise tendency to rely on so-called "junk science" whether in the form of discredited means of reconstructing the oririgins of a fire to determine if it was set deliberately by a specific individual; or reliance on hypnosis and other bogus or quasi-scientific attempts to tamper with or construct "memories" of past incidents that are to be used in courtrooms to avoid or escape the state's burden of proof and due process protections mandated by the Constitution, usually with disastrous consequences for justice.
Law is not science. At best, science may be useful in the legal and moral process of administering the law.
Second, racism and class bias that remain pervasive features of American law are obvious in this matter. The case fits a pattern of use of state power to destroy the lives of young -- often especially promising or talented -- minority males, who are made (for some reason) to embody the fears and envy of white middle class society. ("So Black and So Blue in Prison" and "Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal.")
Third and finally, also most importantly, the systematic effort to protect abusive and unethical law enforcement personnel is seen in the forced extraction of a "No Lo Contendere" plea from a viciously wronged man, deemed unworthy of an apology or the human respect due to any person whose rights have been criminally violated by officials depriving him of his freedom for 42 years.
It appears that a crime -- even a hate crime -- is O.K. when prosecutors and police officers commit that crime. Double standards, hypocrisy, mendacity worthy of New Jersey's judiciary and legal establishment are obvious in this matter and must not be ignored.
There is evidence indicating that police officers lied and coached or intimidated witnesses to lie under oath in order to convict the one African-American defendant -- still referred to as a "black" -- by dubious "experts," often with questionable credentials, like Terry Tuchin, perhaps? One such "expert" explained:
" ... blacks, at that point, their background was the use of fire for beneficial purposes."
Police officers and prosecutors lied, covered-up evidence, attempted to suppress and deny appeals, for years, even surpressing personal expressions by this deeply-wronged man, Mr. Taylor, and continue to maintain the guilt of an individual who, at some level, they must know to be innocent of these charges. ("Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison.")
The nonsense about claiming that they "believed" Mr. Taylor to be guilty, but that they could no longer prove that guilt in a court of law is a disgusting and unpersuasive display of hubris on the part of persons unable to admit that they were wrong, regardless of how much others suffer because of that overweening pride and arrogance.
Prosecutors were wrong about Mr. Taylor. He has suffered greatly because of their prejudice and stupidity. Admit that much, if you were involved in this matter, before you presume to prosecute and/or judge another human being in the future.
Conceited and morally imbecilic persons should never wield power in a democracy. However, when such persons do come to hold public office, at the very least, it is not too much to ask that mistakes be acknowledged while some meliorism of the harm done is still possible.
The only way that Mr. Taylor could leave prison with some portion of his life remaining to him was to accept this dishonest plea that protected the men and women who injured him and who are unworthy of being sheltered from liability:
"Mr. Taylor's release offered him only a small measure of redemption. Under an agreement with prosecutors in Pima County, he entered a 'No Contest' plea during an hourlong court hearing, which set aside his original conviction and gave him credit for the time he had spent behind bars. The arrangement means that he did not admit guilt because he did not contest the charges, he is effectively barred from suing anyone who had a role in his conviction."
The real criminals -- prosecutors, dirty cops, state experts -- will walk away from this nightmare and devastation of a life without real accountability or the dignity of recognition of unearned suffering visited upon an innocent man. ("America's Holocaust" then "Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Unconstitutionality of the Death Penalty" and "Aaron Scwartz, Freedom, and American Law.")
Perhaps Stuart Rabner and Governor Christie as well as New Jersey's soiled Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE) will continue to ignore my requests for the truth. No doubt persons like Anne Rodgers and John McGill have managed to relieve themselves of the annoying burden of a conscience, along with abandoning any effort to comply with the law or ethics rules. There may be excellent reasons for protecting Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli. However to many observers of my adventures on-line, from many parts of the world, this "farce" of censorship and cruelty further illustrates the hypocrisies, contradictions, and lies of America's "failed" rather than "successful" legal system. ("Legal Ethics Today" and "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?")
I notice, for example, that the trustee in bankruptcy (former FBI Director and "friend" of Mr. Corzine, Luis Freeh) has approved, without necessary explanations, the MF Global petition, shielding Mr. Corzine from ALL criminal liability (almost certainly) as well as making a civil lawsuit against New Jersey's former governor "unlikely."
This protection is afforded to Mr. Corzine DESPITE the disappearance of $1.2 BILLION of his clients' money as Mr. Corzine's personal assets were tucked away and "sheltered" from the disaster that he must have seen coming.
Client funds were "borrowed" to protect Mr. Corzine's personal wealth and will now never be recovered by the "little people" who trusted the former senator with their life's savings. Mr. Corzine will not be prosecuted. Mr. Corzine wears a safety belt in his car at all times. Perhaps some of his former clients wish they had a "safety belt" of a different kind when they entered his office in Wall Street.
Mr. Menendez is not yet indicted and may only face a humiliating public reprimand from the Ethics Committee of the Senate of the United States of America. (Although it appears that the worst is yet to come for Mr. Menendez.)
Finally, Mr. Diamond's orchestration of a "debt crisis" at JP Morgan will not result in prosecution. This debt crisis has spread throughout the world with horrible ripple effects, like the devastation of millions of lives in Europe and a global credit-crunch burdening Third World and developing world economies (like Cuba's national economy), limiting the options for billions of persons, who are unlikely to run into Mr. Diamond at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
These little "peccadillos" will not deprive Mr. Diamond of his Chairmanship of the Morgan Bank and "Trust." (The word "trust" is not used ironically, except when referring to certain New Jersey attorneys' trust accounts.)
None of the bank officials involved in the world's largest money laundering scheme (HSBC and "shaky debt" at Barclay's Bank) will be prosecuted or sent to prison.
"Financial oligarchy," Che Guevara said, "is not compatible with democracy."
