Making Government Immune From Law

NewsMax
By Paul Craig Roberts
January 14, 1999


If President Bill Clinton were being tried by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, he would be home free.


In a horrendous ruling devastating for justice, fair play and the rule of law, the 10th Circuit has ruled (9-to-3) that the laws of the United States do not apply to officers and agents of the government unless Congress specifically designates that the law applies to the government.


"Statutes of general purport do not apply to the United States unless Congress makes the application clear and indisputable," says the court, citing a 1873 case that "it is a familiar principle that the King is not bound by any act of Parliament unless he be named therein by special and particular words."


At dispute in the case, Singleton v. U.S., is the federal statute that specifies punishment for "whoever" promises anything of value to a witness in exchange for testimony for or against another person. Under the normal reading of the statute, prosecutors who promise defendants reduced sentences in exchange for testimony against others are violating the prohibition.


According to the majority opinion, federal prosecutors are not bound by the law against bribing witnesses, because they serve as alter ego for the government and "the word 'whoever' connotes a being," whereas "the U.S. is an inanimate entity, not a being. The word 'whatever' is used commonly to refer to an inanimate object. Therefore, construing 'whoever' to include the government is semantically anomalous."


In other words, "whoever" doesn't mean "whoever" if the "whoever" is an officer of the government. This Clintonesque word-play is necessary because, as the court acknowledges, "no practice is more ingrained in our criminal justice system" than convicting people with purchased testimony. Faced with an emptying of the prisons, the court ruled that the U.S. government is not a government accountable to law, but a "sovereign" above the law.


Prosecutors have found that it is far easier to purchase with leniency the testimony of accomplices against their confederates than to build a case against the confederates. When this practice began it was aimed at known criminals against whom evidence was lacking. But once the practice began, it has taken on a life of its own.


Today many innocents are ensnared by untrue accusations from criminal defendants seeking reduced charges by producing more fodder for prosecutors. Less and less does the criminal justice system work by police investigating a known crime and building a case. All too often, the first knowledge of the "crime" occurs when a defendant seeking reduced charges accuses others. In these cases, the accusation is the sole "evidence" of the crime, and prosecutors, who serve career instead of justice, are increasingly destroying innocents with purchased testimony.


A recent example is Khem Batra of Burke, Va. Mr. Batra, married with two children, came to the U.S. in 1974 from New Delhi, India. He has been a U.S. citizen since 1981 and was successfully operating his own travel agency. His troubles began when the husband of one of his employees approached him for loans to enable him to purchase distressed properties at auction. Soon Mr. Batra found himself in partnership, pooling money to bid on properties.


Unbeknownst to Mr. Batra, his sometime partner was illegally obtaining multiple mortgages on the same property. When the partner was apprehended, instead of being indicted, he was wired and promised leniency in exchange for implicating others. The partner managed to implicate some mortgage companies in technical infractions and apparently made an unsuccessful attempt to implicate the Burke and Herbert Bank in Alexandria, Va.


Mr. Batra was never implicated in the illegal financing schemes, but his partner, desperate to earn his leniency, testified that his money-pooling partnership with Mr. Batra was a conspiracy to under-bid the properties. On the basis of his partner's plea-bargained testimony, Mr. Batra was convicted in federal court of one count of violating the Sherman Anti-trust Act.


It is a definite sign of prosecutorial abuse when the Sherman Anti-trust Act, designed to bust up large monopolies, is applied to a small-time local partnership speculating in distressed properties sold at auctions where Mr. Batra and his partner comprised one of many bidders.


Such a dubious interpretation of the anti-trust statute shows an extraordinary determination to convict. But justice is forfeited when, in addition, the conviction is obtained solely through the purchased testimony of a defendant who committed a real crime and is seeking to reduce his charges.


Until the Glorious Revolution when Parliament established the supremacy of law over the sovereign, kings dealt with enemies by bribing or compelling witnesses to testify against them. Once law and not the king's government was supreme, Matthew Hale established the maxim that testimony purchased with reward has no standing in court.


It is an abomination that the 10th Circuit has enabled unscrupulous prosecutors to resurrect the ancient practice of convicting defendants with paid testimony.


COPYRIGHT 1999 PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.