Same psycho freedom stealing prosecutor also had to grovel to the courts a few days ago that her office arrested the wrong guy in a high profile gang case because he kind of looked like who they were after. Innocent guy enjoyed almost a month in prison and legal bills
This story is more than one about a rogue prosecutor, "the government is overstepping its bounds in a practice that has swelled in the past decade to encompass some 400 federal statutes, covering crimes from drug trafficking to racketeering to halibut poaching."
I wouldn't have any problem with the government going after what is basically a drug den, but the article says "Law enforcement officials cited 15 incidents over a similar number of years"... That's one incident a year.
If I owned ANY hotel, particularly in a bad part of town, I'd be rather proud that the police only came out to visit once a year. That's simply a business where some things are out of your control.
"Don't tax payers have a say in who gets to waste valuable tax dollars on frivolous cases?"
Only very indirectly. We tax payers (voters) elected President Obama, who appointed Carmen Ortiz as a federal prosecutor in 2009.[1] Since Obama can't run for president again, we've lost our chance to show our displeasure in the only way he'd really care about (losing an election).
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for dissing Obama and his party at almost any defensible juncture. But, as the Libertarians would be glad to tell you, asset forfeiture and overzealous prosecutions are a larger problem than the Obama administration, and come from both sides (a "tough on white-collar criminals" policy push from the left, because businesspeople and executives are evil dontchaknow, and a "war on drugs" policy push from the right, because drug use is a threat to society and immoral dontchaknow.)
See? Bipartisanship in action!
(Disclaimer about how I don't roll with the Libertarians and have my own mockery for certain Libertarian policy positions which are not relevant to this conversation.)
In the best of all possible worlds, this could affect Carmen Ortiz's career going forward, which could affect her finances. Of course, it's been a long time since I've thought that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
I can't remember where I read it but someone in the legal profession pointed out that she'd simply move over to the defense side and capitalize on all that insider experience she gleaned from being a prosecutor. otoh She probably won't ever be the governor of anything.
So the lesson here is that if a federal prosecutor wants to take something, like your house or a $1,000,000 hotel you own free-and-clear, then even if their case is SO weak that they will go on to lose on nearly every point, it will still take you about $500,000 of legal bills to defend yourself, and that's BEFORE the appeals, plus some of his lawyers were free.
So I have an interesting proposal. Carmen Ortiz is the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. We get all kinds of stories about her along this vein, but really she's the only US Attorney we're giving this much scrutiny for. I propose we randomly select three other US Attorneys and subject them to the same scrutiny, illustrating whether it's just that Carmen Ortiz is an awful human being, or whether it's the entire system that's broken.
I wonder if this could be an opportunity for a non-profit. It seems like it would be reasonably simple to collect the number of forfeitures initiated by prosecutors and the amounts of money they 'collect'. FEAR.org (Forfeiture Endangers American Rights) might be a good place to start. What about a Kickstarter to fund it? Imagine getting an auto-tweet every time a prosecutor made a forfeiture. What I loathe about forfeiture is that the Govt. does not need to get a conviction. They'charge' the property directly and if you can't afford to fight it they win.
I really hope somebody takes you up on your proposal, but I have a hunch that rather than being "either/or" it's probably more of a "yes, and yes" in this case.
Never in my life have I been impressed with the US Department of Justice. If anything, I'm slightly relieved they aren't stomping kittens to death and capturing little kids at gunpoint like they did during the Janet Reno years.
It's nice that government overreach is (potentially) punished.
On the other hand it's an embarrassment for the entire legal system that defending against such overreach costs upwards of $500k.
You only think it's unfortunate because you're thinking about a sympathetic defendant. Consider the opposite hypothetical: all those people suing mortgage lenders for predatory loans. A lot of those people are going to lose those cases. Should they get stuck with the mortgage lenders' legal bills?
Losing a (civil) case does not mean the plaintiff was in the wrong for having brought the case. Very often, people legitimately think they've been wronged, they submit the conflict to the courts for resolution, and the courts decide against them. That's why loser pays is the exception, not the rule. It's reserved for when people use the legal system simply to harass someone else, instead of submitting a legitimate grievance the resolution of which just happens to not come out in their favor.
What's exceptional is that the Institute for Justice http://www.ij.org took up Mr. Caswell's case pro-bono (after Caswell had spent $100k he'd borrowed to fight the case on his own). Standard legal procedure has the motel being taken possession of by the Govt., sold, and the proceeds being divided up amongst State and Federal law enforcement agencies. "Should the government win its case, it will sell off Caswell’s property and give the Tewksbury Police 80 percent of the take." http://www.wbur.org/2012/11/14/tewksbury-motel-owner-fights-...
http://reason.com/24-7/2013/01/30/carmen-ortiz-blew-a-gang-a...