Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the
Innocent
by Harvey A. Silverglate
Encounter Books, 2009, 325 pages
If it is true that words are intellectual and moral currency, and
like currency, words sometimes appreciate or depreciate in value,
then Harvey Silverglate's words exposing the deception that has
become routine in the federal criminal justice system has an
appreciable net worth of millions in accused lives.
Silverglate, a criminal defense attorney, takes a realistic
approach in exposing the existence of unprincipled, vague,
iniquitous rules, statutes and conduct by the federal criminal
justice system that renders subjective "fact-finding" and "intent"
constitutionally illusory. Through and by its own dicta,
the federal criminal court is no longer the most challenging
battleground for the testing of legal knowledge, wisdom and
advocacy skill, but rather, a one-dimensional contentious pulpit
for entrenched powers whose primary goal is to convict an
individual in a procedurally unbalanced arena unconcerned about
truth.
Silverglate eloquently evaluates and examines cases from the
political to the controversial - attacks on the Fourth Estate, the
American Bar Association and medicine - while alluding to the fact
that the federal criminal justice system "eats its own." He
elucidates the causes, effects, outcomes, orchestrations and
designs of procedurally "dispatched cases" by the federal
prosecution whose assertions concerning the law are reached through
prejudicial assumptions that fly in the face of fact and
reasonableness.
How things are done has become far more important than what is
done. Process has become an end in itself. The federal criminal
justice system is consumed by the reign of absolute law, contrary
to the social contract of fairness and inalienable rights which
worked to protect justice throughout the centuries. It has become
commonplace for the courts to accept unsubstantiated, coached,
unsupported, questionable, solicited and compensated testimony from
witnesses or alleged co-conspirators who have much to gain, and
whose oath of veracity and trustworthiness is malevolently
justified through the institutionalization of public fear.
Viewed through Silverglate's lens, abuses of the power of law by
those appointed to ensure justice and equal citizenship become
clear. The process of justice now outweighs procedural safeguards
essential to a free society. The American people have been fooled,
with bias, lynch law and trial by media destroying the impartiality
of our administration of justice. Due process and equal protection
have given way to obsession with professional advancement and
expeditious docket-clearing, to the point that fact finding is
whatever the government says it is, and evidence of innocence is of
no consequence.
Three Felonies a Day's lesson for defense attorneys is
how ill-equipped they have been and still are to the reality of
vague statutes and abuse of power brandished by the federal
criminal justice system. Attorneys may take issue with this book,
but provoking debate around controversial prosecutions is one of
the main benefits of the discourse. Incarceration, probation and
conviction should not be taken at face value. All any of us can
know is that someone somewhere sentenced an individual to a term of
punishment based on someone else's accusations. There is no proof
positive that a crime was committed, nor is sentencing indicative
of an individual's character.
Three Felonies a Day evokes a renewed call for a return
to constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection
under the law. It is a must-read for anyone who is civilly
disabled, socially disenfranchised, naive enough to believe the
criminal justice system has anything to do with justice, and all
recently graduated lawyers who have accepted employment with the
U.S. Attorney's Office. Lastly, it is for those of us who need a
reminder that "innocent until proven guilty" is neither an absolute
nor a reality.
Gerald N. Unger is executive director and general counsel of
Inalienable Rights Project Inc. in Wareham.