The American Spectator : Hart to Hart

Hart to Hart

By James Srodes from the June 2009 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

So, quite properly, Alan Dershowitz, probably the most loquacious of cable television’s legal chatterers, should be read for raising a very timely question, “How Would Henry Hart Have Approached the Problem of Suicide Terrorism?” After all, how can the law prevent a violent criminal act by a perpetrator whose self-destruction is his goal?

Lest you think Lynch and Cato have become prisoners of fringe loonies, be advised there also are cogent insights from voices more familiar to Spectator readers, including James Q. Wilson and Judge Richard Posner. As a lagniappe, Lynch has included a still relevant 1984 essay by Milton and Rose Friedman, a 2003 address to the American Bar Association by Supreme Court justice Anthony M. Kennedy, and a particularly timely speech made in 1940 by then attorney general Robert H. Jackson, the Supreme Court justice who later served as the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. His comments on the role of the federal prosecutor should be required reading—especially by today’s federal prosecutors.

Read this book. Then think about it.

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Letter to the Editor

Steve| 6.19.09 @ 9:59AM

Hey, cut Judge Kosinski some slack. His assertion is not at all astonishing, simply commonsensical. Virtually all my neighbors (and myself) qualify as felony tax evaders in my beloved soviet since we purchase products in a nearby state and decline to pay the requisite use tax when bringing the swag across the state line. This is simply one example of many. There are so many laws, often contradictory, that the average Joe simply plunges ahead in ignorance, or if knowledgeable, hopes for the best. I am routinely threatened by federal agencies with criminal sanctions; failing to supply a census report for my business, for example, puts me in criminal jeopardy.

American jurisprudence is a joke at the present instant. When so many activities present legal pitfalls, the whole thing becomes risible, as citizens must of necessity press on with their lives. God help those snagged, however.

bennie morgan| 6.19.09 @ 10:05AM

Dershowitz asked what would have been Hart's view on suicide terrorism, while basking in the glow of the 'shock and awe' terrorism in Iraq that he ardently endorsed and supported. Both kinds of terrorism are politically based, but he decries one and supports the other without caring about Hart's views - hypocrite!

The Big E| 6.19.09 @ 2:29PM

As a 15 year criminal defense practitioner, and an ardent anti-government conservative, I want to rise to the defense of Judge Kozinski's comments. He hit the nail on the head. More and more it is law enforcement and prosecutors who, through broad discretion granted to them by legislatures and the myriad of sometimes contradictory criminal sanctions, determine how serious any given act or offense is.

One classic example right here in the Old North State is the relation between the misdemeanor of passing a worthless check and the felony of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses. If you pass a worthless check to someone you might be charged with the misdemeanor. But if the DA doesn't like you, or as is the case more often, the person you passed the check to is someone of influence, you will be charged with the felony instead. This is true regardless of the amount of the check. The act of passing the worthless check has been held by our Appellate Courts to constitute either offense, so which you get charged with depends upon factors which have nothing to do with what you actually did, but who you ticked off in the process.

We must have stong, capable law enforcement to have a safe and orderly society, BUT, we must never forget the potential for abuse of the criminal laws in the hands of an oppressive executive. When any tyrant comes to power, the tools he uses to suppress opposition are the police and the prosecutors. The Gestapo in Nazi Germany, the KGB in Soviet Russia, the list could go on and on. They were all police forces enforcing the criminal laws of the State.

Pingback| 6.19.09 @ 10:13PM

…committed during our own generation there is no justice, no end in sight. The torture of today is the slavery of yesterday, … Blog of Rights: Official Blog… - http://blog.aclu.org/ The American Spectator : Hart to Hart By James Srodes He starts off with a truly astonishing assertion: ?Since most people have committed at least one crime carrying serious consequences, police and prosecutors choose who'll…

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