Jailing the innocent

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulcraigroberts/pcr20040107.shtml ^ | Jan 7, 2004 | Paul Craig Roberts

[DFW_Repub]

Jailing the innocent Paul Craig Roberts (archive)

January 7, 2004

Every day, many Americans commit crimes of which they are unaware. Many of the crimes with which Americans are charged are absurd.

One recent case brought to light by Ellen Podgor and Paul Rosenzweig is that of three Americans sentenced in federal court to eight years in prison for importing lobster tails from Honduras in plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes. Why this matters, no one knows. Moreover, the importers of the lobster tails have no responsibility for how the seafood was packed in Honduras.

Federal prosecutors decided that Honduran law was violated by the shipment because a few tails (3 percent of the shipment) were less than 5.5 inches in length.

The Honduran government objects to this interpretation of its law and filed a brief in behalf of the defendants, but federal judges nevertheless convicted their fellow citizens for violating the Lacey Act by importing "fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any foreign law."

To ensure a harsh sentence, the prosecutors loaded up charges against the defendants by bringing indictments for smuggling, money laundering and conspiracy. Smuggling is inferred from a few of the tails allegedly being undersized and illegal. Money laundering is charged because the lobster purchase and sale required money to be deposited in a bank. Conspiracy is charged on the basis that more than one person was involved.

In other words, these are totally trumped-up crimes.

The upshot is that three Americans have had their lives ruined by federal prosecutors and judges for violating a Honduran law that the Honduran president, attorney general and embassy say is not on their country's statute books.

For reasons no one knows, federal prosecutors spent six months trying to find reasons in Honduran law to indict the American importers of the lobster tails. If it took federal prosecutors six months to find something in foreign law that they could allege the importers to have violated, how could the importers possibly have known that they could be imprisoned for the ordinary everyday business of importing lobster tails for restaurants?

Legal scholars such as Rosenzweig at the Heritage Foundation and Erik Luna at the University of Utah Law School are calling attention to the overcriminalization that has made it impossible in America to conduct ordinary business activities without risk of indictment. It is tyrannical to burden Americans with the substantive obligation of knowing how federal prosecutors might interpret every foreign law. No sane person could regard the lobster importers' conduct as criminal. Liberty is extinguished where law is so broad and vague as to entrap even the most honest citizen.

Naive Americans tend to regard miscarriages of justice, such as the lobster import case, as rare examples of legal idiocy that somehow will be corrected by the legal system. However, such cases are routine and are seldom if ever corrected. In America today, law enforcement boils down to the exercise of power by unaccountable prosecutors. Justice is not served by ensnaring the innocent.

Married men who happen to own guns are being turned into felons by wives who ask for restraining orders when they file for divorce. Prosecutors interpret restraining orders as criminalizing prior gun ownership. A restraining order turns a law-abiding gun owner into a criminal. It is an example of unconstitutional ex post facto law at its worst.

Americans are uniformed about the tyrannical nature of their criminal justice system. Until they become personally ensnared in the system, Americans believe that police and prosecutors would never convict an innocent person. Once they experience the system, Americans are terrified by the system's indifference to whether a defendant has committed a crime.

Mary Sue Terry, former attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, says the concern of the justice system "has turned from seeking truth to seeking convictions, and our post-conviction efforts are focused on denying any further review."

Ever widening arrest powers are bringing a reality check to more and more Americans. Just before Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who discovers contraband in a car can arrest every occupant if no one admits to ownership of the illicit item. Warn your teen-agers never to get into a car with acquaintances who might have alcohol, drugs or weapons. And be careful whose car you get into yourself.

In a recent Cato Policy Report, Erik Luna says that "the sheer number of idiosyncratic laws and the scope of discretionary enforcement" are making criminals out of many Americans who had no intent to break a law or any knowledge that they had.

A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world.

©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc

[Mr. Jeeves]

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We WANT them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

[MineralMan]

Look here for more information. All is not as it appears in this story. One wonders why the names of those charged are not mentioned in this article. Seems like it wasn't just a few lobster tails, as is implied above.


http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2000/nov00/noaasero00057.html

[William McKinley]

Maybe PCR can get his good buddy ol' Chuck Schumer to fix these laws.

[William McKinley]

*gasp*

You mean PCR was being a bit dishonest?

I simply refuse to believe it!

[MineralMan]

"You mean PCR was being a bit dishonest?

I simply refuse to believe it!"

I know. I could hardly believe my eyes. Oh, wait, that's often my reaction to PCR's blatherings.

Being conservative is one thing: Deliberately distorting the truth is another. PCR is often not to be trusted. Anything under that byline needs to be investigated before acceptance.

[PAR35]

Federal prosecutors decided that Honduran law was violated by the shipment because a few tails
this story

seafood corporations were conspiring to sell hundreds of thousands of pounds of undersized lobster tails.
NOAA release

Thanks for interjecting some facts into the debate.

[DFW_Repub]

Well alrighty then... if the guvment says so, then it must be true.

[MineralMan]

"Well alrighty then... if the guvment says so, then it must be true.
"

Not at all. Go ahead and do the research on this case. It was misrepresented in the article you posted. That's not your fault.

Not everything written by every self-styled "conservative" is true. In the case of this author, however, every statement he makes needs to be checked.

It's all on the web. You can look it up yourself.

[MineralMan]

Besides that, the case went to court in 2001. Hardly news, is it? This is typical for the author who you quote in your posting. After digging around for a case, he misrepresents it to serve his needs.

Easy to research, and well worth the trouble.

[-YYZ-]

Of course, one might ask: If the Honduran gov't was is not interested in protecting its natural resources, is it any business of the US gov't to do it for them?

[Jubal Harshaw]

Your link is a welcome source of insight into the government's side of the story. It is particularly interesting that one of the issues raised on the government's web site is:

"The wealth from McNab's vast harvest was denied to the common citizens of HondurasMcNab paid the harvesters 10 cents per pound of lobster, which subsequently wholesaled in the United States for $10 to $18 per pound."

Personally, I think it's obvious that the expense, effort, and time required to process and ship items from Honduras to the US justifies an increase in the price, and I further think it's obvious that it is not up to the government, or anyone else not directly involved in this business, to determine how great that increase should be. I submit that it's a sign of bad faith on the part of the government that the government characterized that rise in price as "denial of wealth" to the citizens of Honduras.

[Jubal Harshaw]

Your link is a welcome source of insight into the government's side of the story. It is particularly interesting that one of the issues raised on the government's web site is:

"The wealth from McNab's vast harvest was denied to the common citizens of HondurasMcNab paid the harvesters 10 cents per pound of lobster, which subsequently wholesaled in the United States for $10 to $18 per pound."

Personally, I think it's obvious that the expense, effort, and time required to process and ship items from Honduras to the US justifies an increase in the price, and I further think it's obvious that it is not up to the government, or anyone else not directly involved in this business, to determine how great that increase should be. I submit that it's a sign of bad faith on the part of the government that the government characterized that rise in price as "denial of wealth" to the citizens of Honduras.

[bassmaner]

Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Something Harry Anslinger (the father of marijuana prohibition) understood very well.