Posted on 04/13/2015 4:25:38 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The State Department draft memorandum intended for the Soviet Ambassador clearly sets out the legal principles to be used at Nuremberg. The two principles are Conspiracy and RICO. Any U.S. Attorney of 1945 would have been well-versed in Conspiracy prosecution. RICO, or “Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations,” was unknown. It was, in fact, invented by the War Department memo that was the forerunner of this diplomatic memorandum.
Under principles of common law, and now codified in Federal and most state criminal codes, a conspiracy consists of the following:
1) An agreement between two or more persons to commit a felony, and
2) An overt act by any party of the conspiracy in furtherance of the agreement.
All parties to a conspiracy are liable for any and all acts of co-conspirators. Further, as an evidentiary matter, statements of co-defendants made in furtherance of the agreement would normally be considered hearsay and subject to exclusion as the co-defendant could not be cross-examined regarding his out of Court statement. However, in a conspiracy prosecution, all statements of co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy are admissible in court against every member of the conspiracy.
The RICO theory of prosecution is now largely used as an outgrowth of traditional conspiracy prosecution, and is now most commonly used in prosecution of organized crime. It expands upon the common law notion of conspiracy to cast a much wider net. Under traditional conspiracy prosecution, the state has to specify the specific felony intended to be committed, and show that all defendants were parties to that agreement to commit the specific felony. RICO prosecution makes membership in an organization whose purpose was criminal in nature a crime in itself. In other words, just being a member of a mob family or gang, which primarily exists to commit crimes, makes you a criminal subject to prosecution and punishment.
This diplomatic memo is taken from an internal War Department memo drafted in September, 1944 by Murray Bernays, a Columbia law school graduate who was working “special projects” for the War Department. He was tasked with coming up with a legal theory of war crimes prosecutions, and this is the result. He did not want to get bogged down with finding witnesses and trying each and every individual death camp guard for specific acts of murder. Instead, his brilliant idea was that the entire Nazi Party and Nazi state had been one gigantic criminal enterprise, and membership and participation automatically made every member guilty of the all of the acts of the entire organization.
Murray Bernays was the conceptual father of all of the Federal RICO statute adopted in 1970, and by most states during the 1970s.
In 1945, however, there were a number of hurdles to get over. First, the legal systems of the USSR, France and Germany did not recognize the concept of a conspiracy prosecution. Only the British did. And the concept of just being a member of the organization conferring criminal culpability was a radical leap beyond anything legally argued before. There were also a number of concerns that this theory was “ex post facto,” or developing a law to charge after the crimes were committed. Also, how far do you go? Is every German “guilty” of war crimes? Such matters were subject to much internal debate before this diplomatic memo was drafted. It looks like that internal debate was resolved.
However, the problems of “ex post facto” prosecution, and selective prosecution, would haunt the Tribunal all through the proceedings.
I saw that, and thought “boy, that LBJ couldn’t help but milk FDR’s death for his own benefit.”
Try to keep up.
My daughter is visiting, with a dog. I’ll get less coherent as the week goes on.
Thanks for the warning.
I had to look up the lost submarine USS Scamp...turns out she wasn’t lost, but surfaced - badly damaged - sometime later.....but was then lost forever late in the year.
Least I can do. I like to inform the public when I’m going on vacation or about to have a baby, too, because I get loopy.
In addition to the coincidence of the choice to interview Lyndon Johnson about the shock of the death of a president in office, the Times appears not to have had a correspondent in Warm Springs. (Only an Associated Press report is included.) Nowadays, when the imperial entourage lands on Martha’s Vineyard or Crawford or some such place, even if merely for a summer vacation, the press hordes, many of them duly credentialed specialists in “political journalism,” must tag along.
Wasn’t LBJ given a Silver Star early in the War for some fact finding mission in the South Pacific?
The possibility of applying the draconian sanctions of RICO to defendants liable for civil wrongs has bedeviled the courts since the 1970’s. It can turn a civil dispute into a company killer.
USS Scamp was sunk in November 1944.
In April 1945, Anna, the president’s daughter and manager of some White House social activities, arranged for Lucy Rutherfurd, FDR's on-again and off-again mistress since 1916, to meet her father at his "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia. Lucy and Elizabeth Shoumatoff, Lucy’s friend and artist who was there to capture FDR in watercolor, were there on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt suffered the fatal cerebral hemorrhage. The two women packed and left immediately . When Eleanor soon learned the truth, she felt especially betrayed to learn of her daughter's role in the deception.
Criminal RICO was intended to take down a crime syndicate by locking up all of its members. Civil RICO was intended to take away their ill-gotten gains. But RICO actions are complex and costly, and the mob has deep pockets. Criminal defense attorneys are part of their overhead built into their business model. So it’s much easier to do a civil RICO action against the small time operator, and clean him out. He can’t defend against it. Since the predicate crimes that trigger a RICO charge constitute practically the entire criminal code, and in the civil RICO actions the standard of proof is only preponderance of evidence, it becomes an easy money deal for the government.
There really isn’t a coherent front in the West anymore. The armored divisions are slashing through everywhere.
Two trains on a senseless search for a death camp, both stopped. One led to a massacre by evil in a monstrous portion. The other led to freedom. I don’t know what to say; I sure can’t make any sense of it.
I saw a civil case out of the 6th Circuit recently where the court let stand a RICO suit against an insurance company and its salesmen for peddling a tax shelter for the wealthy the IRS ultimately ruled did not work. Sure, they owed some damages, but that was hardly criminal conduct.
In all seriousness, few people in the U. S. knew that Roosevelt was wheelchair bound. In the 60’s, few knew that JFK suffered from Addison’s Disease.
Commander Lyndon B. Johnson’s Army Silver Star Medal Citation
sstar
Download
ARMY SILVER STAR MEDAL
TO
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON,
UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE
“For gallantry in action in the vicinity of Port Moresby and Salamaua, New Guinea on June 9, 1942. While on a mission of obtaining information in the Southwest Pacific area, Lieutenant Commander Johnson, in order to obtain personal knowledge of combat conditions, volunteered as an observer on a hazardous aerial combat mission over hostile positions in New Guinea. As our planes neared the target area they were intercepted by eight hostile fighters. When, at this time, the plane in which Lieutenant Commander Johnson was an observer, developed mechanical trouble and was forced to turn back alone, presenting a favorable target to the enemy fighters, he evidenced marked coolness in spite of the hazards involved. His gallant action enabled him to obtain and return with valuable information.”
09 September 1997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson
Johnson reported to General Douglas MacArthur in Australia. Johnson and two Army officers went to the 22nd Bomb Group base, which was assigned the high risk mission of bombing the Japanese airbase at Lae in New Guinea. A colonel took Johnson’s allocated seat on one bomber, and it was shot down with no survivors. Reports vary on what happened to the B-26 Marauder carrying Johnson. He said it was also attacked by Japanese fighters but survived, while others, including other members of the flight crew, claim it turned back because of generator trouble before reaching the objective and before encountering enemy aircraft and never came under fire; this is supported by official flight records.[25] Other airplanes that continued to the target did come under fire near the target at about the same time that Johnson’s plane was recorded as having landed back at the original airbase. MacArthur awarded Johnson the Silver Star, the military’s third-highest medal.[25]
Historian Dallek, who also has written several books on Johnson, said the evidence, while conflicting, buttresses his argument that the Silver Star was more about politics than bravery.
“What I concluded,” Dallek said,” was that there was an agreement, a deal made between LBJ and Gen. MacArthur. And the deal was Johnson would get this medal, which somebody later said was the least deserved and most talked about medal in American military history. And MacArthur, in return, had a pledge from Johnson that he would lobby FDR to provide greater resources for the southwest Pacific theater.”
From 70 years down the road, I can only make a little sense of it. And that is that we are all sheep, programmed to "just follow orders." Or it's a human "herd instinct" since we are social animals. Once a psychotic narcissist like a Hitler, Stalin or Mao take the reins of power, there is no limit to what they can get their people to do to each other.
And as I've said many times, don't say "that can't happen here" because it has and it already is. Just suggest publicly that homosexuality is wrong and see what happens to you. We are well on our way to stuffing people into ovens. Because we were "just following orders."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.