The Prisonhouse of Nations - America!

The Prisonhouse of Nations - America!

Casey Luczak

Copyright © 2021 Casey Luczak

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2021

ISBN 978-1-64952-451-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64952-452-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

I

Welcome to the Beginning of the End

A. Department of Convictions

B. Dark practices in the abuse of power

C. Awareness is no longer an option

D. The migration from real crimes to targeting individuals

E. Judges and prosecutors must never escape misconduct through immunity

F. Illegally monitoring America

G. A century of misconduct

H. Prosecutor misconduct spreads abroad

I. Author Grisham experiences the reality of courtroom culpability

II

The Art of Prosecutorial Misconduct

A. George Washington, where are you?

B. Cochran couldn't forbear being a prosecutor

C. The case of the mysterious paper bag

No Rules or Boundaries in Prosecutorial Misconduct

A. Wrongful convictions

B. Prosecutor misconduct is rewarded

C. Delinquent prosecutors are not invisible

D. Official misconduct costs John Thompson eighteen years

E. Two prostitutes tortured into a confession

Prosecutors Persist in Building Wrongful Convictions in the Sand

A. Fanatical prosecutors make costly, creative interpretations of the law

B. Sorry, wrong house!

C. Prosecutors are well insulated

D. The DOJ does not operate to clear innocent suspects

E. Forget the size; the fish are never thrown back

F. Annually, thousands are wrongly convicted

G. Specific areas of prosecutor misconduct

H. Wasting taxpayer money on family feuds

Attorney General Admonished: Prosecutor Incriminates DOJ when Caught Red-Handed in Misconduct

A. Arthur and Garza—two prosecutors who personify misconduct

B. Public and political pressures fuel misconduct

C. Legal action against prosecutors as individuals is endorsed

A Prosecutor's Job Is Twofold: Guilt Shall Not Escape nor Shall Innocence Suffer—Better Known as Uncle Sam's Product of Imagination

A. Witness tampering leads to mistrial

B. The sixty-one-page confession of an innocent man

C. Prosecutor gives witness a phony name and $2,000 for her bogus testimony

D. The DOJ cultivates and condones misconduct

E. Post-conviction DNA testing has helped

F. Convictions are personal victories that enhance prestige

G. IRS admits investigating Ferrari owners

H. Earn a commission working for the IRS as a part-time informant

I. Give the feds a target, and they will get you a crime

III

Prosecutors Have Come to be Regarded as Specialists in Meaninglessness, which in Certain Circles Is Recognized as a Hallmark of True Science

A. Playing games with human lives

B. Neophytes with good intentions at best

C. Prosecutor misuses witness vouchers for personal gain

D. New York City struggles with stable of prosecutors in its pressurized law factory

E. Prosecutors are underpaid, unseasoned, and misguided

F. Private sector defense attorneys chase worldly possessions; prosecutors pursue pure power

G. Nine-year trial delay because prosecutor refused a law interpretation

IV

Medical Profession Prime Market for Hungry Prosecutors

A. Court supports prosecutor, resulting in a twenty-seven-day trial and eight years of prolonged agony

B. Prosecutor employs betrayal to convict doctor

C. Prosecutor wastes time and money, turning 313-count indictment into acquittal

D. Targeting a large drug company, prosecutor stoops to threats to a family member

E. Be careful when cooperating with the government; be more careful when not cooperating

F. To the government, forfeiture is equivalent to misappropriation

G. Fictitious indictments by deceitful prosecutors are discouraging youths from entering the medical profession

H. Doctor branded mass murderer by prosecutor, acquitted four years later

V

As a Rule, Not an Exception, the DOJ Rewards Prosecutor Misconduct

A. The prosecutor who used her misdeeds to become an honest judge

B. There's nothing more disgusting than a prosecutor who employs misconduct with enthusiasm

C. Truthful evidence from this minister of justice is mere coincidence

D. Three misfit prosecutors rewarded by DOJ for their flair at foul play in getting convictions

E. Winning remains the only option; second place is no place

F. District attorney epitomizes his job description

G. Former prosecutor describes her peers with affirmance: Lying, cheating bastards!

H. Innocent man convicted on fabricated testimony of twenty-nine convicts

VI

The Anatomy of America's Two Parasite Judicial Systems

A. Shortened prison sentences because prosecutors break the rules

B. Crime for many is a revolving door

C. With crime as a business, the government must target individuals

D. Government greed mandates the need for two systems of justice

E. Drug offenders noticeably favored over white-collar malefactors with post-conviction relief

VII

Public Defenders Are Paraphernalia to a Prosecutor

A. How big a business is crime in America for this government?

B. Using the Hyde Amendment when the government's position is vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith

C. Several examples of prosecutor misconduct leading to raids on the Treasury

D. Plea agreements can be compared to medieval torture

E. It's easy to lose ten years of your life to a broken-down system

F. Far too often, prosecutors get caught breaching plea agreements

VIII

Judges Are Not Gifted with Special Powers Like Moses

A. Judges must never pierce the veil of impartiality

B. If judges are so honest, why do they need immunity?

C. Judicial discipline hearings are public in thirty-five states

D. Disgust coexists with misconduct by trial judges

E. Karma reigns as hope eternal for the incarcerated

IX

Never Underestimate the FBI's Power of Human Stupidity

A. Respect for the FBI fades rapidly with contact

B. FBI allowed to sweep its sins under magic carpet

The Prostration of 9/11

C. FBI learns little from bombing experiences

D. FBI agents are blessed with license to steal

E. A story inside the life of undercover FBI agent Michael Grimm

The Rest of the Michael Grimm Story

X

White-Collar Crime Is Never Clear-Cut Wrongdoing

A. Meet Bernie Madoff—philanthropist, financier, convict

B. Elderly prisoners forfeit Social Security benefits

C. Learning experience for all American enterprises

D. Senator persecuted with government wrongdoing

XI

Bureau of Prisons Is Destined to Self-Destruct

A. Rehabilitation: Improving a criminal's character and outlook

Shock Incarceration Program

Compassionate Release

Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP)

The Horticulture Program

B. Policies, rules, regulations, and inconsistencies

America Jails Everyone Else, So Why Not the Mentally Ill?

The Demise of RRC Placements

C. How much justice can you afford inside America's bilateral arm of the law?

D. Pathological gambling, chemical dependency, and violations of the law

E. Exhaustion of administrative remedies through the prison grievance system

F. Conceded facts from inside prison walls

G. Operational federal prison facilities

XII

Malicious Prosecuting Serves as the Gravamen to the Corruption That Has Been Breathing within the Four Corners of the Department of Justice for Well over a Century

C. Presenting an informal brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit scrutinizing a malicious prosecution.

XIII

Named Ministers of Justice Discovered Cheating in the Line of Duty

Beware of the following:

Afterword

Stop Wasting Money on Post-Conviction Appeals

Recommended Reading

Authoritative Sources of Reference

About the Author

"To the innocent who served time

and the guilty who served too much"

Notice!

Far too much money is spent wastefully in this country on overpriced appellate attorneys in the post-conviction appeal process.

If you are incarcerated or have a family member serving time in a federal prison who experienced any type of impropriety or misconduct from a judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, or FBI agent, you could be eligible for free legal assistance.

To start, simply contact this author and provide a brief explanation of your experience with the judicial process: Mr. Casey Luczak, P.O. Box 60758 Palm Bay, FL 32905.

I am ashamed the law is such an ass.

—George Chapman,

Revenge for Honor

Preface

Centuries of foul play in the Department of Justice (DOJ) in this country, fortified through deceptive practices, have temporized the freedom of far too many innocent people with puritanical, senseless prison sentences.

This reasoning is laced with a mythology rich in ideals that are spoon-fed to the American people by this country's political leaders—judges are infallible and neutral; the objective of all prosecutors is justice; public defenders serve the indigent, the poor, and the accused whose assets have been stolen by the government when they are arrested or raided; and anyone accused of a crime in this country is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Sorry, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. These are all myths employed by this government to perpetuate its business activities in the field of crime.

Judges are opinionated with attitudes, and they conspicuously favor the government. The only objective of prosecutors is a conviction, and they will obtain it under any circumstances, just short of murder. Public defenders are an extension of the criminal justice system whose mission is constant—get the defendant to sign a plea agreement.

The ministers of justice (those who appear in this writing) are not good people for the most part. Their power was wrongly used and did not follow justice; it preceded it. Hopefully, their exposure in the hastening of justice will finally lead them to the stepmother of misfortune. These ministers call themselves judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys—mere labels.

Prisons should be for only the most serious federal crimes, not these fabricated acts prohibited by law this government creates for self-preservation. The DOJ's lies have become this country's heritage, are conveyed generationally, and have been accepted over time as status quo.

We allow our legal caretakers to indict, convict, and sentence individuals under false pretenses. Plea agreements should be challenged as unconstitutional. The basic tenets of living in a free society are violated routinely when it comes to crime. While the government pretends to be interested in justice for the American people, it's nothing but a chicanery. This public servant has made a major business out of offenses against the law, and there seems to be no end in sight. It targets individuals and corporations gratuitously.

This book brings to the forefront the sad truth of a deterioration of a criminal justice system that never was. These real experiences of pain and suffering against targeted innocent people is appalling, arousing aversion. There may be good judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys out there, but your chances of finding one are fifty-fifty.

There exists the presumption that individuals are innocent until proven guilty. It's undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary. Its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal system.

Somehow, though, this undoubted law of presumed innocence has been tossed to the wayside in the courts, though the government continues to teach it in the classrooms as it grooms our youths to join the herd of sheep called Americans. What once was elementary is now a complicated and convoluted field of law.

America is the land of the free, after all. Does it really matter whether the DOJ bends the truth here and there to profit from crime? The DOJ keeps this prison house of nations filled through any way possible. Unfortunately, when the stench of this purported system of justice is traded for lies, the people's freedoms become diminished, never to return. The DOJ does as it pleases and keeps telling us how we are being protected by its unquestionable answers.

Only when you personally get caught in this government radar will you realize the truth. Regrettably, by then, it will be too late.

America's freedom, as guaranteed by the US Constitution, has been forfeited by a justice system more protective of its own power than its obligations to preserve the welfare of the populace.

The Prison House of Nations—America exposes how this distorted system of justice operates, case by case, with facts. It illustrates how this mendacious interpretation of justice translates to loss for Americans—loss of life, loss of property, loss of freedom. The people suffer while this public servant, created by the people, runs amok. The costs are staggering; the tail clearly wags the dog.

Amidst this bleak revelation is a call to action. There's no blueprint to restore the DOJ to its intended role as an instrument to protect the people, for too much money is being made by those operating the system with beguilement and misdirection. About a hundred years ago, this government realized there is much more to get out of crime than simply chasing real criminals, and it has been proactive ever since.

Be forewarned. The stories you are about to experience are all true, with real people so named. There remain no more places for these masked servants of justice to hide.

These are stories of wrongly convicted and/or sentenced people. They were forced by this government to play this game with their very lives at stake, and they lost, hopefully only temporarily. Regrettably, at this moment in time, there is little hope for anyone entrapped in the government radar.

This writing of collected anecdotes is intended to draw attention to crimes and prisons in this country, a subject matter the American public prefers to keep out of sight. Admittedly, the people can no longer afford to continue this demeanor. The author comes from the inside. He knows the system, he knows the law, and he can find flaws in any case. Prosecutors and judges make mistakes—first, because they employ misconduct when necessary to preserve a conviction and, second, because they are in a hurry, always in a hurry, which is when legal mistakes are made that lead to proper affirmative relief.

Enjoy reading! Hopefully, when you finish, you will better appreciate the imminent danger of crime in this country—assuredly not because of the criminal action itself, but deplorably because of what follows.

I

Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish.

Welcome to the Beginning of the End

Department of Convictions

Dark practices in the abuse of power

Awareness is no longer an option

The migration from real crimes to targeting people

Judges and prosecutors must never escape misconduct through immunity

Illegally monitoring America

A century of misconduct

Prosecutor misconduct spreads abroad

Author Grisham experiences the reality of courtroom culpability

It remains the author's intent to give the government, this body of office holders, its rightful tribute throughout this abasement. Since the term government so openly lacks personal identity, with all due respect, henceforth, the terms government and Uncle Sam will be coextensive.

While the facts you are about to read and the names you are about to recognize are true, kindly remember that time stands still for no man and that this edification was written while the author was serving a ten-year federal prison sentence due to a malicious prosecution, a process far more common than the American populace may realize. Statistics change, individuals move on, and people die. An exposé such as this personifies What happened? in lieu of What is happening? It is history made rather than history being made. Kindly proceed reading with that awareness and regard.

The stories you are about to witness are authentic. The people are real. Some good. Some are bad. You be the judge. Everything herein is based on facts, personal experience, and public information. The only immunity judges, prosecutors, and government officials will find in this narrative lies in their visionary power. Immunity is nonexistent heretofore.

Former Supreme Court justice Warren Burger has described our legal profession as sick. In Burger's view, the United States legal profession is marked by incompetence, lack of training, misconduct, and bad manners.

In 1967 Walter Lippmann was quoted in Newsweek as saying, There is a growing belief that America is no longer ‘historic America,' that it is now a bastard empire that relies on superior force to achieve its purposes and is no longer providing an example of the wisdom and humanity of a free society. Walter Lippmann was an American journalist who won worldwide fame as a political writer and philosopher. Yes, since he made that deeply felt affirmation fifty-two years ago, remorsefully, that decay has only gotten worse as the political baton has been passed from administration to administration like an incurable disease.

The determinant behind this exposé is the criminal case of the author herein (see XII). No other single case best depicts the criminality or lack of fair treatment in this country from start to finish. It shows that anyone who falls under government surveillance has little to no chance of prevailing, whether guilty or innocent. The more money you have, the better your chances, devoid any guarantees.

The government has made a business out of crime. Prosecutors and judges, oftentimes in collusion, blindside targeted victims into prison using immunity as their asylum of protection. FBI agents steal more drugs and cash than ever gets into custody following their infamous raids. Retained defense attorneys capitalize on the ignorance of defendants as it pertains to law and their best interests. Public defenders are mere extensions of the government, holding singular responsibility to convince confused assignments to sign plea agreements as quickly as possible. Defense attorneys with their briefcases can steal more money than a hundred men with guns. Meanwhile, public defenders' alleged truths are not forthright, only consistent expediency.

Lastly, there's the Bureau of Prisons, a Rottweiler standing guard with an attitude, keeping the imprisoned in check any way it damn well pleases. Through the BOP, this inflated country became the prison house of nations. The pages that follow will unveil the facts that support the contempt that accompanies that entitlement.

The focus within is central in isolation to the federal prison system. Prisons must be transformed and lives restored. Leashes must be put on this pack of wild, runaway dogs called judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, public defenders, and FBI agents, all of whom honestly believe they are privileged to function as they do. They don't follow the rules or the laws. They unethically and illegally use both to satisfy their egotism. Then they hide behind shields of immunity. It's pathetic to be sure, but it remains fact.

The Bureau of Prisons is anomalous. It does what it wants, how it wants, when it wants. Recently, its director, Charles E. Samuels Jr., a puppet of a man, retired—forced to resign would be a better diagnosis. It remains too easy for prison officials to roam freely behind impenetrable walls and do as they please. Penal colonies exude a stench of leprosy the American populace keeps closeted and out of reach. That position is no longer an option.

As 2015 drew to a close, there were 197,000 people behind bars in federal prisons; 1 in every 99 and 1 in every 9 black men between the ages of 20 and 34 were in prison. History tells us that 40 percent of those who leave the federal system are rearrested or have their supervision revoked within three years. Whose fault is it when rehabilitation during incarceration is under constant attack?

Annually, $7.5 billion of taxpayer money is spent to keep a corrupt justice department and federal prison system afloat. It's time to pull the plug.

Hopefully, The Prison House of Nations—America will help ignite an urgent call to action and will serve as a partial road map for reforming the Department of Justice and its Rottweiler.

With 40 percent of repeat business for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), these current expenditures have not yielded the public safety we seek, nor have the corrupt methods used by the DOJ to blindside innocent people to prison satisfied any objective. With 90 percent of the federal prison population composed of purported nonviolent offenders, it begs the question: How did the DOJ get those convictions? Keep in mind that crime is a big business in this prison house of nations.

One cloudy day in 2015, Mr. Samuels was encouraged to appear before a Senate subcommittee to answer several unsettled questions. One of lingering important questions was How many individuals in federal prison today are nonviolent? His incompetent answer, Over 90 percent, was portentous. Prisons should be used to contain violent offenders of the law, not innocent people who are targeted by the DOJ to be criminals and sent to what's known as satellite prison camps, which are physically located in the shadows of major penitentiaries. Here these campers serve as slave labor, earning pennies an hour to maintain the grounds and prepare meals for the violent offenders when there is a lockdown, that unwelcomed event when inmates fight, riot, and sometimes kill other inmates or, regrettably, an unsuspecting guard.

With certitude, prison camps are a complete waste of time and money. Prison reform should start with their abolishment.

Eighteen percent of the federal prison population plays cops and robbers in these tenement dwellings with two-man bunk beds housing offenders with sentences ten years or less. These camps are only inconveniences; it is ludicrous to call them prisons. The residents regularly violate the rules, especially those regarding contraband, including liquor, cell phones, illegal drugs, and prostitutes. Camp housing units are openheartedly nondescript dwellings, sere and superannuated.

In addition to the 18 percent of campers being held hostage by the BOP, the other extreme finds a mere 11 percent being held in high-security facilities, which is what captivity should be all about. In between are all the rest, being held in low- and medium-security detention. Five percent of the total population are between the ages of 18 and 24, while 3 percent are over 65. The majority (35 percent) are between the ages of 35 and 44.

Sentence lengths statutorily range from one year to 20-plus years. Four percent are serving one year or less, while 12 percent face 20-plus years. The majority (29 percent) have sentences ranging from 1.1 to 10 years. While white or Caucasians consist of 27 percent of the population, the majority (35 percent) represents Hispanic/Latino and black or African Americans. Seventy-six percent are United States citizens, with 93 percent being male. Prison remains largely a male enclave. Only 7 percent are female.

Noteworthy is the fact that 109 inmates are transgender and 13 are under the age of 18.

From 2009 through 2011, 15,302 completed the RDAP drug program, which allowed them to earn time off their sentences. The illusion is that everyone gets a 1-year reduction. In truth, it's at the discretion of the BOP, and only 2,846 of this stated total received the maximum, with the average reduction being 8 months.

And there you have it. Residents of the prison house of nations are being targeted, indicted, and convicted, all entrapped in Uncle Sam's radar, all bearing one of two forms of retributive justice, except for a select minority. The bulk in the general population are either innocent of the crime of conviction or are oversentenced for the crime actually committed. No prosecutor accepts the fact that a single apple can be stolen; everyone always steals the orchard. The bigger the crime, the better it looks on a prosecutor's résumé. The only objective of a prosecuting attorney is sealing the coffin of his target with a conviction, and he doesn't care how he gets it.

In every drug case, the DOJ concentrates on finding a weapon in the same time zone if necessary, followed by an in-depth research into prior convictions; though some can be twenty years old, it matters not. This is always coupled with pressing the accused for information (substantial cooperation as it's known) so others can be brought to injustice whether they might be guilty or not. It's a sick game passed on from generation to generation.

With white-collar offenses, it's all about money—seizing assets, forfeiture—which disappears into Uncle Sam's inventory. Here, the government focuses on turning friends against friends and business partners against one another and threatening to indict family members and harass children for the rest of their lives if a confession is not forthcoming. Let's be clear. American justice is purely circumstantial.

A. Department of Convictions

In regard to the Department of Justice, its name lives in deception. A much more appropriate appointment would be Department of Convictions. Trials are few and far between since unconstitutional plea agreements dominate the scene. The accused either makes a deal with Uncle Sam on his terms and goes quietly to prison for a time settled, with spite being the indicant, or is forced to trial to face a more severe award in punishment.

In the American system of justice, plea agreements dominate and electrify mankind with a 95 percent conviction rate. Whether you are guilty or not, if you get caught in the radar, 95 percent of the time, you will serve prison time.

Plea agreements are complicated threats camouflaged as legal documents used to coerce the disjointed accused into pleading guilty to save the system time and money. This allows for more guaranteed convictions should quota be an issue for an aspiring prosecuting attorney.

Too many innocent people, both men and women, have pled guilty to crimes never committed just to avoid protracted sentences behind prison walls.

It would be comforting to say that the system is broken; then it could be fixed. But truth knows better! It never worked, and the baton has been passed from judge to judge and prosecutor to prosecutor. These little people with far too much power are magnifying laws so ambiguous that it remains formidable to internalize that they actually control life and death.

For some, the cavalcade of tragic anecdotes that follow, deductible by absolute reality, will be a deplorable and perverse revelation, but it is a necessary and long overdue awakening for the American people. There have been many similar vigilant calls in the past. This country has simply ignored them. A lot of wrongdoing can be done in a century, for that's how long infringement on individual rights have been conscious.

The Prison House of Nations—America is a true, riveting, and disturbing satirical disclosure of wrongful convictions, indictments, and sentences, all of which having a perceptible odor of unjust treatment that has been meandering for years within the boundaries of this country's depraved course of reasoning.

In addition to its other decrements, the criminal justice system produces an unknown number of inexact adjudications of innocence and guilt.

Honest mistakes happen, so do dishonest ones. The gravamen must be on the latter. There are more people imaginable who are wrongly judged and punished primarily because the criminal justice system tends to circle its wagons in the time of need. Cops stick together, prosecutors mobilize to ward off legal challenges, and judges tend to uphold the actions of other judges. This proclivity makes it all the more complex for wrongly convicted people to prove their innocence. The system criminalizes ordinary conduct through accordion-like criminal statutes; consequently in part, it disobliges. Thereafter, it is much easier to find someone guilty than it is to later prove that person innocent. It is very likely that many of the already innocently convicted but not yet exonerated people will never be vindicated and never be released despite decisive evidence being in their favor.

No one should take for granted the legal system in this country. Whatever you think it is, it isn't! The primary is proving people innocent before they get gormandized by the system through blatant prosecutorial misconduct and/or ineffective legal assistance from mercenary defense attorneys.

B. Dark practices in the abuse of power

Harold Clarke, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, said it: We set our sights on the embarrassing target of mediocrity. I guess that means about halfway. And that raises a question. Are we willing to put up with halfway justice? To my way of thinking, one-half justice means one-half injustice, and one-half injustice is no justice at all.

Once inside the system by way of imprisonment, a person becomes invisible and forgotten, having to exchange their name for a number. Imprisonment for innocent targeted victims is a living death. An imprisoned human being becomes a lonely person pitied only by family and friends, a scavenger of misery. Every convict is a lonesome cowboy riding his horse in the direction it's going.

Wrongful prosecution of intentional conduct that is twisted into a felony charge has destroyed many innocent lives and careers. Family members have been pitted against one another. Friends have been persuaded by the government to testify against friends, even when their testimony has been less than honest thanks to pressure from the system.

Lawyers and clients have turned on each other, as have doctors and patients. No society can benefit when its government so impulsively remains in attack mode, self-proclaiming its crusade against crime while preaching from law books but using techniques from the Stone Age. These are dark practices in the abuse of power.

The United States is filled with sheep and wolves. Sheep stay in the herd and follow their shepherd without questioning where he is leading them. Sheep believe that the shepherd would never cause them harm, that he only protects them from the dangers of the world that lie outside the safety of his herd.

Wolves, on the other hand, do not aimlessly follow the shepherd. In the darkness of night, wolves howl, alerting the shepherd of their presence. Wolves question the shepherd and act in a way that forces him to question his own decisions. Wolves challenge government regulations, reject government assistance, and demand that the government recognize and protect the natural rights of the sheep. Wolves are rugged individualists. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans are sheep.

No one is suggesting that many of the prosecuted are not real criminals, who engaged in real crimes, defined by clear and reasonable laws. What is being scrutinized, however, are the growing exceptions that are far too numerous to discard. It's a burgeoning phenomenon of prosecuting the innocent on the basis of undecipherable statutes and regulations too dangerous to ignore. Our justice system is troubled. The press can help greatly to ameliorate it by taking more time to learn the realities of how aimless it really is.

C. Awareness is no longer an option

Statistics are crystal. Appeals and habeas corpus motions after incarceration are despondent expressions of hope. In prison, hope is the best comfort of an imperfect condition.

For several decades, there has been an on-again, off-again interest in the plight of wrongly convicted people. This usually occurs when a high-profile case gets the attention of the public. Then a sprinkling of newspaper stories, spotty television exposure, and a fitful magazine article or two might feature the subject of wrongful convictions. To date, nothing, however, has significantly medicated the cause for concern.

Some outcries have helped a few individuals win their freedom, but the grievance has to be addressed at its roots before wrongful convictions are realized. It's like the throwing of a stone into a pond. The initial splash creates some waves, but then the water quickly settles back to its original stillness, and no one recalls the last disturbance.

In confined settings like prisons, happy endings are rare exceptions. Part of the enigma is that media outlets represent the world in terms of black and white, good and evil, just as the adversarial system of criminal law clings to Manichaean notions of guilt or innocence. The real world is often gray, filled with contradictions and plagued by doubts. In some instances, sensational, erroneous, or biased news coverage leads to convictions in the first place. Gullible people believe anything told them by the media.

The real-life, tragic crime anecdotes that follow collectively serve as a prelude to a drama that has been played out on the world's stage for better than a century.

These stories in this writing literally uncover and transport to the forefront the inner workings of some of the most esteemed institutions in the United States. It was Norman Vincent Peale who said, Imagination is the true magic carpet. If so, Uncle Sam has volumes of it fossilizing in the form of distorted facts by way of inventiveness.

It is an efficient, volatile treatise that should enlighten everyone on the menacing persistent inequities within today's injustice system festering in this country. It was Voltaire who extended words of caution and concern when he said, It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

In so doing, we are microscopically revealing the treatment afforded average citizens by prosecuting attorneys, defense lawyers, public defenders, the FBI, and federal judges. There are no isolated areas within the system that have escaped the infection and stench of legal misconduct so severe it is mind-boggling.

This primary malefactor ulcerates within the country's justice system and grows like fungus. It became discernible a hundred years ago, and Uncle Sam has been using it like a carpenter uses a hammer ever since, knowing that to a hammer, everything is a nail. Regrettably, the government refuses to expurgate. The result is a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach.

The only time Uncle Sam reacts when innocent people are wrongly imprisoned or even executed for crimes they never committed is when it's called to his attention as acts of injustice. History teaches that man is basically psychopathic. He never learns. This is why history is circular; what goes round comes round. It's like a man's tie; it never really goes out of style. It always returns and is back with distinction. The government is too supercilious.

Prosecutorial misconduct runs the gamut from murder cases on one end of the crime spectrum to mundane traffic violations on the other end. It's used like a fly swatter, only when the fly comes into range.

Prosecutorial misconduct may be a new phrase for many, but it is one sorely affecting thousands of innocent people accused of criminal offenses in this country every day. It inhales family members and friends like a vacuum sweeper draws in dust. Once the government targets its quarry, everyone involved with that person becomes branded like cattle, as persons of interest, to be used and abused as necessary.

D. The migration from real crimes to targeting individuals

Oftentimes, the government, in victimizing individuals, uses family members as bait to expedite convictions of their marks. With no compunction, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has packaged its objectives with patented remarks like Plead guilty, or we will indict your wife or We will harass your children for the rest of their lives. Admittedly, it can and will do it—and walk away unscathed.

Uncle Sam can indict a cucumber, as if that is something to condescend.

Everyone remembers Bernie Madoff, the financier who bilked investors out of billions of dollars. Hell, his footprints to the big house are still warm! The Madoff name is toxic.

The elder Madoff was punished. He did wrong, but what about his youngest son, Mark Madoff, who committed suicide because he couldn't mentally tolerate the harassment and persecution of a government who simply doesn't give a damn? The Madoff case gave this country's body of public thieves dreams of how they could get their hands on billions of dollars—for the sake of justice and Madoff victims, of course. Tell it to a fifth grader, Uncle Sam, that one man could amass $154 billion dollars all by himself.

Yes, for the record, the government tortures people and will continue to mistreat them for as long as Americans excuse the exercise as not being a crime.

The system has migrated from the pursuit of real crimes to targeting people, then creating the breach of law to fit its mark, and for this profitable exercise, the searchlight is on white-collar victims. It's good for business!

Prosecutorial misconduct can best be described as a remedial disease, with prosecutors not being the only carriers. Public defenders, defense attorneys, FBI agents, forensic lab technicians, cops, and yes, judges use this hammer when necessary. After all, it comes with a warranty called immunity. It's part of the arsenal that the DOJ condones in its superman-like crusade against crime. All worker bees affiliated with the DOJ are carriers of prosecutorial misconduct. It's no different than all birds regardless of species being conveyors of parrot fever.

Once a prosecutor brands an individual with a crime and seizes his assets as part of the process, there's no turning back. The sick game has begun whether the accused wants to play or not.

The prosecuting attorney now has to provide or create a crime. Victims have to be identified, witnesses probed, and stories created to support evidence. Everything has to be molded to fit the system, to fit an offense. The edge visibly belongs to the criminal trial attorney for the people because he can break the rules. Conversely, his adversary, the defendant, is oblivious to the dangers that lie ahead, the booby traps being planted with assurances. He must rely on his attorney, most likely a public defender who holds about as much interest in his personal well-being as a football fan holds interest in watching a boccie match.

The prosecutor needs to transform bad lies into a plausible reality to ensure that a conviction will result. We have no system for doing justice, not the slightest in the world.

Government attorneys must be willing to sacrifice their own ethics, if they started with any. New stories must be created. Particulars that must resist legal muster and justify actions need to be performed. With this fixed, everything will fall into place. And so the house of cards in crime creation is carefully constructed.

For a prosecutor, however, problems persist with these crime creations. The more people needed to ignite this conduct, the harder it becomes to contain the deceit and execute the suppression. Building a bomb for devious and destructive purposes is one thing; setting it off is something else. Therefore, to assist prosecutors with this potential problem, the DOJ looks the other way. Prosecutors are never punished as they should be. Thus, they have nothing to lose and so much to gain with a conviction. They enjoy immunity. It carries the same innuendo as a license to steal.

This is not to say that all the prosecutors all the time employ misconduct, just too many of them most of the time. They violate the same laws they prosecute, the same rules they preach, and their own sanctioned code of ethics. Yet most of them still function unscathed inside the justice system, almost like refugees seeking asylum in their respective country embassies.

Prosecutors are little people enjoying the power they have to control potential life-and-death decisions and to ruin or preserve careers. Distinctly, they are not qualified to moderate such appointed authority. Most of this decision-making occurs behind closed doors and is devoid of outside scrutiny.

Each time a prosecutor knowingly convicts an innocent person or, through embellishment, inflates a case to increase a man's sentence, he adds another self-inflicted wound to a justice system that can't help hurting itself.

Prosecutors who commit misconduct show a disrespect for the law that is mundane with criminals, not the men and women who prosecute them.

E. Judges and prosecutors must never escape misconduct through immunity

The US Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors are entitled to absolute immunity from harassing litigation that would divert time and attention from their official duties. Certain parties morally question the wisdom of granting absolute immunity to prosecutors when they violate constitutional rights. Moreover, the stigma of prosecutorial misconduct should be as prolific with prosecutors, as being labeled a felon is with people released from federal prisons.

Professor Adele Bernhard contends, If prosecutors have acted negligently and haven't taken the time to investigate information, there's no reason not to hold them responsible. Everybody else in society has to bear responsibility for his/her decision-making. Why should prosecutors be so very different, with none of them speaking with any effort to be accurate?

A Pace University professor who specializes in prosecution issues, Professor Bennett Gershman, calls prosecutorial misconduct a serious cancer in our system of justice, adding, There is no check on prosecutorial misconduct, except for the prosecutor's own attitudes and beliefs and inner morality. The philosophies of these professors reveal some advanced thinking; it's very cerebral.

In New York, efforts to pass legislation holding prosecutors more accountable have failed. Their chief sponsor, Assemblyman Sam Colman of the Ninety-Third District, insists, In most cases where an innocent person has ended up in jail, the prosecutor has been overzealous. Don't forget, their job is to seek justice, not convictions. But district attorneys are arrogant people. I'd like to see them held more accountable.

Colman wants to make prosecutors subject to a strict code of conduct enforced by an independent board, modeled after the system that governs judges. But most lawmakers are afraid to cross the paths of powerful prosecutors. The District Attorney's Association rules the roost. And Colman's suggestion is certainly a small step in the right direction. But like all other genuine suggestions to curtail the power of prosecutors and all courtroom officials, it falls on deaf ears.

Dozens of rules constrain prosecutors but only on paper. The prohibitions against suppressing evidence and knowingly using false evidence are only two of them. Courts have established rules of a fair trial that cover everything—from the prosecutors securing an indictment to what they can say during a trial's closing argument. Prosecutors commit misconduct when they break those rules.

In addition, this misconduct might be knowingly discriminating against blacks during jury selection, engaging in personal attacks on defense attorneys, destroying credibility of a witness with questions containing false allegations, or suggesting jurors should infer guilt because a defendant didn't personally testify. These are the more obvious violations that prosecutors use and camouflage in many disguises.

It is well documented that all victims of prosecutorial misconduct are permanently crippled by the government's action. Any one of these victims could be your next-door neighbor. It has been proven anew that many government targets are innocent of any wrongdoing, yet their very lives are compromised.

F. Illegally monitoring America

The lesson to be learned is simple but clear. Anyone in this country is fair game for Uncle Sam. With that implied, any one of the true stories that follow could be your own perversion of truth.

When George W. Bush was president, he authorized a domestic surveillance program that the top legal advisors at the DOJ told him was illegal and unconstitutional. Bush insisted that eavesdropping on telephone calls and reading emails of American citizens was crucial to national security and could help in the prevention of future terrorist attacks.

The misconception is that Uncle Sam doesn't concentrate on suspected terrorists. There are no guidelines defining who can be monitored. Guidelines are nonexistent.

As a result, innocent, law-abiding citizens of this country are being secretly monitored, robbed of their fundamental civil rights as guaranteed in the Constitution. With this information, the government aspires to brand certain people as criminals for varied reasons.

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, a British novelist and social critic. He became famous with his novel 1984, which was published in 1949. The book is a frightening portrait of a totalitarian society that punishes love, destroys privacy, and distorts truth. There is a passage in 1984 that so aptly describes wrongful convictions in this country today, as manufactured by the DOJ and prosecutors in particular.

It reads, We shall crush you down to a point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.

Indeed, misconduct is the driving force of wrongful convictions. Concise accounts can never do justice to the sufferings endured by so many. But the stories within can crystalize some common patterns and general characteristics critical to the problem. Conjoined, they may provide insight into some of the causes and consequences of wrongful proof of guilt. Hopefully, some of the humanity of those victimized will shine through.

You are about to witness the turpitude of prosecutorial misconduct and how all-encompassing it is as it affects lives, both inside and outside the prison house of nations.

Its corrupt nature impacts so many different things and people.

G. A century of misconduct

A wrongful conviction serves as a paradigm of what perseveres every day in the administration of justice. Often, the errors are simply not caught. Sometimes, one case can prove to be Pandora's box, exposing an assortment of deep-seated problems, widespread corruption, inexcusable practices, and systematic abuses. Officials have employed this misconduct for at least a century, and until someone captures this malfeasance in the act, it will continue to fossilize and become forgotten while the unprofessional conduct persists.

Particularly, wrongful convictions represent tragic and costly flaws in our system of justice and our society. Often, these actions go undetected, but they are not invisible, insignificant, or nonexistent. Former Supreme Court justice Joseph Slavin reiterated the point: The greatest crime of all in a civilized society is an unjust conviction. It is truly a scandal which reflects unfavorably on all the participants in the criminal justice system. No one is entitled to a perfect trial but everyone is entitled to a fair trial.

Conditions that affect the amount of crime varies from one country to another. Studies have shown that crime rates for both violent and property crimes rose in most countries during the late 1900s.

Comparisons of the crime rates across multiple nations indicate that increases in crime accompany increases in the rate of social change. Crime rates stay relatively stable in traditional societies where people believe their way of life will continue. Crime rates tend to rise in societies in which there are rapid changes where people live and what they do for a living. Crime rates are particularly high in industrial nations that have large cities.

Some of the countries with generally high crime rates, besides the United States, include China, Russia, and South Africa. Countries with relatively low crime rates include Canada, Denmark, Japan, Norway, and Switzerland.

H. Prosecutor misconduct spreads abroad

The term overzealous prosecutor is conspicuously beginning to surface in justice systems abroad. And deservedly all the credit goes to the United States as the model of how to win convictions with hits below the belt. Finally, it is beginning to permeate.

Amanda Knox was a prison guest of the Italian justice system for close to four years for the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, a resident of London. The two of them were in Perugia, Italy, for a year of study. Knox lived in Seattle and attended the University of Washington.

She was finally released after an appeals court decision discredited certain DNA evidence and threw out the earlier conviction of Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. In the end, Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini still insisted the pair was guilty along with a third person, Rudy Guede, who remains in an Italian prison serving his sixteen-year sentence for the crime. Mignini plans to appeal the decision to Italy's highest criminal court—all for show, to be sure.

While his actions were believed to be smoke and mirrors by the international media, Mignini was attempting to cover his own overzealous attack on both parties by depicting Knox, a seemingly normal college girl and former high school soccer player, as some kind of she-devil. Even on foreign soil, prosecutors lust for notoriety through convictions.

It this case, it appears that Mignini had crossed the line, lost his conviction, and walked away with nary a slap on the wrist, just like in America when prosecutors get overly creative and subjective.

Mignini's theory, tied to questionable DNA evidence, was that the murder was the result of a sex game gone awry. Yet the DNA evidence was heavily compromised, a motive was never presented for the brutal stabbing, and there were no eye witnesses. Fortunately, Italy has an appeals process that works. Maybe it can be shared with America.

Americans can't help comparing the Knox case and the Casey Anthony case.

Anthony was the partying hard-hearted single Florida mom who was charged with killing her two-year-old daughter. Her acquittal left many people angry and confused. People felt that the prosecution muddled the presentation of incontestable evidence, just like what was done in the O. J. Simpson murder case, and the question will linger forever: Was justice properly served?

Anthony had already been packaged and processed through the system as a slut, a nut, and most importantly, a murderer by the American people. Everyone seemed cognizant of her guilt except for twelve people in the Orange County Courthouse in Florida when they delivered their verdict.

Comparing Knox with Anthony, on one hand, you have a photogenic and personally appealing college student railroaded into prison by a sloppy investigation and eager Italian prosecutor, and on the other hand, Anthony's prosecutors were unable to convince a jury of her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt despite the fact she failed to report her daughter missing for a month.

Which is worse—a system that might let a killer go free or one that puts an innocent person in prison? Put yourself in Knox's shoes, and the answer is conclusive.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a catalyst for change. He was self-effacing almost to the point of meekness when he said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And punishment of the innocent makes a mockery of the law.

No words can better describe the pain that wrongful convictions instill on defendants exposed to prosecutorial misconduct. It's a tool used repeatedly by federal prosecutors to secure convictions, nothing more.

To better illustrate the point, let's elevate misconduct in the federal system to the "top of