Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
This month we are looking at all the ways the government can fuck up your life, even when you’ve done nothing wrong, starting with this weeks book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent by Harvey A. Silverglate. So lets do this.
So, I expected this book to be about how anything you say, can and will be used against you. And, to a degree, that’s exactly what I got. But it was far more overreaching and insidious than that.
See, Silverglate tracks what at the time of this books release in 2009 and second printing in 2011, was forty years of prosecutorial twisting of laws to hound and harass otherwise fully innocent people. Like...this is where the maxim “Ignorance of the law is no defense against violation of law” seems to come from. Because all of the cases in this book...like NO ONE knew they were violations of law, including some of the courts they were tried in front of. At least one case against Bradford C. Councilman the same law that the DA was arguing Councilman had violated in Massachusettes, a DA in California argued was NOT a violation of law when the government did it! That’s the level of twist we’re talking about. Rules for thee but not for me…
Now, for a lot of these, people might read the stories and think “yeah? And?” because not infrequently the governments targets were politicians, or the wealthy, or journalists….and with the absolute failure of reporting over the protests in Iran for the last week and how massive fraud was uncovered by a curious kid with a social media account, we all know just how valuable journalists are these days.
However, you should care. Just because you are not the target this week, does not mean you will NEVER be the target of government overreach.
Silverglate breaks the chapters down into broad categories, starting with political targets, moving into the medical community and medical devices, targeting the wealthy, accounting firms, lawyers...yes, the DA even attacks members of their own community, media, and then national security.
Starting with politicians, he highlights some allegations of bribery, which were not born out, sometimes by the jury finding the politician not guilty, other times because the guilty verdict was overturned on appeal. None of which ultimately mattered because the allegation of being dirty can be enough to tank a political career. At least in the 1990’s. Nowadays it seems like being dirty is a political requirement.
The medical and medical device chapters were horrifying as he explored the cases of doctors who were charged with drug pushing because, get this, their patients would sell their prescription drugs on the street, then come back to the doctors and report they were still in pain. As the doctor in question was a pain specialist, he worked with them and refilled prescriptions. When the patient got caught by the DEA, the DEA gave them immunity for throwing the doctor under the bus and claiming he was a pill pusher….news flash, he was not. He was a good man, genuinely trying to help people. And it cost him every cent he had to prove it.
The medical devices, even when it was discovered that the doctor doing the install on I think it was a heart valve, had not followed directions during installation, the DA still went after the manufacturers, claiming they were knowingly selling a bad product. The product was not bad. But the DA knew they could get a plea bargain out of the manufacturers with a hefty fine, so they pushed the agenda anyways.
I gotta tell you, this puts a whole new level of information on “largest medical fine ever” statements. Because having read this book, how can we ever know that the pharmaceutical company ACTUALLY did anything wrong? It also makes me reevaluate the no suing clause of all the mRNA vaccines that were released during covid. That immunity agreement had less to do with we the people, and more to do with wanting to make sure the government wasn’t going to target them ex post facto. With the information found in this book, I found my sympathies actually shifting TOWARDS Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.
He covers Martha Stewart’s conviction and it reinforced perception is everything. Like...people think Bill Clinton was impeached for receiving a blow job in the Oval office. He was not. He was impeached for lying to Congress about the blow job. People think Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading. She was not. That’s what she was investigated for, but she was never tried for it, because she actually did not engage in insider trading. What she was tried and convicted of was making false statements to the investigators. Title 18 section 1001 of the US Code is the False Statements Act. Even this was BROADLY interpreted by both the DA who prosecuted and the courts, since this act specifies that KNOWINGLY making false statements is a crime. Did she knowingly lie? I doubt it. Regardless, she paid I think it was a $250k fine and spent 5 months in prison.
He covers how Enron...you all remember Enron? They actually didn’t do anything illegal, technically. In fact, everything was so blatantly in your face honest, that I believe he said it was Cornell business students studied their shareholder statements for a class and advised the company was going to crash, based on their publicly available statements. Hardly Enron’s fault people bought their bullshit.
And Enron’s accounting firm...well, their document destruction policy was full inline with corporate America. Companies all across the land have a document retention and destruction policy...hold documents for X length of time, then destroy them on a schedule. Yet they were still fined for destroying documents they didn’t even know the government wanted, because the government had not advised them they were under investigation! Like...no wonder I’m a fucking packrat and have calendars going back 15 years. So I can prove I was doing my job when I said I was.
Ultimately, people who cave and accept a plea bargain and lesser crime, tend to survive. Those who fight to the bitter end are bankrupted and ruined, sometimes serving jail time for something that was not even a crime when they committed it….never mind the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws.
His conclusion, a section titled Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls, summed everything up beautifully. The biggest commonality in each of these is a poorly worded law that is so vague the DA is able to make anything a crime. And then poorly trained judges who are unwilling to actually be the third branch check against a legislative and executive branches run amok. He did cite, in some of these cases, genuinely principled judiciary who in some cases threw out charges based on the vagueness of the law upon which the charges were filed, or who, having sat entirely through a jury trial, and received a guilty verdict, set aside the verdict as the judge overseeing the case realized that something had gone seriously awry with the legal system, leaving the jury hopelessly confused with the legalese.
The downside of that, is when the JUDGE directs a verdict after a jury trial, the DA can appeal. And in some cases they did, and the appeals court would overturn the trial judge. It’s all very labyrinthine. And dense.
The US Constitution does call for laws to be very specific, so that the common man may know when he is in violation of said law. And we have drifted so far from that requirement, that yes, indeed, a DA can indict a ham sandwich.
Not mentioned in the book is the legal principle, which both judges and DA’s abhor, of jury nullification. Which is where the jury agrees there is a law, the law HAS been violated, but the law itself is stupid, so we the people are not going to enforce said law and will return a not guilty verdict.
As far as I know, the only time a judge can set aside a verdict is if the jury finds someone guilty, and the judge has reason to believe that is incorrect based on legal precedence. I don’t believe judges can set aside a not-guilty verdict. So there it is folks...if the law itself is corrupt or incorrect, that’s how you, a member of the public, can make a difference. Also...if you mention jury nullification during voir dire, you will probably be dismissed from the jury. So use that power wisely.
This book was eye opening, and horrifying on levels I was not expecting. If you ever find yourself in the crosshairs of the district attorney, for the love of god, shut your mouth and get an attorney. Answer no questions, because if you answer no questions, they can’t get you for lying to them. Some matters may be worth the principled fight, but it will probably cost you everything...money, body, soul, family. You may win, but it will likely be a Pyrrhic victory. Which is why so many choose to accept a plea bargain, pay their fines, and get on with life. Because in the end, the fourth estate….that fabulous journalists who only tell the narrative they are told to tell, have completely failed we the people when it comes to keeping track of bullshit like this.
Thankfully, there are people like Harvey Silverglate who were happy to put the puzzle pieces together, so that we may see the bigger picture.
