Prosecutors Gone Wild!

In one of my classes yesterday we began to talk about the role of "dignified prosecuters." One of my left leaning friends (self-described extreme liberal) stood up to blast prosecuters with stories like the ones below, And I agree with my Liberal friend -- to a point -- but he doesn't go far enough when he calls for prosecuters to use more discretion. My friend says, "defenders of the poor and minorities are always asked, 'how could you defend them?' no one ever asks the prosecuter, 'how coudl you prosecute them?' and that's not fair. Prosecuters do far worse injustices than defense lawyers." I don't completely agree with this statement. I'll explain my position at the end of this post.

Here's a few cases we read about where prosecuters undeniably abused their power and did not use common-sense:

Lisa Snyder is the kind of neighbor everybody likes to have. Every school day, the Michigan mom welcomed neighborhood children into her home—kids whose mothers have to leave for work an hour before the school bus picks up the kids. Snyder didn’t charge anything—she just wanted to be a good neighbor.

But then someone reported Snyder to the authorities—and the state of Michigan told her to stop babysitting, or else. The Michigan Department of Human Services said if Snyder wanted to take care of unrelated kids in her home, she had to get a daycare license.

It’s an example of laws gone wild—too many regulations, and too little common sense.

And that’s not even the worst example. Last March an Indiana grandmother named Sally Harpold was arrested for buying two boxes of cold medicine in less than a week. That’s illegal, if the combined boxes contain more than three grams of pseudoephedrine. They did—which put Harpold in violation of state laws regulating methamphetamine, which can be made from pseudoephedrine.

Harpold—who was handcuffed and booked—wasn’t running a meth lab. She was buying medicine for her three sick grandchildren. But the local prosecutor was unapologetic. Harpold, she said, ought to have known the law.

That might be easier if there weren’t so many local, state, and federal laws to keep track of. While Harpold is catching up on her legal reading, maybe the prosecutor can take care of her sick grandchildren.

Happily, in Michigan, common sense prevailed. Governor Jennifer Granholm ordered the Department of Human Services to work with lawmakers to change the daycare law to protect people who are simply trying to be good neighbors.

Sally Harpold was not so fortunate. She had to go into an alternative punishment program, and pay attorney fees and court costs.

With cases like these, it’s no wonder Americans are growing increasingly distrustful of government—and of the growing numbers of laws and regulations that are making daily life, well, difficult!

My liberal friend says that prosecuters should not prosecute these individuals and I agree. My liberal friend goes on to blast prosecuters in general, saying that they add to the socio-economic inequality in the criminal justice system. He claims prosecuters -- because of the power they yeild -- should be held to a higher standard; that we should ask, "How can you prosecute these people?"

If my liberal friends wants to hold prosecuters to a higher standard and astop them from prosecuting individuals and thus adding to socio-economic injustices, he must be willing to do the same. My friend must also be held to a higher standard he must stop defending people who he knows are blatantly guilty. (Of course he would never agree to this) he must remember his own philosophy out of school.