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After the savings-and-loan scandals of the 1980s, the FBI opened 5,490 criminal investigations, 1,100 people were prosecuted, and 839 were convicted, including top executives at many of the largest failed banks. But Jesse Eisinger writes in the NYT that the largest man-made economic catastrophe since the Depression resulted in the jailing of a single investment banker, Kareem Serageldin, to 30 months in jail. Many assume that federal authorities simply lacked the guts to go after powerful Wall Street bankers but according to Eisinger, the truth is more complicated. "During the past decade, the Justice Department suffered a series of corporate prosecutorial fiascos, which led to critical changes in how it approached white-collar crime. The department began to focus on reaching settlements rather than seeking prison sentences, which over time unintentionally deprived its ranks of the experience needed to win trials against the most formidable law firms."
From 2004 to 2012, the Justice Department reached 242 deferred and nonprosecution agreements with corporations, compared with 26 in the previous 12 years, and while companies paid huge sums in the settlements, several veteran Justice Department officials say that these settlements emboldened defense lawyers. More crucially, they allowed the Justice Department's lawyers to "succeed" without learning how to develop important prosecutorial skills. The erosion of the department's actual trial skills soon became apparent. In November 2009, the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn lost the first criminal case of the crisis against two Bear Stearns executives accused of misleading investors. The prosecutors rushed into trial, failing to prepare for the exculpatory emails uncovered by the defense team. After two days, the jury acquitted the two money managers. "For sure, it put a chill" on investigations says one former prosecutor. "Politicos care about winning and losing." Federal prosecutors have their own explanation for how only one Wall Street executive landed in jail in the wake of the financial crisis, says Eisinger. "The cases were complex to investigate and would have been infernally difficult to explain to juries."
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday May 08 2014, @12:30AM
Everyone just wants out of jury duty. Instead, I would require a citizen to spend a certain amount of time as a juror in order to qualify for the privilege of driving. You only get a pass if the government literally didn't need or want you that year. Tie it to an essential privilege.
It might help to actually pay people too. The primary reason people want out of jury duty is that the economy is so completely fucked the government is simply asking too much. For somebody's time like that when corporations are the largest oppressors of people, pushing them to low wages and low benefits, you have to compensate them for the lost time, lost wages, lost opportunity, and increased risk. If people barely have any savings left and hordes of poor and lower middle class people are being abused to usurious and predatory pay day lenders, you have to be completely disconnected with reality to not understand how much people don't want to do it. In fact, I wholly believe that for some people it's not possible at all. The real risk of jury duty is not making enough money that month to pay bills.
The cost of paying for the jury in civil cases (where applicable) should be fronted by the plaintiff. This doesn't present a barrier to simple disputes solved by small claims courts, and in larger cases, costs should represent less than an expert witness. If your case qualifies under certain criteria you can argue for an exception and would only be charged if the case was dismissed with extreme prejudice as being frivolous.
It's problematic I know, but if you got paid a living wage to be on a jury people would stop arguing about being on the jury. The amount they pay out right now might be sufficient for 1950 when a cheeseburger wasn't $7.
You can't demand having both educated and capable jurors and an economic system which provides such a huge penalty to being one.
The educated, intelligent, or just pain devious people get out of jury duty all day long and you are left with Cletus.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 08 2014, @02:11PM
You're absolutely right. My wife just spent a day on jury duty (and was dismissed by one of the attorneys); her paycheck for that day: $5. Whoopee.
It also doesn't help that it hurts your employment many times to miss a day of work.