Conrad Black, in an email interview from prison, claims the US justice system is in collapse. He particularly highlights rot in the plea bargaining system, and lack of restraint by prosecutors.
Former global publisher (including of Australian vehicles) Conrad Black, is one year into a six-year sentence for fraud at Coleman prison in Florida, USA, which he is appealing.
Interviewed by Theresa Tedesco of the National Post to mark the occasion, he had some pertinent comments, based on first-hand experience, of the US justice system.
Here’s part of the interview (which is worth reading in its entirety which is available here):
Q. Your former partner’s testimony during and after the trial. How do you feel about the U.S. government’s position regarding (David) Radler now?
In the summary to the jury, the prosecution said to ignore his testimony, and the jury did in every respect where he was trying to inculpate his former associates. At appeal they accused him of perjury when he said that we were not guilty of what the jury convicted us of. The US government knowingly extorted perjury in exchange for a soft treatment of his guilt.
I think it is a system in collapse and the American Bar Association and many American law schools and experts have targeted many of its deficiencies, including the procedural advantage and lack of restraint of the prosecutors, the dissolution of Constitutional guaranties of defendants’ rights to due process and other assurances of fairness, the dreadful sentencing practices, the lack of political will to change, and the rot in the plea bargaining basis to the whole system.
But the US is a sovereign democracy and can set up and change its justice system however it wants. Anyone who looks at my case more than cursorily sees that any guilty findings were unjust, and some of the jurors themselves, in post-trial comments, acknowledged that there was a reasonable doubt.
– from ‘The daily life of Conrad’, Theresa Tedesco, National Post 27 Feb 09