Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 11:15:43 PM
It is time to play my old thought experiment game to illustrate why I believe, that the prosecution of DA Carol Chambers will send an extremely bad message and actually result in more crime.
When I was in college, everyone wanted to build widgets. Some wanted to build small widgets. Some wanted miniature widgets. Others wanted blue widgets. A few wanted to build really big widgets because there was a lot of profit in each one. I was one of those.
I used to watch "This old Widget" on a regular basis. I learned a lot. The more I watched, the more I wanted to build widgets, big widgets. My problem was that the local big widget making guild had some pretty strict entrance requirements.
As it happened, I needed a Big Widget of my own and into my life came a very clever Widget maker who promised to make me a good big Widget, for not a lot of money. I told him early in the planning process that I wanted to be a Widget maker and would watch the process, in the hope that that would qualify me for guild membership.
At some point not long there after the clever widget maker thought to himself that he could exploit the intellectual property laws and make killing. To accomplish this, he had to ensure that I actually did get into the guild, and he knew that just watching wouldn't be enough. I had to have hands on experience. There was a way to make that happen. He could simply start the big widget, sabotage it, and try to get fired. If he couldn't get fired, he would quit. In any event, he expected that I would finish the widget, find and fix the sabotage, and get into the guild.
To keep this story short, assume that I had no idea that I might be the intended victim of a complex confidence game, and only stumbled onto evidence of it AFTER I filed a civil lawsuit. A scam of this nature breaks lots of laws: Forgery, Criminal Mischief, Insurance Fraud, and Fraud to name but a few.
This scenario creates unintended consequences. The suddenly enlightened victim cannot go to a DA until his civil case runs its course. It is very much in the interest of the clever Widget maker to keep the case from being completed until the statute of limitations runs its course.
At some point, the public interest demands that a DA be able to step in and get criminal charges filed before the civil lawsuit is complete or the clever Widget maker will totally escape justice. Otherwise, the lawsuit accidently becomes an unintended shield against criminal prosecution.
If the prosecution of DA Chambers proceeds, no DA will ever consider filing charges without first forcing the lawsuit to be dropped.