<center> [attachmentid=1757] <br>Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan<br>Protecting Americans from the White Trash that couldn’t get into Big Law</center>
There should never be any question in the minds of the public as to whether or not The State has clean hands. The State, especially a state that has a death penalty, should be above suspicion, the public should never have to even entertain the notion that Judges and Prosecutors have unclean hands … Somewhere along the line, Criminal Justice in America became a business. Somewhere along the line, cops, prosecutors and Judges became just so much White Trash trying to figure out a way to make next month’s rent.

Prosecutors and John Gotti Tactics

The ongoing joke among some folks in Law is that Good Looking Hot Shot Top Tier Law School Graduates end up at Big Law Firms with staring salarys in the six figure range. On the other hand, the ugly fat reject Law School Grads who went to shit law schools end up slumming as government prosecutors sending 15 year old Black and Hispanic kids to prison. As I recall, Guiliani’s salary as a Federal Proesecutor was somewhere in the $45,000 per year range. The ongoing joke among some folks is that the only way a Goverment Lawyer could beat a Private Lawyer with the same “ways and means” is if the Government Lawyer has the Judge helping him.

It appears that the prosecution strategy of preventing a deep pocket defendant from being able to mount the defense strategy of his choice STARTED with the prosecutions of John Gotti. After several failed attempts to convict John Gotti on Murder and Racketeering charges, The State had to get Gotti’s Hot Shot Lawyer, Bruce Cutler, disqualified before The State was able to win convictions againt John Gotti.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, The State and UNCLEAN HANDS

The purpose of this post to consolidate all of the links on the web relating to Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissing criminal judges against employees of KPMG. Judge Kaplan dismissed all criminal charges against the KPMG employees because the Judge concluded that Federal Prosecutors had gone too far in making it difficult for the defendants to be able to afford the legal counsel of their choice. In the KPMG case, it was alleged that federal prosecutors actually threatened KPMG with criminal charges should KPMG pay the legal expenses of the accused KPMG employees.

BLOOMBERG
The Justice Department ``foreclosed these defendants from presenting the defenses they wished to present and, in some cases, even deprived them of counsel of their choice,” Kaplan wrote in a 64-page opinion. ``This is intolerable in a society that holds itself out to the world as a paragon of justice.” Bloomberg

WALL STREET JOURNAL LAW BLOG
Reading over yesterday’s “KPMG for Dummies” post, we we were struck by the early guilty plea of David Rivkin (pictured), one of the original 19 defendants in the KPMG tax-shelter prosecution. In March 2006, Rivkin pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges and agreed to cooperate against the other defendants. The 43-year-old presumably hoped his plea deal would result in a lenient sentence and eventually let him get on with his life. WSJ

WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL
In back-to-back articles — an editorial from the entire editorial board yesterday and an op-ed by one of its members today — the WSJ editorial page thinks that the government should move on. “Rather than dragging them through another year or more of appeals, Mr. Gonzales should send a message about due process to other prosecutors by closing down the case,” said Tuesday’s editorial. WSJ