The End of the Spitzer Saga

From Salon:

"Put this within the larger context that Spitzer saw prostitutes while actively seeking their imprisonment, and that Emperors was only attending to his requests, and the whole mess strikes me as a distortion of justice and a sickening waste of resources."

Also, a poignant description of Mr. Spitzer's prosecution efforts.

Trading Thought Crimes - Never Trust the Discretion of a Prosecutor

It should be obvious by now: The kind of people who become prosecutors are not the kind of people who can be trusted to use their discretion. One of the few sensible business reporters, John Carney, explains why going after rumor spreaders, even if they are right, is a waste of time:

We think that this would be a terrible misuse of prosecutorial power. In
the first place, there's precious little evidence that the supposed market
manipulation even occurred. Instead of evidence there's just pure speculation.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," might be a nice soundbite but its not
evidence. Before we unleash the hounds of war on rumor mongers, shouldn't we
require more than this?

What's more, the costs of such investigations would likely be worse
than the alleged wrong-doing. In order to catch wrong-doers, prosecutors would
have to subpoena the private emails, instant messages and testimony of lots of
people who did no wrong at all. Each of the investigated would face huge legal
bills and know that their lives could be ruined by a prosecutor or a judge who
misreads a bad intention into an innocent email.

Criminalizing Failure - Bear Bigs Get Sherman McCoy Treatment

A weak case indeed for the State and so they are giving both defendants the full Sherman McCoy treatment, including a full perp-walk with handcuffs. As is common with white-collar cases, the State plans on winning in the media and using the full resources of the taxpayer to crush the defendants into submission; no trial is planned.

The well-worn playbook for beating up white collar defendants is as follows: (1) toss everything but the kitchen sink into the indictment, not that the State plans on proving it; it’s just a bargaining tactic for the inevitable settlement, (2) details that were so flimsy (and these must be flimsy indeed if they were not included in the indictment) or unrelated to the case will be leaked to the media. It will be no surprise to see out of context email excerpts in the next few weeks related to affairs, high salaries, favoritism, etc., (3) If the defendants are rich or foolhardy enough not to settle, the State will certainly punish them for exercising their right to a trial. At this point both defendants’ careers on Wall Street are over, even if they are found not guilty. If they win they will be broke and unemployable – one way or another, the State always wins.