Conrad Black Quotes
America today is becoming a Prosecutocracy. Prosecutors have the power when over 97 percent of the convictions are without trial.
Many like Black were concerned that prosecutors had the power to decide who would be charged, with what crimes, what penalties to ask for, and even able to start or end investigations of private citizens and politicians. By overcharging they are able, if they choose, to intimidate many people into pleading guilty, even for crimes that the never committed, in order to avoid taking a chance and possible have a very long jail sentence. Thus they were the most powerful people in the legal system, and had more power and less accountability, checks and balances of any public figures except perhaps for Federal Judges.
Conrad BlackCNN “Global Public Square” November 6, 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This statement was an extension of the famous quotation of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. {603715}.
He had been fired by the George W. Bush White House because he would not rush an indictment against a democratic politician to make the newspapers before the election that year. Unfortunately, many prosecutors will file a questionable case without sufficient evidence for a conviction. They get the newspaper headlines and TV coverage when they file the indictment, and little negative press when they person is found not guilty months or years later. The best prosecutors never will allow politics to influence their prosecution decisions, but there are still many who do.
Arguing for the Constitution's granting the unfettered Pardoning Power to the President.
The United States is almost unique among nations in their respect. While there are Federal law enforcement officers, the number is very small. For example, the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation complement of agents is outnumbered by one of the three shifts of the New York City Police Department. The vast majority of the police officers in America are not even at the State level; it is at the local level.
This is one of the major reasons that the relations between police and the communities they are policing is so important. Also, the style and courtesy that the IRS tax collectors exhibit is very important.
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, KCSG, is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher, convicted criminal, and writer. His father was businessman George Montegu Black II, who had significant holdings in Canadian manufacturing, retail and media businesses through part-ownership of the holding company Ravelston Corporation. In 1978, two years after their father's death, Conrad and his older brother Montegu took majority control of Ravelston. Over the next seven years, Conrad Black sold off most of their non-media holdings in order to focus on newspaper publishing. Black controlled Hollinger International, once the world's third-largest English-language newspaper empire, which published The Daily Telegraph (UK), Chicago Sun-Times (U.S.), The Jerusalem Post (Israel), National Post (Canada), and hundreds of community newspapers in North America, before controversy erupted over the sale of some of the company's assets.
