Chickens come home to roost...
Oct. 11th, 2000 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThe use of innovative new ways of using government to Punish the Evildoers Among Us (without going to the trouble of actually passing any laws) started with attacks against everyone's favorite bad guy: the tobacco industry. Recently the focus has expanded to include firearms manufacturers. The tactic seems to combine the best of several worlds: it feeds the seemingly insatiable human need to punish someone for real or perceived wrongs, it avoids entaglements with people who may shoot back (e.g., organized criminals), and it appeals to plain old avarice and greed, as in, "We'll make 'em pay!"
Well it hasn't taken long for an enterprising bureaucrat in Philadelphia to wonder if suing businesses for redress of various "injustices" might not become a standard tactic for implementing policy and, naturally, filling the city's coffers.
City solicitor Ken Trujillo has 145 lawyers (as well as private attorneys) researching cases to file. "This is not any kind of attempt to go out and make a business of suing businesses willy-nilly," says Trujillo. "We want to bring cases that have a good chance of success and where the payoff both in terms of policy and financially is high for the city." He declined to name any specific industries that may be targeted in future action.
Doesn't that just send a chill down your spine?
The time was, if you wanted someone to stop doing something, you convinced a bunch of legislators to make it illegal. Afterwards, if anyone got caught doing it, they went to jail. (Yeah, I know, that's a simplification, but bear with me...)
Now, it seems, by using the courts "creatively," law can "keep up with the times" and the government can go after people - sometimes years after some activity - and sue them in front of juries who, in the back of their minds, may well imagine their taxes going down if they can see their way to dipping into the deep pockets of defendants for redress of any and every kind of grievance, real or imagined.
This might sound good as long as the Bad Guys are among the usual slimeballs (as determined by some elite group of lawmakers), such as the tobacco and firearms industries. But now imagine some two-bit town solicitor in Podunk gets enough juice to sue, say, Planned Parenthood in a civil case for, say, having abetted numerous abortions? Impossible, you say? Not on my watch, you say?
Never underestimate the power of a litigator, especially one who believes himself (or herself) to be among the annointed.
Unless this trend is stopped soon, the legal system will settle down into a mode that looks only for victims who will not be found guilty of any crime, but of thwarting that fickle thing called "public policy," and from whom governments can squeeze money. I'm not at all sure that's the way things ought to go.
Cheers...
Well it hasn't taken long for an enterprising bureaucrat in Philadelphia to wonder if suing businesses for redress of various "injustices" might not become a standard tactic for implementing policy and, naturally, filling the city's coffers.
City solicitor Ken Trujillo has 145 lawyers (as well as private attorneys) researching cases to file. "This is not any kind of attempt to go out and make a business of suing businesses willy-nilly," says Trujillo. "We want to bring cases that have a good chance of success and where the payoff both in terms of policy and financially is high for the city." He declined to name any specific industries that may be targeted in future action.
Doesn't that just send a chill down your spine?
The time was, if you wanted someone to stop doing something, you convinced a bunch of legislators to make it illegal. Afterwards, if anyone got caught doing it, they went to jail. (Yeah, I know, that's a simplification, but bear with me...)
Now, it seems, by using the courts "creatively," law can "keep up with the times" and the government can go after people - sometimes years after some activity - and sue them in front of juries who, in the back of their minds, may well imagine their taxes going down if they can see their way to dipping into the deep pockets of defendants for redress of any and every kind of grievance, real or imagined.
This might sound good as long as the Bad Guys are among the usual slimeballs (as determined by some elite group of lawmakers), such as the tobacco and firearms industries. But now imagine some two-bit town solicitor in Podunk gets enough juice to sue, say, Planned Parenthood in a civil case for, say, having abetted numerous abortions? Impossible, you say? Not on my watch, you say?
Never underestimate the power of a litigator, especially one who believes himself (or herself) to be among the annointed.
Unless this trend is stopped soon, the legal system will settle down into a mode that looks only for victims who will not be found guilty of any crime, but of thwarting that fickle thing called "public policy," and from whom governments can squeeze money. I'm not at all sure that's the way things ought to go.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2000-10-11 08:08 pm (UTC)The other similar example is the seizure of property in drug cases without any determination of guilt. It seems totally unconstitutional, but has been ruled legal by the courts.
When government at all levels starts using tactics like these, they just become one more group of brownshirts with clubs running around beating on people and stealing money. Obviously they want to run everything. Not just to make laws, but to totally regulate our behavior. If they can't do it by statute, they'll invent new ways that profit them at the same time.
Lust for power and lust for money. Not characteristics I associated with government when I was growing up. But I somewhat respected government then. I can't really say that now.
Re:
With a statute, you've got to specify what it is that constitutes the crime, and the application of the statute cannot be made ex post facto (i.e., retroactive). With a lawsuit, on the other hand, you are free to come up with a grievance at any time - sometimes years after a business had pursued a perfectly legal activity - and ask juries for arbitrarily large amounts of money.
Your observation about forfeiture laws is right on the money. Recently, the application of these has expanded beyond drugs. I seem to recall a case where a woman's car had been seized because her estranged husband had used it to go whoring and he had been caught in flagrante by the police. If memory serves, the seizure was upheld on appeal, which sends a very ominous (and largely ignored) message to the citizenry.
Cheers...
Re:
Date: 2000-10-12 07:25 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2000-10-12 09:56 pm (UTC)Cheers...