May 23, 2005

...share a penchant, argues Tom Kirkendall, for trying cases in the press through "inflammatory public statements about subjects of their highly-publicized criminal investigations", as when Spitzer took to the Sunday talk shows to announce that AIG had "already acknowledged" "over a billion dollars of accounting frauds". Between the tendency of many journalists and public figures to accept the characterization as fraud of many kinds of complex financial transactions, and the way the plea bargaining process can irresistibly pressure executives to buckle and give the testimony prosecutors wish them to give, there is a real danger today in white-collar law enforcement of "erod[ing] the rule of law to convict an unpopular defendant". Whole post is here.