Law in Contemporary Society

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CourtneySmithFirstPaper 4 - 01 Mar 2010 - Main.EbenMoglen
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Freedom of the Individual and the State

In addition to the charge for lying to the FBI, as if he had reported the vials stolen as part of an elaborate hoax, Dr. Butler was charged with 68 additional offenses, ranging from fraud, embezzlement, and tax evasion to illegal transportation of plague bacteria. The charges carried a maximum sentence of 469 years in prison and $17 million in fines, but prosecutors offered him six months if he would plead guilty. Believing he had done nothing wrong, Dr. Butler refused. The National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and four Nobel Laureates wrote in his support, asserting that all of the practices of which Butler had been accused (the government focused on Butler’s international transportation of specimens and his compensation for outside research) are standard in the medical research community. In spite of a competent defense and widespread support, some of the charges stuck, and Butler was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

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<		Dr. Butler’s case is not unique; a prosecutor always exercises some degree of judgment in determining whom to pursue and how, a decision which is invariably informed by politics. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy? noted in an interview about the case with CBS News, “This is a time when it’s important to get the message out to the world that we’re serious about dealing with components of weapons of mass destruction.” His statement elides the irony that in its effort to demonstrate its competence to combat a bioterrorist threat, the government’s show trial merely succeeded in halting the work of a scientist leading the search for better ways to fight weaponized disease.
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>		Dr. Butler’s case is not unique; a prosecutor always exercises some degree of judgment in determining whom to pursue and how, a decision which is invariably informed by politics. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted in an interview about the case with CBS News, “This is a time when it’s important to get the message out to the world that we’re serious about dealing with components of weapons of mass destruction.” His statement elides the irony that in its effort to demonstrate its competence to combat a bioterrorist threat, the government’s show trial merely succeeded in halting the work of a scientist leading the search for better ways to fight weaponized disease.
 

Coda

The local defender who represented Dr. Butler at trial died this month. He is remembered here in terms which would make most lawyers proud.

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Yes, it's a bad story of something that happened to a doctor of skill and character that happens to tens of thousands of people every year in the US. Your emphasis on this story and its circumstances gives the impression that this sort of thing happens because of the 200 FBI agents and the bioterrorism panic. All sorts of crimes are solved like this all the time. What happens to university professors and white doctors also happens to working class people who aren't pink-complexioned. More often, because in general they're much more vulnerable. Here the fight was exceptionally well-conducted by a determined if overmatched lawyer. Usually the fight is thrown.

So the part that I miss most about this essay is the absence of a conclusion. Are you telling the story of something that happened to a privileged fellow crushed by an episode of exceptional stupidity? Or are you mentioning an unusually gilt-edged edition of the same old same old? What your story stands for is the essay's point, and you're not saying.
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Revision 4r4 - 01 Mar 2010 - 23:26:15 - EbenMoglen
Revision 3r3 - 26 Feb 2010 - 21:23:45 - CourtneySmith
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