Peeing In The Pool

I lived in and around Fairfax County, Virginia for many years before moving out here to Oklahoma. It's a comfortable county, one of the five richest in America with rock solid ties to Washington's power structure, used to getting its' way in all things. In recent years the county and the state surrounding it have savaged themselves by electing a series of pie-in-the-sky tax-cutting hard right Republicans who have annihilated the state budget structure, made a mockery of one of the best public school systems in American history, and brought down Jefferson's lofty dreams of superb higher education. The architects of the slaughter have moved on to become senators and white house favorites - George Allen, now a Senator, and Jim Gilmore, general ass licking lackey for the Shrubites.

So it came as no surprise in the wake of the sniper case that Fairfax would flex its considerable political muscle and convince the feds involved to drop the federal charges against Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammed, backhand Maryland officials out of the way (the majority of the killings took place in Maryland, the state where the suspects were also apprehended), and have the case assigned to Fairfax County for trial. The move was extraordinary in every dimension, but in a post September 11 United States, no one thought much of it.

Of course, the primary, perhaps sole reason for the change in approach to the case was the application of the death penalty. Maryland does have a death penalty statute but it does not allow for the execution of persons who were under 18 at the time of the comission of the crime in question, thus Malvo could not be executed. Maryland has also been toying with eliminating or radically altering its death penalty statutes, making it an unreliable venue for a case in which all parties have publicly stated a desire for the defendants to be executed.

Thus, Virginia. That state is not shy about applying its liberal death penalty law, and were its population larger it might challenge Texas for the annual execution crown. The appeals process is also one of the most restrictive in the nation, making it an ideal environment in which to try these two cases. While the outcome is not preordained, it is close.

And, with intentional leaks from law enforcement and the prosecution, the result in both cases is more likely to resemble the fervent wishes of the prosecution. It is obscene that prosecutors in this, or any case can get away with prejudicial activities of such an extreme nature. Releasing all or major parts of statements taken from an accused defendant on trial for his lfe in a civilized system of justice is criminal behavior. In an era when the death penalty has come under much need scrutiny that has revealed mind boggling flaws and outright criminal behavior on the part of those who arrest and try suspects, it is incomprehensible that public officials would continue to use the very same tactics to influence outcomes in order to win cases.

I repeat: It is wrong, and criminal. A reminder for those who are in need of it: to date, no official in the United States has ever been held criminally liable for manufacturing or suppressing evidence or testimony in a death penalty case. A few have been found out and quietly lost their jobs, but have never gone on trial for what is provable criminal behavior. Whatever else one may think of the barbarity of killing people in the name of the state, that very fact goes a long way in explaining why the system is so flawed and prone to error.

It also explains why Fairfax County prosecutors and law enforcement officials are going to get away with their power grab in these cases, and with openly peeing in the jury pool.