Questions for the Lawyers, Was the Manner of the Investigation of JFK's Death a Prelude to the Just Ended NYC Trial?

[Guest Tom Scully]

I was in the sixth grade when our school principal announced that JFK had been shot. I've grown up with what seem like a serial string of ever more brazen government abuses and disrespect for the law and the Constitution, ever since; almost fifty years a witness to it.

Through all of it...the "testimony" of Warren Commission witnesses, government officials, and investigators, with no cross-examination of the witnesses or independent investigation or challenge of any of the government's evidence, where can I find the numerous, troubled or even negative reactions to the WC "process" and to the findings in its report? Where can I find the reaction of the lawyers to the secret service and vice-president Johnson forcibly removing the body of the murdered president from parkland hospital, and then quickly from Dallas and from Texas without the permission, and indeed, over the objection of the Dallas officials with lawful jurisdiction over the body of the murder victim, the president, within their jusrisdiction?

Where was the loud and vocal reaction to the My Lai massacre cover up and the sham, Fort Benning legal process when the cover up of the massacre could no longer be sustained, and then to the presidential pardon and release from custody of Lt. William Calley? Where was the loud, lawyerly protest to the treatment of Daniel Ellsberg, beginning with the disclosure that president Nixon had ordered or at least approved the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office? And, where were the numerous objections to the illegal prosecution of Ellsberg in the federal courts, that followed?

So many examples of "the problem" and the nearly universal ratification of it through near silence.:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport/statement.html

...........Furthermore, Amnesty International calls upon state bar authorities to investigate the Administration lawyers alleged to be involved in the torture scandal for failing to meet professional responsibility standards. The attorneys who wrote various legal opinions that may have provided cover for subsequent crimes and who should be investigated include Bybee and David Addington, General Counsel to Vice President Cheney; Robert Delahunty, former Special Counsel in the Office of Homeland Security, and three attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel—John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General. We also call on the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to make public the findings of its investigation into the Bybee memo......

http://www.benferencz.org/stories/8.html

...This is not the place to argue about the legality of the Iraq war. My personal views are amply reflected by the dozens of articles, interviews, and lectures that appear on my website starting in 2001. In short, I believe that the use of armed force in violation of the UN Charter is a crime of aggression. Some otherwise competent lawyers do not share that view. My reasoning is spelled out in a long lecture to the American Bar Association in November 2005 that appeared repeatedly on national public television. A shorter speech, to a standing ovation, can be found in my address at the Library of Congress in Washington in celebration of Veteran’s Day on May 26, 2005. I did not use any prepared texts. I was speaking not from my notes, but from my heart.

Allow me to interject a most interesting opinion on the illegality of the Iraq war that came from a most unexpected source. Elizabeth Wilmshorst, a very dignified and regal lady, represented the United Kingdom at the United Nations for many years. At meetings of the Preparatory Committee for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, she was recognized as an outstanding legal expert. I did not share her conclusion that the crime of “Aggression” could only exist if there was a “war.” She was relying on a World War I legal opinion of Lord McNair, and I didn’t agree with His Lordship, either. It came as a great and pleasant surprise to me when, on the verge of the Iraq war, Ms. Wilmshorst suddenly resigned. The reason given by her for that unexpected departure, as reliably reported in the press, was that she could no longer serve a government that was committing “the crime of aggression... so destructive of the international order and the rule of law.” I felt like shouting, “Bravo Lizzy!” She declined my efforts to pin a medal on her at a formal ceremony, but she did, finally, accept a solid gold medal with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and a peace design on the obverse, as my personal token of appreciation for her courage and integrity...

Ben Ferencz

graduate of Harvard Law School (1943),

combat soldier in World War Two (5 battle stars),

Nuremberg war crimes Prosecutor

I've got a good memory and know the difference between right and wrong as it applied in our adversarial, system of due process, but of course, not as much as the lawyers know.

I could fill pages of examples in the ensuing years of what seems acceptance by their silence, by the community of lawyers in the U.S. of a progression of grave, officially sanctioned and administered injustices I have witnessed, the conviction and long imprisonment of Edwin Wilson, being at least one. If not for the federal judge who finally ordered the release of Wilson after more than 20 years in prison, and of a handful of lawyers, there to, was almost a universal nonreaction to the travesty, the long cover up, and the prosecutorial misconduct that was reported to have been referred to the OPR for investigation in 2003, but disappeared within the confines of that August DOJ, agency.

Just last week, after a nearly three year investigation, the DOJ could find no one to charge with a crime in the deliberate destruction of the CIA's "torture tapes", announced only after letters from "bloggers" to DOJ officials reminded them of their silence as the statute of limitation was mere days from running its course, that the special prosecutor would return no indictments, after three years of secret investigation.

It is now worth the risk to ask the lawyers who might be reading this, where have you and your colleagues been, all my life?

Now, we witness the end of a civilian trial of an accused "terrorist" in an NYC federal court. There is much vocal angst and objection to a jury verdict finding the accused "not guilty" of murder and of 283 other of the total of 285 charges.

Where was the outrage of the legal community when prosecutors in that case came into federal court and presented the presiding federal judge with a "confession", other evidence, and of witnesses obviously only determined after the accused was kidnapped...it cannot be called arrest, because the accused was intentionally and with the approval of U.S. officials, taken to a "black site" created and run by the CIA, in a "torture friendly" foreign jurisdiction, and held for five years without being afforded any hearing, and tortured and otherwise abused into incriminating himself and "confessing"?

Where was the loud voice of lawyerly disapproval when the prosecutors not only attempted to present the court with evidence of guilt corrupted by illegal, but officially designed and approved kidnapping and torture, with no sign that the prosecution or the DOJ had any intention of investigating the only legal relevance of this "evidence", as grounds to investigate those who ordered and who carried out the kidnapping, torture, and the extra legal, seven years confinement of this accused?

And, where were the objecting voices when the judge ruled the confession, other evidence, and the testimony of a key prosecution witness, inadmissible, because it was obvious they were produced through illegal coercion?

I heard no loud, numerous objections from lawyers when the judge then allowed the trial to proceed without demanding any sanctions or investigation of the willful, illegal conduct of the prosecutors or of the government for the disrespect they had all exhibited to the rule of law, the rights of the defendant, to the court, and to the judge, himself.

The judge himself, sensing the endemic scorn for the rule of law, attempted to justify his unpopular but unavoidable ruling on the coerced evidence by qualifying it with the observation that the defendant, even if acquitted, would probably be imprisoned indefinitely (arbitrarily), anyway, so no harm done by his ruling.

Doesn't any of this deliberate and progressing destruction of our legal system, and of the provisions of the Bill of Rights and of senate ratified treaties, bring any of you to the realization that this is no longer the legal system you have devoted your careers to "serving"?

Would any further degree of subversion of the legal system or of a defendant's rights, or of the transfer of the jurisdiction of civilian criminal courts to the military, cause you more fear than the abuses built into "the cure" for the excuse for these monumental changes to our system, the fear of "terrorism"?

The UK, Spain, and Pakistan, for example, have all managed to bring those accused of terrorism in their respective countries to justice, routinely in their criminal courts. Do you consider their courts superior to ours? Because of your almost universal silence, are the courts and legal systems in those countries, now better than our own, by default?

How do you justify your long silence? Given the conduct of the prosecution and the judge in this recent NYC trail, what is it that you can defend about the conduct of the prosecution, the judge, and of the DOJ? The defendant was kidnapped, tortured, and imprisoned under the harshest conditions for seven years. Would he have had to prove that parts of his body had been cut off before the judge might agree to dismiss all charges?

How is the current climate in this country towards accused labeled as terrorists by officials sworn to uphold the law, the rules of evidence, and of criminal procedure, that much different from the mindset and the goals of a lynch mob? Is their any less than "lynch mob" emotion clouding the judgment and conduct of these officials.

Which portions of this now degraded and disgraced "system" are you still most proud of; the parts of it afforded to those accused whose defense and reputations have not been prejudiced by a non-judicial or even legal, evidentiary determination accusing them of "terrorism"?

Here are some quotes from the "serious people":

I don't give a flying fornication how good Michael Vick was last night. He abused dogs. I have no use for him. Pig.

3:32 AM Nov 16th via web Retweeted by 48 people

Talkmaster

Neal Boortz

http://boortz.com/nuze/200609/09202006.html

...The Jihadist menace then tore into the United States and Great Britain over the war in Iraq. Come to think of it, Ahmadinejad sounded like he was reading from a text prepared by the Democratic National Committee. He whined about civilian deaths in Iraq, just as the mainstream media has been doing....

Neal Boortz September 20, 2006

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/110810dntexbushdynasty.3f8642e.html

As Bush kicks off book tour, historians crown his family a Republican dynasty

10:26 AM CST on Monday, November 8, 2010

"Serious people", including most lawyers in the U.S., apparently, facilitate Mr. Bush running around on a book tour, after he deliberately planned to, and then attacked and invaded a remote sovereign nation that was not responsible for any attack on the U.S. nor was there persuasive evidence of the Iraqi regime representing even a remote, imminent threat to U.S. security. Despite the fact that Mr. Bush's order of invasion resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraquis and the deaths of 5000 American troops and destabilized the balance of power in the region of Iran, not even an investigation of Mr. Bush has been seriously contemplated or called for by any significant number of lawyers.

Michael Vick, on the other hand, abused some dogs and a few of them died. He was hounded by prosecutors, then tried and convicted, and served 18 months in federal prison for his dog abuse.

Where are the lawyers, to forcefully call any of this madness into question?

Edited November 18, 2010 by Tom Scully

[William Kelly]

I was in the sixth grade when our school principal announced that JFK had been shot. I've grown up with what seem like a serial string of ever more brazen government abuses and disrespect for the law and the Constitution, ever since; almost fifty years a witness to it.

Through all of it...the "testimony" of Warren Commission witnesses, government officials, and investigators, with no cross-examination of the witnesses or independent investigation or challenge of any of the government's evidence, where can I find the numerous, troubled or even negative reactions to the WC "process" and to the findings in its report? Where can I find the reaction of the lawyers to the secret service and vice-president Johnson forcibly removing the body of the murdered president from parkland hospital, and then quickly from Dallas and from Texas without the permission, and indeed, over the objection of the Dallas officials with lawful jurisdiction over the body of the murder victim, the president, within their jusrisdiction?

Where was the loud and vocal reaction to the My Lai massacre cover up and the sham, Fort Benning legal process when the cover up of the massacre could no longer be sustained, and then to the presidential pardon and release from custody of Lt. William Calley? Where was the loud, lawyerly protest to the treatment of Daniel Ellsberg, beginning with the disclosure that president Nixon had ordered or at least approved the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office? And, where were the numerous objections to the illegal prosecution of Ellsberg in the federal courts, that followed?

So many examples of "the problem" and the nearly universal ratification of it through near silence.:

http://www.amnestyus.../statement.html

...........Furthermore, Amnesty International calls upon state bar authorities to investigate the Administration lawyers alleged to be involved in the torture scandal for failing to meet professional responsibility standards. The attorneys who wrote various legal opinions that may have provided cover for subsequent crimes and who should be investigated include Bybee and David Addington, General Counsel to Vice President Cheney; Robert Delahunty, former Special Counsel in the Office of Homeland Security, and three attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel—John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General. We also call on the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to make public the findings of its investigation into the Bybee memo......

http://www.benferenc.../stories/8.html

...This is not the place to argue about the legality of the Iraq war. My personal views are amply reflected by the dozens of articles, interviews, and lectures that appear on my website starting in 2001. In short, I believe that the use of armed force in violation of the UN Charter is a crime of aggression. Some otherwise competent lawyers do not share that view. My reasoning is spelled out in a long lecture to the American Bar Association in November 2005 that appeared repeatedly on national public television. A shorter speech, to a standing ovation, can be found in my address at the Library of Congress in Washington in celebration of Veteran’s Day on May 26, 2005. I did not use any prepared texts. I was speaking not from my notes, but from my heart.

Allow me to interject a most interesting opinion on the illegality of the Iraq war that came from a most unexpected source. Elizabeth Wilmshorst, a very dignified and regal lady, represented the United Kingdom at the United Nations for many years. At meetings of the Preparatory Committee for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, she was recognized as an outstanding legal expert. I did not share her conclusion that the crime of “Aggression” could only exist if there was a “war.” She was relying on a World War I legal opinion of Lord McNair, and I didn’t agree with His Lordship, either. It came as a great and pleasant surprise to me when, on the verge of the Iraq war, Ms. Wilmshorst suddenly resigned. The reason given by her for that unexpected departure, as reliably reported in the press, was that she could no longer serve a government that was committing “the crime of aggression... so destructive of the international order and the rule of law.” I felt like shouting, “Bravo Lizzy!” She declined my efforts to pin a medal on her at a formal ceremony, but she did, finally, accept a solid gold medal with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and a peace design on the obverse, as my personal token of appreciation for her courage and integrity...

Ben Ferencz

graduate of Harvard Law School (1943),

combat soldier in World War Two (5 battle stars),

Nuremberg war crimes Prosecutor

I've got a good memory and know the difference between right and wrong as it applied in our adversarial, system of due process, but of course, not as much as the lawyers know.

I could fill pages of examples in the ensuing years of what seems acceptance by their silence, by the community of lawyers in the U.S. of a progression of grave, officially sanctioned and administered injustices I have witnessed, the conviction and long imprisonment of Edwin Wilson, being at least one. If not for the federal judge who finally ordered the release of Wilson after more than 20 years in prison, and of a handful of lawyers, there to, was almost a universal nonreaction to the travesty, the long cover up, and the prosecutorial misconduct that was reported to have been referred to the OPR for investigation in 2003, but disappeared within the confines of that August DOJ, agency.

Just last week, after a nearly three year investigation, the DOJ could find no one to charge with a crime in the deliberate destruction of the CIA's "torture tapes", announced only after letters from "bloggers" to DOJ officials reminded them of their silence as the statute of limitation was mere days from running its course, that the special prosecutor would return no indictments, after three years of secret investigation.

It is now worth the risk to ask the lawyers who might be reading this, where have you and your colleagues been, all my life?

Now, we witness the end of a civilian trial of an accused "terrorist" in an NYC federal court. There is much vocal angst and objection to a jury verdict finding the accused "not guilty" of murder and of 283 other of the total of 285 charges.

Where was the outrage of the legal community when prosecutors in that case came into federal court and presented the presiding federal judge with a "confession", other evidence, and of witnesses obviously only determined after the accused was kidnapped...it cannot be called arrest, because the accused was intentionally and with the approval of U.S. officials, taken to a "black site" created and run by the CIA, in a "torture friendly" foreign jurisdiction, and held for five years without being afforded any hearing, and tortured and otherwise abused into incriminating himself and "confessing"?

Where was the loud voice of lawyerly disapproval when the prosecutors not only attempted to present the court with evidence of guilt corrupted by illegal, but officially designed and approved kidnapping and torture, with no sign that the prosecution or the DOJ had any intention of investigating the only legal relevance of this "evidence", as grounds to investigate those who ordered and who carried out the kidnapping, torture, and the extra legal, seven years confinement of this accused?

And, where were the objecting voices when the judge ruled the confession, other evidence, and the testimony of a key prosecution witness, inadmissible, because it was obvious they were produced through illegal coercion?

I heard no loud, numerous objections from lawyers when the judge then allowed the trial to proceed without demanding any sanctions or investigation of the willful, illegal conduct of the prosecutors or of the government for the disrespect they had all exhibited to the rule of law, the rights of the defendant, to the court, and to the judge, himself.

The judge himself, sensing the endemic scorn for the rule of law, attempted to justify his unpopular but unavoidable ruling on the coerced evidence by qualifying it with the observation that the defendant, even if acquitted, would probably be imprisoned indefinitely (arbitrarily), anyway, so no harm done by his ruling.

Doesn't any of this deliberate and progressing destruction of our legal system, and of the provisions of the Bill of Rights and of senate ratified treaties, bring any of you to the realization that this is no longer the legal system you have devoted your careers to "serving"?

Would any further degree of subversion of the legal system or of a defendant's rights, or of the transfer of the jurisdiction of civilian criminal courts to the military, cause you more fear than the abuses built into "the cure" for the excuse for these monumental changes to our system, the fear of "terrorism"?

The UK, Spain, and Pakistan, for example, have all managed to bring those accused of terrorism in their respective countries to justice, routinely in their criminal courts. Do you consider their courts superior to ours? Because of your almost universal silence, are the courts and legal systems in those countries, now better than our own, by default?

How do you justify your long silence? Given the conduct of the prosecution and the judge in this recent NYC trail, what is it that you can defend about the conduct of the prosecution, the judge, and of the DOJ? The defendant was kidnapped, tortured, and imprisoned under the harshest conditions for seven years. Would he have had to prove that parts of his body had been cut off before the judge might agree to dismiss all charges?

How is the current climate in this country towards accused labeled as terrorists by officials sworn to uphold the law, the rules of evidence, and of criminal procedure, that much different from the mindset and the goals of a lynch mob? Is their any less than "lynch mob" emotion clouding the judgment and conduct of these officials.

Which portions of this now degraded and disgraced "system" are you still most proud of; the parts of it afforded to those accused whose defense and reputations have not been prejudiced by a non-judicial or even legal, evidentiary determination accusing them of "terrorism"?

Here are some quotes from the "serious people":

http://twitter.com/T...497037697482752

I don't give a flying fornication how good Michael Vick was last night. He abused dogs. I have no use for him. Pig.

3:32 AM Nov 16th via web Retweeted by 48 people

Talkmaster

Neal Boortz

http://boortz.com/nu...9/09202006.html

...The Jihadist menace then tore into the United States and Great Britain over the war in Iraq. Come to think of it, Ahmadinejad sounded like he was reading from a text prepared by the Democratic National Committee. He whined about civilian deaths in Iraq, just as the mainstream media has been doing....

Neal Boortz September 20, 2006

http://www.dallasnew...ty.3f8642e.html

As Bush kicks off book tour, historians crown his family a Republican dynasty

10:26 AM CST on Monday, November 8, 2010

"Serious people", including most lawyers in the U.S., apparently, facilitate Mr. Bush running around on a book tour, after he deliberately planned to, and then attacked and invaded a remote sovereign nation that was not responsible for any attack on the U.S. nor was there persuasive evidence of the Iraqi regime representing even a remote, imminent threat to U.S. security. Despite the fact that Mr. Bush's order of invasion resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraquis and the deaths of 5000 American troops and destabilized the balance of power in the region of Iran, not even an investigation of Mr. Bush has been seriously contemplated or called for by any significant number of lawyers.

Michael Vick, on the other hand, abused some dogs and a few of them died. He was hounded by prosecutors, then tried and convicted, and served 18 months in federal prison for his dog abuse.

Where are the lawyers, to forcefully call any of this madness into question?

Here's another one for you Tom,

CHESLER, LOU -

Crime & Coverup, Scott (66)

In 3/67, CIA-conduit President David Baird was accused of violating Treasury regulations by buying and selling stock on behalf of Chesler, Henry Crown, et al.

[Guest Tom Scully]

Thank you, Bill! I don't know if you noticed that I tied Chesler and Resorts in with their fellow "investor", Lowell Thomas, over at the Sam Pryor, Jr. thread. Pryor's daughter Mary was married to Lowell's son.

Here is an October 19, 1963, story naming some of the 79 wealthy folk implicated in David G. Baird's tax avoidance scheme.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zDAxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WgEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7628,4982501&dq=henry-crown+baird&hl=en

Besides Crown, names of interest are two names very close to Earl Warren, Hilton, and Toots Schorr. Earl Warren was at the ground breaking of Schorr's new restaurant, and Schorr was a guest at the California wedding of Virginia Warren to John Daley. Daley had a reputation as a frequently drunken patron at Schorr's "restaurant". What kind of a chief justice would permit his daughter to first travel all over with Conrad Hilton, and then to marry Daley, what with Warren had to know about the reputations of both of those men?

What kind of a chief justice would be so close to a NYC saloon keeper like Schorr?

Edited November 18, 2010 by Tom Scully

[John Dolva]

re the topic heading. I'm not a lawyer, but looking further back in history there are numerous cases to refer to. There were times when a public swell of opinion ennobled lawyers to follow the true calling of the role. I think the stuffing has been knocked out of many as well as the way law is interpreted imposes constraints, and of course money is a prime motivator.

[William Kelly]

Thank you, Bill! I don't know if you noticed that I tied Chesler and Resorts in with their fellow "investor", Lowell Thomas, over at the Sam Pryor, Jr. thread. Pryor's daughter Mary was married to Lowell's son.

Here is an October 19, 1963, story naming some of the 79 wealthy folk implicated in David G. Baird's tax avoidance scheme.

http://news.google.c...own+baird&hl=en

Besides Crown, names of interest are two names very close to Earl Warren, Hilton, and Toots Schorr. Earl Warren was at the ground breaking of Schorr's new restaurant, and Schorr was a guest at the California wedding of Virginia Warren to John Daley. Daley had a reputation as a frequently drunken patron at Schorr's "restaurant". What kind of a chief justice would permit his daughter to first travel all over with Conrad Hilton, and then to marry Daley, what with Warren had to know about the reputations of both of those men?

What kind of a chief justice would be so close to a NYC saloon keeper like Schorr?

What's wrong wtih Saloon keepers?

Some of them are my good friends.

The new Republican Majority Whip from Ohio is the son of a saloon keeper.

My local pub, JC's was owned and run by Jack and Connie - Jack Gillespie, father of Republican Party Stalwart Ed Gillespie.

In New York, Sammy O'Conner is one of the best Saloon keepers and a good friend. Saloon keepers run the city.

BK

Edited November 18, 2010 by William Kelly