Bragging of incompetence.

[libertango]

No, not me. {this time.}

I meant John Ashcroft.

Seems he had a press conference yesterday, introducing a report to Congress intended to establish how vital the Patriot Act is to violating his oath to defend the constitution to successfully prosecuting the "war on terror"

Instead, to a trained eye, it makes him look like a rube.

Here's the key quote:

"The report says that in the period starting with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and ending May 5, terrorism investigations by the Justice Department resulted in charges against 310 people, with 179 convictions or guilty pleas. The Patriot Act, it says, was instrumental in these cases."

What that means is that Ashcroft's Justice Department is getting a conviction rate of 57.7% on the terrorism cases cited.

This is abysmal.

Most prosecutors think that if they're not getting a conviction rate of 90% or higher, they'll never get re-elected as District Attorney.

To put this in perspective, consider:  A conviction rate of 50% means you might was well toss a coin to determine the guilt or innocence of whom you're trying.

But it gets better.  Consider the basic argument Ashcroft is making:  Without the benefit of the Patriot Act, he and his bozos would be doing even worse.  That's right, without the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft thinks a coin toss would do a better job than he can at convicting terrorists.

No wonder he wanted to keep these stats secret.

Not only does this support my long-running idea that most "national security secrets" are really just cover-one's-ass moves.  But the fact you're hearing about this angle to the story from me and not in prime time and/or above the fold in a newspaper shows just how cowed the So-Called-Liberal-Media are.

Thanks to darkmane, to whom I originally commented when he flagged this story.

Comments

Hmmm

[crionna.livejournal.com]

Just wondering how many of those cases in which charges have been brought but convictions not gained were still ongoing. The article really isn't very clear (to me) on that. Couldn't find any addiitonal info online.

Re: Hmmm

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

If the Administration is dragging its feet on trying these cases expeditiously, whose fault would that be? The Patriot Act passed in October, 2001. It's been nearly three years. Are you proposing that a judge, looking at a terrorist prosecution, wouldn't move it to the top of the calendar if asked?

If anything, the length of time to try these cases has been greatly increased by the Administration's obstinate insistence that they don't have to try them in the first place (cf. Padilla, et al.).

Re: Hmmm

[crionna.livejournal.com]

Are you proposing that a judge, looking at a terrorist prosecution, wouldn't move it to the top of the calendar if asked?

I couldn't say as I'm not a judge. Although why would s/he? Why would it be important to speed that defendant's trial up to the detriment of other defendants?

To the crux of your argument I'll say that the totals were given through May 5th of this year. Is it your contention that charges brought on May 4th of this year should have by now been completely adjudicated?

I was just involved in a theft case where jury selection alone took 5 weeks. I'd daresay that a trial involving terrorism might require a bit more time to select a jury satisfactory to both sides.

I'm not trying to defend the government's record on this, but its not clear to me that a percentage determination such as you've put forth is properly made with the information available.

Re: Hmmm

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"I couldn't say as I'm not a judge. Although why would s/he? Why would it be important to speed that defendant's trial up to the detriment of other defendants?"

Again, note that I said, "if asked". But as to why one would do it, surely if terrorism is regarded as a most serious crime, especially because of the potential danger from the suspect, the faster the conviction the better.

"I'm not trying to defend the government's record on this, but its not clear to me that a percentage determination such as you've put forth is properly made with the information available."

You're right, actually.

I'm being entirely too generous.

Most crime figures in the US -- including conviction rates -- are measured on a year-by-year basis. By putting the whole three years of cases since the Patriot Act was passed into one bucket, I'm basically averaging out the stats in a way that one never would under regular circumstances. On the other hand, Ashcroft is doing the same thing, presenting them as a group. So, yes, it's possible they had zero convictions their first year, and 90 the next, and 89 the third to get to their 179 total convictions... But doing that actually drastically improves the rate for the first year, even if it steals some back away for subsequent years.

But, let's try to make an apples-to-apples comparison. The most recent US Attorneys' Annual Statistical Report is for FY2002. It can be found here (NOTE: .PDF Acrobat file). Here's their summary for the two best-known categories:

OVERALL CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS
• 56,658 cases filed against 77,305 defendants–case filings up 6 percent
• 51,436 cases against 70,492 defendants terminated–case terminations up 3 percent
• 64,182 defendants convicted
• 91 percent conviction rate
• 81 percent of convicted defendants sentenced to prison
• 47 percent of prison sentences greater than 3 years
• 27 percent of prison sentences greater than 5 years

VIOLENT CRIME
• 10,070 cases filed against 11,991 defendants–case filings up 15 percent
• 8,516 cases against 10,142 defendants terminated–case terminations up 9 percent
• 8,889 defendants convicted
• 88 percent conviction rate
• 89 percent of convicted defendants sentenced to prison
• 66 percent of prison sentences greater than 3 years
• 43 percent of prison sentences greater than 5 years

(emphasis added)

Notice that these are the same offices, the same attorneys.

Also, notice just how few cases are Patriot-related, especially since Ashcroft is aggregating three years vs. just this one.

So we're left with four alternatives:

* It's really tough to get judges or juries to convict on terrorism charges.
* The DoJ isn't pushing terrorism cases hard enough.
* The DoJ is incompetent.
* Some mix of the above three.

I don't really think #1 is plausible. I've been using #3 for rhetorical fun, but, oddly, I find it more comforting than #2. #4 is pot luck.

What do you think the alternatives are?

Re: Hmmm

[crionna.livejournal.com]

The alternative that strikes me is the one that I've already put forward. Perhaps it takes 6 months to a year to try these cases. That says to me that there could be a significant number of cases where charges were brought before May 5th, but the trials have not begun or are in process etc.

In fact, I'd guess that when a new law is placed on the books, or in this case new ways of gathering evidence to prove many current laws are being broken, that it would take a bit of time to gather that evidence and bring charges in the first place. So, I'd expect there to be fewer year one charges than years 2 & 3 and the number of competed trials to be even lower in the first year.

I'm all for bashing the efficiency of government agencies, we all know that there are darn few that don't waste taxpayer time and money while doing a poor job. But, in this case, I don't see how we can assume that the trials have been concluded.

The real incompetence to me would be in that none of the reporters bothered to ask how many cases were lost, although perhaps no questions were allowed.