Police State: How America's Cops Get Away With Murder by Gerry Spence

Author:Gerry Spence [Spence, Gerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Human Rights, Criminal Law, Commercial, Law Enforcement, General, Political Science, Law
ISBN: 9781466885202
Google: xVyzBgAAQBAJ
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-09-08T21:05:13+00:00

CASE 6

THE NEW AMERICAN GESTAPO

Although he and I had been on the same stage at programs for the American Association for Justice, I’d never met Geoffrey Fieger. Tall, long-haired, dynamic, often outspoken, even at times outrageous, he was one of the country’s great lawyers and had an enviable record of winning for the people. Now he was in trouble and asking for my help. He’d been charged with violating election law by funneling money to the tune of $127,000 to John Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign. According to the indictment, Fieger had reimbursed his employees for their contributions to Edwards. This was a common practice across the land, and when the issue came up it was never dealt with criminally. At most, fines were imposed. Imaging thought the case was surely some kind of political vendetta, and I agreed. But I don’t like political cases, because I don’t like most politicians. Usually they represented only themselves. And it seemed to me that if Fieger had done what he was accused of, he had, in fact, broken the law. “I looked at the statute,” I said to Imaging. “It prohibits giving money to a candidate in the name of another—against using straw men, like Fieger’s employees.”

She was unconvinced. “All your cases don’t have to have blood and gore. Maybe you should take a case like this to show the people what’s really going on in this country’s political wars.” The people only know what the politicians tell them. “Isn’t there a difference between using a fictional name to make a contribution, and reimbursing someone who uses his own name to make the contribution and who simply gets reimbursed?” I’d always thought Imaging would have been a great lawyer.

I’d heard how George W. Bush’s Republican “Pioneers,” his largest fund-raisers, routinely solicited bundles of contributions from employees of banks, brokerage firms, and corporations. Some of these employees later received bonuses that more than made up for their contributions. There was never any suggestion that anything illegal was taking place when Bush did it. Still, I didn’t like political cases.

Imaging kept at me. “Fieger is one of us. He’s a people’s lawyer. And the country needs good lawyers to fight for the people. If he gets anyone but you to defend him he’s likely a goner—he loses everything, and his kids and his wife will be out on the street. They’ll keep him in prison for the next twenty years just to prove to lawyers like you that their fight for citizens’ rights is over. You have to defend him.”

Fieger had seemed unbowed on the phone. “My crime wasn’t the bonuses given to our employees. My crime was butting heads with George W. Bush.” I liked the part about butting heads with Bush. And it was true that in Michigan from the governor on down, the state was controlled by a political party that Fieger characterized as “the new brand of Republicans—political reactionaries, throwbacks to the witch-hunting days of Salem.” I listened while Fieger made his case.

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