Well, It’s Not Like He Could Have Invited Rev. Wright…

So, Obama has asked Rick Warren to deliver the invocation on inauguration day.  This has apparently caused consternation among the left, though one should always be suspect about blanket statements such as “the left is angry.”  I will say, though, I’m not a big fan of this choice; I’m not sure why a secular country (which, in theory, is what the United States is supposed to be) needs to have an invocation at inauguration, period.

Indictments and Presumption of Innocence

Watching the Rod Blagojevich drama unfold is, I think, an object lesson in the erosion of civil liberties in this country.  At around the same time that the Bill of Rights celebrated its birthday, there’s an Attorney General trying to have Illinois’s Supreme Court declare an individual unfit to serve, based on allegations of wrong-doing.  Not a judge- or jury-provided conviction, just allegations.  Nothing has been proven, and yet she’s pushing to have Governor Blagojevich removed from office.

Now, of course, the reasoning is that it is unseemly for a State to have someone in office who is under indictment, because it just, you know, looks bad.  (That’s putting a charitable spin on background intentions.)  But it’s a testament to the total erosion of the theory that individuals are innocent until proven guilty, and it provides a unique insight to the mind-set of law enforcement officials, because Ms. Madigan appears absolutely convinced that she has proven guilt, even though there has been no trial.

Governor Blagojevich may very well indeed be proven guilty, but, even if he’s not, the damage is already done because every news outlet and late-night comedy show has simply assumed his guilt and has run with it.

This isn’t how the United States is supposed to behave.

Honest Services Fraud

You may hear, from time to time, about something known as “honest services fraud.”  Like “mortgage fraud,” it’s not really a crime in itself. Well, it is, but let me see if I can explain it this way.  Federally speaking,  mortgage fraud, for example, is not encompassed in one specific statute which states “it’s illegal to commit mortgage fraud, and you’ll go to jail for 20 years if you commit it.”  Instead, mortgage fraud is brought under a variety of federal criminal statutes, such as the wire, mail, or bank fraud statutes, or the false statements statutes.  But, since the activity involves mortgages, it’s called “mortgage fraud” even though there’s no specific “mortgage fraud” statute.

“Honest services fraud,” by comparison is not a specific crime encapsulated by a statute.  But!  There is a statute that states “For the purposes of this chapter, the term ’scheme or artifice to defraud’ includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”  And this statute refers to the fraud statutes.  Thus, one can commit wire fraud by depriving another of the intangible right of honest services, and therefore, that’s why it gets called “honest services fraud.”

All this to say, the DOJ Antitrust Division says that an executive in California has pleaded guilty to committing honest services fraud by “depriving a manufacturing company of the honest services of its employee.” Yong Zhu, the president of an Ex-Im company in California “paid the employee of a manufacturing company approximately $10,000. In return, the employee provided Zhu with sensitive pricing information that assured Zhu’s company would receive subcontracting awards from the manufacturing company.”  The Antitrust Division was involved because it involves anticompetitive behavior, and the investigation is apparently ongoing.

Can it with the “Czar” Stuff, Yeah?

So we’re going to get a “car czar.”  I call for the end of using the term “czar” to describe people in charge.  Not only does “car czar” sound stupid, but since when have czars done anything good for the people?  (Apart from Caesar, of course, whose name was adapted for the word czar.)  The Russian Czars (or Tsars, take your pick) certainly didn’t fare too well, and it’s not like our modern incarnations such as the “drug czar” have done very well either.  So, how ’bout we come up with something better to say than “car czar,” yeah?

(Oh, and can we stop calling every scandal “X-gate”?  At this rate, is something happens at the Watergate again, I’m sure some moron on television will call it “Watergate-gate.”)

The Death Penalty and International Extradition

The vast majority of the world’s countries have outlawed the use of the death penalty.  (Source: Amnesty International.)  The United States, of course, is not among those countries.  Mexico, however, is among those countries.  However, that may be changing.

According to Marion Lloyd of the Houston Chronicle, “Mexican legislators are opening the way for what promises to be an emotional debate on whether to reinstate the death penalty.”  The proposed reinstatement would be applied to kidnappers who kill their victims.

The impact this might have on extradition between the two countries is pretty stark, as Llyod points out: “A 1978 extradition treaty with the United States allows Mexico to deny extradition if a suspect faces the death penalty in another country.”  Indeed, this is the case.  In fact, until recently, in extradition requests, the United States had to agree not to even impose a life sentence because the harshest penalty used to be a maximum of 30 years in prison; that changed in 2005 when Mexico approved certain life sentences.  (Source: BBC, among others.)

Changing the law in Mexico to allow the death penalty could potentially remove the requirement that the United States seek at most life imprisonment for extradited individuals.

And just to be clear: most extradition treaties between the United States and other countries allow those countries to deny extradition if the death penalty is sought.  (This leads to the United States promising not to seek or impose the death penalty if the individual is extradited.)  Those same treaties also allow the United States to refuse extradition on the same basis, but the United States rarely has such qualms, even if the individual wouldn’t be subject to the death penalty in the United States.  (See, e.g., Prasoprat v. Benov, 421 F.3d 1009 (9th Cir. 2005) cert. denied 546 U.S. 1171 (2006) (individual can be extradited to Thailand for drug crimes even though he faced the death penalty, which would not imposed in the United States).)

Obama’s National Security Team

So the big story this morning, reported by Bloomberg (and thousands of other outlets), is that President-elect Obama has named his nominees for his “national security” team.  This includes: Senator Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for Secretary of Defense; retired Marine General James L. Jones for National Security Advisor; Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to head up the Department of Homeland Security; Susan Rice as U.N. Ambassador; and Eric Holder for Attorney General.

What’s interesting is how the Department of Justice has been conceptually moved into the realm of “national security.”  It’s not necessarily an inappropriate fit, but it is interesting that an organization tasked with enforcing civil rights and dealing with antitrust issues is being called a national security component.