Marc J. Randazza: Wow!Harvey Silverglate blogging here!!! That’s just awesome.Harvey is one of my heroes, and someone I wanted to be like “when I grew up.”I can’t wait to read some of his work here.

Hey, Mark: When I grow up, I want to be like YOU!!! Thanks for the favorable comment. Every so often it’s nice for a criminal defense lawyer to be called something printable!! HAS

FluffyRoss: I am enjoying the book. It’s powerfully-written, readable, and alive…not the ponderous, skimmable palaver one often sees in books legal.

Thank you for this comment. It’s bracing to see that I succeeded at least to some extent in reaching an audience that does not want to plow through a ponderous legal text. Describing legal cases in lay language is a real challenge. I’ve been trying to do it for four decades in my various journalistic endeavors, and, still, the manuscript for THREE FELONIES A DAY went through some two dozen revisions and took me 4 1/2 years rather than the original 2 years I anticipated. So your comment is much appreciated. HAS

Dave N.: I agree with ShelbyC. I might note that overzealous prosecutors who go after the rich and powerful may have even less compunction about going after the poor and powerless.

The heart of the technique is this: First they go after the unpopular. If the unpopular are rich and famous, that’s fine to the feds — there’s more publicity in it for them. Eventually, they go after all of us. They are now at that point. If we make this into a class war, we’ll get absolutely nowhere. You cannot defend the rights of the poor and powerless and not defend the rights of the wealthy and powerful when the same techniques are used against all. I do a lot of First Amendment law, and I recall the title of Nat Hentoff’s recent book: FREE SPEECH FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE. It’s not the way to fight a war for restoration of civil liberties. I am reminded of a criticism aimed at me recently — I am currently representing a number of high school teachers and students who are protesting the constitutionality of the censorship of a state-enacted collection of curricular materials on the “Armenian genocide.” (If you’re interested, the case is noted on my website, http://www.harveysilverglate.com.) Some members of the Armenian community have nastily charged that (paraphrasing) “Silverglate would not be litigating this as a First Amendment issue if, instead of involving deniers of the Armenian genocide, he were dealing with those who deny the Jewish Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis.” I had to remind my critic that some years ago, during Boston’s school busing crisis, I in fact represented three members of the American Nazi Party in the South Boston District Court on “disorderly conduct” charges for demonstrating against a federal school desegregation order. We either do, or do not, believe in “equal protection of the laws.”

bob:
Always nice to see someone focus on problems confronting the most wealthy and powerful in our society.

I assume the comment was mean sarcastically, but I’ll respond seriously nonetheless. If one reads my book THREE FELONIES A DAY, one sees a very wide range of citizens — some quite ordinary citizens — who fall prey to these prosecutions. I intentionally included in the book some prosecutions of the wealthy and the powerful, to demonstrate that the feds don’t only go after the powerless. But plenty of these cases, including quite a few in my book, are prosecutions of quite ordinary folk. I think it is crucial to understand that the federal prosecutorial abuse problem does not go away simply by giving defendants good lawyers. The techniques are such that no one is immune. This problem is truly a problem for all, which is why I’m optimistic that ultimately there will be an organized backlash against the Department of Justice for what it’s doing to civil society.
One other point: I discuss the prosecution of doctors who specialize in treating chronic pain. I don’t know whether the writer deems such doctors to be among the wealthy and powerful members of society. But the real victims of these outrageous “narcotics abuse” prosecutions are not limited to the physicians: This country has a very large number of patients who suffer unnecessary and intractable pain because their physicians refuse to prescribe adequate pain meds. It is easy for a doctor to avoid indictment: He simply has to under-prescribe pain meds and allow his patients to suffer. Talk to any pain specialist and I bet he or she says the same thing: “I practice defensive medicine with pain patients.” HAS

Orin Kerr: Actually, I had the same reaction as Bob. All things considered, I am a lot more worried about the prosecution of the poor and powerless than I am about the prosecution of the lawyers and pharmaceutical companies.

FWIW, I’m equally concerned about both of them.

The book chronicles the federal prosecutions of members of various professions, including doctors, lawyers, public officials, artists, journalists, accountants and accounting firms, and pharmaceutical industry companies and representatives.

Always nice to see someone focus on problems confronting the most wealthy and powerful in our society.