Prosecutors' Conduct Can Tip Justice Scales

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A USA TODAY investigation:

Misconduct at the Justice Department
Businessman Nino Lyons

spent three years in jail after
a prosecutor hid evidence.
Prosecutors' conduct can tip justice scales

Updated 9/23/2010 1:31 PM | Comments 438 | Recommend 57 E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions |
By Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy, USA

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ORLANDO — The jurors who helped put Nino
Lyons in jail for three years had every reason Add to Mixx
to think that he was a drug trafficker, and,
until July, no reason to doubt that justice had Facebook
been done.
Twitter
For more than a week in 2001, the jurors
listened to one witness after another, almost More
all of them prison inmates, describe how
Subscribe
Lyons had sold them packages of cocaine.
Enlarge By Rhyne Piggott, USA TODAY One said that Lyons, who ran clothing shops
myYahoo
and nightclubs around Orlando, even tried to
Antonino "Nino" Lyons spent almost three years in jail iGoogle
before his case was thrown out because of hire him to kill two drug suppliers.
prosecutorial misconduct.
But the federal prosecutors handling the case More
did not let the jury hear all the facts.
Instead, the prosecutors covered up evidence that could have

"The scary part is it discredited many of Lyons' accusers. They never revealed that a
probably does happen convict who claimed to have purchased hundreds of pounds of
every day, and nobody cocaine from Lyons struggled even to identify his photograph.
ever figures it out"
And they hid the fact that prosecutors had promised to let others
-Robert Berry, out of prison early in exchange for their cooperation.
Nino Lyons' attorney
VIDEO: Wrongfully jailed man: 'It can happen to you'
EXPLORE CASES: Investigate the misconduct cases we
identified
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: Prosecutors must brush up on duties
FULL COVERAGE: Federal prosecutors series
Federal prosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not merely

Prosecutors are "the A+
students. They're not used score convictions. But a USA TODAY investigation found that
to losing." prosecutors repeatedly have violated that duty in courtrooms
across the nation. The abuses have put innocent people in
prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of
-Laurie Levenson,
Loyola Law School dollars in legal fees and sanctions.
professor
Judges have warned for decades that misconduct by prosecutors
threatens the Constitution's promise of a fair trial. Congress in
1997 enacted a law aimed at ending such abuses.
Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years

that followed in which judges determined that Justice Department prosecutors — the nation's most elite and
powerful law enforcement officials — themselves violated laws or ethics rules.
In case after case during that time, judges blasted prosecutors for "flagrant" or "outrageous" misconduct. They
caught some prosecutors hiding evidence, found others lying to judges and juries, and said others had broken
plea bargains.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2010-09-22-federal-prosecutors-reform_N.htm?csp=obinsite Page 1 of 8
Prosecutors' conduct can tip justice scales - USATODAY.com 10/7/10 2:41 AM
Such abuses, intentional or not, doubtless infect no more than a small fraction of the tens of thousands of criminal
cases filed in the nation's federal courts each year. But the transgressions USA TODAY identified were so serious
that, in each case, judges threw out charges, overturned convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. And
each has the potential to tarnish the reputation of the prosecutors who do their jobs honorably.
In July, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell did more than overturn Lyons' conviction: He declared that Lyons was
innocent.
Neither the Justice Department nor the lead prosecutor in the Lyons case, Bruce Hinshelwood, would explain the
events that cost Lyons his home, his businesses and nearly three years of freedom. The department investigated
Hinshelwood but refused to say whether he was punished; records obtained by USA TODAY show that the agency
regulating Florida lawyers ordered him to attend a one-day ethics workshop, scheduled for Friday.
Asked about Presnell's ruling exonerating Lyons, Hinshelwood said only, "It is of no concern to me."
The circumstances of Lyons' conviction did trouble Presnell, who oversaw his trial nine years ago. Presnell
savaged the Justice Department in a written order for "a concerted campaign of prosecutorial abuse" by attorneys
who, he wrote, covered up evidence and let felons lie to the jury.
Records from the Justice Department's internal ethics watchdogs show the agency has investigated a growing
number of complaints by judges about misconduct they observed. In 2001, the department investigated 42 such
complaints; last year, 61.
The department will not reveal how many of those prosecutors were punished because, it said, doing so would
violate their privacy rights. USA TODAY, drawing on state bar records, identified only one federal prosecutor who
was barred even temporarily from practicing law for misconduct during the past 12 years.
Even high-profile cases have been affected. Last year, a judge in Washington, D.C. — saying the department could
not be trusted to investigate its own prosecutors — launched his own probe of the attorneys who handled the
corruption trial of former Alaska senator Ted Stevens. After a jury found Stevens guilty, the department admitted
that prosecutors had hidden evidence, then dropped the charges. (Stevens died in an August plane crash.)
Stevens' lawyers question how misconduct could have tainted such a closely watched case — and what that might
mean for routine prosecutions. "It's a frightening thought and calls into question the generally accepted belief that
our system of justice performs at a high level and yields just results," said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' attorney.
Pattern of 'glaring misconduct'
Unlike local prosecutors, who often toil daily in crowded courts to untangle routine burglaries and homicides,
Justice Department attorneys handle many of the nation's most complex and consequential crimes.
With help from legal experts and former prosecutors, USA TODAY spent six months examining federal prosecutors'
work, reviewing legal databases, department records and tens of thousands of pages of court filings. Although the
true extent of misconduct by prosecutors will likely never be known, the assessment is the most complete yet of
the scope and impact of those violations.
USA TODAY found a pattern of "serious, glaring misconduct," said Pace University law professor Bennett
Gershman, an expert on misconduct by prosecutors. "It's systemic now, and … the system is not able to control
this type of behavior. There is no accountability."
He and Alexander Bunin, the chief federal public defender in Albany, N.Y., called the newspaper's findings "the tip
of the iceberg" because many more cases are tainted by misconduct than are found. In many cases, misconduct is
exposed only because of vigilant scrutiny by defense attorneys and judges.
However frequently it happens, the consequences go to the heart of the justice system's promise of fairness:
• Innocent people are punished. In Arizona, a woman spent eight years in prison for her conviction in a 2000
bank robbery because the prosecution never told her that another woman —who matched her description almost
exactly — had been charged with robbing banks in the area. In Washington, D.C., a court in 2005 threw out
murder charges against two men who had spent two decades in prison for a murder they didn't commit, in part
because prosecutors hid evidence that two others could have committed the crime.
They were among 47 cases USA TODAY documented in which defendants were either exonerated or set free
after the violations surfaced.
Among the consequences of misconduct, wrongful convictions are the most serious, said former U.S. attorney
general Dick Thornburgh. He said, "No civilized society should countenance such conduct or systems that failed to
prevent it."
Even people who never spent a day in jail faced ruinous consequences: lost careers, lost savings and lost
reputations. Last year, a federal appeals court wiped out Illinois businessman Charles Farinella's 2007 conviction
for changing "best when purchased by" dates on bottles of salad dressing he sold to discount stores. The judges
ruled that what he had done wasn't illegal and blasted lead prosecutor Juliet Sorensen for violations that robbed
Farinella of a fair trial. Exoneration came too late to salvage his business or to help the 20 or so employees he had
laid off.
"It's the United States government against one person," Farinella said in his first public comment on the case.
"They beat you down because they are so powerful. They have trillions of dollars behind them. Even someone
who's innocent doesn't have much of a chance."
• Guilty people go free or face less punishment. In Puerto Rico, a federal court blocked prosecutors from
seeking the death penalty for a fatal robbery because they failed to turn over evidence; the defendant was
sentenced to life in prison instead. In California, a double agent accused of sharing defense secrets with China
was sentenced to probation instead of prison because prosecutors refused to let her lawyer talk to her FBI handler,
a key witness. Dozens of other defendants — including drug dealers and bank robbers — left prison early because
their trials were tainted.
• Taxpayers foot the bill. The Justice Department has paid nearly $5.3 million to reimburse the legal bills of
defendants who were wrongly accused. It has spent far more to repeat trials for people whose convictions were
thrown out because of misconduct, a process that can take years, although the full price tag is impossible to tally.
In one California case, for example, it took prosecutors four years and three trials to convict a man of tax fraud.
Then an appeals court set aside his conviction because it said a prosecutor "sat silently as his witness lied."
The violations happened in almost every part of the nation, though USA TODAY found the most cases in federal
courts in San Diego; Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; and Puerto Rico. That pattern means misconduct is "not
an isolated problem," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor in Los
Angeles.
Trial, jail and vindication
The American legal system puts enormous faith in juries: Give 12 men and women the facts, and they will separate
the guilty from the innocent.
The Constitution, Congress and courts have set elaborate rules to ensure jurors get the facts and aren't swayed by
emotion or fear. Rules are particularly exacting for prosecutors, as they act with government authority and their
mistakes can put people in prison.
One of those rules, established by the Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago in a case called Brady v. Maryland, is
that prosecutors must tell defendants about evidence that could help prove their innocence. Withholding that
evidence is "reprehensible," the court later said.
Nonetheless, USA TODAY identified 86 cases in which judges found that prosecutors had failed to turn over
evidence to defendants. That's what happened to Nino Lyons.
Lyons, now 50, grew up in the public housing projects of Cocoa, Fla., outside Orlando; his father spent time in
prison, and for several years, his mother raised him alone. Even so, Lyons thrived: He graduated from college and
worked briefly at the nearby Kennedy Space Center. In the 1990s, he opened clothing stores and nightclubs in
Cocoa and Orlando. He was vice president of the local NAACP chapter.
How Lyons also became a drug suspect is unclear. But five days before Christmas in 2000, police stormed his
Rockledge house, searching for an illegal machine gun. They did not find a machine gun or any drugs. What they
did find was suspicious: an assortment of legal guns and $185,000 in cash, some of it counterfeit. Lyons said he
was saving for a down payment on an Orlando nightclub.
Within a year, prosecutors put together a procession of more than two dozen inmates willing to testify that Lyons
was a major drug trafficker. Jurors convicted Lyons of almost every charge, including carjacking, selling counterfeit
clothing and a drug conspiracy that could have put him in prison for life.
"With all the evidence they had brought forth in this trial, I didn't have any choice but to vote guilty on him," said
one juror, Harold Newsome.
The evidence prosecutors hid from Newsome and the other jurors did not fully come to light until 2004, during
Lyons' third year in jail. It surfaced only because of one line in a government sentencing report that hinted at
undisclosed evidence. When it emerged, the Justice Department agreed to drop the drug charge against Lyons,
and Presnell, the judge who oversaw the trial, threw out the rest.
It was a drastic step and meant Lyons could never be retried. Presnell wrote that he had no other option: "The
Government's protracted course of misconduct," he wrote, "caused extraordinary prejudice to Lyons, exhibited
disregard of the Government's duties, and demonstrated contempt for this court."
By then, Lyons had spent 1,003 days in a county jail north of Orlando. He was never sentenced, but remained
locked up while courts sorted through the problems in his case. He saw his son and daughter, then in middle
school, only through the thick glass windows of the visiting room, and spoke to them only via telephone.
His businesses folded while he was in jail. His wife, Debbie, was demoted from her job as principal of an
elementary school, a move the school said was unrelated to the case. She sold the couple's house and took a
night job tutoring the children of migrant farm workers to pay the bills.
"It was bad for me, but I didn't realize until I came home how bad it had been for my wife and my kids, people that
really loved me," Lyons said.
Records show the Justice Department eventually paid $150,000 of Lyons' legal bills in a settlement that was never
made public. It admitted in a court filing that prosecutors made "serious errors" in their handling of the case. The
attorney who replaced Hinshelwood as the case dragged on, Lee Bentley, personally apologized to Lyons.
For Debbie Lyons, 51, it wasn't enough. "When they targeted him, they targeted me. They targeted my kids," she
said. Prosecutors "don't have the courtesy to say, 'We're wrong, our agents were wrong, we pursued this case
wrong. We know we lied, we know we withheld evidence.' "
Lyons said he's "thankful to God" that Presnell finally declared him innocent. But almost nine years after he was
first found guilty, exoneration hasn't repaired the damage to his reputation.
In the six years since he was released from jail, he hasn't been able to find a regular job or even land an interview.
Now he works part time for a church program in Orlando that finds mentors for kids whose parents are in jail. The
grant that pays for the program will run out at the end of the month.
"Even if the president comes out tomorrow and says this man is 1,000% innocent, you're going to have somebody
somewhere say, 'I'm not sure about that. I don't think the government would have did that if he was innocent,' "
Lyons said.
'The scary part'
Sniffing out misconduct can be a matter of serendipity — or luck, as Lyons' attorneys discovered.
The evidence that eventually set Lyons free came to light only because of one sentence buried in a 40-page draft
of a probation officer's sentencing report. Those drafts are dense and at times ignored, but this one offered a
tantalizing clue: an account by one of Lyons' accusers, a federal inmate, that differed from his testimony during the
trial.
That stuck out to Robert Berry, one of Lyons' attorneys, who wondered what else he hadn't been told. His digging
led to hundreds of pages of other evidence prosecutors had never disclosed.
"If it wasn't for that one sentence, he would be in prison right now, probably for the rest of his life," Berry said. "The
scary part is it probably does happen every day and nobody ever figures it out."
One reason violations may go undetected is that only a small fraction of criminal cases ever get the scrutiny of a
trial, the process most likely to identify misconduct. Trials play a "very important" role, said former deputy attorney
general David Ogden, because they force judges and attorneys to review a case in far more exacting detail.
The number of people charged with crimes in federal district courts has almost doubled over the past 15 years. Yet
the number whose cases actually go to trial has fallen almost 30%, to about 3,500 last year, USA TODAY found.
Last year, just four defendants out of 100 went to trial; the rest struck plea bargains that resolved their cases
quickly, with far less scrutiny from judges.
"We really should be more concerned about the cases we don't know about," said Levenson, the Loyola professor.
"Many of the types of misconduct you identified could happen every day, and we'd never know about it if
defendants plead out."
Deliberate violations
In a justice system that prosecutes more than 60,000 people a year, mistakes are inevitable. But the violations
USA TODAY documented go beyond everyday missteps. In the worst cases, say judges, former prosecutors and
others, they happen because prosecutors deliberately cut corners to win.
"There are rogue prosecutors, often motivated by personal ambition or partisan reasons," said Thornburgh, who
was attorney general under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Such people are uncommon, though, he
added: "Most former federal prosecutors, like myself, are resentful of actions that bring discredit on the office."
Judges have seen those abuses, too. "Sometimes, you get inexperienced and unscrupulous assistant U.S.
attorneys who don't care about the rules," said U.W. Clemon, the former chief judge in northern Alabama's federal
courts.
How often prosecutors deliberately violate the rules is impossible to know. The Justice Department's internal ethics
watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility, insists it happens rarely. It reported that it completed more
than 750 investigations over the past decade, and found intentional violations in just 68. The department would not
identify the cases it concluded were marred by intentional violations, and removes from its public reports any
details that could be used to identify the prosecutors involved.
State records, however, offer a glimpse into what can go wrong. Three years ago, two federal prosecutors in
Illinois, each with more than a decade of experience, were ordered to answer to the state Attorney Registration
and Disciplinary Commission for problems that almost torpedoed a drug case. The lawyers failed to turn over
information to defense attorneys that could have discredited a key witness. That tactic, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the 7th Circuit concluded, was "designed to deliberately mislead the court and defense counsel."
Both prosecutors told authorities that they knew the rules, and both admitted that they didn't turn over the
evidence, according to a transcript of the hearing. One, Bradley Murphy, said he was counting on the witness to
reveal the damaging information himself during his testimony. The other, John Campbell, apologized. "It's
embarrassing, to say the least," he told the commission.
State records show that the Justice Department suspended both prosecutors for a day. Both also were censured
by the Illinois Supreme Court.
They remain federal prosecutors.
Attorney General Eric Holder declined to be interviewed; earlier this year, he told judges that officials "must take
seriously each and every lapse, no matter the cause." The head of the department's criminal division, Lanny
Breuer, said, "Obviously, even one example of real misconduct is too many. … If you've engaged in misconduct,
the response of the department has to be swift and strong."
In practice, however, the response — by the Justice Department and the state officials who oversee lawyers — has
frequently been neither. Department records show that its internal investigations often take more than a year to
complete, and usually find that prosecutors, at worst, made a mistake, even when judges who presided over the
trials ruled that there was serious misconduct.
In one rare exception, the department in 2007 prosecuted one of its former attorneys, Richard Convertino, for
obstructing justice in his handling of a Detroit terrorism case. He was acquitted, and he unsuccessfully accused the
attorneys who prosecuted him of misconduct. The department called Convertino "unmanageable" in one court
filing, but still kept its internal review of the case secret.
In the one case in which USA TODAY found that state officials suspended a federal prosecutor from practicing law,
the punishment lasted only a year. In that case, Florida's Supreme Court found that Karen Schmid Cox had let a
witness lie about her name during a trial, making it impossible for defense attorneys to check the witness's
background. If they had, they would have found that the witness had been previously accused of lying to a judge
and filing a false police report.
Pressures on prosecutors
In some cases, Justice Department records and court documents suggest that prosecutors broke the rules
inadvertently, often because they were inexperienced or unsupervised.
Former prosecutors from offices across the nation insist that the Justice Department never put pressure on them to
cut corners — "there wasn't any pervasive attitude of win-at-any-cost," said Rick Jancha, a former prosecutor in
Orlando.
But there are other pressures. For one thing, prosecutors are taking on more cases than ever. In the mid-1990s,
the offices had one attorney for every 14 defendants; last year, they had one attorney for every 28. Even though
most of those cases end in plea bargains, the increase can be taxing, because prosecutors often are responsible
not just for conducting trials but overseeing investigations.
And prosecutors put pressure on themselves. "They're the A+ students. They're not used to losing," Levenson said.
"Prosecutors think they're doing the Lord's work, and that they wear the white hat. When I was a prosecutor, I
thought everything I did was right," said Jack Wolfe, a former federal prosecutor in Texas and now a defense
lawyer. "So even if you got out of line, you could tell yourself that you didn't do it on purpose, or that it was for the
greater good."
Beyond that, most federal prosecutors do their jobs with little day-to-day supervision, said Michael Seigel, the
second-in-command of the U.S. attorney's office in Tampa from 1995 to 1999.
And, until last year, prosecutors were not required to get regular training in ethics such as their constitutional duty
to share evidence with defendants. That training is important: Many of the legal rules prosecutors must follow are
complex, and not everyone agrees on the boundary between aggressive lawyering and misconduct.
Last year, Ogden, Holder's second-in-command, headed a review of problems with prosecutors' failure to turn over
evidence to defendants, the issue that ultimately undermined the Lyons case. It concluded that most violations
were "not the product of people who intentionally set about to cheat but … more of a lack of training and a lack of
resources," said Ogden, who left the department this year. That review prompted a new requirement that
prosecutors get two hours of annual training in their duty to share evidence.
'Real sloppy and lazy'
Before Bruce Hinshelwood became a federal prosecutor, he tried murder cases and those involving other high-
profile crimes as a state attorney. He headed the Justice Department's Jacksonville office, and was briefly second-
in-command of the middle district surrounding Tampa. Later, he tried drug cases in Orlando. In all that time, there
is no indication Hinshelwood was faulted for misconduct. The Lyons case changed that.
Hinshelwood's former boss, Paul Perez, became U.S. attorney in Tampa in 2002, shortly after Lyons' trial ended.
When the case against Lyons fell apart, it was his job to figure out why.
Perez said in an interview that he personally never doubted that Lyons was guilty. He said the problems came
down to inattention: Hinshelwood was "an experienced but very lazy prosecutor," but didn't break the rules on
purpose. He was, Perez said, "real sloppy and lazy."
Judge Presnell drew harsher conclusions. In a 2004 order, he said the Justice Department's failures in the case
could be explained, "at best, by its agents' sloppy investigative work or, at worst, by their knowing failure to meet
constitutional duties." He later faulted prosecutors not just for failing to turn over evidence but for "brazenly" defying
court orders and presenting witnesses who were "allowed, if not encouraged, to lie under oath."
Records from the Florida Bar, which regulates the state's lawyers, show that the Justice Department investigated
Hinshelwood's handling of the Lyons case, a fact the department refused to confirm for fear of invading his privacy.
The department completed its report in 2007 and referred its findings to the bar in 2009, a step Justice Department
policies say it takes when it finds misconduct.
Despite Presnell's rebuke and its own investigation, there is no evidence that the Justice Department ever
punished Hinshelwood. He continued prosecuting cases until he retired in February 2008 to open his own law
practice in Orlando.
The Florida Bar investigated Hinshelwood last year — seven years after Presnell accused him of misconduct by
name in a court order — but concluded that too much time had passed to take action for what happened at the
trial. It let Hinshelwood resolve the complaint by paying $1,111.80 in costs and attending Friday's ethics workshop.
"That's the extent of it?" Lyons said.
The bar opened a second investigation of Hinshelwood in July after Presnell declared Lyons innocent, an
uncommon step that officials would not explain publicly.
To Lyons, nothing the bar can do would be strong enough. Hinshelwood "should suffer or go to jail," Lyons said.
"The justice system not only didn't work initially in my case, it's still not working. Bruce Hinshelwood has his
pension. He still works every single day. His life is not miserable. I'm not saying mine is, but it's nothing like it was
before."
McCoy reported from New York. Contributing: Rhyne Piggott.
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Comments: (438) Showing: Newest first New: Most recommended!
Ex-Soldier (0 friends, send message) wrote: 6h 31m ago

Very sad. It looks like we have many many innocent people in jail or who have suffered wrongful
prosecutions. Thank God for the honest judges and lawyers who work to correct these cases on
injustice. Usually, as in crime, for every case you find there are dozens or hundreds you do not find. It
could mean that a significant percentage of the people in jail are innocent. This situation is intolerable.
Prosecutors who break the law should be charged, prosecuted, and if guilty, sentenced. Like any
criminal in public office, we do not need to leave the free to do more damage and destroy more lives.
Recommend | Report Abuse
govvs1man (0 friends, send message) wrote: 8h 19m ago

There is no man, whether he be wealthy or indigent, whether he be strong or weak or even well
represented by counsel in the current, who does not feel it�. This is the power of the United States
Government, against one man. If he lacks the inner strength, perseverance, courage or resolve to
endure and triumph, his life and existence in the free world is dwarfed, stripped of liberty, beaten into
sullen silence, and he leaves at the end with tears in his eyes, and with inward cries of rage at the
“system” . Knowing that the Justice Department Prosecutors “The Nations most elite and powerful
Law Enforcement Officials- themselves violated laws and ethics rules. The “system”, which was
designed to administer Justice in now being manipulated and operated by a few rouge prosecutors,
with no oversight, who threaten to tarnish the reputation of the prosecutors, who do their jobs
honorably. It is highly questionable whether in general the microcosm has not tended in general , to
depress Justice and elevate their feelings of self-righteousness; while discouraging the belief in
Justice. These Rouge prosecutors are problematic and threatening to true justice. Under the outward
appearances, below the so-called stand for justice, lurks a poisonous undercurrent that spreads itself
into all the roots and fibers of our Judicial System. And Anon rises menacingly and lowering into view.
Oversight and accountability must be demanded by society, otherwise, as quoted by the North
Carolina Supreme Court. “If we take our eyes from the law and give our attention only to the
consequences , or if we stop to consider who is morally right or wrong without regard to right or wrong
Judicially ascertained, one will soon have a Government NOT of law but without law, and the
lawlessness which we sought to be avoided will follow as an inevitable result.” I write these words
with literary guidance in hopes to bring attention to and to shine just a small ray of light on my
upcoming hearing on prosecutorial misconduct and Judicial Bias by the court, so that my case is not
easily swept under the rug.
Signed: United States of America vs. Rudy Naranjo 5:05-CR-00134-XR-PMA

represented by counsel in the current, who does not feel it…. This is the power of the United States

represented by counsel in the current, who does not feel it…. This is the power of the United States
Recommend 1 | Report Abuse
Up-A-river (0 friends, send message) wrote: 2d 17h ago

Alice in SC, when they altered your transcript they obstructed justice, a felony and they violated the
"color of law" statute a federal crime and they "conspired" to obstruct another felony...
What is most dangerous to the American way of life, the threat of terrorism or our courts actually
eliminating every one's legal and Constitutional rights, with the FBI refusing to investigate these cases
allowing them to happen and help to cover them up?
Then add the media's refusal to report these injustices unless you are able to raise a 1/4 million so
you can afford a pr firm to get your case noticed.
I hope USA Today, doesn't let this story rest and starts a series on these case's and how the States
and federal courts help to cover up these injustices.
The State of Indiana has declared it ethical for judges to LIE in open court and suppress not guilty
verdicts and they have declared that prosecutors who ALTER evidence, is NOT a disciplinary action.
In essence the State of Indiana has eliminated Rule of Law, Due Process and ALL legal and
Constitutional rights of it's citizens.
Hicaliber1 (0 friends, send message) wrote: 4d 9h ago

Seriously? This was the best you could do? All you did was scratch and sniff. Just Googling alone
would have provided all you needed to show that you didn't even dent the real numbers of legal
misconduct, or how to deal with it. Why didnt you name the Judge in Washington DC who was going
after bad prosecutors? Were you ordered to water this story down? No way you think this is a real in-
depth news investigation! What about the right of private citizens to access the Grand Jury, and it
being blocked by the Federal Courts and Prosecutors? Title 18 Section 1504 that allows anyone (who
is not a target or subject of a Federal Grand Jury) to submit a request to appear so as to present
evidence of Federal crimes!
Here is my legal brief, now do the real story please!
http://southjerseyjustice.com/GJBrief.doc

FBI CIVIL RIGHTS
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/civilrts.h tm
'The FBI is the lead agency for investigating violations of federal civil rights laws�and we take that
responsibility seriously. Why? Because as Director Mueller has said, “When just one of us loses just
one of our rights, then the freedoms of all of us are diminished.” Find out here how we aggressively
investigate and work to prevent hate crime, color of law abuses, human trafficking, and freedom of
access to clinic entrances violations�the four top priorities of our civil rights program."
Color of law abuses is one of the FBI's top four civil rights priorities, yet when an American citizen files
a complaint of a color of law, civil rights violation by a State Court the FBI refuses to investigate.
In this one case;

http://www.myspace.com/persecutionofstevegilmore /blog
State law forbids any legal jeopardy of "any kind whatsoever" for protecting the person, yet the State
fabricated a case with ALTERED evidence and then the Judge has LIED in open court to suppress
the not guilty verdict, and the FBI says it is NOT a case for them to investigate. The Indianapolis office
says contact the New Albany. IN office and Paul Mayer in that office says he will not investigate the
case.
A fabricated case against an American who was forced to defend himself from an attack upon him at
his own home, with ALTERED evidence and the ONLY Judge in American history to suppress a not
guilty verdict and the FBI says it is not a violation of the color of law statute and refuses to
investigate.
FBI COLOR OF LAW STATUTE

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/color.htm< br />
"U.S. law enforcement officers and other officials like judges, prosecutors, and security guards have
been given tremendous power by local, state, and federal government agencies..."
"Preventing abuse of this authority, however, is equally necessary to the health of our nation’s
democracy. That’s why it’s a federal crime for anyone acting under “color of law” willfully to deprive or
conspire to deprive a person of a right protected by the Constitution or U.S. law. “Color of law” simply
means that the person is using authority given to him or her by a local, state, or federal government
agency.
The FBI is the lead federal agency for investigating color of law abuses,"
"During 2009, the FBI investigated 385 color of law cases. Most of these crimes fall into five broad
areas:
� excessive force;
� sexual assaults;
� false arrest and fabrication of evidence;"
"Fabricating evidence against or falsely arresting an individual also violates the color of law statute,
taking away the person’s rights of due process and unreasonable seizure. "
However, in the case I referenced it is easily proven the prosecutor ALTERED evidence, yet the FBI
again lied and said they do not investigate such cases, it is a State issue.
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Prosecutors&#39; Conduct Can Tip Justice Scales - USATODAY

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com 10/7/10 2:41 AM

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A USA TODAY investigation:

Businessman Nino Lyons

By Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy, USA

Instead, the prosecutors covered up evidence that could have

Federal prosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not merely

Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years

Pattern of 'glaring misconduct'

Trial, jail and vindication

'The scary part'

They remain federal prosecutors.

'Real sloppy and lazy'

"That's the extent of it?" Lyons said.

McCoy reported from New York. Contributing: Rhyne Piggott.

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FBI COLOR OF LAW STATUTE

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Prosecutors' Conduct Can Tip Justice Scales - USATODAY

Prosecutors' Conduct Can Tip Justice Scales - USATODAY