Sometimes it seems that the U.S. Department of Justice is dedicated to undermining the trust of the American people in our system of justice.
USATODAY has reported that after DEA promised to never again use a serial perjurer as an informant -- whose testimony is crucial to establishing facts in any case he is involved in -- they have started using him again. Andrew Chambers, Jr. was used by DEA Administrator Michelle Leonhart when she was just a case agent in St. Louis, Missouri, early in her career, and later when she was promoted to be a managing agent in California.
What obligation do federal prosecutors have to assure that their witnesses are telling the truth? When you read the official U.S. Attorneys Manual on this point, yous slowly realize that it doesn't seem to be at all clear. All they are required to do is to turn over to the defendant material that might impeach the testimony of their witnesses, but it is not exactly clear when or just how far this is supposed to go. In other words, maybe, at some point, the fact that the informant who set up the accused is a liar, might be disclosed to the defense.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
DEA's addiction to a lying informant!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
White House suggests Obama backs Leonhart- but doesn't get it
The Daily Caller reported August 18,2010 that the White House is sticking with the nomination of Michelle Leonhart, who has been the Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration since 2007, and Deputy Administrator (the No. 2) since 2003. A few weeks ago, numerous groups called for the President to withdraw her nomination.
The story in the Daily Caller, however, has mis-analyzed why she is wrong for the job. It is not simply that she has overseen DEA while it has conducted raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and growers in the past year, in apparent disregard of the October 19, 2009 memorandum from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden.
The bigger issue is that Leonhart has demonstrated that she is unable and unwilling to take on the major job of the next DEA Administrator, which is to work with the states in developing medical marijuana laws that make sense. During her entire career in DEA management -- since 1997 -- she has acted as though the calendar were stuck on October 1996 -- before the medical marijuana law that passed in November 1996 and received one million votes more than Bill Clinton did. Her leadership of DEA has ignored the medical marijuana laws passed in state after state after state, and ignored the hundreds of scientific studies conducted that establish the various medical benefits of marijuana.
On the key challenge that the DEA has to address going forward, she is utterly unqualified. That the Obama Administration does not recognize this is very disturbing.
I suspect that what compelled Obama to pick Leonhart is that he could not find anyone competent who was willing to take the lead in reforming an antiquated agency staffed with zealots committed to a hopeless mission. The rumor in D.C. is that everyone they asked turned down the offer.
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