Hunter Indictment Is Phony
Dublin Core
Title
Hunter Indictment Is Phony
Subject
Capital punishment
Law reform
Description
An article written by Michael Mello arguing for reform in the justice system claiming that the government abdicates its moral and ethical responsibility not to indict citizens being scrutinized by prosecutors.
Creator
Mello, Michael
Source
Mello, Michael. "Hunter Indictment is Phony," Rutland Daily Herald (Rutland, VT), July 17, 1997
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1997-07-17
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 JPGs
300 DPI
Language
English
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
[heading] Hunter Indictment Is Phony
[subheading] Commentary
[author] Michael Mello
[start of article] About a half century ago, a federal judge remarked that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor wanted to. What the judge meant was that prosecutors exercise virtually total control over their grand juries: Prosecutors decided, unilaterally and in secret, what evidence their grand jurors will hear. The citizen who is the target of a grand jury probe is excluded from the process, if the prosecutor so decides: Neither the citizen/target nor his attorney has a right to cross-examine the prosecutor's witnesses, to present their own witnesses, or even to be present in the room.
[next paragraph] Unfortunately, grand juries don't indict ham sandwiches. They indict American citizens. They indict whomever their prosecutors tell them to indict.
[next paragraph] Recently, two different grand juries, hundreds of miles apart, indicted two very different men I call friends. In Florida, state prosecutors reindicted "Crazy Joe" Spaziano for the 1973 capital murder of Laura Lynn Harberts. Since 1976 -- when Jimmy Carter was beginning his single term as America's president -- Joe Spaziano has lived on Florida's death row for killing Ms. Harberts. During his 21 years on death row, he survived five death warrants. During that 21 years Joe Spaziano strongly proclaimed -- and as his lawyer for 14 of t hose years, I attempted to prove -- his innocence. Finally in 1996, after the state's only real witness against Spaziano in 1976 had recanted his trial testimony, the Florida courts ordered a retrial. Now that their case against Joe had disintegrated, the local prosecutors could and should have let the case drop. Instead, they persuaded a grand jury to re-indict Spaziano. "Crazy Joe" Spaziano: ham sandwich No. 1.
[next paragraph] Ham sandwhich No. 2 is closer to home. Last week a federal grand jury in Vermont indicted Will Hunter. After a 1995 late-night raid on, and search of, Hunters home/office, and more than two years of investigation of Hunter for "laundering" drug money, the federal prosecutors persuaded their grand jury to indict Hunter for 10 counts of mail fraud (I have to wonder whether our federal prosecutors got this idea from the Tom Cruise character in "The Firm"). For good measure, they also threw in a count of bankruptcy fraud.
[next paragraph] I know Joe Spaziano is innocent; and I expect Will Hunter is innocent as well. (Since I don't know the factual record of the Hunter case, I
[separate quote] 'It take a courageous prosecutor to decide not to indict a citizen who has been the target of a public investigation.'
[paragraph continues] must remain agnostic on this score.) But perhaps the more troubling common thread connecting the two cases is this: In both cases, I believe, the government abdicated their moral, ethical and legal responsibility not to indict citizens who have been the targets of intensive (and expensive: your tax dollars at work -- hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars, so far) prosecutorial scrutiny. Drive-by preconceived assumptions of guilt ("If they weren't guilty, we wouldn't have made them targets in the first place"), bureaucratic inertia, and institutional and political pressures to justify the tremendous amounts of time and energy and tax money already invested in the investigation, prosecutors might feel that they must come up with something.
[next paragraph] What they came up with, in my view, is a lot of legalistic smog. Nowhere in their "24-page indictment" of Hunter do our federal prosecutors say that Hunter stole clients' money for personal gain. The government's fantasy of Hunter's "elaborate scheme to defraud" is nothing more than an artifice create by the government's clever manipulation of accounting principles.
[next paragraph] Sure, Hunter made mistakes during his long and honorable career as a lawyer in Vermont. He's admitted that. Some of his mistakes were stupid ones. He's admitted that, too.
[next paragraph] But any lawyer as busy and successful as Hunter will make mistakes. Give me two full years; give me hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to hire a staff; get a judge to authorize my law enforcement agents to stage a midnight raid on my target's home/law office; and I'll guarantee you I'll find at least 11 "irregularities" in the financial dealings of any lawyer in this state.
[next paragraph] And the lawyers in this state should know it. perhaps that explains their otherwise inexplicable -- except perhaps for simple cowardice -- failure to stand with Will Hunter and against his persecution, first, by the fools who run Vermont's Professional Conduct Board, and, now, by our federal government. There certainly are lawyers in Vermont who lie to their clients, who steal money from their clients, who sexually harass their clients. There certainly are criminals hiding behind licenses to practice law in Vermont. But Will Hunter ain't one.
[page break]
[article continues] One mark of maturity and growth is to admit to one's mistakes and to make amends to those who were harmed by those mistakes. Will Hunter has learned that. Sadly, our federal government has not.
[next paragraph] Like the rest of us mere mortals, government officials -- and that's exactly what prosecutors are -- hate to admit they were wrong. And they hate to look foolish. After all, reputations and careers are at stake (theirs, I mean). Remember Richard Jewell?
[next paragraph] Even if Hunter's prosecutors lose at the subsequent criminal trial, they can always blame the jury (or the judge or the "liberal" Vermont Supreme Court or the clever defense lawyer) for letting a criminal go free. His -- the prosecutor's, I mean -- professional reputation need not suffer thereby. Of course, his target's reputation is annihilated. Again, remember Richard Jewell?
[next paragraph] So now there will be the trials: Joe Spaziano's for his life, and Will Hunter's for his liberty and good name. This means yet more tax money spent -- unless the prosecutors can persuade their targets to accept a plea "bargain."
[next paragraph] Already, rumors are swirling around Florida that the local prosecutors intend to offer "Crazy Joe" Spaziano a deal: He pleads guilty, in exchange for a life sentence, rather than the death penalty. If such a deal is offered, I'm note sure how I would advise my friend and former client -- my innocent friend and former client. Should I tell him to lie -- to confess to a murder he and I know he didn't commit -- in exchange for what's left of his life? After 21 years on death row, and five death warrants, I couldn't quarrel if he decided to take the prosecutor's "deal."
[next paragraph] Similarly, I don't know what I'd tell my friend Will Hunter in the event his prosecutors offered him a "deal": In exchange for his pleading guilty to some minor infraction (regardless of whether he's in fact guilty of it), Hunter and his family are able to avoid the expense, humiliation and stress of a criminal trial in federal court. Imagine yourself in Hunter's shoes. What would you do?
[next paragraph] These are the sorts of games some prosecutors play. It take a courageous prosecutor to decide not to indict a citizen who has been the target of a public investigation. Not long ago, Windsor County prosecutor Patricia Zimmerman took some political heat for just this reason. The heat was unjustified: She was just doing her job. And her job is to do justice, not to rack up as many prosecutions as possible.
[next paragraph] The federal prosecutors in Vermont could learn a lot from Pat Zimmerman.
[end]
[subheading] Commentary
[author] Michael Mello
[start of article] About a half century ago, a federal judge remarked that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor wanted to. What the judge meant was that prosecutors exercise virtually total control over their grand juries: Prosecutors decided, unilaterally and in secret, what evidence their grand jurors will hear. The citizen who is the target of a grand jury probe is excluded from the process, if the prosecutor so decides: Neither the citizen/target nor his attorney has a right to cross-examine the prosecutor's witnesses, to present their own witnesses, or even to be present in the room.
[next paragraph] Unfortunately, grand juries don't indict ham sandwiches. They indict American citizens. They indict whomever their prosecutors tell them to indict.
[next paragraph] Recently, two different grand juries, hundreds of miles apart, indicted two very different men I call friends. In Florida, state prosecutors reindicted "Crazy Joe" Spaziano for the 1973 capital murder of Laura Lynn Harberts. Since 1976 -- when Jimmy Carter was beginning his single term as America's president -- Joe Spaziano has lived on Florida's death row for killing Ms. Harberts. During his 21 years on death row, he survived five death warrants. During that 21 years Joe Spaziano strongly proclaimed -- and as his lawyer for 14 of t hose years, I attempted to prove -- his innocence. Finally in 1996, after the state's only real witness against Spaziano in 1976 had recanted his trial testimony, the Florida courts ordered a retrial. Now that their case against Joe had disintegrated, the local prosecutors could and should have let the case drop. Instead, they persuaded a grand jury to re-indict Spaziano. "Crazy Joe" Spaziano: ham sandwich No. 1.
[next paragraph] Ham sandwhich No. 2 is closer to home. Last week a federal grand jury in Vermont indicted Will Hunter. After a 1995 late-night raid on, and search of, Hunters home/office, and more than two years of investigation of Hunter for "laundering" drug money, the federal prosecutors persuaded their grand jury to indict Hunter for 10 counts of mail fraud (I have to wonder whether our federal prosecutors got this idea from the Tom Cruise character in "The Firm"). For good measure, they also threw in a count of bankruptcy fraud.
[next paragraph] I know Joe Spaziano is innocent; and I expect Will Hunter is innocent as well. (Since I don't know the factual record of the Hunter case, I
[separate quote] 'It take a courageous prosecutor to decide not to indict a citizen who has been the target of a public investigation.'
[paragraph continues] must remain agnostic on this score.) But perhaps the more troubling common thread connecting the two cases is this: In both cases, I believe, the government abdicated their moral, ethical and legal responsibility not to indict citizens who have been the targets of intensive (and expensive: your tax dollars at work -- hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars, so far) prosecutorial scrutiny. Drive-by preconceived assumptions of guilt ("If they weren't guilty, we wouldn't have made them targets in the first place"), bureaucratic inertia, and institutional and political pressures to justify the tremendous amounts of time and energy and tax money already invested in the investigation, prosecutors might feel that they must come up with something.
[next paragraph] What they came up with, in my view, is a lot of legalistic smog. Nowhere in their "24-page indictment" of Hunter do our federal prosecutors say that Hunter stole clients' money for personal gain. The government's fantasy of Hunter's "elaborate scheme to defraud" is nothing more than an artifice create by the government's clever manipulation of accounting principles.
[next paragraph] Sure, Hunter made mistakes during his long and honorable career as a lawyer in Vermont. He's admitted that. Some of his mistakes were stupid ones. He's admitted that, too.
[next paragraph] But any lawyer as busy and successful as Hunter will make mistakes. Give me two full years; give me hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to hire a staff; get a judge to authorize my law enforcement agents to stage a midnight raid on my target's home/law office; and I'll guarantee you I'll find at least 11 "irregularities" in the financial dealings of any lawyer in this state.
[next paragraph] And the lawyers in this state should know it. perhaps that explains their otherwise inexplicable -- except perhaps for simple cowardice -- failure to stand with Will Hunter and against his persecution, first, by the fools who run Vermont's Professional Conduct Board, and, now, by our federal government. There certainly are lawyers in Vermont who lie to their clients, who steal money from their clients, who sexually harass their clients. There certainly are criminals hiding behind licenses to practice law in Vermont. But Will Hunter ain't one.
[page break]
[article continues] One mark of maturity and growth is to admit to one's mistakes and to make amends to those who were harmed by those mistakes. Will Hunter has learned that. Sadly, our federal government has not.
[next paragraph] Like the rest of us mere mortals, government officials -- and that's exactly what prosecutors are -- hate to admit they were wrong. And they hate to look foolish. After all, reputations and careers are at stake (theirs, I mean). Remember Richard Jewell?
[next paragraph] Even if Hunter's prosecutors lose at the subsequent criminal trial, they can always blame the jury (or the judge or the "liberal" Vermont Supreme Court or the clever defense lawyer) for letting a criminal go free. His -- the prosecutor's, I mean -- professional reputation need not suffer thereby. Of course, his target's reputation is annihilated. Again, remember Richard Jewell?
[next paragraph] So now there will be the trials: Joe Spaziano's for his life, and Will Hunter's for his liberty and good name. This means yet more tax money spent -- unless the prosecutors can persuade their targets to accept a plea "bargain."
[next paragraph] Already, rumors are swirling around Florida that the local prosecutors intend to offer "Crazy Joe" Spaziano a deal: He pleads guilty, in exchange for a life sentence, rather than the death penalty. If such a deal is offered, I'm note sure how I would advise my friend and former client -- my innocent friend and former client. Should I tell him to lie -- to confess to a murder he and I know he didn't commit -- in exchange for what's left of his life? After 21 years on death row, and five death warrants, I couldn't quarrel if he decided to take the prosecutor's "deal."
[next paragraph] Similarly, I don't know what I'd tell my friend Will Hunter in the event his prosecutors offered him a "deal": In exchange for his pleading guilty to some minor infraction (regardless of whether he's in fact guilty of it), Hunter and his family are able to avoid the expense, humiliation and stress of a criminal trial in federal court. Imagine yourself in Hunter's shoes. What would you do?
[next paragraph] These are the sorts of games some prosecutors play. It take a courageous prosecutor to decide not to indict a citizen who has been the target of a public investigation. Not long ago, Windsor County prosecutor Patricia Zimmerman took some political heat for just this reason. The heat was unjustified: She was just doing her job. And her job is to do justice, not to rack up as many prosecutions as possible.
[next paragraph] The federal prosecutors in Vermont could learn a lot from Pat Zimmerman.
[end]
Original Format
Newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Trick, Lukas
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Dickinson, Terra
Files
Citation
Mello, Michael, “Hunter Indictment Is Phony,” HIST299, accessed July 4, 2024, http://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/273.