Judging Freedom - Department of Justice establishing new unit focused on domestic terrorism

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is launching a unit dedicated specifically to domestic terrorism, the department's top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

and I'm happy to try and do my best to explain it to you. Earlier this week, actually late last week, the new district attorney from the city of New York, a man named Alvin Bragg, who was just elected in an overwhelming landslide because he's a Democrat and there really are no Republicans in Manhattan, issued a statement which has everybody shaking their heads. Now, Manhattan is one-fifth of New York City. It is the island, the bean-shaped island in the middle of the city. It is the borough of Manhattan. So he is the district attorney of just Manhattan. There are four other boroughs of New York City. They each have their own district attorneys. In New York City, the district attorney is the chief prosecutor for local and state crimes, and each borough has its own

DA. Normally in Manhattan, the DA, whose term is four years, gets re-elected and re-elected and re-elected and is in there so long he's almost part of the woodwork but this is Alvin Bragg's first term he's a former federal prosecutor also in Manhattan so he won a primary a hotly contested primary then the general election in New York City really means nothing because there are no Republicans to speak of in Manhattan. Shortly after being sworn in on January 1st, he announced that his office would not prosecute a class of crimes and would not seek bail for a class of defendants. And that, of course, has everybody scratching their heads because some of these crimes, fare beating, well, that cheats the government.

Shoplifting, that cheats the owner of the store from which the goods were shoplifted. Even smash and grab, which is organized shoplifting. They don't always smash a window, but sometimes they do to deflect the attention of the store owner while a dozen people run in and fill their pockets or their pocket books with whatever they want to take. These are crimes that he's indicated he doesn't want prosecuted. Now that has everybody in an uproar. The police are saying, what are you crazy? We're here to protect not only life, but property. Other district attorneys in the other four boroughs of the city are saying the same thing. You're going to actually make our jobs easier because the thugs from our four boroughs are going to go into Manhattan where they know when they commit these petty crimes, they

won't be prosecuted. So here's the deal. The prosecutor, the district attorney is vested with what's called prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion means that the prosecutor can decide what to prosecute and what not to prosecute. For example, speed limit in certain parts of the country is 65 miles an hour. If it goes 66, are they going to prosecute you? Of course not. If it goes 70, are they going to prosecute you? Probably not. That's called prosecutorial discretion. The prosecutors have said to the police on the highways, don't bother stopping people if it's

one, two, three, four, five, six, even seven miles over the speed limit. Because if you do, you're going to be stopping everybody. So that wiggle room is areas where the prosecutors can decide either because we know what human behavior is like, or because we have limited resources and have to concentrate on more serious crimes, enables the prosecutor to decide we're not going to prosecute these crimes. That's Alvin Bragg's argument. The other argument is by announcing this publicly, you're inviting people to commit crime. And what will that do? Well, that will result in vigilantism. That will result in business people pooling their assets and hiring private security who will defend that property. So instead

of having the police investigate crime, you'll have private security there in order to stop the crime. Now, not everybody who's going to be victimized by these petty crimes can afford private security. Some of these things are pickpocketing, and some of these things are stopping people in the streets and stealing their iPhones from them. People can't be expected to walk down the street with private security. So I don't know where this ends. The system is built on the concept of prosecutorial discretion. But announcing in advance what class of crimes will not be prosecuted is a recipe for disaster.

We'll see where this goes. Judge Napolitano on judging freedom.