- Chapter 15 -

      - How the United States Became a Police State -

The United States was founded as a nation based on
the rule of law, as a country ``with liberty and justice
for all.'' Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are
supposed to be the supreme law of the land, and their
guarantees of fundamental rights and privileges are
supposed to be inviolable. 
   Sadly, this is no longer the case. 
   The United States has become a nation which flouts
international law among nations. We ignore and disregard
our own fundamental law--our Constitution--at home. We
have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and
we execute far more people than any other civilized
nation. Yet, despite all the ``tough-on-crime'' measures,
crime rates and criminality continue to rise. 
   Consider the following: 
   @sb|On June 15, 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court said that
the U.S. government can kidnap a foreign citizen abroad
and bring him to the U.S. for trial. The ruling, which
violates all notions of international law, was immediately
condemned by nations around the world, including many of
our closest allies. 
   @sb|The United States locks up more of its citizens
than any other country in the world.  We have the highest
rate of incarceration--much higher than the next two
countries on the list, South Africa and the former Soviet
Union. On any given day, well over one million people are in
jail or prison in the U.S. 
   @sb|The U.S. is on a bloodthirsty binge of executions.
We have over 2,500 prisoners on death row. If one prisoner
were executed every day, it would take the rest of the
decade to kill all the condemned prisoners. 
   @sb|The U.S. Department of Justice, and its member
branches--most notably the Office of Special Investigations
(OSI) and the FBI--concentrate their resources not against
hardcore criminals, but so-called white collar crime, in many
cases manufactured by the government itself. Leading members
of the Congressional Black Caucus, for example, have scored
the Justice Department for its role in the harassment and
prosecution of black elected officials, through such
extra-legal operations as the FBI's racist Operation
Fruehmenschen of 1979-1982. Trade union and elected officials
have been targetted by the Justice Department's Abscam and
Brilab sting operations. Finally, naturalized U.S. citizens,
such as Cleveland autoworker John Demjanjuk and space
scientist Arthur Rudolph, have been hounded and virtually
destroyed by the OSI ``Nazi-hunting'' unit. 
   The ``criminal justice'' system doesn't work. It is
a colossal failure. Despite all the hot air about
``loopholes'' and ``technicalities,'' the truth of the matter
is that the criminal justice system is overwhelmingly
stacked against the individual accused of a crime--even
if that person happens to be innocent. The reality is that
there is no justice in the U.S. today. 
   In 1989, after he was railroaded to prison, candidate
LaRouche warned that if his conviction were not reversed,
that the United States would become a fascist police
state. So flagrant were the constitutional violations in
the LaRouche case, that over 800 lawyers and jurists from
across the U.S. and around the world signed ``friend of the
court'' briefs urging the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn
the LaRouche conviction. Yet despite the overwhelming
evidence of the innocence of LaRouche and his associates,
and the blatant violations of their constitutional and
human rights, the federal appeals court and then the U.S.
Supreme Court have refused to overturn the convictions. 
   Was LaRouche right? Let's look at the state of the
U.S. justice system today, and see what that system has
become. And in doing this, we should start right at the
top, with the biggest outlaw of all: William Rehnquist,
the Chief Justice of the United States. 

        - The Rehnquist `Neo-Taney' Supreme Court -
   In its term that ended last June, the U.S. Supreme
Court reached new depths in its assaults on the
fundamental freedoms of American citizens. Under the
direction of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the court's
majority has been reversing previous precedents
willy-nilly, in their rush to destroy the role of the
federal courts as the guardians of constitutional rights,
particularly as those rights are encroached upon by the
states. 
   The Rehnquist court is properly described as a
``neo-Taney'' court, in the sense that it is following in
the footsteps of the evil Roger B. Taney, chief justice
from 1835 to 1864, and author of the infamous 1857 {Dred
Scott} decision, which declared that human beings
may be chattel slaves. Taney destroyed much of the
nation-building accomplishments of the Supreme Court under
John Marshall, the chief justice from 1801 to 1835, who
made the Supreme Court into an instrument for enforcing
the Constitution over the states, and who created the
constitutional framework for the American System of
political economy. Rehnquist has shamelessly praised
Taney as a ``first-rate legal mind'' who used his state's
rights doctrine to undermine the ``nationalist
constitutional jurisprudence of the Marshall Court.'' 
   The Rehnquist court is a court which has lost any
moorings in the principles of the Constitution. There is
no longer any search for truth, or for justice, in the
court system. The court's assaults on the First
Amendment betray the most fundamental principles of the
Bill of Rights. Its most publicized decision last term,
that in the {Casey} abortion case, was an unprincipled
me@aalange of opinions. Those in the so-called
``conservative'' bloc, who would overturn {Roe v. Wade}, would
do so only to leave the decision up to the individual
states as to whether to permit abortion on demand, or to
outlaw it. The hypocrisy of these ``pro-life''
conservatives is best seen in their rulings on the death
penalty. 
   The Rehnquist court's death penalty rulings are driven
by pure blood-lust, disguised as a campaign for judicial
``efficiency.'' The priorities are administrative: Stick to
the schedule, carry out the executions on time--even if a few
innocents get fried here or there. Give prisoners too much
time to appeal, and they are likely to come up with new
evidence of their innocence, which impedes the swift
execution of sentences. 
   How does this work? For a number of years, the
Supreme Court has been narrowing the ability of
prisoners--especially those on death row--to obtain review
of their convictions in federal courts. In the court's
June ruling in the case {Sawyer v. Whitley,} this process
got to the point where a number of pro-death penalty
justices issued strong attacks on the reasoning of the
Rehnquist-led majority. 
   In the {Sawyer} case, Rehnquist and the court's
majority bloc further extended the barbaric line of
reasoning shown in earlier cases involving death row
prisoners Warren McClesky and Roger Coleman. Rehnquist
declared that a constitutional violation is of no concern,
unless the prisoner can show that he is ``actually
innocent'' of the offense charged, and therefore the
federal courts should ignore the constitutional violation
and refuse to entertain a {habeas corpus} petition. Unless the
prisoner can show that, except for the constitutional
error, {no} reasonable juror could have found him guilty,
the courts will pay no heed to the constitutional error. 
   This led Associate Justice Harry Blackmun, in a concurring
opinion, to express his serious doubts that the death
penalty can be fairly applied any longer. Blackmun said
that his own ability to enforce the death penalty ``has
always rested on an understanding that certain procedural
safeguards, chief among them the federal judiciary's power
to reach and correct claims of constitutional error on
federal {habeas} review, would ensure that death
sentences are fairly imposed. Today, more than 20 years later,
I wonder what is left of that premise underlying my
acceptance of the death penalty.'' 
   Another Associate Justice, John Paul Stevens,
attacked Rehnquist's reasoning as creating a more
difficult standard of proof for capital cases than
non-capital cases. ``The court's ruling creates a perverse
double standard,'' wrote Stevens. ``While a defendant
raising defaulted claims in a non-capital case must show
that constitutional error `probably resulted' in a
miscarriage of justice, a capital defendant must present
`clear and convincing evidence' that no reasonable juror
would find him eligible for the death penalty. It is
heartlessly perverse to impose a more stringent standard
of proof to avoid a miscarriage of justice in a capital
case than a non-capital case.'' 
   In contrast to Rehnquist's eagerness to ignore
constitutional violations, Blackmun and Stevens argued
correctly that ``a fundamental miscarriage of justice occurs
whenever a conviction or sentence is secured in violation
of a federal constitutional right.'' Since 1986, says
Blackmun, the Supreme Court has shifted the focus of
{habeas} review of certain categories of cases--those it
calls ``procedurally defaulted '' (i.e., one day late), or
``successive'' or ``abusive'' (i.e., bringing a second
{habeas} petition when new evidence is discovered). 
   Thus, for example, even if the prisoner can prove
that the prosecution suppressed exculpatory evidence, or
that witnesses lied, or that his own confession was
coerced, he will not get a hearing unless he can prove to
the satisfaction of the federal court that he is
``actually innocent.'' Legally, this is an almost
impossible standard to meet (since some contradictory or
circumstantial evidence exists in virtually all cases); so
the sentence will stand and the prisoner can be
executed--notwithstanding the constitutional violation. 
   The ``actual innocence'' standard also
unconstitutionally shifts the burden of proof. In a
criminal case, the burden of proof is on the {government}
to prove that a defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt, not on the defendant to prove that he is innocent
beyond {all} conceivable doubt. 
   The Supreme Court has not yet decided pending cases
on the issue of whether ``actual innocence'' itself is a
bar to execution, but it is anxious to decide the issue.
Such a case is now before the court and will be argued
this fall. But the {Sawyer} ruling already sets a standard
which is almost impossible for any prisoner to meet, and
which will result in more rapid killings of the more than
2,500 prisoners now on death row in the United States.
(Virginia, for example, is now executing about one
prisoner per month.) 

            - The Criminal Injustice System -
   The U.S. has the highest rate of imprisonment in the
world, a rate of 455 per 100,000 population. The rate for
South Africa (the world's second highest known rate) is
311 per 100,000. The U.S. rate of incarceration is 10
times higher than those of Japan, Sweden, Ireland, and the
Netherlands. 
   Yet the United States also has some of the highest
crime rates in the world. 
   Let's look at how the system actually functions, and
we will see why it doesn't work, either in deterring
crime, or creating respect for the law. 
   The blunt truth is that there is no justice in the
criminal justice system in the U.S. today. Let's take one
example to illustrate the point. The jury system--the
right to be tried by a jury of one's peers--is supposed
to be the pillar of the U.S. system of justice. 
   Yet few prisoners today have been through a jury trial.
The jury trial is an anachronism in the U.S. Approximately
90 percent of criminal cases are settled by pleas of guilty--without
a trial. Most plea bargains are rotten deals cooked up by
defense lawyers and prosecutors conspiring against the
defendant. The defense lawyers--often
government-paid--convince their clients that they don't stand
a chance if they go to trial, that they are better off
copping a plea. (Certainly, the lawyers are better off; they
collect their fee for settling a case in a couple of hours,
instead of having to actually prepare and try the case.) 
   Let's take a walk through the federal court system.
What chance do you think you have if you are charged with
a crime: 50-50, you say? Are you so naive as to think that
if you go to trial you've got an even chance? 
   At the moment you are charged with a crime in the
federal system, your chances of conviction are already
4-to-1, or 80 percent. But of course, not all cases are
prosecuted; some are dismissed, usually at the request of
the prosecutor who might want to use you as a witness
against one of your codefendants, for example. If the
prosecutor decides to prosecute you, that is, threaten you
with trial, the odds that you will be convicted are 97 out
of 100! This breaks down as follows:  85 percent of cases end in
guilty pleas. Of the remaining 15 percent that go to trial, 12 percent
will end in guilty verdicts, and only 3 percent in acquittals. 
   Still want to take your chances on a trial? 
   The jury system simply doesn't function any more.
Juries in the United States used to acquit most
defendants. It used to be hard for a prosecutor to get a
conviction. Even in the 20th century, the rate of
convictions by juries was less than 60 percent, 40 years ago, in
federal court. Now it's 80 percent. 
   The destruction of our constitutional rights is a
major cause of this situation. Look at some of the
protections Americans used to have. The protection against
arbitrary searches and seizures, as granted in the 4th
Amendment, has been all but eliminated by the Supreme
Court.
   The Fifth Amendment says, among other things, that
you have to be indicted by a grand jury if you're going to
be charged with a serious crime. The grand jury used to be
considered a {protection} against politically
motivated prosecutors. That's how the founding fathers described it.
Grand juries used to refuse to indict people. Today, as
the saying goes, a prosecutor can get the grand jury to
indict a ham sandwich if he wants. The grand jury is a
pure rubber stamp for the prosecutor. We've lost one of
our major protections against the over-zealous, arbitrary,
politically motivated prosecutor. 
   The Sixth Amendment gives you a right to a fair trial.
It is supposed to give you the right to an impartial jury,
and the right to {present your case} to the jury. Various
recent Supreme Court cases have destroyed the right to
pick a fair jury, and allow judges unfettered discretion
to bar a defendant from presenting a defense. 
   The second trial of Lyndon LaRouche, that in federal court in
Alexandria, Virginia in winter 1988, was a flagrant example of these
abuses. LaRouche and his co-defendants were rushed to
trial 35 days after their indictment, thus preventing them
from preparing their defense in an extremely complex case
involving over 100 witnesses and over a million
pages of documents. The jury was handpicked by the judge
in less than two hours (as opposed to three weeks for jury
selection in the first LaRouche trial in Boston). Only
later did the defense learn that the jury foreman was a
member of a government body packed with avowed enemies of
LaRouche. At the trial, LaRouche and his codefendants
were then prevented by court order from presenting the
most important facts of the case to the jury, thus
stripping them of their right to present a defense. 
   This sort of thing happens every day. What made the
LaRouche case unique is that the defendants fought the
frameup every inch of the way, and that the railroad was
carried out with international attention on the case. 
   In most cases, defendants have no way of fighting, or
of getting public attention drawn to their cases. Most
can't even afford the expense of a trial, the way the odds
are stacked against them. Their lawyers convince them to
plea bargain rather than go to trial, thus giving up their
constitutional right to trial by jury. 
   LaRouche, and his associates who have been through the
federal prison system, can tell you that it is a rarity to
find anyone in federal prison who has had a trial. Nearly
all are there as a result of guilty pleas, and a lot are
very bitter at their lawyers for having compelled them to
do it. Contrary to what you might expect, few inmates in
federal prison claim that they are completely innocent.
Most readily admit that they are guilty of some offense,
but many will tell you that they aren't guilty of what
they pled guilty to. They thought they had to plead guilty
because the prosecutor had cooked up fraudulent evidence,
often by ``turning'' a codefendant to get him to lie about
his fellow defendants, and the lawyers told them it was
the best deal they could get, so they had better take it.
The new federal sentencing laws make this situation even
worse, giving prosecutors enormous power to determine
sentences and making cooperation (``snitching'') the only
way of getting a reduced sentence. Even the judges are
unhappy with this system, which takes away the discretion
they used to have in sentencing defendants and tailoring
the sentence to fit the circumstances of the particular
case. 
   What's the result of all this?  The most recent
figures issued by the government's Bureau of Justice
Statistics, for 1991, show that the total prison and jail
population for the United States is about 1,250,000. 
   And in fact, the pace of increase in federal
prisoners is running at twice the rate of increase of
prisoners in the state systems. This is, of course, a bit of
a paradox for a Republican administration and a Supreme
Court which constantly prattle on about reducing the size
of the federal government and letting the states solve
their own problems. In fact, U.S. Attorney General William
P. Barr recently attacked the state governments for
allowing too many loopholes and technicalities in their
criminal justice systems; Barr bragged that federal laws
are much tougher and do a better job at locking up
criminals than state laws do.
   The United States can now claim the dubious
distinction of having the highest rates of incarceration
in the world. One out of every four black youths is in
jail. What more dramatic evidence could you find, that
this country has written off an entire generation of its
poor? 
   Look at the death penalty again. This is pure blood
lust. No one has ever shown that ``an eye for an eye'' deters
crime. Killing in hot blood--in war, in self-defense--may
often be necessary. Killing in cold blood--executing a
prisoner--is not. It's a blood ritual, like the Roman
circuses. (It doesn't even save money. Studies have shown
it's cheaper to lock someone up for life than to kill them.) 
   The United States stands alone among the so-called
``advanced nations'' in its application of the death
penalty. Only seven countries in the entire world still
execute juveniles--persons under 18--but the U.S. is
one of them, along with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and so
forth. 
   There are over 2,500 prisoners on death row in the United
States today. Some 40 percent of these are black--even though
blacks are only 12 percent of the population. Your chances of
being executed are much higher if you're black, especially if
you're black and kill a white person. That's been proven--but
the U.S. Supreme Court says it's not important. The U.S.
Congress says the same thing. 
   The rates of imprisonment are still going up, rates
of conviction are going up, but of course crime is also
still going up. Are our homes and neighborhoods any safer
today than they were ten or twenty years ago? The
government is filling up the jails and prisons with
low-level drug dealers and drug users, while the
money-laundering bankers who make it all possible are
still walking the streets. The real story of the
Iran-Contra affair was that William Casey and Oliver North
(and George Bush!) were supporting a bunch of drug dealers,
who were helping to flood the U.S. with illegal narcotics.
Yet Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh has spent at least
$40 million trying to prove that somebody told Congress a
fib, while continuing the coverup of the real crimes
of the Iran-Contra operation. 
   And then, in this election year, we see lying,
cynical politicians claiming that our system is ``soft on
criminals,'' that we need to lock more people up as
prisoners, and then we need to kill more of the prisoners.
Democrats and Republican candidates vie for who can kill
the most prisoners, and make the toughest speeches on
crime. Bush and Quayle attack Clinton for being
half-hearted about the death penalty, and then Clinton
responds by boasting that he is the only one among the
candidates who has actually carried out the death penalty.
Clinton's rushing back to Arkansas during the primary
campaigns to oversee the execution of a mentally impaired
black man--as a campaign stunt--epitomizes the
disgusting nature of the use of the death penalty issue in
the elections. 
   But the candidates get away with it only because of
the brutalization of our population itself, which is
frightened by the collapse they see on all sides--moral
collapse, economic collapse, a loss of any security in
their daily lives or for the future. Lacking the courage
to fight the establishment on the real issues, much of the
population applauds the demagogy coming from the
politicians, like Roman citizens cheering on the lions in
the Coliseum. (After all, they think, if you fight the
system you can get in trouble--look at what happened to
LaRouche!) 
   Until this country gets back on track, and we start
producing our way out of the depression and offering a
future to our youth, we cannot expect to reverse the wave
of criminalization that is sweeping the nation. A country
whose fastest-growing industry is its prison system
will never solve its crime problem.
    LaRouche's warnings have been borne out. The United
States has become an ``administrative fascist''
police-state, in which judicial efficiency takes the
priority over the true administration of justice, and where
there are virtually no constitutional restraints on the
power of the police-state apparatus. To straighten the
system out, we have to start at the top: Implement
LaRouche's economic program, and then clean the
neo-Confederate, freemasonic influences out of the Supreme
Court. 


----
         John Covici
          covici@ccs.covici.com