First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of shows like Forensic Files and pretty much any sort of show that documents real-life true crime stories. Part of the fun for me is looking at the initial suspects and trying to determine before the show tells me who's actually guilty, and piecing together everyone who was actually involved. A lot of times I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. But the most interesting part for me is always watching what the police, forensic experts, and prosecutors go through in trying to piece together a case that will hold up in court.
I live in Jacksonville, FL. In the past few years, there have been two stories in particular that have stood out for different reasons. One was the rape and murder of a little boy, Christopher Michael Barrios up in the Brunswick, GA area. It hit me hard in particular because my brother had just become a father to my nephew, and the fate of that little boy just really struck home for me. The news here was all over it, and there were some sickening details leaked about the involvement of each of the suspects, who lived across the street from the little boy and who had, to put it delicately, questionable histories with relation to sex crimes. Me personally, I knew they did it, and as far as I was concerned each of them deserved a fate far worse than what that poor little boy got.
The next case was that of Summer Smith over in Putnam County. Her fiancee, Clint Gerard Horvatt, claimed that they stopped to help a black man (yeah) who was broken down on the side of road, and that the black man shot Summer. Clint was miraculously unhurt, and managed to get away and call 911 and, through his intense grief, produce an incredibly generic sketch of said black suspect for the police. He was arrested about a week later for hiring someone to kill her. Shocking, I know.
The common thread with these two cases is that despite the fact that the average joe got lots of grisly details from newspaper and leaked police interrogations, the prosecutors in both cities still had to put together a case against these suspects, putting aside any personal revulsion that they might have and put together a case based on actual facts and evidence. The Barrios case happened in March of 2007 and has yet to go to trial. There's no telling when Clint Horvatt will get his day in court. Despite misgivings that I sometimes have with the justice system, I have no doubt that these two cases are ones that the prosecutors office doesn't want blown on some technicality, so they're dotting all their I's and crossing their T's. From experience, I know it's frustrating for the families to have to wait for someone to be brought to justice for what was done to their loved ones, I as a citizen want the right people in jail and want to make sure they get the sentences they deserve, so I know that I have to be patient, and as long as they demonstrate that they're putting in the work to get the evidence in order, I have to be willing to let them do what they need to do despite my own emotions.
Of course, this leads to the issue of bringing charges against BushCo for things like torture and the lies and manipulation that led to the mess in Iraq. Like many here, I've been frustrated for years about the systematic abuses perpetrated by them, and how they would simply rewrite laws that stood in their way, or ignore the ones that they couldn't rewrite to their satisfaction. What complicates this is the actions of many members of congress. It's my opinion that many of them simply didn't want to know how bad it actually was, and didn't work very hard to enlighten themselves as to what was going on. I also believe there were many who honestly couldn't grasp the magnitude of what was happening both in front of them and behind the scenes, and lacked the ability to elevate the actions of the Bush administration from merely being against their own principles to being criminal. That's frustrating, outragous, exasperating, throw in any adjective you want. Either way, they let America down, and contributed to what America represents to many in the world today.
In the cases that I listed above, there appears to be a much clearer evidence path between the suspects in those crimes to their victims. Even with that, prosecutors have to take their time to put together a case that can't be brought down on technicalities. I can sit here all day and list all of the things that I BELIEVE WITH ALL MY HEART that BushCo is guilty of. I know many here were complaining about Obama's response to this issue earlier today. Maybe I'm missing something, but his response seemed to indicate that there would be review of the policies enacted by the Bush Administration. What he didn't do was promise that anyone was going to be going to jail. As outrageous as that may seem, that's really the only response he can give right now. Sure, he could make me and many here happy and promise that Bush will be in a jail cell within the next year or two, but that simply isn't something that any president could promise. The new Attorney General faces the challenge of not only trying to gather hard facts to get a conviction against Bush and Cheney directly, but also to determine who was complicit vs. who was just a dupe vs. who was willfully ignorant, and if that in itself is something that can be prosecuted.
Now, if you don't believe that any effort at all is going to be made to look at anything, then this diary isn't necessarily targeted at you, though of course I'm not telling anyone not to voice their opinion. This is targeted at people, like me, who believe that the AG will at least do a hardcore review for any potential criminal activity, and will act if there's something concrete there, even if it can't be linked directly to Cheney or Bush:
- How long are you willing to wait for an office that is making a good-faith effort to gather evidence? Three, four, five years? Longer, if necessary?
- Can you accept an outcome where an exhaustive investigation was done that produces no hard evidence that can be used to directly convict George Bush or Dick Cheney, but may convict those of lesser status who followed their orders? And by accept, not meaning accepting that they didn't do anything wrong, but accepting that they were thorough enough in their evil to destroy any evidence that might have gotten them indicted, and being clever enough to have plenty of fall-guys in their path to protect them.
As the Plame investigation showed, and as the current Blago investigation demonstrates, there will most likely be very long periods of time where we ourselves will not have access to the same information that prosecutors are reviewing, which is something else to keep in mind.