In his latest column, Peter Worthington points out that prosecutors, and even law enforcement officials, have been prone to miscarriages of justice from time to time, recalling one from his own experience as a journalist: "Over the years, I've spent a lot of time on the case of Leonard Peltier -- convicted in the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents during a range war on the Lakota Indian reserve of Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Peltier is in his 31st year in prison, even though the FBI fabricated evidence against Peltier, perjured themselves and have been proved liars in appeal courts."
More recent is the Duke lacrosse case. William Anderson, over at LewRockwell.com, has directly devoted his last four columns to the unravelling of the prosecution's case, and has written about it continually since April 15, 2006. Prosecutor Michael Nifong is now in serious hot water as a result of his conduct in the case.
[UPDATE: All charges against the three lacrosse-player defendants are being dropped.]
Neither of these are close parallels to the Conrad Black trial, but these exposures do show that the criminal justice system occasionally turns into a monster. So far, Mr. Black has been demonized little in the United States - far less than in Canada.
[One bad potential sign of a "feeding frenzy" is sanctifying the prosecutor. If Csr. Fitzgerald is portrayed all over the place as a saint during the trial, then such hagiographizing almost impels a 'balancing' social demonization - or even ostracism - of Conrad Black.]
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