"Whatever I Want"

Ponder the phenomenon of the progressive prosecutor. San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and other "blue" localities have witnessed the mantle of top law enforcement representative assumed by people who aren't much interested in actually enforcing the law. Or, more accurately, take a post-modernist approach to that job in filtering it through the “everything is relative” muddle. That is, they decide which laws and which accused are worthy of the job they've been hired by the voters to do.

Manhattan's DA Alvin Bragg further roiled the waters of a city already suffering substantial increases in crime by issuing a "Day 1 memo" that declared, among other things, that certain crimes (including but not limited to fare evasion, trespass, and resisting arrest), "will not be prosecuted under any circumstances." He’s been reluctantly backpedaling ever since.

San Francisco's DA Chesa Boudin was ceremoniously defenestrated by the woke-blue city that finally got fed up with lawlessness.

Los Angeles's DA George Gascon is facing a recall of his own.

And, this week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis suspended Tampa prosecutor Andrew Warren, for not doing a prosecutor's job.

While prosecutors, like all other public servants in the law enforcement mechanism, have the right to use discretion (and absolutely should exercise that right as appropriate) in the "faithful execution" of their duties, they are not lawmakers. They are executives carrying out the will of the people as expressed by the legislators those people put into office. In other words, it's their duty to enforce the laws, not to rewrite them to suit their agendas or ideologies. Their discretion lies in seeing justice done - as we all understand “justice” and not in the alternate-reality of the woke where criminal acts against others only matter some of the time.

The Left lost its collectivist shite when Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, back in 2015, despite her being obligated to do so as part of her job. The Left was right, and Ms. Davis was wrong, as I blogged back then. In hiring on for that public service job and therefore accepted the duties and responsibilities of that job, as defined by the legislature. Don’t take a government job if your principles won’t let you do it as required.

So it goes with prosecutors. They are hired by the voters to prosecute. By this, I don't mean throw everyone they can in jail, but rather ensure that violators of the laws written by other representatives of the people (the ones hired to write those laws) are properly punished.

Yes, that includes discretion - and in truth there's often too little discretion applied (also thank the lawmakers have taken much of that out of prosecutors' and judges' hands for that lack). But, discretion and "will not prosecute anyone for these laws" are totally different things. One is about individual circumstances, the other is about policy, and DAs are not tasked with writing policy.

And, yes, our society over-polices in too many ways, and reforms are both warranted and welcome.

But, those reforms should make sense. They should start with clearing the laws that inform such over-policing off the books, and be followed by the top dogs ceasing their revenue-driven demands on law enforcement apparatus (Eric Garner died because someone wanted cigarette tax money).

There are two types of crimes out there: There are crimes against others, whether it be their person or their stuff, and there are "victimless" crimes, with variants thereof depending on whether you consider government a "victim" of someone not paying a fine for putting his trash out too early (of note, I consider fare-jumping one of the former, since everyone else has to carry the weight of that non-payer using a public good). While there are some things on Bragg's list I agree with, there's a right way and a wrong way to reform. District Attorneys aren't supposed to treat the book of laws as a Chinese menu.

America was crafted as "A government of laws, and not of men." We've clearly lost our way, with so many who take on executive roles (from President to county clerk) deeming their job description as "whatever I want to do" rather than "what the law says I may or must do," no matter that their oaths of office typically say "faithfully execute."

Many voters, unfortunately, support this, because it's easier to say "I hired this one person to do what I want" than to walk the proper path. Sure, doing so might produce a "good" result or two, but it relies entirely on the whims of those elevated thus and granted such power, and we all know that relying on such whims instead of on a network of laws crafted by many minds across many decades invites endless trouble and inevitable bad outcomes. Such are the perils of cults of personality.

When a government entity comes along and says “no, you cannot,” as in the recent SCOTUS EPA ruling, or better yet says “no, WE cannot,” as in the Dobbs ruling, we hear sky-screams from many of those voters. “Whatever I want” is no way to run a country.

Just as the voters were right to recall Boudin, DeSantis was right to suspend Warren. Those who want to change the laws should seek jobs as legislators, and those who support such changes should focus their efforts on electing lawmakers. District Attorneys are supposed to represent victims, not excuse or ignore those who victimize them.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.