Brickbat: Legal Document

Gajus / Dreamstime.com

Prosecutors in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, are sending fake subpoenas to witnesses in criminal cases in an effort to pressure them to talk. The subpoenas, which aren't authorized by a judge, falsely threaten fines and imprisonment for failure to cooperate.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

To subpoena someone for one of these private interviews, prosecutors have to submit a written application to a judge in which they present "reasonable grounds" to question the person. The judge decides whether to order the court clerk to issue the subpoena.

I was about to say that it was heartening to know there's an apparent shortage of rubber stamp judges, but it turns out when the DA was found out, a judge simply issued real subpoenas for him.

[gaoxiaen]

We don't need no stinking real subpoenas.

[Longtobefree]

RICO!
Give the entire DA department a fair trial and put in the slammer for life.
What the hell is with MAY be illegal?

[Jerryskids]

They're lawyers and law enforcement, they're allowed to lie. How is this any different than the "bumptious threats" letters Popehat talks about all the time where when somebody says something somebody doesn't like they get a letter from a lawyer threatening legal action over slander and libel and defamation of character and tortious interference and all kinds of bullshit where the lawyer knows full well it's all bluster and he hasn't got the barest shadow of a case? Donald Trump knows what I'm talking about, he's actually admitted he sues people just to fuck with them - why is this not grounds for discipline for the lawyers involved when they know what they're doing is nothing more than harassment and intimidation?

[AdamJ]

That would require the bar association to care about policing their own bad actors. But that would require disciplining half of their dues-paying members.

[wef]

Thugs gotta thug.

[DanO.]

Louisiana -- The Venezuela of the South?.