INCIDENTAL CRIMES OF DISHONESTY
by Peter Moss

In reporting on anti-war protesters who wanted to be arrested, Peter Freyne writes: "Chittenden County State's Attorney Bob Simpson prefers to devote his energies to prosecuting rapists, child abusers, thieves and dope dealers." (Inside Track 4-16-03). In plain English, criminal prosecutors really prosecute violent crime, not white collar crime or crimes involving dishonesty, and they have absolute discretion to do this.
The problem is older than the ten commandments, one of which prohibits "bearing false witness," now called perjury and subornation (procuring perjury by another). The lack of prosecution has encouraged perjury, subornation, forgery, witness tampering, and a variety of unprosecuted and unpunished and hence implicitly encouraged white collar crimes. Lying by lawyers is not even a crime, and is prohibited only by an unenforced rule of court. I should know: I am appealing in Vermont Supreme Court (docket 2003- 154 open to the public) various civil violations accompanied by forgery, perjury, witness tampering, and involving Nationwide Insurance of Ohio, three of their lawyers, two of their agents, and two of their customers, all participating in a civil conspiracy and using three law firms to try to cover up the documented facts. Trial judges are former lawyers and do not frown upon mendacity and hypocrisy by lawyers. My complaints to the state's attorney and the U.S. attorney produced only evasions. They did not say they would rather prosecute rapists, child abusers, thieves and dope dealers; they do not have to say so.
Solutions are hard to come by. One obvious solution would be to appoint a duplicate set of state's attorneys who are strongly motivated to prosecute only white collar crime but with the state's budgetary shortfall and widespread opposition to tax increases, this is now impractical. The only way would be a new law empowering civil complainants victimized by crimes of dishonesty to prosecute those as "incidental crimes" committed to cover up civil violations against customers, clients, patients, consumers, etc. The organized bar would go all out to fight this since prevarication, dissembling, misrepresentation, finessing, lying, etc., in the name of advocacy, are the second most important function performed by lawyers.
Any readers who have run into dishonesty by defense lawyers or their clients, please call me (802-849-2108) or write to 05454- 0413. Thanks.