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The Wall Street Journal

Regarding Charles B. Renfrew and James H. Reynolds’s “Obama Should Pardon This Iowa Kosher-Food Executive” (op-ed, Nov. 28): Yes, Sholom Rubashkin should be pardoned. The bank and Mr. Rubashkin’s losses, due to the government’s improper meddling in the sale of his company, should also be restored. It seems clear that government prosecutors had an animus against other Jewish family members, persons not even charged with a crime.

When a private company or individual fraudulently takes value from another, there are remedies to get that value returned. Why is the government exempt from penalties and the requirement to restore the loss it caused by fraudulent means when such harm is exposed?

The late Sen. Ted Stevens was prosecuted with evidence government prosecutors knew was faulty. He lost his Senate seat and died before the government fraud on the court was admitted. There was little penalty for those prosecutors who improperly tried the Stevens case. Why do government prosecutors generally get a pass when found misapplying the law?

Correcting prosecutorial misconduct requires the defendant to resist plea offers and demand a jury trial per the Constitution. Every year federal prosecutors get 95% to 97% of their criminal convictions with a plea bargain. Each one cancels what would have been a draconian trial penalty of several times the plea offer if the jury convicts. This means only 3% to 5% of federal defendants get an open trial at which the government must produce, in public, enough evidence to persuade a jury to convict. This may be one reason the U.S. has 25% of the world’s prison population but only 5% of the world’s population.

Doug Chapman

Santa Ana, Calif.

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