By Mark Cuban and Thomas Melsheimer
On March 21, 2014, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White was once again quoted praising her agency as "a strong and focused cop on the beat" that promotes fairness and accountability in the markets. The SEC often opens its trials by telling juries that every investor has to play by the same set of rules. But the agency won't play by a rule that's fundamental to due process. It's called the Brady rule, and it keeps the government honest when it takes people or companies to court.
In a criminal trial, the federal government has long been obliged to promptly turn over to the defense any evidence that could show that the accused did not commit the offense of which he is accused. The Brady rule (announced in the 1963 Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland), prevents one-sided prosecutions in which the defendant is kept in the dark about information that might show that he is innocent.
The government's job as criminal prosecutor is not to obtain convictions, but "to do justice," according to the traditional legal maxim. It should be required to follow the Brady rule in civil trials as well. But the SEC does not, even when it accuses a citizen of fraud. Had the agency complied with this simple rule in its recent insider-trading case against one of us, Mark Cuban, it is unlikely that a lawsuit would even have been filed, let alone go to trial.
Read the rest here.
What are you talking about? A Government is a terrorist organization that does anything it wants. The rules are for the slaves only.
ReplyDeleteSadly, so true. It's best to think of government (especially national gov't) as an organized criminal enterprise. If you don't get that then you don't understand the nature of the State. Your still plugged in to The Matrix so to speak.
Delete"To do justice"... What a joke! Our federal prosecutor in western Missouri has gone on record bragging as to the revenue generation that the prosecutor's office has created.
ReplyDelete