JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Saturday, November 19, 2022

THE GULAG

 The great beast awakens hungry. Slowly it emerges from slumber, never sleeping, always hungry. It opens its maw wide, demanding to be fed. Always hungry, eating souls, swallowing lives whole, the waste products of broken human beings emerging from its spirit crushing peristalsis. Some never leave. Death overtakes their imprisonment. Those that stumble out, vacant eyes, brains rewired with the disease of institutionalism, are zombies. Torturers and tortured, dead inside.

Elizabeth Holmes was fed to the beast on Friday. 11 1/2 years. 4,200 days. 

Consider this-  President Obama was 10 months into his first term of President 4,200 days ago. 

If Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced in November 2009, would we today be saying "yeah, that's about the right amount of time'? Would her release in 2014 or 2016 or 2018 have been an abject failure of the justice system? 

Now she faces life in the Gulag until 2033. One third of the 21th century gone. Eat when told. Read what is allowed. Think only what is approved. All on a ceaseless schedule that never changes on any day at any time for any reason. A life of endless monotony, punctured only by the daily bouts of survival. Attacks by guards or inmates or both, a constant and never ceasing source of anxiety. 

Was there a belief that if she was released in 2028 that the public would be in danger? Given her notoriety, is there any real concern that she will get out, form a new company, solicit investors with fake information? Again? 

Are there people in Silcon Valley as we speak deciding not to issue fake press releases because of her sentence yesterday? 

This is just the beast that we have created demanding to be fed. 

Nameless and faceless bureaucrats, skulking the hallways of corridors of fleeting power in Washington DC pieced together a labyrinth of rules, assigned them numbers, and reduced justice to calculators. 

Sophisticated Means? (which means using a cell phone or laptop in the commission of a crime) increase the sentence. Failure to roll over and beg for mercy? Increase the sentence. Testify in your defense (a right enshrined in our precious Constitution) and lose- increase your sentence. Of course you have rights no other person in any other country on earth has- exercise them? Increase your sentence. 

Be a lap dog. Jump when told, say what you're told to say- decrease your sentence. Don't investigate, don't file motions, don't cite the presumption of innocence- decrease your sentence. Yes, the beast must be fed, but it eats less when you bow your head as your collar is being fastened.

What happened yesterday and what happens every day to countless people in the "greatest justice system on earth" is a crime against humanity. 

The only real difference between our trials and the show trials of Iran and North Korea and Russia (ask Brittnay Griner) is that we think out shit doesn't stink. It does. It stinks just as much as any other of those countries who do what they do without hiding behind the hypocrisy of "rights".  

Best justice system on earth? You can have it. The Emperor has no clothes and we are not afraid to say so. 

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time …

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget Sal Magluta. Dudes in jail for another 100 years just for paying his criminal lawyers.

Anonymous said...

You makes your choice, you pays the ticket

Anonymous said...

11.24 is correct. Indeed, Holmes was lucky that the jury did not hear about the damage she did to people for whom her "genius" resulted in false positives and false negatives, leading to neglected conditions because of false negatives, and created anxiety because of false positives. Quote below from yahoo:

"Elizabeth Holmes's billion-dollar business failure is one of the most unbelievable fraud stories in recent years. The disgraced Theranos founder managed to deceive investors and scientists by overselling the capabilities of her blood-testing system, which she claimed could diagnose tens of diseases with a pinprick's worth of blood. An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and an exposé from The Wall Street Journal revealed the device never worked and uncovered the web of lies Holmes weaved to keep investors in the dark, which ultimately led to her business's demise."

Anonymous said...

Really? Fake blood testing information. How many were adversely impacted by mixing fraud with vital health care ? There must be consequences for the violation of law. She could have plead it out. “ White collar” fraud has the capacity to hurt many. She flew too close to the sun…this is the consequence

Anonymous said...

I see you believe in a different set of rules for rich white people. the kind of clients you wish would come to you but don't because you are a state court hack with a blog.

700 million dollars is how much she stole. When people started to raise questions and speak to the press about her fraud she hounded them with surveillance and hacking and tried to ruin their lives. Spare me the crying for her.

And where you are dead wrong is the issue of deterrence. Passing Drug mina mans and firearms min mans deters no one because most of those people don't think much before they act. Cold
and calculating people like Ms. Holmes are people who think very carefully about what they do.

you are way off base here

Anonymous said...

I feel sorry for the victims of the election police. Elizabeth Holmes, not so much.

Anonymous said...

Gotta love how she got pregnant twice in the time since she was arrested. Shows up pregnant during her sentencing. Freaking psychopath con artist who brought two kids into the world when she was facing a long term of prison. A Bernie Madoff with blue eyes and blond hair.

Evil genius. Up until she received 11 years in prison.

Rumpole said...

4:23 you made a couple of mistakes you moron. First, I write a blog YOU READ. You curse me, but you read what I write and when you look in the mirror you say to yourself "I cannot do what he does" and this angers you.

I handle more federal cases in a month - or get solicited to handle federal cases then you see in five years.

Third, I was asked to help on a person of color in California in federal drug case. 250 kilos and meth and the client - age 45 got exactly the same sentence. The problem is no one knows who that young man who was swallowed up is. But they know the name of Holmes which is why I used her case.

Now, go crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of. I can stand to lose you as a reader. I have enough readers.

Anonymous said...

Very hostile. Why let yourself get trolled on your own blog?

The earlier poster was correct - free Sal.

Anonymous said...

She got sentenced to 11.25 years. Under federal BOP rules, she only has to serve about 85% of that sentence. So that means she gets out of custody after about 9.5 years. And she’ll probably be transferred to a halfway house even before then. A seasoned federal practitioner should know that. Assuming she even starts serving her sentence. She's almost certainly going to try to delay her sentence while she appeals and then fishes for a pardon.

Also, she hasn't been swallowed into the "gulag" yet. The court gave her until April 2023 to report to prison, presumably so she can give birth to the second child she conceived during her criminal case. The first child she conceived postponed her trial. That's rather generous compared to the scores of poor pregnant defendants relegated to giving birth in jail or prison or while shackled to their hospital ward beds.

"Given her notoriety, is there any real concern that she will get out, form a new company, solicit investors with fake information? Again?"

Did you read any of the letters her supporters submitted begging for mercy?

https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-130-letters-asking-leniency-sentencing-highlights-2022-11

Teton Capital Chairman David Sokol says the jury just didn't understand business and got it wrong. Timothy Draper says he would happily bankroll her again just as long as she's not the CEO. She has not been shunned or become "persona non grata" among the privileged crowds she hustled. Moneyed people are already declaring they don't think she's guilty and would happily open their wallets to her all over again. So, yes, there is a very real chance she will get out of prison, form a new company, and do another scheme.

"Nameless and faceless bureaucrats, skulking the hallways of corridors of fleeting power in Washington DC pieced together a labyrinth of rules, assigned them numbers, and reduced justice to calculators."

Oh, poor Ms. Holmes, being despised and oppressed by the faceless bureaucrats, while big name politicians like Senator Cory Booker and prior bureaucrats like William Foege shill for her instead. So abandoned and without a friend in the world!

Before her downfall, when Walgreens was raising concerns about how her machine could endanger patients with bad lab results, she boasted “They don’t put pretty people like me in jail."

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/elizabeth-holmes-sentencing-theranos-trial/card/elizabeth-holmes-brushed-off-patient-risks-they-don-t-put-pretty-people-like-me-in-jail--aqGc0srIBbZnuGAIsDJ4

It seems she's not the only person who thinks it's such a travesty for "pretty people" like her to ever go to jail. The kind of representation and privilege that Holmes enjoys does not and will not trickle down to the masses. Using some "pretty" privileged white woman like Holmes as a mascot to collaterally benefit the mass of anonymous poor wretched black and brown defendants is a fool's errand. The stellar representation enjoyed by the likes of her, or Jeffrey Skilling, or Claus von Bulow, or Jeffrey Epstein has not been democratized or made available to the discarded masses "swallowed" by the gulag. It's just another manifestation of the inequality that put them there in the first place.

Anonymous said...

"The only real difference between our trials and the show trials of Iran and North Korea and Russia (ask Brittnay Griner) is that we think out shit doesn't stink."

Damn, you'd think the prosecutors would be happier never losing a case and having guaranteed convictions every time. If that is what you really think of our trials, why are you still participating in the shit-show?

Sir Wilfred said...

Respectfully Rump, She was Guilty of defrauding investors if US $700 Millions. That comes to $166,000 for each of her 4,200 days in custody. I have had clients found guilty of robbery of a minute sum with only 1 victim get more time .
Sometimes punishment is called for.

Anonymous said...

Hey, some of the defense lawyers think no bad deed should ever be punished. Society will not work like that. I am a defense lawyer but, I think somethings that some people do demand very serious punishment...like murder and child rape. Shouldn't everyone agree with that?

Anonymous said...

read the govt's sentencing memo on Holmes - she wa lucky to get 11


https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.327949/gov.uscourts.cand.327949.1643.0.pdf

Anonymous said...

@ 11:46

Hey, most defense attorneys say crimes should punished. They just don't think their clients should ever be punished.

There are some death penalty defense attorneys who say they believe in the death penalty and that some people deserve to die for their crimes. It just happens that they don't think their clients are among those who deserve to die.