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The Price of ‘Cheating’? For Ballplayers--a Bad Media Story--For Trial Lawyers Who Have Successfully Sued Businesses and Who Have Contributed To Democrats? Jail Time
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
Equal Justice? A Union-Tribune story reports that San Diego plaintiff attorney Bill Lerach will plead guilty to a count of conspiracy and receive 1-2 years of jail time.
Lerach’s crime appears to have been paying people to act as plaintiffs in civil suits. This gave his firm the ability to file civil claims before other firms – who had to wait for plaintiffs to come to them. Under the rules then in effect, this head start provided economic benefits in the class action suits in which Lerach specialized.
If true, it was a form of cheating to gain a competitive edge in the game Lerach and his partners were playing.
Not essentially different than the rule-breaking on the Patriot team.
Or the doping scandals in baseball and the Tour de France.
But Bill Lerach is likely to go to jail, while the others pay fines and get bad press.
Why did the Justice Department focus on Lerach’s rule breaking? Is he a mob lawyer? Will his fall serve as a deterrent to organized crime?
No. Bill Lerach specialized in shareholder suits against corporate board members. You know, Enron. Corporate America had made him enemy number 1. Lerach was, in addition, a big giver to Democratic campaigns. Strike two.
If you are a high-profile attorney hated by big business who also supplies money to the Democrats, then you had better watch out.
It was the business of the Justice Department under Bush to insure that those who cheat come a cropper. Unless they were Republican Officials depressing voter turnout of Democrats – like those in New Hampshire in 2002.
Now cheaters should never prosper. But the disproportionate penalties apparent here should raise issues of equal justice.
Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.
He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.
Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.
Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.
Comments
Maybe I'm confused but are you saying that criminal conspiracy is the same as cheating at football? I'm sure you are arguing that this attorney should get a lesser penalty but lets go the other way and put the football coaches in jail! There seems to me to be a big difference to violating a rule created by an independent organization and violating a government law? If you don't like the law change the law but don't try to trivialize a criminal act by comparing it to breaking a rule in a sporting event.
Posted by: sean at September 19, 2007 08:19 AM
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