"In a civilized society legal means are all important. In the sweep of history, a nation that accepts indiscriminate prosecution as normal, has no claim to a position of moral leadership among the nations."
~ Justice William O. Douglas
Enfin un peu de justice qui, espérons-le, devra apporter une fin à la persécution pernicieuse et à l'emprisonnement injuste de Conrad Black. La Cour suprême des États-Unis a restreint la portée d'une loi fédérale sur la fraude, qui est souvent utilisée dans les dossiers de crimes économiques, et, de ce fait, les trois condamnations pour fraude prononcées contre Conrad Black. La cour, dans une décision unanime, a constaté que la loi était confinée aux arrangements frauduleux impliquant des pots-de-vin. Il n'y en avait pas dans l'affaire Black. En effet, Black fut innocenté de neuf chefs d'accusations de fraude. C'était l'une des seules fois dans l'histoire américaine où quelqu'un a été trouvé coupable de fraude postale (essentiellement envoyer du matériel concernant une fraude alléguée par la poste) alors qu'innocenté des chefs d'accusations principale de fraude.
The Court remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to determine the error of law. It's about time! Three years ago I wrote in a similarly titled article that "You may not like Conrad Black for a dozen different reasons. It doesn't matter. His life and this trial are important to each and every one of us. For when the strongest among us cannot get justice then the weakest will be at the mercy of the same corrupted power. Law without Lord Acton's "equity of just consideration" can be many things and used for many purposes but it can never be justice. And without just consideration, law becomes nothing more than a two-edged sword of craft and oppression instead of a staff for the just and a shield for the innocent."
The persecution of Conrad Black, for that is what prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald did, was driven by opportunism, careerism and a general prejudice against the man and the business world he came from. "If you're going to take liberties and break the law with other people's money, there are going to be consequences," said Fitzgerald. Those twenty words of Fitzgerald's were a lie. His words stand as yet another manifestation of the mania and manipulation with which the prosecution prejudiced the judicial wells.
We got an earlier taste of it when the jury came back hung - a clear statement that the government had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt - yet Judge Amy St. Eve instructed it to go back into deliberations and "...not be afraid to change your opinions while staying true to your firmly held principles..." That was an oxymoronic instruction and one that sent a blatantly biased signal. Find the defendants guilty of something!
Amidst the cacophony of smug, sanctimonious condemnation of Black in the media that followed in such ungracious haste, one matter was overlooked. He wasn't found guilty of any actual crimes! But critical thought has long since been replaced by a rush to demonization in our public discourse. We salivate over the prospect of labeling someone - anyone - an enemy of the people much as earlier cultures eagerly anticipated human sacrifices to the gods. Earlier cultures used flaming pyres. We use courts and commissions. We think of ourselves as cleansed, cloaked in the swagger of the false piety of self-righteous hypocrisy.
Quelles "lois" est-ce que Conrad Black a été condamné de transgresser? Aucune! Au moins aucune qui avait un lien avec les sujets principaux dans le conflit Hollinger et les principaux chefs d'accusation du gouvernement. Le système de justice pénale américain est un hybride étrange des juridictions, en vraisemblable compétition, du fédéral et des états. À la différence du Canada, où le droit pénal est régi par le Code criminel qui est applicable dans les toutes les provinces, la plupart des crimes aux États-Unis sont régis par des lois provenant des états. Pour que le gouvernement fédéral intervienne et poursuive dans une affaire criminelle- comme il l'a fait dans cette affaire- il doit y avoir une transgression d'une loi fédérale. Et Washington a pour plus d'un siècle construit de ponts légaux compliqués dans des secteurs où il n'avait aucune juridiction précédente. Une de ces constructions est la fraude postale. Une autre est la Honest Services Law (qui a été utilisée dans cette affaire).
Conrad Black was indicted on some 13 counts of fraud, racketeering, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. He was acquitted on nine. Those nine all related to the heart of the SEC complaint originally brought by investment banker Christopher Browne and that formed the basis of Fitzgerald's case. They included the receipt of monies from the famous non-compete agreements that the prosecution alleged should have gone to the company and not to Black and his co-defendants personally (including the $50.1 million from CanWest); the use of company funds and jets for "private" purposes; alleged failure to file tax returns. Black was found innocent of all these charges.
Innocent de fraude criminelle. Innocent d'évasion fiscale. Innocent de racket criminel. En effet, le montant que Black était responsable en termes de pertes était d'environ 2 millions de dollars qui se rapportait à deux convictions de fraude postale sur deux des petits chefs de non-concurrence sur ce qui n'avait aucune condamnation principale de fraude. Bien loin des 90 millions de dollars que la poursuite avait mis de l'avant au début du procès. Et environ un dixième du coût de ce procès que les contribuables ont dû assumer.
What he was found guilty of - after the judge's instruction to the jury to resume deliberations - were three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. Let's examine the latter first for that was not the subject of the Supreme Court appeal and has been called an "albatross" around Black's neck.
The obstruction of justice charge related to Black's removal of boxes of documents from his Toronto office that we all saw on that security camera film. Three ironies in this charge. The first is that by the prosecution's own admission it had all the documents in those boxes so how was justice obstructed? The second is that this event occurred in Toronto which is hardly in the jurisdiction of Cook County, Illinois, so how did it form part of an American bill of indictment? The third is that Conrad Black knew the locations of cameras in his own offices yet the tapes showed that he was not concerned nor did he try to dismantle them. Black's intelligence is something that friend and foe agree on. If he was taking out documents that would have obstructed justice would he have not at least had the cameras closed before he went in?
But it is the three convictions of mail fraud that were laughable then, and were invalidated by the Supreme Court. Mail fraud is one of the federal legal constructs mentioned above that gives Washington jurisdiction in certain criminal cases. It was originally devised in the 1920's and revised in the 1930's as a means of implementing more effective racketeering prosecutions through federal indictments and federal prosecutors because state prosecutors were having a difficult time convicting many of violations of state law.
Mail fraud refers to any scheme in which the United States Postal System is used at any point in the commission of a criminal offence. It is used to provide an increased penalty to any main charge of criminal fraud - and allow for the intervention of federal prosecutors since Washington runs the postal service - particularly in those cases where the criminal act would have been only a violation of a state law. Today mail fraud is routinely thrown into almost every white-collar criminal prosecution because it brings in the big stick of the feds. Mail fraud covers everything from non-delivery or misrepresentation of mail-order merchandise to promotional cheques to work-at-home offers. Pretty mundane stuff right? What could it possibly have to do with Conrad Black? If your answer is nothing you're right!
The three counts of mail fraud that Black was found guilty of related to the expedition by mail of contracts and cheques related to non-compete payments that the prosecution had alleged were fraudulently obtained. They alleged it but there was no conviction on a main charge of fraud. In other words, Black was not convicted of any main fraud count on the very charges he was found guilty of in the mail fraud! How could it be illegal to use the U.S. Postal Service to send contracts and cheques resulting from legal transactions? The Supreme Court found that strange as well. One Justice commented that the law was so broad and badly drafted that an employee could almost be charged with fraud for taking pens out of an office. One thing was clear from the original verdicts: Black took no "liberties" with "other people's money" - to use Fitzgerald's words again - and could have broken no laws on mail fraud since the jury assigned no culpability on any main fraud charge nor on the racketeering charge.
Si ce n'était pas pour la notoriété de Conrad Black et du gain politique potentiel de sa poursuite, cette affaite- qui à sa base est un conflit commercial- ne se seraient jamais rendue en procès pénal. Hollinger n'était pas Enron ou Worldcom où les cadres ont créé une richesse fictive et ont convaincus des dizaines de milliers de leurs propres employés d'acheter leurs actions; qui plus tard ont évaporé et ont détruit des vies et éliminé des pensions. Conrad Black a créé la richesse. On estime que la société d'investissement de Christopher Browne (Tweedy, Browne) a profité de 400 millions de dollars du travail de Conrad Black. Browne voulait tout simplement le contrôle et a vu les 65 millions de dollars de paiements de non-concurrence - qui avaient été poussés par deux cabinets d'avocats à New York et à Toronto, le propre comité de vérification de Hollinger et fait avec une transparence complète- comme une arme rétroactive commode avec laquelle l'obtenir.
No, this persecution was fuelled by naked greed - political as much as financial. Pat Fitzgerald, who harbours political ambitions, quickly shed his Eliot Ness - "I'm not turning this into a media circus" - façade and took to the staged press briefings like a fish to water, complete with his young assistants standing behind him like centurion guards. He saw the political profit.
Conrad Black n'a pas été mis en accusation pour un tort qu'il a commis. Il a été accusé précisément pour ce qu'il fait bien. Dans un temps de médiocrité, il vise l'excellence. Dans un temps de conformité, il agit audacieusement. Dans un temps de paresse intellectuelle, il fait preuve de rigueur intellectuelle. Dans un temps peuplé par l'inefficacité, il vit hardiment.
It takes courage to live such a life. And as Robert Kennedy said, "Courage is the cardinal human virtue." Is Black arrogant and egotistical? Maybe, so what. Kennedy was accused of being ruthless. It takes many kinds of leaders to move a world forward. And arrogance and ego are needed to lead. One thing's for sure. Conrad Black is not like the French revolutionary leader who interrupted his dinner party because he said he heard a mob outside and said he needs to see in which direction it is heading because he is their leader.
Oh, and as for Pat Fitzgerald, I'd recommend he read the words of a truly great man of the law, former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who once wrote, "In a civilized society the means are all important. In the sweep of history a nation that accepts indiscriminate practices as normal has no claim to a position of moral leadership among the nations."
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