I’ve seen a lot of people talk on panels. And I’ve even seen a fair number of people be funny on panels. But by far the biggest laugh I’ve ever seen anyone on a panel get was one that he didn’t mean to get at all.
The unintentionally hilarious speaker was a prosecutor who’d recently handled a white-collar case that had received some press attention, and on the panel with him was the attorney who’d represented the defendant in that case. It was, frankly, a little awkward. The wound seemed a bit too fresh to be talked about on a panel.
But since talking on panels can be good for business, they both agreed to do it. At one point, after hearing the prosecutor describe some banal aspect of the case, the defense attorney said, “I have a question for you.”
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The defense attorney was not the moderator. Only the moderator was supposed to ask questions. You could feel a little ripple go through the cavernous conference room. This was about to get interesting.
“Why,” asked the defense attorney, “did you arrest my client in the morning, in front of his wife and children, when his children were getting ready to go to school? Why didn’t you let him self-surrender? You knew he wasn’t a flight risk.”
The crowd murmured. Because most of them had probably asked exactly that same question of a prosecutor before.
You see, many prosecutors like to have people arrested at their homes, first thing in the morning. It’s easier — you know they’ll be home, and they’ll probably be a little tired. It’s safer — a defendant is much less likely to resist if his family is around.
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And it’s also good for the government’s PR machine, because then — voila! — you get yourself a perp walk. And that is exactly what the government got here — a nice big photo in the local newspaper. (I wonder how the press knew this was going to happen….)
In most white-collar cases, though, arresting someone at their home is completely unnecessary. These people usually have families and jobs. They’re not a danger to the community, and the odds that they will leave everything behind and flee the country are nil. Plus, when — as was the case here — the person knows about the investigation, the government can just ask his lawyer for the guy’s passport, which makes it a heck of a lot harder to flee. That’s what the best prosecutors do.
So in the vast majority of cases, including this one, the right thing to do would have been to call the guy’s lawyer, tell him that his client has been indicted, and schedule a time for him to come in and be booked. That’s what someone decent, who didn’t care about the PR bump, would have done.
But not this prosecutor. This prosecutor wanted his perp walk. And his answer to the defense attorney’s question was one for the ages, almost breathtaking in its insincerity:
“I can’t control what my agents do.”
The room disintegrated. People roared. It was perhaps the biggest lie they’d ever heard a prosecutor tell in public, and they couldn’t actually believe he’d said that to a room full of criminal defense attorneys, many of whom had been prosecutors themselves. The lie was so bad that I actually made a friend that day. The person I happened to be sitting next to also couldn’t believe what he’d heard. It bonded us for the rest of the conference, and we’re friends to this day.
There is no reason for a prosecutor not to let a defendant — whatever the color of his collar — self-surrender in a nonviolent case. If he’s neither dangerous nor a flight risk, arresting him at his home, in front of his family, is needlessly cruel. Yet this sort of needless cruelty happens all the time, and no one does anything about it.
Because, frankly, they can’t. It’s perfectly legal, but that doesn’t make it right.
Oh, and that defendant? His conviction was reversed on appeal. Karma’s a bitch.
Justin Dillon is a partner at KaiserDillon PLLC in Washington, D.C., where he focuses on white-collar criminal defense and campus disciplinary matters. Before joining the firm, he worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, D.C., and at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. His email is [email protected].