The Strange Ways of Justice

One matter in which I am ambivalent is the criminal prosecution of mobsters for murdering other mobsters. On one hand, we are supposed to be a society of laws, and the law needs to be enforced, else anarchy runs rampant in the streets and nobody's person, life or property is safe. On the other hand, it saves lots of public resources when the organized crime players impose disciplinary penalties upon one another, without the involvement of the already overburdened court system.

Once upon a time, the old mob did honor the line between mobsters and civilians, and if you stayed out of the mob's business then they would generally stay out of yours. This is less and less the case today. For this reason, I will have broad shoulders and state that even mob hit men who hit other mobsters ought be prosecuted by our criminal justice system. But understand that a part of me says we should let the mobster gangs kill one another in peace.

However, if you are going to make the law and order argument in favor of prosecuting the mobsters, then you must hold the prosecution to the same standards of law and order. Which means you must honor the defendants' constitutional rights to due process, and to have speedy trials.

This is exactly what happened in the case of People v. John Sinagra, 2007 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4160, 2007 NY Slip Op 51180(U), N.Y.L.J., 6/15/2007, p. 23, col. 3. Citing the 16-year delay in prosecuting Sinagra for murdering Patrick Porco, some other wiseguy mobster who was a suspected snitch, Justice Gustin Reichbach dismissed the murder indictment against Sinagra. Sinagra is now at liberty, and, having proven himself capable and qualified, can now take on other contracts to exterminate 6-legged, 4-legged or 2-legged vermin.

For those of you who are too young to remember, Gustin L. Reichbach, who now wears black robes and sits on the bench of the New York Supreme Court in Kings County, was the key SDS agitator behind the student riots that effectively shut down class registration at Columbia University in 1968.

Reichbach presumably received (and may even continue to receive) royalties for "The Bust Book: What to do Until the Lawyer Comes," which he co-authored along with several other anarchist radicals, including cop-killer Kathy Boudin.