“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.”
– Justice Louis Brandeis
Great word, “beneficent.” It means “doing or producing good.”
His admonition is clear when prosecutors, in their zeal to convict and punish – whether to further their sense of justice or advance their careers and the prestige of their office – yield to their darker instincts. In 2009, Judge Emmet Sullivan, for instance, vacated the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens due to government malfeasance, even though there was clear evidence of wrongdoing. Many judges lack such moral courage. Consider the prosecution of Stewart Parnell, Michael Parnell and Mary Wilkerson in a federal district court in Albany, Ga., last September.
They were convicted and sentenced to prison in the largest food safety case in the nation’s history following the 2008-2009 salmonella outbreak that led to a nationwide recall of peanut butter. Even before the outbreak, Congress and the president were critical of the FDA and its leadership. Leaders from both parties were calling to reform or even abolish the agency.