Read at Your Own Peril: An Overview of Legal Corruption by Analogy

The fact that legal corruption exists is not a disputed thing - Aristophanes of ancient Greece lampooned legal corruption in Athens almost 2,500 years ago in his classic "The Birds".

Why legal corruption exists is a subject of debate. But it should not escape any experienced eye - young or old - that there are four, not three, branches to any effective government: the executive, legislative and judicial. The fourth branch is the independent 'media' whether it is organized or simply errant commentary.

Often, the organized media refuses to take up that yoke. One gets a proliferation of Bill O'Reillys, Catherine Criers and Nancy Graces...one seldom gets Edward R. Murrows, much less thoughtful, mindful commentary and inspection.

As the 21st Century turns farther into the future, it is not a useless thing to observe that the 'media' of today is not much different - in any substantive aspect - than the media in 1800. The technology upon which that media plays itself has evolved but the substantive issues of what is conveyed remain strikingly identical. James Callendar to Nancy Grace, all is but a twist of time and name? It is, at the very least, an interesting road in history to inspect.

Parts of that road are priceless: Edward R. Murrow made a speech in 1958 that defies time and circumstances. Although emersed within his times, the tenets harken to all ages of the human endeavor old and new. Mr. Murrow easily could have been standing on a street corner in ancient Athens as much as sitting in a cafe in contemporary Philadelphia, one is merely haggling over the technological means of media, not the substance nor the foibles.

As always, read at your own peril but...please, read thoughtfully and mindfully. It is but a short walk from journalistic corruption to legal corruption for the templates are much the same.

- Qi

******

EDWARD R. MURROW
RTNDA Convention
Chicago
October 25, 1958

This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.

I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard that produces words and pictures. You will forgive me for not telling you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.

You should also know at the outset that, in the manner of witnesses before Congressional committees, I appear here voluntarily-by invitation-that I am an employee of the Columbia Broadcasting System, that I am neither an officer nor a director of that corporation and that these remarks are of a "do-it-yourself" nature. If what I have to say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for the saying of it. Seeking neither approbation from my employers, nor new sponsors, nor acclaim from the critics of radio and television, I cannot well be disappointed. Believing that potentially the commercial system of broadcasting as practiced in this country is the best and freest yet devised, I have decided to express my concern about what I believe to be happening to radio and television. These instruments have been good to me beyond my due. There exists in mind no reasonable grounds for personal complaint. I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

Several years ago, when we undertook to do a program on Egypt and Israel, well-meaning, experienced and intelligent friends shook their heads and said, "This you cannot do--you will be handed your head. It is an emotion-packed controversy, and there is no room for reason in it." We did the program. Zionists, anti-Zionists, the friends of the Middle East, Egyptian and Israeli officials said, with a faint tone of surprise, "It was a fair count. The information was there. We have no complaints."

Our experience was similar with two half-hour programs dealing with cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Both the medical profession and the tobacco industry cooperated in a rather wary fashion. But in the end of the day they were both reasonably content. The subject of radioactive fall-out and the banning of nuclear tests was, and is, highly controversial. But according to what little evidence there is, viewers were prepared to listen to both sides with reason and restraint. This is not said to claim any special or unusual competence in the presentation of controversial subjects, but rather to indicate that timidity in these areas is not warranted by the evidence.

Recently, network spokesmen have been disposed to complain that the professional critics of television have been "rather beastly." There have been hints that somehow competition for the advertising dollar has caused the critics of print to gang up on television and radio. This reporter has no desire to defend the critics. They have space in which to do that on their own behalf. But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical comment. If the network spokesmen are so anguished about what appears in print, let them come forth and engage in a little sustained and regular comment regarding newspapers and magazines. It is an ancient and sad fact that most people in network television, and radio, have an exaggerated regard for what appears in print. And there have been cases where executives have refused to make even private comment or on a program for which they were responsible until they heard'd the reviews in print. This is hardly an exhibition confidence.

The oldest excuse of the networks for their timidity is their youth. Their spokesmen say, "We are young; we have not developed the traditions nor acquired the experience of the older media." If they but knew it, they are building those traditions, creating those precedents everyday. Each time they yield to a voice from Washington or any political pressure, each time they eliminate something that might offend some section of the community, they are creating their own body of precedent and tradition. They are, in fact, not content to be "half safe."

Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fact that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission publicly prods broadcasters to engage in their legal right to editorialize. Of course, to undertake an editorial policy, overt and clearly labeled, and obviously unsponsored, requires a station or a network to be responsible. Most stations today probably do not have the manpower to assume this responsibility, but the manpower could be recruited. Editorials would not be profitable; if they had a cutting edge, they might even offend. It is much easier, much less troublesome, to use the money-making machine of television and radio merely as a conduit through which to channel anything that is not libelous, obscene or defamatory. In that way one has the illusion of power without responsibility.

So far as radio--that most satisfying and rewarding instrument--is concerned, the diagnosis of its difficulties is rather easy. And obviously I speak only of news and information. In order to progress, it need only go backward. To the time when singing commercials were not allowed on news reports, when there was no middle commercial in a 15-minute news report, when radio was rather proud, alert and fast. I recently asked a network official, "Why this great rash of five-minute news reports (including three commercials) on weekends?" He replied, "Because that seems to be the only thing we can sell."

In this kind of complex and confusing world, you can't tell very much about the why of the news in broadcasts where only three minutes is available for news. The only man who could do that was Elmer Davis, and his kind aren't about any more. If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don't care what you call it--I say it isn't news.

My memory also goes back to the time when the fear of a slight reduction in business did not result in an immediate cutback in bodies in the news and public affairs department, at a time when network profits had just reached an all-time high. We would all agree, I think, that whether on a station or a network, the stapling machine is a poor substitute for a newsroom typewriter.

One of the minor tragedies of television news and information is that the networks will not even defend their vital interests. When my employer, CBS, through a combination of enterprise and good luck, did an interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the President uttered a few ill-chosen, uninformed words on the subject, and the network practically apologized. This produced a rarity. Many newspapers defended the CBS right to produce the program and commended it for initiative. But the other networks remained silent.

Likewise, when John Foster Dulles, by personal decree, banned American journalists from going to Communist China, and subsequently offered contradictory explanations, for his fiat the networks entered only a mild protest. Then they apparently forgot the unpleasantness. Can it be that this national industry is content to serve the public interest only with the trickle of news that comes out of Hong Kong, to leave its viewers in ignorance of the cataclysmic changes that are occurring in a nation of six hundred million people? I have no illusions about the difficulties reporting from a dictatorship, but our British and French allies have been better served--in their public interest--with some very useful information from their reporters in Communist China.

One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the coporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this. It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card, buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time-- frequently on the same long day--to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public affairs.

Sometimes there is a clash between the public interest and the corporate interest. A telephone call or a letter from the proper quarter in Washington is treated rather more seriously than a communication from an irate but not politically potent viewer. It is tempting enough to give away a little air time for frequently irresponsible and unwarranted utterances in an effort to temper the wind of criticism.

Upon occasion, economics and editorial judgment are in conflict. And there is no law which says that dollars will be defeated by duty. Not so long ago the President of the United States delivered a television address to the nation. He was discoursing on the possibility or probability of war between this nation and the Soviet Union and Communist China--a reasonably compelling subject. Two networks CBS and NBC, delayed that broadcast for an hour and fifteen minutes. If this decision was dictated by anything other than financial reasons, the networks didn't deign to explain those reasons. That hour-and-fifteen-minute delay, by the way, is about twice the time required for an ICBM to travel from the Soviet Union to major targets in the United States. It is difficult to believe that this decision was made by men who love, respect and understand news.

So far, I have been dealing largely with the deficit side of the ledger, and the items could be expanded. But I have said, and I believe, that potentially we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and enterprising. There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse. I do not suggest that news and information should be subsidized by foundations or private subscriptions. I am aware that the networks have expended, and are expending, very considerable sums of money on public affairs programs from which they cannot hope to receive any financial reward. I have had the privilege at CBS of presiding over a considerable number of such programs. I testify, and am able to stand here and say, that I have never had a program turned down by my superiors because of the money it would cost.

But we all know that you cannot reach the potential maximum audience in marginal time with a sustaining program. This is so because so many stations on the network--any network--will decline to carry it. Every licensee who applies for a grant to operate in the public interest, convenience and necessity makes certain promises as to what he will do in terms of program content. Many recipients of licenses have, in blunt language, welshed on those promises. The money-making machine somehow blunts their memories. The only remedy for this is closer inspection and punitive action by the F.C.C. But in the view of many this would come perilously close to supervision of program content by a federal agency.

So it seems that we cannot rely on philanthropic support or foundation subsidies; we cannot follow the "sustaining route"--the networks cannot pay all the freight--and the F.C.C. cannot or will not discipline those who abuse the facilities that belong to the public. What, then, is the answer? Do we merely stay in our comfortable nests, concluding that the obligation of these instruments has been discharged when we work at the job of informing the public for a minimum of time? Or do we believe that the preservation of the Republic is a seven-day-a-week job, demanding more awareness, better skills and more perseverance than we have yet contemplated.

I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation. Heywood Broun once said, "No body politic is healthy until it begins to itch." I would like television to produce some itching pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquilizers. It can be done. Maybe it won't be, but it could. Let us not shoot the wrong piano player. Do not be deluded into believing that the titular heads of the networks control what appears on their networks. They all have better taste. All are responsible to stockholders, and in my experience all are honorable men. But they must schedule what they can sell in the public market.

And this brings us to the nub of the question. In one sense it rather revolves around the phrase heard frequently along Madison Avenue: The Corporate Image. I am not precisely sure what this phrase means, but I would imagine that it reflects a desire on the part of the corporations who pay the advertising bills to have the public image, or believe that they are not merely bodies with no souls, panting in pursuit of elusive dollars. They would like us to believe that they can distinguish between the public good and the private or corporate gain. So the question is this: Are the big corporations who pay the freight for radio and television programs wise to use that time exclusively for the sale of goods and services? Is it in their own interest and that of the stockholders so to do? The sponsor of an hour's television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or "letting the public decide."

I refuse to believe that the presidents and chairmen of the boards of these big corporations want their corporate image to consist exclusively of a solemn voice in an echo chamber, or a pretty girl opening the door of a refrigerator, or a horse that talks. They want something better, and on occasion some of them have demonstrated it. But most of the men whose legal and moral responsibility it is to spend the stockholders' money for advertising are removed from the realities of the mass media by five, six, or a dozen contraceptive layers of vice-presidents, public relations counsel and advertising agencies. Their business is to sell goods, and the competition is pretty tough.

But this nation is now in competition with malignant forces of evil who are using every instrument at their command to empty the minds of their subjects and fill those minds with slogans, determination and faith in the future. If we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are handicapping ourselves needlessly.

Let us have a little competition. Not only in selling soap, cigarettes and automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public. Why should not each of the 20 or 30 big corporations which dominate radio and television decide that they will give up one or two of their regularly scheduled programs each year, turn the time over to the networks and say in effect: "This is a tiny tithe, just a little bit of our profits. On this particular night we aren't going to try to sell cigarettes or automobiles; this is merely a gesture to indicate our belief in the importance of ideas." The networks should, and I think would, pay for the cost of producing the program. The advertiser, the sponsor, would get name credit but would have nothing to do with the content of the program. Would this blemish the corporate image? Would the stockholders object? I think not. For if the premise upon which our pluralistic society rests, which as I understand it is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted information, they will then somehow, even after long, sober second thoughts, reach the right decision--if that premise is wrong, then not only the corporate image but the corporations are done for.

There used to be an old phrase in this country, employed when someone talked too much. It was: "Go hire a hall." Under this proposal the sponsor would have hired the hall; he has bought the time; the local station operator, no matter how indifferent, is going to carry the program-he has to. Then it's up to the networks to fill the hall. I am not here talking about editorializing but about straightaway exposition as direct, unadorned and impartial as falliable human beings can make it. Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors be damaged? Would the stockholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would anything happen other than that a few million people would have received a little illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country, and therefore the future of the corporations? This method would also provide real competition between the networks as to which could outdo the others in the palatable presentation of information. It would provide an outlet for the young men of skill, and there are some even of dedication, who would like to do something other than devise methods of insulating while selling.

There may be other and simpler methods of utilizing these instruments of radio and television in the interests of a free society. But I know of none that could be so easily accomplished inside the framework of the existing commercial system. I don't know how you would measure the success or failure of a given program. And it would be hard to prove the magnitude of the benefit accruing to the corporation which gave up one night of a variety or quiz show in order that the network might marshal its skills to do a thorough-going job on the present status of NATO, or plans for controlling nuclear tests. But I would reckon that the president, and indeed the majority of shareholders of the corporation who sponsored such a venture, would feel just a little bit better about the corporation and the country.

It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn't matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.

Perhaps no one will do anything about it. I have ventured to outline it against a background of criticism that may have been too harsh only because I could think of nothing better. Someone once said--I think it was Max Eastman--that "that publisher serves his advertiser best who best serves his readers." I cannot believe that radio and television, or the corporation that finance the programs, are serving well or truly their viewers or listeners, or themselves.

I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.

We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

Memoriam: A Lincoln-Parks Axiom - The Incredible Ordinariness of Greatness and Genius

Despite all the literary machinations of Doris Kearns Goodwin, Abraham Lincoln was not a genius: at least not in a sense that he was much different than anyone else.

Nor was Rosa Parks. To develop a sense that Ms. Parks was great - or, more aptly, greater - than anyone else is simply a betrayal of the beauty of what Rosa Parks did. Rosa Parks sought equality and normalcy. And she took no act other than ordinary to achieve it.

As we race pell-mell into the future, it is an eloquent and often repeated foible by our historians to create fleeting, newspaper tabloid headlines out of our own pasts, out of our own parents, in the form of gigantic books. The genius of Ben Franklin, the monolith of Thomas Jefferson.

The World War II generation was not the greatest generation. And if you could poll them all, living and dead, few would disagree that they did anything other than ordinary acts.

In reflecting upon Abraham Lincoln, remember well that he was a tall, gangly, often unsure human being much like anyone else. Some of his decisions were good ones, others were not. He had fault and flaw. And he was no more suited to the times in which he lived than you or I assigned now to our collective fate.

It is a lesson worth remembering: for to remember Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln, much less the people of World War II, as something beyond ordinary, beyond the capabilities of daily human life, is to devalue what they did. In the glaring, often harrowing moment of choosing to act or not to act, when choosing to speak or not to speak, when choosing to object or not to object, they acted. They spoke. They did object, albeit within the simplicities of who and what they were and in the times and places in history assigned to them.

It is, in a grand and noble sense albeit quite pedestrian as well, the fate of us all. If we think of Rosa Parks as great and Abraham Lincoln as a genius, then we must think no less of ourselves being as much in potential and capability.


- Qi

A Personal Note on Corruption in New Jersey

New Jersey is corrupt - the state government, the political parties and the legal institution. Fighting corruption is expensive in myriad ways. Through this website, the legal corruption in New Jersey and elsewhere will be highlighted. Read at your own peril but, please, read thoughtfully and mindfully.

A former Social Security Disability recipient, the author attended law school as a rehabilitative means of obtaining productive employment. Sadly, corruption in New Jersey is proving to be the true 'handicap'. If you would like to make a financial contribution to this blog, please leave a posting expressing your desire and an email contact.

A rare look into the world of legal corruption: A pay to play demand letter sent to a former Social Security Disability recipient. 

All Things Commerce: Legal Corruption and You

Commerce Bank is a rapidly growing financial phenomena in the Philadelphia area. With two senior executives heading off to Federal prison, Commerce Bank is now - officially - corrupt.

There's nothing new with the flimsy fact that a bank is corrupt, lots of banks are corrupt. More aptly, the question is whether the 'corruption' is inside the safe harbor of law or elsewhere.

Commerce Bank is an interesting example to study. Infiltrated by the Democratic Party within the southern New Jersey region, Commerce Bank features prominently in the daily working life of the regions legal realm. The de facto head of the Democratic Party in southern New Jersey, George Norcross III, is a senior executive within the Commerce Bank umbrella of financial organizations. And the media - newspapers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer - claim that it is Mr. Norcross who pulls the governmental power strings in southern New Jersey, not the voters.

The observation has some apt qualities: the Democratic Party is overwhelming in control throughout most of the suburban Philadelphia area in New Jersey. That political power extends into the daily governmental realm. Who is chosen to fill employment positions in the local towns is largely dictated by whether you supported the Democratic Party. And, if you fail to do so, you can - and often do - end up being fired or never hired in the first place. A recent spat in Palmyra, New Jersey, erupted when the Mayor of Palmyra objected to Democratic Party demands - claimed to be from Mr. Norcross - that local town appointments be fired. The claim has been extensively reported in local newspapers such as the Courier-Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer

What is fascinating - and one should not undervalue the nexus - is who was to be fired: an attorney.

Political corruption is a known entity of long standing. Tammany Hall in New York, for example. And it is well understood that political corruption "means" governmental corruption: when you control the politics, you control who runs the governmental services and how they operate.

But seldom does one see, hear, or speak of "legal corruption" - even though it is long accepted, few talk about it.

Legal corruption takes many forms. Often, as illustrated in the Mayor of Palmyra episode, it boils down to a 'pay to play' ambiance. One must 'pay' in one form or another to practice law in New Jersey. And, often, that 'pay' encompasses a variety of venues - not only is it political pay to play, it is often 'legal' as well.

The above photographic document is an actual letter mailed to an attorney in October 1998. It appears as mailed. No signature was attached. The impression then, and it remains so now, is that the document - from a legal point of view - was calculated to escape redress.

The letter was verified by Matthew Spence, now an assistant prosecutor with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, in August 1999 during a parking lot encounter at Fifth and Penn Streets in Camden. Mr. Spence unilaterally raised the issue of the letter, vouched that he authored the letter, and appeared emotional and disapproving that no compliance took place: that a one-third salary kickback was not paid.

In addition, two meetings took place with Peter Garcia - then Counsel to the Public Defender - in which Mr. Garcia asked numerous questions, all appearing to express disapproval that the salary kickback was not paid. Mr. Garcia would go on to become the Public Defender of New Jersey.

What followed was fascinating. In well-worn employment law strategy designed to coverup corruption, a program director began fabricating falsified memorandum in retaliation for failing to pay the kickback. Each letter was designed artfully to place the non-complying attorney in a false light. In interesting symmetry, at one point, the fabrications escalated to a demand that the attorney sign forms - printed on official Office of the Public Defender letterhead - redacting his own salary.

If not a voluntary kickback, a coerced kickback? One could not send a more clear signal that employment was on the line. And, subsequently, when the attorney failed to sign the salary redaction papers, his services were "no longer necessary" in September 1999 - just one month after the encounter with Mr. Spence.

Although it may be coincidence, the following nexus has been commented upon: at the exact same time Mr. Spence was rewarded by the State of New Jersey with employment at the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, the former disability recipient who failed to pay a kickback was fired by the State of New Jersey. At the very least, his services were no longer necessary.

Was the fact that the attorney was a former Social Security Disability recipient, and therefore highly unlikely to secure employment in any sense, a factor: was he targeted by the legal profession of New Jersey for extortion?

It is a fascinating question. Particularly in light that the State of New Jersey publishes the complete medical histories of any citizen who had the misfortune of being injured and covered by the New Jersey Joint Underwriter's Association. It is a matter of public record. And it is published on the Internet for any prospective employer to view.

Throughout the affair, in fact from the very beginning in 1998 up to as recently as 2002, the Camden County regional director for the Office of the Public Defender was identified as a guiding force in setting up and shepherding the pay to play schemes.

The system operated as the letter demonstrates. The only variant is that it seldom was committed to paper. Normatively, it operated by telephone. A telephone call would be placed to a local attorney advising that attorney of an opening within the Office of the Public Defender. That attorney then would advise a targeted individual: do you want the job?

Another variant that became self-evident was that kickbacks may not have been direct. Being a 'pool' attorney for the Office of the Public Defender can be a lucrative thing. Pool attorneys are private lawyers who handle the excess caseload experienced by the Public Defender. While the hourly rate is not high, the volume of cases can keep new, or experienced, attorneys financially healthy. In return for kickbacks, it would be easily foreseeable to be given preferential treatment in the assignment of cases by the regional director. The ease of foreseeability is demonstrated in the letter, a rare document of not insignificant proportions - the boldness in that it was ever written, the contents, and the ease in which it is expressed hint at a far larger culture that does not stumble into print often.

Sadly, in New Jersey, pool attorney cases are not assigned by rotational lottery as is the practice in adjacent Pennsylvania. In New Jersey, cases are parceled out by regional directors who act as overlords in each of New Jersey's respective counties. Who gets cases is largely a matter of discretion. And who gets cases can be largely a matter of corruption - payment of kickbacks - as the letter demonstrates. It is worthy to note that the recipient of the kickback demand letter was barred from receiving pool attorney cases from 2001 up to 2004. When the attorney inquired about the non-assignment of cases, the Camden County regional director's name would invariably be mentioned.

The same regional director was identified when the Intensive Supervision Program position became available in August 1998. Upon termination in September 1999, the same regional director's name was mentioned by Joel Harris who was the acting Public Defender at the time: Mr. Harris stated he would "consult" with that regional director to decide the future of the non-paying attorney within the Office of the Public Defender. An interesting nexus: No pool cases were assigned to the kickback demand letter recipient until both Mr. Harris and Mr. Garcia had left their positions.

So, what does all this mean? In the academic world, it is known as "publish or perish." In the legal world, especially New Jersey, it is known as pay or perish. Fail to honor the kickback demands and one may never work for a governmental organization in New Jersey again. And, if you happen to be a former Social Security disability recipient, well...honesty and predicament don't mix, not in New Jersey anyway.

Complain? That's a fascinating idea but please review the contents of the embezzlement letter. Note the paragraph structure, the first sentence is solitary and no mistake. It is first for a reason. The letter is designed to exploit the Ethics Committee of New Jersey and manipulate New Jersey's ethics rules in order to coerce payment.

In New Jersey, lawyers are required to keep their files for 7 years. Now, reread the letter. There were no files. Nothing was included in the letter. No files are identified by name. Approximately 7 months after the embezzlement letter, a regional director wrote a companion demand to the same attorney. The contents of the demand letter should hardly surprise you: please return all files assigned by the Office of the Public Defender. In fact, there were no files assigned by the Office of the Public Defender that had not been returned. And surprise, surprise: the letter was written by the same regional director shepherding the pay to play kickbacks.

One attorney says 'here are your files' when none exist. Another attorney says 'where are my files' when none exist. What's transpiring is not rocket science. In civil law, the burden of proof is remarkably shallow. One merely needs a preponderance of evidence to win. And preponderance of evidence often trickles down to a "me and my gang" legal strategy i.e. my gang is bigger than yours, I win. One side shows up in court with more people and more statements. Absent any concrete proofs, under preponderance of the evidence, the bigger side wins. Invariably, the judges cite legal logic that boils down into laymen terms of "So many seemingly credible people could not be wrong."

Two people claiming files exist legally outweighs one person who says they do not. It was easy to see where the embezzlement demand letter was heading: straight to the Ethics Committee door. And it was easy to see who would lose. And that person would lose for very simple reasons, all one had to do is use Office of the Public Defender letterhead to manufacture cases that were 'assigned' and never returned. Essentially, all that the regional director had to do was pull out a sheet of paper and begin falsifying. Case over. In some legal realms, the tactic is known as the Morton Thiokol maneuver after an interesting employment law situation designed to coerce silence, and then non-employment, of an engineer who warned that SpaceShuttle Challenger would explode. The strategy can best be summed: In order to mitigate liability, destroy credibility, preferably before one gets to court.

So the choice was simple and Hobbesian, if not Machiavellian: pay or be fired. New Jersey and You: Perfect Together.

The attorney chose honesty and was fired. With rare exception, he has not worked since - mostly due to the substantive denial of pool attorney cases and the publication of his medical history by the State of New Jersey on the Internet. (Procedurally, two pool attorney cases were assigned, but not until 2004, and both were fringe cases that did not reflect a more normative assignment ratio. Essentially, they appeared to be assigned solely for the future purpose of denying that pool cases were withheld. They knew the seven year window on any ethics violations for not keeping 'files' was closing. A year before it did, they rushed out two minor cases. Fascinating, no?)

So, as the autumnal days of the United States Department of Justice's investigation into Commerce Bank wane into the future, it is helpful to remember that the indictments and convictions are but a small part of an overarching culture in which not only governmental positions are exploited but the lives of innocent human beings.

Christopher Christie, an attorney general for the United States Department of Justice's regional office in New Jersey, is quoted in newspapers as calling the State of New Jersey the most corrupt entity since Al Capone's Chicago. In light of the Commerce convictions, and what Commerce was attempting to do, and that Commerce Bank is based in New Jersey, you decide.

The template plays itself out in remarkably simple ways, no?

If nothing else, you can dismiss this as a letter over the transom of Democracy from the sea of reality.

- Qi