A Different Legal System for the Rich: Imagine Getting Off Easy for Hit-and-Run Because You Run a Hedge Fund

The following AlterNet article - A Different Legal System for the Rich: Imagine Getting Off Easy for Hit-and-Run Because You Run a Hedge Fund... It's not just the recession that's killing the middle class -- it's how the legal system is being used to establish a two-tiered society [1] - illustrates shocking developments in our legal system in America. 52-year-old Martin Joel Erzinger, a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney money manager who oversees more than a billion in assets for “ultra high net worth individuals, their families and foundations", hit a surgeon riding his bicycle in Colorado - and ran like a dirty dog - and "District Attorney Mark Hurlbert was apparently concerned with Erzinger’s future -- SEC rules would have required him to disclose the felony within 30 days of being convicted, which might have cost him his job -- and decided to accept a misdemeanor plea, over the objections of Milo and his attorneys. “Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger's profession,” Hurlbert said, “and that entered into [the decision].”

As the author of A Different Legal System for the Rich [1] points out, "There’s nothing new about high flyers getting off the hook for traffic accidents with a wink and a nod from friendly prosecutors"...

... but what makes the story noteworthy is that Hurlbert, who ran as a Republican in an unsuccessful bid for the state senate last year, felt comfortable acknowledging his reasoning to reporters. That he’d freely admit to considering an accused felon’s social status in charging Erzinger suggests a cultural shift in the works.

Economically, the birth-story of America’s new Gilded Age is fairly straightforward. In 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression, those in the top 10 percent of the economic pile grabbed about half of the nation’s income. With the emergence of the New Deal, a powerful labor movement and World War II -- and the GI Bill that followed the troops home -- a large middle class developed, and by 1953, that slice had been cut to less than a third. But by 2006, the middle class’ gains had been entirely reversed, and the top 10 percent were again taking around half of the nation’s income.

A similar case occured here in 2009 - Decision Rendered in Deadly Hit & Run Crash [2] - where a suburban fund manager received light treatment for vehicular homocide, bringing into question the historic fairness of our legal system in Northeast Ohio.

Cleveland.com featured extensive coverage of the long-time total incompetency and criminal behavior of lawyers in the office of County Prosecutor Bill Mason [3], which should never have been allowed by the legal community here. And this is just the tip of the injustice that evil man has caused this community, with the full support of 100% of the community's 17,000 lawyers (I've never heard one complaint from one).

When you add to this concerns the judicial system in Northeast Ohio appears politically compromised, incompetent and corrupt... and that has coddled and enabled the incompetent and/or corrupt prosecutors... all enabled by 17,000 incompetent and/or corrupt lawyers in Northeast Ohio [4], you must wonder where is a poor American slob to turn for protection from the rich?!?!

God bless America, land of the rich. May they run the other 99% of us all down as quickly as possible... if they haven't already put us in jail.

AlterNet article - A Different Legal System for the Rich: Imagine Getting Off Easy for Hit-and-Run Because You Run a Hedge Fund... It's not just the recession that's killing the middle class -- it's how the legal system is being used to establish a two-tiered society [1]