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Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves Kindle Edition
Convictions is a spellbinding story from the front lines of the fight against crime. Most Americans know little about the work of assistant United States attorneys, the federal prosecutors who possess sweeping authority to investigate and prosecute the nation's most dangerous criminals. John Kroger pursued high-profile cases against Mafia killers, drug kingpins, and Enron executives. Starting from his time as a green recruit and ending at the peak of his career, he steers us through the complexities of life as a prosecutor, where the battle in the courtroom is only the culmination of long and intricate investigative work. He reveals how to flip a perp, how to conduct a cross, how to work an informant, how to placate a hostile judge. Kroger relates it all with a novelist's eye for detail and a powerful sense of the ethical conflicts he faces. Often dissatisfied with the system, he explains why our law enforcement policies frequently fail in critical areas like drug enforcement and white-collar crime. He proposes new ways in which we can fight crime more effectively, empowering citizens to pressure their lawmakers to adopt more productive policies. This is an unflinching portrait of a crucial but little-understood part of our justice system, and Kroger is an eloquent guide.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication dateApril 29, 2008
- File size1274 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“John Kroger’s Convictions is the best book about being a federal prosecutor since Jeffrey Toobin’s Opening Arguments. It is an engrossing look at how some of the most famous criminal cases of our era were built and won, and probably the frankest discussion ever of the extraordinary ethical dilemmas that go with wielding the government’s crushing power over lives.” –Scott Turow, author of Limitations
“Convictions is many things at once, all brilliantly: a mob story, a drug kingpin story, a white-collar corruption story. But at its heart and most profoundly it is the coming-of-age story of a young man who has everything it takes to be great at his job, only to discover this isn't enough to do good in the world. Kroger wins here as he did in the courtroom—with simplicity and candor, passion and integrity, and a ferocious, persuasive intelligence.” –Susan Choi, author of American Woman “As a former assistant district attorney, I can identify with John Kroger’s Convictions. It is straightforward and truthful, and it shows life as it really is in the “pit.” This searching memoir is suspenseful and enlightening reading for lay people and members of the legal profession alike.” –Joe Jamail, author of Lawyer: My Trials and Jubilations"Convictions is the extraordinarily intimate account of a prosecutor's coming of age. John Kroger takes readers by the hand and invites us to boldly face, along with him, the thriving parallel dystopia of the world's most dangerous criminals. Replete with fascinating detail that illuminated for me a maze of law enforcement issues that I'd never grasped before, this book is essential reading for an informed citizenry." —Terri Jentz, author of Stran...
About the Author
John Kroger is the Attorney General of Oregon. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, he previously served as a United States Marine, federal prosecutor, and law professor.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Sal “The Hammerhead” Cardaci was a small-time Brooklyn car thief. Back in the 1980s, his head was blown off by a .357 fired at point-blank range. Years later we dug up his bones in a Brooklyn basement, where they had been buried under a rough concrete slab. For the last six months those bones have been in my office, sitting on my desk in a cardboard box. Today they are in evidence, back in the jury room. I am a federal mafia prosecutor, and I am waiting for a verdict.
My defendant is Gregory Scarpa, Jr., mafia capo and hitman. Before his arrest Scarpa controlled a big swath of working-class Brooklyn and Staten Island. Over the course of his career in organized crime he killed more than a dozen victims. Now he is charged with some forty federal crimes: racketeering, conspiracy, loansharking, illegal sports betting, numbers running, tax evasion. My indictment also charges Scarpa with five gruesome murders, the ones I believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
For fifteen years Scarpa was a major target of the FBI. Today, on this crisp fall afternoon, he finally faces justice. Scarpa sits huddled at a long oak table with his three criminal defense lawyers. A few feet away I sit with my trial partner, veteran mob prosecutor Sung-Hee Suh. For the past six months Sung-Hee and I have worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, preparing and trying this case. Together we presented more than a thousand pieces of evidence, each one painstakingly gathered from homicide crime scenes, surveillance operations, wiretaps, garbage pulls, autopsies, and raids on mafia clubs and gambling dens. We also presented testimony from three of Scarpa’s underlings, all mafia hitmen, now in the witness protection program.*
Late in the trial Scarpa took the stand and told the jury that the United States government had authorized his life of crime: that the FBI was corrupt, that he and his hitman father had been on the government informant payroll for years, and that he had worked as an FBI antiterrorism spy, complete with a miniature camera. When I cross-examined Scarpa, I ignored these stories completely, hoping the jury would conclude they were bizarre and irrelevant fantasies. Actually, many of Scarpa’s allegations were true.
The trial lasted more than a month. Now the jury is out, deliberating. For a federal prosecutor like me, waiting for a jury to decide a case is the hardest part of the job. As an Assistant United States Attorney, or AUSA, I wield considerable power. I run investigations, authorize arrests, and shape my own trial strategy. Control is second nature. Once, however, the jury gets a case, my fate—and that of my defendants—is out of my hands. All I can do is wait.
At 11:40 a.m., Jimmy, the court security officer, scuttles into the courtroom and hands a note to Eileen Levine, Judge Raggi’s courtroom deputy. Jimmy is not supposed to disclose the contents of the note to the attorneys, but he and I have a personal connection: he used to be an Army Ranger, and I was in the Marines. He looks over at me, our eyes make contact, and he silently mouths the word “verdict.” Jimmy and Eileen exit the courtroom by the back door, leading to Judge Raggi’s chambers. Two minutes later, just long enough for the judge to put on her black judicial robe, they both return. Jimmy bangs loudly on the courtroom’s solid oak door and calls out, “All rise.” Scarpa, the attorneys, and the courtroom spectators all get to their feet.
Judge Reena Raggi sweeps into the courtroom. Tall and elegant, Raggi is known for her brains and her temper. Once she got so mad at one of my colleagues he fainted right in the courtroom. Not surprisingly, I tend to treat her gingerly, like a bomb that might explode at any minute. The lawyers approach the bench and stand respectfully at their podiums. Scarpa stays seated in his chair, watched closely by U.S. Marshals. The atmosphere, quite relaxed just a few minutes before, is now electric with tension. Eileen states for the court reporter: “Case on trial, United States versus Gregory Scarpa, Junior.”
Judge Raggi silently reads the note from the jury. Then she looks up and says, in her controlled, precise patrician voice, “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. In the case on trial, I have received a note from the jury, which I have marked court exhibit ten. It says: ‘Judge Raggi, we, the jury, have reached a verdict.’ I will bring them in and take the verdict from them.”
Sung-Hee and I return to our seats at the long wooden counsel’s table directly in front of the jury box. My body is trembling slightly, from both nervousness and lack of sleep. This is my first big mafia trial, and after months of constant work and immense pressure, I am physically and spiritually exhausted. As the jury files in, only a few feet away, I try to judge their demeanor. Conventional trial lawyer wisdom says that if a jury makes eye contact with the defendant, it is bad for the government. Several jurors, I note, are looking right at Scarpa as they take their seats.
In tense moments I tend to smile. I fight that inclination now. I look back over my shoulder into the courtroom gallery. It is packed with spectators: newspaper reporters, fellow prosecutors, defense attorneys, a few judges. This is the big case in the courthouse right now. I take off my glasses, place my palms flat on the tabletop, and look straight down, focused on nothing. With my glasses off, the world is a gray haze.
I pray only when I’m in a tough bind. Now I silently beg, “God, please, let me have a guilty verdict.” My desire to win this case is driven by mixed motives. Scarpa is evil personified. The FBI and the Justice Department have worked for more than fifteen years to nail him. I am 100 percent certain he is guilty. The idea that he might escape—that we might get an unjust verdict—makes me sick to my stomach. At the same time, my will to win, like that of all prosecutors, is personal and selfish. Sung-Hee and I have staked our careers on this case. If we win, we will be heroes. If we lose, no one will ever trust us with a big case again.
In television shows about cops and prosecutors, the dramatic moments are always loud: cops yelling at criminals; judges yelling at lawyers; the defendant’s family yelling at the cops. In the real world, drama walks more softly. I hear Judge Raggi talking to the jury. She is explaining the procedure by which it will deliver its verdict. I barely listen. I hear her words as if from a great distance or like a man submerged underwater. I do not refocus until I hear Judge Raggi’s voice change tone and she says, with great formality: “Madam Foreperson, I understand that you, the jury, have reached agreement on the verdict. Is that correct?”
The foreperson stands. To protect the jury from mafia violence, the jurors’ identities and backgrounds have been kept secret from both Scarpa and us. As a result, I know virtually nothing about her. Now, however, this anonymous woman is the most important person in the courtroom. She looks at Raggi and replies, “Yes.”
Raggi: “All right. I am going to be using the verdict form as a guide. Let me begin with Racketeering Act Number One. As to part ‘A,’ have you found the charge of murder not proved or proved?”
The foreperson pauses, and I wait, listening for the simple words that mean success or failure, justice or defeat. I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. Will Scarpa go to jail for the rest of his life, or will he go home to murder again?
-
federal prosecutors toil in obscurity. Most Americans know nothing about our work. None of us is on television, and none of us is a household name. If you ask the average American what an AUSA, or Assistant United States Attorney, does for a living, he will probably draw a complete blank. Even my own mother has a hard time getting it right. She always tells my relatives that I was a “district attorney,” the common title for state and local prosecutors who combat most street crime. To most AUSAs, who pride themselves on their unique role, fighting the country’s most dangerous criminals, that confusion is maddening.
The fact that no one in America knows anything about federal prosecutors is troubling, for in the United States today few people possess more power. As early as 1940 Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson remarked that a federal prosecutor has “more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America.” Since Jackson’s day, that power has only increased. In the words of federal judge (and former AUSA) Gerald Lynch, “Congress has cast the federal prosecutor in the role of God.” Hyperbole? Certainly—but a revealing comment nevertheless.
Federal prosecutors have not always had so much influence. Traditionally, crime was the responsibility of state and local governments. Federal criminal law was a sleepy and unimportant backwater. Starting in the 1950s, however, Congress passed a series of landmark crime bills that radically expanded the United States government’s role in combating crime. These bills gave federal prosecutors, for the first time in our nation’s history, the legal tools they needed to combat the nation’s most serious criminal threats: the mafia, corrupt corporate executives, gangs, and drug dealers. As a result, the federal government is now deeply involved in law enforcement in your community.
During the exact same period, Congress, the Justice Department, and the federal courts quietly revolutionized law enforcement in a second, more subtle way. Back in the old days the fe...
Product details
- ASIN : B004SPL0XY
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First edition (April 29, 2008)
- Publication date : April 29, 2008
- Language : English
- File size : 1274 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 488 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #835,855 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #142 in Biographies of Lawyers & Judges
- #232 in 21st Century World History
- #800 in Lawyer & Judge Biographies
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--Ron Howe (aka Toby Martin II), Erskine, Minnesota.
If there is a flaw in this work, it's because Kroger tended to look at the cases he prosecuted chiefly from the viewpoint of what he expected to be the direct results of his efforts. To use one example, he considered his stint in the prosecution of drug cases to be productive; in that successful interdiction of drug trafficking would inevitably lead to higher drug prices on the street. That would then decrease illegal drug usage and its accompanying addiction. Leaving aside whether or not that is an accurate estimate of what does or could result, such a view ignores the indirect consequences of higher drug prices. Inevitably, the higher the price, the greater becomes the incentive for the drug user to find the money to pay for his addiction, one way or another, and all too frequently to the detriment of the larger society.
The author's call for far more emphasis on treatment is commendable, but where such treatment fails, crime may be the only way addicts can continue to obtain the drug they crave. Lowering drug prices runs counter to the moral principles espoused by much of our society, but that may be far more effective in reducing the deleterious impact of addiction on society than most other approaches to the drug problem.
Even so, this is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone who embarks on the legal profession. And the quality of the writing, the intriguing nature of the cases the author prosecuted, and the thought that he has given to what he did as a prosecutor should be fascinating reading for anyone even remotely interested in how the American justice system works...or is supposed to work.
I lost some sleep because I stayed up late each night reading, but it was worth it. Many of the events written about take place in or around NYC, so as a New Yorker, I especially enjoyed learning about the DOJ work that happens in the local area.
Kroger describes each major trial for long enough that you fully understand what's happening, but not with so much detail that you lose interest; he also explains legal concepts in simple, easy-to-understand terms.
I felt Kroger presented his accomplishments and his struggles very honestly and humbly. He highlighted his significant wins but just as readily explained where he went wrong or made mistakes. I did not know anything about Kroger when I began this book, but I finished with high respect for and a very favorable opinion of him. Great read!