DENVER, COLORADO -- The Department of Justice announced that Benny Bailey of Denver, Colorado, formerly a Deputy United States Marshal for the District of Colorado, was indicted today by a federal grand jury in a two-count indictment charging him with perjury and false statements. If convicted, Bailey faces on each count up to five years in prison and a fine of not more than $250,000.
According to the indictment, Bailey helped supervise the jury in the 1997 trial of Timothy McVeigh, who had been charged with bombing the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. After the McVeigh trial concluded in June, 1997, Bailey became involved in an intimate relationship with an alternate juror from the trial. In 1998 the trial court and, subsequently, defense counsel for McVeigh, received anonymous facsimiles alleging that Bailey and the alternate juror had an intimate relationship during the McVeigh trial and that Bailey attempted to influence the outcome of the trial by persuading this juror of McVeigh's guilt. As a result of these anonymous facsimiles, the U.S. Marshals Service and the McVeigh trial judge investigated whether or not any improprieties had occurred between Bailey and any of the McVeigh jurors.
The baliff in charge of the McVeigh jurors is thought to have an a relationship with one of the jurors WHILE THE TRIAL WAS GOING ON. This might just be a love story, or it might be the fed's way of learning about jury deliberations as they were going on. If it's the latter, then ... well, the implications are clear.
Thursday, February 28, 2002
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
This one really does justice to the theme of this blog:
Use a Gun, Get a Ticker
Why should taxpayers shell out a million bucks for a crook's transplant?
BY COLLIN LEVEY
Thursday, February 28, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST
…. (an inmate in California) serving 14 years for armed robbery, last month received a $913,000 heart transplant at the top-flight Stanford medical center, paid for by the state's taxpayers. Statistically speaking, he now has a 74% chance of living through the next five years of his incarceration. Here's hoping he opts for the low-cholesterol meal plan on the prison menu.
This is something I’ve been thinking about for years, in one context or other. When I was an intern, I once had a patient who had been through five, (5), no that’s not a misprint, FIVE heart transplants. (Truth-in-blogging: this was well over a decade ago, so I can't remember whether this man had already had 5 transplants, or was on his fourth heading to his fifth. I am certain, however, that he'd had more than one transplant already) He was in my ICU with shortness of breath as his latest heart was failing. He probably would have had chest pains, except that he was working on a transplanted heart, and there were no pain fibers running from the heart to his brain. This man was (1) Obese and (2) just done with a cigarette when he rolled in. He also admitted to eating whatever he wanted (i.e. steak) when he was outside. Meanwhile, it’s a guarantee that the general public was paying for his care one way or another. Given the cost-shifting that goes on at major academic medical centers, either Medicare, healthy insurance customers, or the University Endowment was taking a major kick in the teeth for the benefit of a man who was making almost no effort to reduce his need for another transplant. I doubt it was the University Endowment.
I have a T-shirt from the Charity Hospital Emergency Medical Services in New Orleans. The T-shirt says “The life you save … may take your own.” That’s not just a slogan. Many of the patients at any urban medical center would, if they weren’t restrained, casually kill and rob the doctors who are loosing sleep to keep them alive. There was a mass shooting at the LA County ER in 1992 or 1993. Simple assault by people who are alive only because their victims kept them so, happens every day.
And now this case from the California Prison System. I have worked as a prison doc, and I spent a lot of my time behind the walls thinking about issues like this.
So here’s the common thread about which I’m trying to make sense: under what circumstances should “society” pay for the health care of people who are, through their own fault, a net drain or a net danger to society? How do we as a “society” make those decisions? I actually have an answer, and it’s one that the transplant surgeons are going to hate. Actually, I’m not too happy with my answer either, for reasons I’ll get to below.
My answer to the question about what we owe to the irresponsible and the dangerous? Nothing. Let them die. The irresponsible have already demonstrated that they don’t value their own lives enough to give up smoking or red meat.
The dangerous are even worse: they don’t value life enough even to give up shooting sprees and violent crime. I mean, I might be able to speculate that nicotine is physically addictive, so smokers might really value life, and yet be unable to stop smoking (though I doubt it). I am unable to concede that being willing to criminally fire off a gun into a crowd of strangers is in any way compatible with a respect for life. (note to hyper-critical readers: I said criminally fire a gun. I am not talking about acts of war, defense of life or property, or any justifiable, non-criminal shooting). Our bank robber, though he may not have actually killed anyone, probably demonstrated that he was willing to do so by waving a gun around and threatening everyone within earshot that he would kill them if they didn’t cooperate.
Meanwhile, it’s a good guess that the people who are paying for multiple heart transplants could find a use for that money that would buy them something they cared about, whether it be a college education for the kids or a kickin’ Fender Stratocaster. By taking money from people who might be a little happier with it, to pay for the extended life of someone who doesn’t value life anyway, we are making the general public a little worse off, and not making anyone really better off.
Well, someone is better off when we fund all sorts of transplants, and that brings me to why the transplant surgeons won’t be happy with what I just wrote. It’s an open secret among physicians that a plurality of transplant recipients, particularly on the West Coast, have blown out their own organs. Yes, I know, the CDC claims that hepatitis C is the largest reason for liver transplants, but I don’t think that tells the whole story. These people with hep C who develop liver failure tend to be exactly NOT the kind of person who developed hep C from some minor mistake, took care of himself, and then, unfortunately, got sick. Rather, the transplant recipients tend to be the ones who were alcoholics who happened to get hep C. As for kidney transplants, I have it on extremely good authority (i.e. a famous nephrologist) that approximately 85% of people on dialysis are on it because of "poor control" of hypertension or diabetes, i.e. (though this is NOT how the nephrologist put it) they just don't bother to take their pills. I’ve never seen a study that would prove or disprove what I just said, so feel free to take that with a grain of salt (though I did work in the ORs of two major liver-transplant programs, and I have anecdotal evidence from the UCLA liver transplant program for my belief. For those who don’t know, UCLA has been America’s largest liver transplant program, and may still be).
So why am I not happy with my “let ‘em all die” stance? There’s actually a very simple reason, and anyone who has read my earlier posts might have already guessed it. OK, here it is. The bottom line is that, particularly in trying to identify who is dangerous, I don’t trust the state to get it right. What if the “bank robber” who inspired this post was framed? What if he was just convicted by mistake? What if he was prosecuted on circumstantial evidence by a racist DA who was desperate to convict ANYONE, in order to cover up a previous wrongful prosecution? (see below for my very own take on what seems to be just such a case). If so, then we’ve taken away an innocent man’s ability to provide for his own healthcare. Under those circumstances, we (meaning, yes, you and me and all voters) really owe it to him to keep him alive at least until he can clear his name.
Well, as usual, you know the name of this blog. If you want to help me make sense of it, feel free to email.
Use a Gun, Get a Ticker
Why should taxpayers shell out a million bucks for a crook's transplant?
BY COLLIN LEVEY
Thursday, February 28, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST
…. (an inmate in California) serving 14 years for armed robbery, last month received a $913,000 heart transplant at the top-flight Stanford medical center, paid for by the state's taxpayers. Statistically speaking, he now has a 74% chance of living through the next five years of his incarceration. Here's hoping he opts for the low-cholesterol meal plan on the prison menu.
This is something I’ve been thinking about for years, in one context or other. When I was an intern, I once had a patient who had been through five, (5), no that’s not a misprint, FIVE heart transplants. (Truth-in-blogging: this was well over a decade ago, so I can't remember whether this man had already had 5 transplants, or was on his fourth heading to his fifth. I am certain, however, that he'd had more than one transplant already) He was in my ICU with shortness of breath as his latest heart was failing. He probably would have had chest pains, except that he was working on a transplanted heart, and there were no pain fibers running from the heart to his brain. This man was (1) Obese and (2) just done with a cigarette when he rolled in. He also admitted to eating whatever he wanted (i.e. steak) when he was outside. Meanwhile, it’s a guarantee that the general public was paying for his care one way or another. Given the cost-shifting that goes on at major academic medical centers, either Medicare, healthy insurance customers, or the University Endowment was taking a major kick in the teeth for the benefit of a man who was making almost no effort to reduce his need for another transplant. I doubt it was the University Endowment.
I have a T-shirt from the Charity Hospital Emergency Medical Services in New Orleans. The T-shirt says “The life you save … may take your own.” That’s not just a slogan. Many of the patients at any urban medical center would, if they weren’t restrained, casually kill and rob the doctors who are loosing sleep to keep them alive. There was a mass shooting at the LA County ER in 1992 or 1993. Simple assault by people who are alive only because their victims kept them so, happens every day.
And now this case from the California Prison System. I have worked as a prison doc, and I spent a lot of my time behind the walls thinking about issues like this.
So here’s the common thread about which I’m trying to make sense: under what circumstances should “society” pay for the health care of people who are, through their own fault, a net drain or a net danger to society? How do we as a “society” make those decisions? I actually have an answer, and it’s one that the transplant surgeons are going to hate. Actually, I’m not too happy with my answer either, for reasons I’ll get to below.
My answer to the question about what we owe to the irresponsible and the dangerous? Nothing. Let them die. The irresponsible have already demonstrated that they don’t value their own lives enough to give up smoking or red meat.
The dangerous are even worse: they don’t value life enough even to give up shooting sprees and violent crime. I mean, I might be able to speculate that nicotine is physically addictive, so smokers might really value life, and yet be unable to stop smoking (though I doubt it). I am unable to concede that being willing to criminally fire off a gun into a crowd of strangers is in any way compatible with a respect for life. (note to hyper-critical readers: I said criminally fire a gun. I am not talking about acts of war, defense of life or property, or any justifiable, non-criminal shooting). Our bank robber, though he may not have actually killed anyone, probably demonstrated that he was willing to do so by waving a gun around and threatening everyone within earshot that he would kill them if they didn’t cooperate.
Meanwhile, it’s a good guess that the people who are paying for multiple heart transplants could find a use for that money that would buy them something they cared about, whether it be a college education for the kids or a kickin’ Fender Stratocaster. By taking money from people who might be a little happier with it, to pay for the extended life of someone who doesn’t value life anyway, we are making the general public a little worse off, and not making anyone really better off.
Well, someone is better off when we fund all sorts of transplants, and that brings me to why the transplant surgeons won’t be happy with what I just wrote. It’s an open secret among physicians that a plurality of transplant recipients, particularly on the West Coast, have blown out their own organs. Yes, I know, the CDC claims that hepatitis C is the largest reason for liver transplants, but I don’t think that tells the whole story. These people with hep C who develop liver failure tend to be exactly NOT the kind of person who developed hep C from some minor mistake, took care of himself, and then, unfortunately, got sick. Rather, the transplant recipients tend to be the ones who were alcoholics who happened to get hep C. As for kidney transplants, I have it on extremely good authority (i.e. a famous nephrologist) that approximately 85% of people on dialysis are on it because of "poor control" of hypertension or diabetes, i.e. (though this is NOT how the nephrologist put it) they just don't bother to take their pills. I’ve never seen a study that would prove or disprove what I just said, so feel free to take that with a grain of salt (though I did work in the ORs of two major liver-transplant programs, and I have anecdotal evidence from the UCLA liver transplant program for my belief. For those who don’t know, UCLA has been America’s largest liver transplant program, and may still be).
So why am I not happy with my “let ‘em all die” stance? There’s actually a very simple reason, and anyone who has read my earlier posts might have already guessed it. OK, here it is. The bottom line is that, particularly in trying to identify who is dangerous, I don’t trust the state to get it right. What if the “bank robber” who inspired this post was framed? What if he was just convicted by mistake? What if he was prosecuted on circumstantial evidence by a racist DA who was desperate to convict ANYONE, in order to cover up a previous wrongful prosecution? (see below for my very own take on what seems to be just such a case). If so, then we’ve taken away an innocent man’s ability to provide for his own healthcare. Under those circumstances, we (meaning, yes, you and me and all voters) really owe it to him to keep him alive at least until he can clear his name.
Well, as usual, you know the name of this blog. If you want to help me make sense of it, feel free to email.
Tuesday, February 26, 2002
What I believe to be an alternately misleading and just plain wrong letter in the LA Times today:
Myths Aside, Death Row Isn't Filled With Innocents
By JOSHUA MARQUIS
The recent conventional wisdom presumption that the nation's death rows are packed with innocent men and women is dead wrong …. It turns out, however, that the states with the highest reversal rates are also among the states that seek the death penalty the least and spend the most defending accused murderers ….
Most (death penalty reversals in Oregon) were for "faulty jury instructions" or other hyper-procedural errors ….
Well, of course the states with the highest reversal rates are those that spend the most defending accused murderers. If you accuse and convict someone of murder, and then spend nothing to defend him or appeal a conviction, it’s a pretty good bet that there won’t be a reversal.
And why does Mr. Marquis think that “faulty jury instructions” to the jurors who vote to convict are not related to actual innocence. For example, it’s been my experience that most people don’t understand that, should they become jurors, they need to make a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict. Rather, it seems that most people use the standard of “well, whatever evidence is easy for the state to present has to be good enough to get a conviction, otherwise all criminals will go free.” If jurors are not properly disabused of their incorrect ideas, and convict when the law says they shouldn’t, it is proper for us to act as if the convicted was really guilty?
Marquis goes on to praise a bill that would “restrict DNA testing to those for whom tests could establish innocence.” Yes, that’s probably the efficient thing to do, and it would probably threaten DA records as little as possible. If the purpose of our system of justice is only to protect DAs, then we should restrict DNA testing. I, on the other hand, believe that our system of justice exists to punish only those for whom guilt is certain beyond a reasonable doubt. If new technology or evidence is likely to throw a reasonable doubt on a conviction, then the convict should get a new trial. If we, the people, make a mistaken conviction because we couldn’t know any better, that might be forgivable. If we continue to uphold a mistaken conviction because we just don’t want to be bothered to find out an easily-verifiable fact, then we are guilty of at least false arrest, and possibly murder.
Marquis’s last paragraph says it all, from his point of view:
“We have far more to fear from guilty people wrongly freed by the courts than from that tiny number wrongfully imprisoned and the even smaller number of them who actually are innocent.”
Does the justice system exist only to decrease our fears, or does it exist to punish / deter / remove criminals? When we imprison innocent men only to assuage our fear of crime, we won’t actually reduce crime, though DAs will trumpet that imprisonment as a reason to feel safe. To the extent that imprisonment works at all, it works only if we ACTUALLY IMPRISON THE RIGHT PEOPLE, and not simply close cases because it’s convenient to do so.
Well, you know the title of the blog. If there’s anyone who wants to help me make sense of this, feel free to email me.
Myths Aside, Death Row Isn't Filled With Innocents
By JOSHUA MARQUIS
The recent conventional wisdom presumption that the nation's death rows are packed with innocent men and women is dead wrong …. It turns out, however, that the states with the highest reversal rates are also among the states that seek the death penalty the least and spend the most defending accused murderers ….
Most (death penalty reversals in Oregon) were for "faulty jury instructions" or other hyper-procedural errors ….
Well, of course the states with the highest reversal rates are those that spend the most defending accused murderers. If you accuse and convict someone of murder, and then spend nothing to defend him or appeal a conviction, it’s a pretty good bet that there won’t be a reversal.
And why does Mr. Marquis think that “faulty jury instructions” to the jurors who vote to convict are not related to actual innocence. For example, it’s been my experience that most people don’t understand that, should they become jurors, they need to make a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict. Rather, it seems that most people use the standard of “well, whatever evidence is easy for the state to present has to be good enough to get a conviction, otherwise all criminals will go free.” If jurors are not properly disabused of their incorrect ideas, and convict when the law says they shouldn’t, it is proper for us to act as if the convicted was really guilty?
Marquis goes on to praise a bill that would “restrict DNA testing to those for whom tests could establish innocence.” Yes, that’s probably the efficient thing to do, and it would probably threaten DA records as little as possible. If the purpose of our system of justice is only to protect DAs, then we should restrict DNA testing. I, on the other hand, believe that our system of justice exists to punish only those for whom guilt is certain beyond a reasonable doubt. If new technology or evidence is likely to throw a reasonable doubt on a conviction, then the convict should get a new trial. If we, the people, make a mistaken conviction because we couldn’t know any better, that might be forgivable. If we continue to uphold a mistaken conviction because we just don’t want to be bothered to find out an easily-verifiable fact, then we are guilty of at least false arrest, and possibly murder.
Marquis’s last paragraph says it all, from his point of view:
“We have far more to fear from guilty people wrongly freed by the courts than from that tiny number wrongfully imprisoned and the even smaller number of them who actually are innocent.”
Does the justice system exist only to decrease our fears, or does it exist to punish / deter / remove criminals? When we imprison innocent men only to assuage our fear of crime, we won’t actually reduce crime, though DAs will trumpet that imprisonment as a reason to feel safe. To the extent that imprisonment works at all, it works only if we ACTUALLY IMPRISON THE RIGHT PEOPLE, and not simply close cases because it’s convenient to do so.
Well, you know the title of the blog. If there’s anyone who wants to help me make sense of this, feel free to email me.
Monday, February 25, 2002
From the USS Clueless:
Man Tried in Brother's Rape Case
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The Associated Press
Sunday, February 24, 2002; 7:28 PM
HOUMA, La. –– A man was expected to stand trial Monday for a rape his brother was wrongly convicted of committing 19 years ago.
DNA testing that cleared Clyde Charles also showed that there was a one-in-71,400 chance that his brother Marlo Charles was the rapist.
To summarize the case for when the AP link is gone: Clyde Charles was convicted of rape in 1981, then cleared of rape by DNA technology. In the course of clearing him, the district attorney apparently found that Clyde’s brother, Marlo, had a 1/71,400 chance of being the rapist. This is AFTER the rape victim had (wrongly) identified Clyde as being the rapist. So, the victim did NOT identify Marlo as the rapist, and DNA happens to indicate that there is a 1/71,400 chance that Marlo committed the rape. Based on this, the DA decided to charge Marlo with rape.
DenBeste is spot-on in his analysis of the racial motivation behind this insane prosecution. I've lived in New Orleans for about one and a half years, and I have good friends there. There is no doubt in my mind: racism in Louisiana is out of control. It's not just that the whites hate the blacks, the blacks hate the whites, and everyone hates the Vietnamese. (in case you didn't know, there's a large contingent of Vietnamese ex-refugees who have settled down on the Gulf of Mexico). It's that so many people allow their hatred of the other groups to obliterate whatever good sense they have when it comes down to evaluating individual members of each group.
New Orleans itself is one of the most integrated cities in the US. There are practically no geographical divisions between the races and socioeconomic groups. When I lived there, I lived across the street from the CEO of one of the largest banks in the state, kitty-corner from a local crack house, and two blocks from a small island of slums. Even so, the races and socioeconomic groups don’t mix. I would bet everything I owned that the banker never went to the crack house, and that the slumdwellers never hung out in the banker’s house, even though they could look into each other’s windows. (the banker had a 12-foot high wall around his place, but you could see into his house from any two-story building around the wall).
By contrast, Chicago, IL is the least integrated city I’ve ever lived in. And it’s just about as racist.
I currently live near Los Angeles, which more integrated than Chicago, but less so than New Orleans. LA hosted the Rodney King riots of 1992.
So what’s the message here? Living in or near the riparian valleys of the heartland makes you racist? Having the races segregated is the best solution? Integration really helps? I don’t know. All I know is that racism is real, and that it interferes with intelligent assessment of each individual. Maybe pointing it out (in case it wasn’t clear what I was doing) will help encourage people to think of each other as individuals when appropriate.
Man Tried in Brother's Rape Case
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Printer-Friendly Version
Subscribe to The Post
The Associated Press
Sunday, February 24, 2002; 7:28 PM
HOUMA, La. –– A man was expected to stand trial Monday for a rape his brother was wrongly convicted of committing 19 years ago.
DNA testing that cleared Clyde Charles also showed that there was a one-in-71,400 chance that his brother Marlo Charles was the rapist.
To summarize the case for when the AP link is gone: Clyde Charles was convicted of rape in 1981, then cleared of rape by DNA technology. In the course of clearing him, the district attorney apparently found that Clyde’s brother, Marlo, had a 1/71,400 chance of being the rapist. This is AFTER the rape victim had (wrongly) identified Clyde as being the rapist. So, the victim did NOT identify Marlo as the rapist, and DNA happens to indicate that there is a 1/71,400 chance that Marlo committed the rape. Based on this, the DA decided to charge Marlo with rape.
DenBeste is spot-on in his analysis of the racial motivation behind this insane prosecution. I've lived in New Orleans for about one and a half years, and I have good friends there. There is no doubt in my mind: racism in Louisiana is out of control. It's not just that the whites hate the blacks, the blacks hate the whites, and everyone hates the Vietnamese. (in case you didn't know, there's a large contingent of Vietnamese ex-refugees who have settled down on the Gulf of Mexico). It's that so many people allow their hatred of the other groups to obliterate whatever good sense they have when it comes down to evaluating individual members of each group.
New Orleans itself is one of the most integrated cities in the US. There are practically no geographical divisions between the races and socioeconomic groups. When I lived there, I lived across the street from the CEO of one of the largest banks in the state, kitty-corner from a local crack house, and two blocks from a small island of slums. Even so, the races and socioeconomic groups don’t mix. I would bet everything I owned that the banker never went to the crack house, and that the slumdwellers never hung out in the banker’s house, even though they could look into each other’s windows. (the banker had a 12-foot high wall around his place, but you could see into his house from any two-story building around the wall).
By contrast, Chicago, IL is the least integrated city I’ve ever lived in. And it’s just about as racist.
I currently live near Los Angeles, which more integrated than Chicago, but less so than New Orleans. LA hosted the Rodney King riots of 1992.
So what’s the message here? Living in or near the riparian valleys of the heartland makes you racist? Having the races segregated is the best solution? Integration really helps? I don’t know. All I know is that racism is real, and that it interferes with intelligent assessment of each individual. Maybe pointing it out (in case it wasn’t clear what I was doing) will help encourage people to think of each other as individuals when appropriate.
Sunday, February 24, 2002
E-mails detail Indiana Guard 'ghosts'
By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
'Ghost soldiers' inflate Guard numbers
Misconduct marks Guard command
WASHINGTON — Evidence continues to grow that National Guard units across the country are undermanned and have faked their troop level reports to Washington for years in order to protect their flow of federal money and to hide their inability to retain troops.
Surprise surprise, bureaucrats turn out to be crooks when they think no one is watching. Even military officers are just ordinary crooks in times of peace.
I’m from Chicago, so I’ve thought a lot about the kind of people who create ghost payrolls, and more about the kind who tolerate it. Creating ghost payrolls is simple enough to understand; the perpetrators get more money that they don’t have to share with real employees.
What’s harder to understand is the people who know about these scams but don’t benefit and don’t mind. As a former Chicagoan, I’ve been in that situation. What is it about otherwise normal people who have their tax money taken from them and stolen, and who just don’t care?
My thought: I think that the members of the general public who tolerate corruption somehow convince themselves that they are in on the gag. For me, this is most clear in Chicago, IL. Chicago was home to a crooked House Ways and Means Chairman named Dan Rostenkowski who was eventually convicted of (among other things) defrauding the federal government (and thus the Chicago taxpayers) of millions of dollars. In Chicago, Mr. Rostenkowski became a hero after coming home from his time in the federal prison. Somehow, people convinced themselves that Mr. Rostenkowski was their friend after it came to light that he was stealing their money for himself. This was even true among people who didn't gain from Mr. Rostenkowski's activities. Bizzare. It was part gross misunderstanding of economics (people didn't realize that the pork Mr. R. brought home to them was something that they paid for in higher taxes and higher prices) and mass insanity (the people who did get the pork were a large enough "rah-rah" section that even people who gained nothing from Mr. R. thought he must have been a good guy. After all, thousands of hoodlums can't be wrong.)
As shown by this story, however, the military seems to have an “off” switch for this type of behavior. When the nation is at war, military corruption suddenly seems a lot less acceptable. In fact, it’s worth noting that the ghost troop scheme, though probably flourishing for decades, became newsworthy only when the nation went to war (though an undeclared war). I don’t think that civilian government scams ever gain the kind of perceived importance that gives enough urgency to make a national story about even low level corruption.
So is the military less corrupt than civilians? Probably not, but the tolerance for military corruption is probably temporarily depressed by the war. At least I hope so.
By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
'Ghost soldiers' inflate Guard numbers
Misconduct marks Guard command
WASHINGTON — Evidence continues to grow that National Guard units across the country are undermanned and have faked their troop level reports to Washington for years in order to protect their flow of federal money and to hide their inability to retain troops.
Surprise surprise, bureaucrats turn out to be crooks when they think no one is watching. Even military officers are just ordinary crooks in times of peace.
I’m from Chicago, so I’ve thought a lot about the kind of people who create ghost payrolls, and more about the kind who tolerate it. Creating ghost payrolls is simple enough to understand; the perpetrators get more money that they don’t have to share with real employees.
What’s harder to understand is the people who know about these scams but don’t benefit and don’t mind. As a former Chicagoan, I’ve been in that situation. What is it about otherwise normal people who have their tax money taken from them and stolen, and who just don’t care?
My thought: I think that the members of the general public who tolerate corruption somehow convince themselves that they are in on the gag. For me, this is most clear in Chicago, IL. Chicago was home to a crooked House Ways and Means Chairman named Dan Rostenkowski who was eventually convicted of (among other things) defrauding the federal government (and thus the Chicago taxpayers) of millions of dollars. In Chicago, Mr. Rostenkowski became a hero after coming home from his time in the federal prison. Somehow, people convinced themselves that Mr. Rostenkowski was their friend after it came to light that he was stealing their money for himself. This was even true among people who didn't gain from Mr. Rostenkowski's activities. Bizzare. It was part gross misunderstanding of economics (people didn't realize that the pork Mr. R. brought home to them was something that they paid for in higher taxes and higher prices) and mass insanity (the people who did get the pork were a large enough "rah-rah" section that even people who gained nothing from Mr. R. thought he must have been a good guy. After all, thousands of hoodlums can't be wrong.)
As shown by this story, however, the military seems to have an “off” switch for this type of behavior. When the nation is at war, military corruption suddenly seems a lot less acceptable. In fact, it’s worth noting that the ghost troop scheme, though probably flourishing for decades, became newsworthy only when the nation went to war (though an undeclared war). I don’t think that civilian government scams ever gain the kind of perceived importance that gives enough urgency to make a national story about even low level corruption.
So is the military less corrupt than civilians? Probably not, but the tolerance for military corruption is probably temporarily depressed by the war. At least I hope so.
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