Here's a fun video from the folks at Reason.tv looking at 30 years of censorial congressional buffoonery on music, movies, TV, and video games. Be sure to catch the clip of Frank Zappa's legendary congressional testimony toward the end.

Related: I'd like to suggest that we reanimate Frank Zappa and H.L. Mencken for the purpose of co-hosting a current events TV show.

I'd watch the hell out of that. Science: Please get to work on this.

-- State regulators in Louisiana battle the terrible scourge of . . . cheap milk.

-- Will Disney let anyone see this movie?

-- Bounce a check, go to jail.

-- NYC teacher worked one year in 1999, was accused of sexually harassing female students, and has collected nearly $1 million in "rubber room" checks ever since.

-- The most heartbreaking, horrifying headline you'll read this year.

-- U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz -- whose office went after Aaron Swartz -- may appeal her loss in one of the more egregious asset forfeiture cases I've seen in a while.

On October 15, 1985, more than 100 law enforcement officers swarmed the entire town of Jerome, Arizona. The historic hilltop hamlet was a boomtown in the 19th and early 20th century after copper deposits were discovered nearby.

Once the copper was gone, Jerome atrophied into a ghost town by the early 1950s. But some counterculture hippies rediscovered the town in the mid-60s, and for 20 years it served as an artsy, bohemian enclave.

Jerome also loved its pot. Residents grew the drug in the nearby hills, and legalization sympathizers had taken over the local government. Jerome officials took a live and let live approach to marijuana. That is, until an informant moved in and began recording his conversations around town for state and federal anti-drug agencies.

The team of state cops and federal agents moved in early that autumn morning. One resident told The New York Times, “To bring 100 policemen into a small town at 5 o’clock in the morning, dragging women and children out of bed, scaring them half to death, to get 9 or 10 pounds of marijuana is asinine.”

Police later said the haul was closer to 50 pounds. They arrested over 20 people, including the police chief, two city council members, and the former mayor.

A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which organized the raid, explained to the Times why the aggressive tactics were necessary. “It’s a town that would like to secede and carry on its own life style. The people there strongly believe in an individual’s freedom, above all else.”

And we certainly can't have that.

(The "Raid of the Day" features accounts of police raids I've found, researched, and reported while writing my forthcoming book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. It's due out in July, but you can pre-order it here.)

Well, yes. It is. Especially when government is clearly at fault.

There's a lot going on in this video, but it all revolves around regulatory incompetence and the unintended consequences of ill-considered policies. There's probably some merit to removing the incentives to rebuild in areas especially prone to natural disasters. But when people rely on a specific set of policies and assessments from federal agencies when, say, spending their savings to purchase their first home, you can't then pull the rug out from under them years later when you realize those policies and assessments were flawed.

This poor family is now stuck with the shell of a house destroyed by fire and a property rendered worthless by bad policy, and all they while they're still required to pay their mortgage and mandatory flood insurance. They're basically being forced to bear the mistakes of the people who made the bad policies they relied upon.

It's telling that the one government employee who took action on their behalf was their representative in Congress, who not coincidentally is the federal government employee in this story with the most directly accountable to the public. FEMA, which has very little public accountability, wouldn't even return the couple's calls, even though FEMA regulations are at the heart of the problem, here.

I'm also impressed by the grace and dignity the couple shows in the video. The refuse to walk away from their mortgage, even though at the moment that's probably their best option. They're still committed to doing the right thing, even if the public officials who allegedly work for them . . . won't.

In late March of 1995, deputies with the Dodge County, Wisconsin Sheriff's Department claimed to have found traces of marijuana in a trashcan outside the home of Paul Shavlik, Cheryl Kadinger, and Jason Tews. That was reason enough for Lt. James Rohr, Det. Robert Neuman, Det. Anthony Soblewski, and Dep. Kevin Hill to wage a violent, no-knock, 2:45 am raid.

On the morning of April 1st, the three roommates were tossed to the ground, handcuffed, and held motionless face down on the floor at gunpoint for 45 minutes while the police, as the roommates put it, "tore the place to shreds." Kadinger says the officers also made sexual comments while rifling through her underwear drawer. They found no drugs and made no arrests.

Two weeks later, the same cops raided another home, again after claiming to have found marijuana residue in an outside trashcan. The second raid didn't produce a significant quantity drugs, either. But it did end with a tragedy.

Scott Bryant, 29, had a petty criminal history, but relatives said he had put all of that behind him after winning sole custody of his 8-year-old son Colten. It had been four years since his last arrest, and Bryant was working long hours as a tool and die maker to support his boy. He was also taking classes at a technical college, where faculty described him as "a straight-A student." Bryant's sister Shannon Halloff told the Wisconsin State Journal in 1995, "He's shown us the last few years what he's made of. He really turned his life around."

On the night of April 17th, Rohr, Neuman, Soblewski, and Hill gathered outside of Bryant's mobile home. Rohr would later say he knocked on the door before entering, but neighbors who were 100 feet from the trailer at the time said they heard no knock or announcement. Rohr kicked open the door, and he and Neuman went inside. Bryant was sleeping. Seconds later, Neuman shot Bryant flush in the chest. Bryant was unarmed. He died in his home as his son slept in the next room.

Neuman later told investigators he "couldn't remember" pulling the trigger. That was all he would say. Neuman was known in the department for making big drug busts that generated headlines. Sheriff Stephen Fitzgerald said the shooting was "tragic," and compared it to a hunting accident. The local district attorney determined that the shooting was "not in any way justified," put declined to press charges.

The following year Dodge County settled with the Bryant family for $950,000.

(The "Raid of the Day" features accounts of police raids I've found, researched, and reported while writing my forthcoming book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. It's due out in July, but you can pre-order it here.)

-- Beltway bandits may (finally) be staring at hard times ahead.

-- Not at all surprising: L.A.P.D. using anti-terror policing powers in cases unrelated terrorism.

-- Headline of the day.

-- The 17 ways we argue politics.

-- Congratulations to Mr. Peter Barone on his accomplishment.

-- Cracked takes on misconceptions about the criminal justice system. (Of course, there are more than just five.)

-- Keep an eye on this story. It just doesn't add up.

November 2, 1992: Fordham University student Sylvia Romero and her sister Elsa were relaxing in their apartment when they heard a loud knock at the door. Before either of them could answer, the strangers outside began to beat down the door.

The door popped open, but was still held partially closed by a chain latch. Sylvia Romero then peered through the crack to ask what was happening and was hit with a burst of mace. When the door finally came open, 15 plainclothes narcotics cops stormed the apartment and pushed the two women to the floor. The sisters were strip-searched, handcuffed, then told to lie still at gunpoint while the cops ravaged their apartment. According to the Romero sisters, the cops never identified themselves as police. When Romero, by then sobbing, asked who the men were and what they wanted, she says one of them responded, “Bitch, shut the fuck up!”

The police found no drugs, but took the women into custody anyway. They were later released without charges. When they returned home, they found that the police had continued to search, and had caused more damage to their apartment. The cops had also taken their dog Crissy to the pound.

The raid was based on a tip from an informant that police would find heroin inside the apartment. Housing Police Chief Joseph Kinney told the New York Daily News that the raid was conducted according to "standard procedure." The women's brother, an attorney for the city of Hartford, Connecticut, told the paper, "My mother's biggest fear was that someone would break into the [sisters’] apartment and something would happen to her children. She never expected that it would be the cops."

(The "Raid of the Day" features accounts of police raids I've found, researched, and reported while writing my forthcoming book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. It's due out in July, but you can pre-order it here.)

Florida State Rep. Matt Gaetz is fed up with death row inmates and their endless appeals.

Florida has a broken death penalty system, delaying justice for killers and denying justice for victims. Of the 408 people currently on death row, 141 have been there longer than 20 years. Only California has more people on death row longer than Florida. A Florida death row inmate is statistically more likely to die of natural causes than be executed. The average stay on death row is nearly 14 years and on the rise . . .

Every death penalty defendant deserves a fair trial. In Florida, they even get a mandatory appeal to the Supreme Court. But after the Supreme Court has spoken all subsequent appeals should be limited.

Timely justice will also make us safer. The death penalty cannot possibly deter violence if executions only happen after memories of the crimes and victims have faded decades ago.

Rep. Gaetz's views on the death penalty carry extra weight, given that he chairs the Criminal Justice Subcommittee in the Florida House of Representatives. You'd think, then, that he'd be more concerned about this:

With this decision, Penalver becomes Florida’s 24th exonerated Death Row prisoner. Florida has exonerated far more Death Row inmates than any other state.

Since Florida resumed executions in the 1970’s, 24 wrong-fully convicted Death Row prisoners have been exonerated while 74 prisoners have been executed. “That’s one exoneration for every three executions,” said Mark Elliott, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP), “How many more innocent people will be sentenced to die in Florida before our state leaders realize that this is a fatal problem that cannot be fixed?”

By my count, at least six of Florida's death row exonorees spent more than 10 years in prison. That means at least six (and probably more) were likely saved by those lengthy appeals that Gaetz wants to eliminate. Just last month, a jury acquitted Seth Penalver of a 1994 triple murder for which he had at one point had been sentenced to death. He spent seven years on death row.

It seems like Gatez should first devote his attention to fixing the problems in the state's criminal justice system that have caused so many wrongful capital convictions before he starts looking for ways to execute people more swiftly. (He might start by looking at all the junk science that the state's judges have been allowing into criminal trials.)

But it isn't just Gaetz. Most of the rest of the state's legislators, prosecutors and public officials seem just as determined.

This year, Florida has 21 new death sentences out of 78 nationally—that’s more than one quarter (26.9 percent) of all new death sentences in the U.S. One small corner of our state, the Jacksonville area, handed down one quarter of all new Florida death sentences. “The state picks up the tab, so areas like Duval County burden all Floridians with their extreme use of numerous, big-ticket death penalty prosecutions,” said Elliott.

While death sentences have dropped dramatically in other states, Florida is expanding use of the death penalty. “It is both tragic and ironic that the state that has sent the highest number of wrongfully convicted people to Death Row is now condemning the most people to death,” said Elliott.

Never mind all the caution lights on your dashboard, Florida. Just close your eyes and step on the gas.

In 2008, FBI Agents raided the Richmond, California home of Artesia West as part of a drug and gang sweep. They were looking for West's son, who was wanted on drug charges, but didn't live at the house.

When West opened the door, she attempted to tell the agents they could search all they liked, but to be careful around her disabled daughter, Laquisha. Two years earlier, the girl had been left quadriplegic after she was struck by a bullet during a drive-by shooting.

But before she could speak, West later said, the agents "were coming in the side door shooting things.” The agents deployed flash grenades and repeatedly screamed at at the disabled girl to "get down." West told the San Francisco TV station KGO, "She kept telling them, 'I can't get down.'"

By design, flash grenades produce large plumes of smoke -- the intent is to distract and disorient the occupants of the residence about to be raided. But as the agents detained and questioned West while they searched her apartment, they left Laquisha Turner in the same room where they had set off the grenades. Because her injuries left her unable to move her wheelchair, she was forced to sit and inhale the smoke.

Turner fell ill after the raid, was hospitalized, and died a month later.

West blamed the smoke inhalation for her daugher's death. The December 2, 2008 KGO report indicated that autopsy results were due in a couple of weeks, but I've been unable to find any follow-up reports on whether the smoke was found to have contributed to her death. I've also been unable to track down Artesia West.

(The "Raid of the Day" features accounts of police raids I've found, researched, and reported while writing my forthcoming book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. It's due out in June, but you can pre-order it here.)

After serving 15 years in prison for the crime of sexually assaulting his two children, a Utah judge has declared Kevin George Peterson factually innocent.

Peterson, 54, formerly of West Haven, now an Ogden truck driver, was sent to prison in early 1993 on charges alleging sexual contact short of rape. He moved back to the Ogden area when he was released from prison in November 2007.

Peterson’s lawsuit includes sworn affidavits from his two children, who say they were coerced by their mother and stepfather to tell authorities their father sexually molested them. The son and daughter were 11 and 9 at the time.

Peterson pleaded no contest to the second-degree felony charges, meaning he denied guilt but couldn’t defeat the state’s evidence.

Peterson's ex-wife and her new husband apparently can't be found and, according to this account, likely couldn't even be charged due to the statute of limitations. Alleging "sexual contact short of rape" of course meant the prosecution could convict Peterson without any real physical evidence. It was his word against his kids'. And what kid would lie about a thing like that?

More than you'd think. But here's an aspect of wrongful convictions that's often overlooked:

Peterson served the full 15 years of a one- to 15-year prison term for child molestation because he refused to admit guilt to the state Board of Pardons.

Call it the innocence penalty. Innocent people are of course much less likely to admit to the crimes for which they're accused --before and after conviction. (Although it still happens.) That "lack of remorse" often moves prosecutors to throw the book at them, judges to give them longer sentences, and paroles boards to keep them behind bars for as long as possible.

There are other, more subtle ways the innocent are often punished more severely than the guilty. A few years ago, Richard Paey -- a Florida man given basically a life sentence for his supply of painkillers, even though even prosecutors conceded he was likely using them only to treat his own pain -- told me about them.

I didn’t do very well in prison. Fortunately, one of the prison doctors was very kind to me. He said he saw in me what he called 'the consciousness of innocence.' It’s very dangerous. He said if you bring it into prison with you, you will have the most horrifying experience that a human being can possibly have. You won’t survive. You have to acclimate and accept your situation and not resist. You can’t keep holding on to your innocence. You have to let go of it and start acclimating.

Paey held on to his innocence, and fortunately was pardoned in 2007. But it isn't difficult to how other innocent people might chose a different path when given the opportunity.

So as I've mentioned, I have a book on police militarization coming out in June. (Pre-order it here!) In anticipation of that, I'm starting a new "raid of the day" feature on this blog. Each weekday between now and then, I'll post the details of a militarized police operation. Most will be raids that were botched, on the wrong house, or in some other way went wrong. But I'll also feature some that went right -- or at least as intended -- which can be just as problematic. My intent here is to show the breadth and depth of the problems that come with a more militarized domestic police force. And, of course, to promote my book!

I know, June is a ways away. Not to worry! I have plenty of material. In fact, I could have started this feature a couple years ago, and still have had more than enough examples to take us through June.

Today's featured raid is the March 1996 raid in Miami, Florida that claimed the life of 73-year-old retired salesman Richard Brown.

The police in Miami had received a tip from an informant that Brown, who had no criminal record, was selling drugs from his small apartment. So they sent the SWAT team. The police claimed at the time that Brown began firing at them as soon as they entered his home. So they fired back.

And they fired back.

And they fired back.

By the time they were finished, they had pumped 123 rounds into Richard Brown’s apartment—nine of them into Richard Brown. One Miami SWAT officer also mistakenly shot one of his colleagues in the back.

The police never found any drugs. They did find something else, which they weren’t expecting: Brown's 14-year-old great-granddaughter Janeka, whom he had raised. They found her cowering in the bathroom. When the raid began, Brown had told the girl to take the phone into the bathroom, to call the police, and to wait until it was safe. So she waited, prayed, and trembled as bullets dug into the walls around her. When she finally came out, she saw the bloodied body of the man who had adopted and raised her slouched in his bedroom closet. Janeka Brown would later receive a $2.5 million settlement from the city of Miami.

In 2002, she told 60 Minutes that she never saw the gun the police claimed Richard Brown fired to instigate the barrage of gunfire. That’s because it didn’t exist. "One of the officers supposedly picked up the gun—who gave it to another police officer, who gave it to another police officer, and then suddenly it came to the crime scene technician," Brown’s attorney said in an interview with the CBS news program. “And, of course, lo and behold, there were no fingerprints on it, or smudge marks or anything of that nature.”

That still wasn’t enough to prevent an internal report from clearing the SWAT officers of any wrongdoing. Former Miami Internal Affairs supervisor and 25-year police veteran John Dalton told the Miami Herald that the Internal Affairs supervisor at the time of the raid, William O'Brien, discouraged a thorough investigation of the Brown case. "They were very defensive about this shooting from the beginning," Dalton said, adding that he'd been "chewed out" by O'Brien for asking difficult questions. Raul Martinez, the Internal Affairs officer who cleared the men who killed Richard Brown, would later become Miami’s chief of police.

But the questions about Brown’s gun persisted, and eventually led to a federal investigation. Five of the officers involved in the Brown raid were indicted for lying about the gun. That investigation raised more concerns, and federal prosecutors started to look into other cases. From a 2002 CBS News report:

Now prosecutors have filed criminal charges against another half dozen Miami officers in four more shootings. They expect to go on trial in a year.

Guy Lewis, then U.S. attorney, laid out the government's case at a news conference. "These officers planted weapons," he said. "They lied about their roles in the shootings. They lied about what they saw. They falsified reports. They tampered with crime scenes."

Lewis claims the cops stole guns, wiped them clean of fingerprints and held on to them, sometimes for months, until they needed to plant them at a scene. The officers have pled not guilty and have been suspended with pay.

The officers all were members of Miami's elite police squads – the SWAT teams, the crime suppression unit, the street narcotics unit.

Officer Arturo Beguristain, who has been involved in more shootings than any other officer on the force, is one of those who emptied his weapon during the Brown raid. Beguristain alone fired 30 shots and also found the gun police say Brown fired. He also has found guns at two others shootings now under indictment.

One member of the SWAT team, improbably named Robert Rambo, testified for the prosecution. He told 60 Minutes that the SWAT teams in Miami “operated by their own rules” and “expected everyone else to lie to protect them.” In all, 11 Miami cops were tried on a variety of charges related to planting guns and covering up four shootings in the mid-1990s. In 2003, a federal jury returned a mixed verdict. Four officers were convicted for their actions with respect to two shootings, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict for the other seven.

Most notably, even though Richard Brown wasn't a drug dealer; even though he never fired at the Miami SWAT team, as they said he did; even though he never even had a gun; even though they recklessly fired more than 100 rounds into his house, killing him; even though they had no idea there was also a 14-year-old girl inside; despite all of that, all of the officers involved in the raid on Richard Brown were acquitted of all criminal charges.

There will be more problems with Miami SWAT teams in the coming years. More on that in future "raid of the day" entries.

-- A century from now, I we'll look back at imperialist U.S. drug policy as one of the most catastrophic foreign policy mistakes in American history. The direct impact is obvious, and bad enough. But there's also the indirect impact. The drug war has soured an entire continent to us. That means hostility to otherwise sound policies -- like economic policy -- because they come from the same source as the drug war. And they're a hell of a lot worse off for it.

-- There's some evidence that the earth may have been struck by a gamma ray in the 8th century.

-- Can DEA agents trespass onto your property, install hidden surveillance cameras, then monitor your activities to collect evidence leading to your arrest and conviction -- all without a warrant? The U.S. Supreme Court may soon consider that question. At the moment, it appears they can.

-- Leaf blower portraits.

-- Google Earth now shows the locations of North Korean concentration camps.

-- Billie Holiday on the evils of the drug war and occupational licensing.

-- The case against banning "assault weapons," as inadvertently made by a publication that favors banning "assault weapons."

-- WTF, Evolution?

--

I have a new two-part investigative series from Mississippi up at the HuffPost main site today.

The first part looks at the 15-year-old murder of Kathy Mabry, which was only solved last month thanks to two defense attorneys at the Mississippi Innocence Project. Mabry's brutal murder devastated the small Delta towns of Belzoni and Isola. It went unsolved because Steven Hayne and -- in this case, more importantly -- Michael West first led authorities to the wrong man. Mabry's killer went free, and went on to kill again. I've been investigating this forensics scandal in Mississippi for six years now, and this case shows that the victims aren't just the wrongly convicted, but the family of the people killed, the people who the real culprits go on to harm, and in this case, well-intentioned public officials, and even entire towns.

The second part is a comprehensive timeline of major events and notable cases covering the approximately 25 years that Hayne and West have operated in Mississippi.

Many, many thank yous to my HuffPost colleagues Sasha Belenky, Ann Bulter, Chris Spurlock, and Chris McGonigal for their help putting it all together.

The death of Internet activist Aaron Swartz has generated a lot of discussion about the power of prosecutors -- particularly federal prosecutors. This is a good thing. The conversation is long overdue. But the discussion needs to go well beyond Swartz and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Prosecutors have enormous power. Even investigations that don't result in any charges can ruin lives, ruin reputations, and drive their targets into bankruptcy. It has become an overtly political position -- in general, but particularly at the federal level. If a prosecutor wants to ruin your life, he or she can. Even if you've done nothing wrong, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it.

There are a number of factors that got us here, and it's worth looking at them in turn.

We have too many laws.

There have been a number of projects that attempted to count the total number of federal criminal laws. They usually give up. The federal criminal code is just too complex, too convoluted, and too weighted down with duplications, overlapping laws, and other complications to come to a definite number. But by most estimates, there are at least 4,000 separate criminal laws at the federal level, with another 10,000 to 300,000 regulations that can be enforced criminally. Just this year 400 new federal laws took effect, as did 29,000 new state laws. The civil libertarian and defense attorney Harvey Silverglate has argued that most Americans now unknowingly now commit about three felonies per day.

But you, citizen, are expected to know and comply with all of these laws. That isn't possible, of course. It would probably take you most of the year to understand them all, at which point you'd have the next year's batch of new laws to learn. You'd probably also need to hire a team of attorneys to help you translate the laws into terms you can understand. After the McCain-Feingold legislation passed in 2003, for example, both parties held weekly, three-hour classes just to educate members of Congress on how to comply with the bill they had just passed. This is a bill they wrote that applied to themselves, and they still had to bring in high-paid lawyers explain to them how not to break it.

Most of us don't have that option. And it's absurd that someone should have to hire an attorney or tax accountant merely to pay their taxes, run a business, run for office, or start a political organization without fear of getting hit with exorbitant fines, or going to jail.

Worse, while we citizens can go to prison for unwittingly breaking laws of which we weren't aware, prosecutors and law enforcement officers who wrongly arrest, charge, and try citizens based on a misunderstanding of the law generally face no sanction or repercussions. Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, a police officer who illegally arrests someone because he wasn't aware of the law can only be held liable if the law in question was "clearly established" at the time he violated it. Prosecutors are protected by absolute immunity, which basically shields them from liability no matter how egregious their mistakes.

We need to move away from the idea that every act we find immoral, repugnant, or unsavory needs to be criminalized. Every new criminal law gives prosecutors more power. Once we have so many laws that it's likely we're all breaking at least one of them, the prosecutor's job is no longer about enforcing the laws, but about choosing which laws to enforce. It's then a short slide to the next step: Choosing what people need to be made into criminals, then simply picking the laws necessary to make that happen.

The laws are too vaguely and broadly written.

Federal laws on matters like conspiracy, racketeering, wiretapping, mail fraud, and money laundering gives prosecutors enormous discretion and leeway. Likewise for many of the post-9/11 laws that address giving aid to designated terrorist organizations, the notoriously awful Honest Services Fraud law (which the Supreme Court narrowed in 2009), and of course the CFAA.

There has also been a trend over the last 20 years or so toward laws that don't require prosecutors to show criminal intent. This means you can be prosecuted for crimes you had no idea you were breaking -- even laws you actively tried not to break. A 2010 study co-authored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Heritage Foundation found that in its rush to criminalize more and more behavior, Congress has been passing poorly-drafted laws that increasingly lack any requirement at all to show intent. Even when intent is included, the study found, it tends to be vague and open to interpretation (which also means open to abuse) by prosecutors.

At the state and local level, laws against "public nuisance," "disorderly conduct," and "keeping a disorderly house" also typically give law enforcement and prosecutors wide discretion.

Take all of that with the massive total number of laws, and you get a system ripe for abuse. If a prosecutor has it out for you, he can probably find a law he can plausibly argue you've broken. Even if you're acquitted -- in fact, even if the charge is dropped, or if you're investigated but never charged -- you don't get compensated for the time, stress, and expense the whole affair cost you. In federal cases you're supposed to at least be reimbursed for you legal expenses, but that doesn't appear to happen much, either.

Prosecutors have perverse incentives.

At the state level, prosecutors are reelected, move on to higher office, or win prestigious jobs at high-powered law firms for racking up large numbers of convictions -- and for getting high-profile convictions. They're rarely publicly praised or rewarded for declining to prosecute someone in the interest of justice. I'm sure it happens. But it isn't the sort of thing even a well-intentioned prosecutor is going to boast about in a press release.

USA Today recently found that federal prosecutors who commit misconduct en route to wrongful convictions are rarely if ever sanctioned. Other studies have come to similar conclusions about state prosecutors. Often, prosecutors aren't even named in appeals court decisions that overturn convictions due to misconduct. And there's of course the aforementioned absolute immunity, an absurd bubble of protection afforded only to prosecutors and judges that the Supreme Court basically cooked up from scratch.

It isn't difficult to see how we might get unjust outcomes when incentive points toward building an impressive volume of convictions, and seeking out high-profile, publicity-seeking cases that tend to me more driven by politics than justice, while there's rarely penalty for breaking the rules or going too far.

Protections have morphed into weapons.

Grand juries, intended and once used to protect people from the excesses of prosecutors, are today used by prosecutors to harass and intimidate. I wrote about one example a few years ago when Assistant U.S. Attorney used a grand jury investigation to silence pain patient advocate Siobhan Reynolds, who had been criticizing the office's prosecution of doctors. Plea bargaining is often seen as a tool that lets guilty people get off with less punishment than they deserve by pleading to lesser crimes. But too often, it too is used as a weapon. Thanks to the overlapping and duplicitous laws, prosecutors can stack charges to build enormously long potential sentences. This happened with Swartz. The threat of decades in prison can then make pleading to a lesser charge and lesser time enticing, even to an innocent person. This is an everyday thing, but the problem was put on wide display during the scandals in Tulia and Hearne, Texas, where dozens of people pleaded guilty to crimes they didn't commit.

Bringing the hammer down.

The federal government in particular seems to be getting less tolerant of challenges to its authority, and more willing to use more force and more serious charges to make an example of people who defy the law. You see this with the ridiculously disproportionate SWAT raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. No one seriously believes the people running these businesses are a threat to federal law enforcement officers. Sending the SWAT team is about sending a message. The government is sending a similar message when it conducts heavy handed raids on farmers and co-ops that sell raw dairy products, or when it sends paramilitary teams to raid the offices of doctors suspected of over-prescribing prescription painkillers. You see it when the feds throw the book at suspected copyright violators, or at the executives of online poker sites, threatening decades in prison. The goal in these cases isn't to stop and punish someone who is a serious threat to other people. It's to send a message to the rest of us: Defy the government as this person did, and here is what will happen to you.

The politicization of criminality.

When everyone is breaking the law, it becomes rather easy to use the law as a political weapon. We saw this during the Bush administration with a number of targeted prosecutions aimed at prominent members of the other party, or at "sending a message" of some kind. And of course the law and order instinct toward more power for cops and prosecutors has long been more associated with conservatives.

But the left is guilty, too. The rush to publicly convict George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin resulted in an indictment that most defense attorneys have since characterized as absurdly overreaching and aggressive. Yet outside of legal commentators and pundits, most on the left seemed to be okay with it. There have also been credible accusations of prosecutorial misconduct that have received little coverage outside the conservative media (which itself seems suddenly interested in protecting the rights of the accused). When Elliott Spitzer was trouncing the constitution with aggressive tactics in his pursuit of corporate bigwigs, he was largely cheered by progressives and editorial boards who are traditionally more supportive of the rights of the accused. When the Heritage Foundation first undertook its overcriminalization project, the progressive organization Media Matters actually mocked the conservative think tank for being soft on crime.

Too often, criticism of prosecutorial excesses isn't framed as this should never happen, but why isn't this happening to the people I don't like? Until that changes -- until partisans are willing to condemn abuses even by their own, or committed against their political opponents or people they personally find unsavory -- the problem is only going to get worse.

I'd suggest all of these factors (and probably a few I haven't thought of) have increasingly made us a nation ruled not by laws, but by politics (and by aspiring politicians). And once criminality is influenced primarily by politics, we're all just potential criminals.