"Immense Relief" in Kansas

The backlash against the Rove Republican Racket persecution of political opponents and its use of the broad Honest Services crime statute has come  now come to fruition.

In Kansas last Friday, just hours after Barry Grissom (pictured) a new, Obama appointed U.S. Attorney took office, the case against two men who have endured two-trials, a third one in the works, saw a seven-year nightmare come to an end. As readers recall, the dishonest "Honest Services" crime was severely narrowed by the U.S. Supreme Court this past June.

The Associated Press reports:

A federal judge Friday dismissed all charges against two former Westar Energy executives who were accused of looting the Kansas utility, granting a request by prosecutors that came just hours after the state's new U.S. attorney was sworn in. Former Westar chief executive David Wittig and his top strategy officer, Douglas Lake, were charged with conspiring to inflate their compensation from the Topeka-based company and taking steps to hide their actions. A third trial date for the men, who were forced out of Westar in late 2002, was pending. Their first trial ended in a hung jury and a conviction in their second was overturned.

"I credit the Justice Department for recognizing how flawed this case was," said Patrick McInerney, an attorney for Lake. McInerney said a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling narrowing the scope of the "honest services" law — which made it a crime to "deprive another of the intangible right to honest services" — crippled the government's case against Wittig and Lake. The high court's ruling in the case against former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling found that theft of honest services is only relevant in cases involving bribes and kickbacks.

Lake, 60, of New Canaan, Conn., and his family have been living with the charges for more than seven years. "It was an immense relief," McInerney said of his client's reaction upon learning of the motion to dismiss. "It vindicates him and what he has said since the very beginning of this that he is innocent. He committed no crime and at long last it has been recognized."

Seattle's Lost Luggage

Post 9/11, the Rove Republican Racket increased the scope of intrusive government with the Patriot Act, Honest Services Crime, and other law enforcement tools that caused Americans to lose some liberty and privacy all in the name of "national security."

Besides a huge and enormous growth in national security and secret intelligence operations, the most visible change Americans have seen is at the airport: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA screens us, forces us to remove our shoes, and place our laptops in a screening basket.

Now comes the news today from Seattle. The Post Intelligencer writes:

A security supervisor at Sea-Tac International Airport has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $20,000 worth of items from checked luggage. Randy Pepper, a 50-year-old Spanaway resident, pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges related to the string of thefts, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office at Seattle. Hired by the Transportation Security Administration in 2007, Pepper was fired in July 2009 after the thefts were discovered. In pleading guilty, Pepper, a supervisory transportation security officer, admitted to taken money and jewelry from luggage he was inspecting at Sea-Tac. Authorities began investigating Pepper after another TSA employee reported seeing him removing items from luggage. According to the statement, most of the items stolen by Pepper could not be recovered because they were melted down.

And we are to trust TSA officers or their supervisors who testify against alleged "criminals?"

The meltdown of federal law enforcement officers, from the TSA to the DEA to the FBI, has grown out of a culture blessed by the Rove Cheney Bush Administration with this motto: be arrogant, be in absolute control and screw anyone who gets in your way.

Supreme Court Disbowels Honest Services Law Half-Way

Breaking News:  U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on Rove Republican Racket's strongest weapon to incarcerate Democrats: the "Dishonest" Honest Services Crime.

 The LA Times hits it on the head:

[I]t is often the least sympathetic defendants who end up seeking and winning redress from the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, Skilling challenged one of the laws used to convict him, which allows people to be prosecuted for fraud for "depriving another of the intangible right of honest services" — an ill-defined concept that has been taken to mean, in effect, the failure of politicians or corporate executives to act in the best interests of their constituents, shareholders or customers. The law, Skilling argued, was impermissibly vague and left too much discretion to prosecutors.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed — up to a point — ruling that the law went too far and setting a specific limit on its application. Although the justices declined to invalidate the law, preferring to "construe" it rather than "destroy" it, they did conclude that it fails to adequately define the behavior it prohibits. Instead of overturning the law, they limited its application to cases in which the fraud involves kickbacks or bribery paid to a third party.

It would have been preferable if the court had overturned the much-overused law entirely and left it to Congress whether to rewrite it. But the decision correctly identified the flaws in the law, which was so broadly worded that any businessman or politician who deceived his company or constituents about almost anything could be snared. Fraud and corruption must be vigorously prosecuted, but this law allowed prosecutors to make criminal charges out of questionable but not necessarily illegal activities; ultimately, the law meant whatever a judge or prosecutor decided it meant. Justice Antonin Scalia was right that the law "invites abuse by headline grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state legislators and corporate CEOs who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically questionable conduct."

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Breaking News from The Washington Post....

This news means the Rove Republican Racket will be shaking from their ankles up as true Obama reform arrives.

Justice Department officials have selected a veteran federal prosecutor with experience in death penalty and corruption cases to lead the public integrity section, which has struggled under intense scrutiny after a series of missteps last year.

Jack Smith [pictured], a former longtime assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn who is known for his courtroom skills, could join the public integrity unit within several weeks, officials said. For the past few years, Smith has coordinated sensitive investigations of foreign leaders accused of war crimes and genocide in his role as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Smith's selection opens a new chapter for the public integrity unit, a special corps of prosecutors who attack corruption in the judiciary, state legislatures and Congress.

Smith's deputy will be Raymond N. Hulser, who has been acting chief for months, since the departure of the previous leader in the aftermath of the abandoned conviction of former senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. dropped the public corruption case against Stevens last year after reviewing irregularities in the way prosecutors shared evidence and witness statements with defense attorneys.

Obama's DOJ Taking a Hard Look

With the collapse of several backdating cases and the expected shredding of the dishonest "honest services fraud" law by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Rove Republican Racket is imploding.

Now the Obama Administration and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are taking a hard look at those two areas of law that were pumped up by the Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration.

Main Justice blog writes:

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of the Criminal Division, said in a recent interview with Main Justice that the department was taking a “hard look” at the backdating cases. “We take a hard look — whether we’re talking about stock options cases or whether we’re talking about honest services cases, where it’s our obligation to assess the state of the law,” Breuer said. “That’s what we’re doing in the Criminal Division and that’s what the U.S. Attorneys’ offices are doing.”

Kentucky Woman

Sue Schmitz, the former Democratic State Representative of Alabama and grandmother, reported to prison on January 28th. She is serving a 30 month prison term at a minimum-security prison camp for women in Lexington, Kentucky.

Her political crime? Being a Democrat during the Rove Bush Cheney era. What was she convicted of? The silliest of non-crimes: doing little or no work for a nice salary. Problem was her salary was funded in part by federal funds. Karl Rove and friends said, "Gotcha!"

Throwing Honest Services Fraud Away

The Rove Republican Racket's favorite legal weapon of choice, the "honest services" fraud law, is being tossed over the side of the bridge by federal prosecutors.

The Chicago Tribune reported last week:

With a U.S. Supreme Court decision looming on the disputed "honest services" fraud law, federal prosecutors Thursday revised their indictment against former [Illinois] Gov. Rod Blagojevich, restructuring the charges without altering the specific allegations against him. Prosecutors added eight counts that mirror other charges in the indictment but that don't rely on honest services fraud. That way, if the Supreme Court limits or tosses the controversial law, prosecutors can simply drop those counts and proceed to trial as scheduled on June 3. The newly added counts, based on other statutes, would ensure Blagojevich would still face the same allegations — that he sought to improperly profit from his office, including by trying to sell a vacated U.S. Senate seat.

As reader's know, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has ripped the dishonest "honest services fraud" law to shreds saying that someone who calls in sick to go to a ball game would be guilty of a crime under this law. Across the country, during the Rove-Bush-Cheney years, Democrats and other political operatives were tossed in jail based on this vague and harmful law. Maybe the dozens of political prisoners sitting in federal prisons around the country will see freedom soon.

Ass of the Year

Time Magazine may have the Person of the Year, but our blog names the Ass of the Year, a loyal member of the Rove Republican Racket.

This year's honor goes to none other than the witch of Alabama, Queen of the Rove Racket, Alice H. Martin (pictured).

Ms. Martin, the former U.S. Attorney in Northern Alabama, targeted and terrified Democrats and engaged in political prosecutions.

From former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to former State representative Sue Schmitz, Martin ran-over the constitution and applied the dishonest honest services crime against anyone not carrying a Republican registration card.

Martin truly is the Ass of the Year!

Hope for Paul Minor

Paul Minor, the prominent Democratic fundraiser from Mississippi, targeted by the Rove Repubican Racket in part with the "dishonest" honest-services crime, now sees hope and possible liberation from federal prison. Earlier this month, several criminal charges against Minor were tossed out.

The Associated Press writes:

JACKSON (AP) — Disbarred lawyer Paul Minor and two judges he’s accused of bribing hope an unrelated case before the U.S. Supreme Court will get them out of prison. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has said the federal statute for honest-services fraud is too broad, joking it could make a crime of a worker calling in sick so he could go to a ball game.

A recent hearing before the Supreme Court has many legal experts believing the high court is poised to strike down the statute, which makes it illegal for public officials to fraudulently deprive constituents of honest services. Some observers say such a move would help Minor and former Coast judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield.

In March 2007 a federal jury convicted the three on corruption charges because Minor had helped to guarantee or pay off loans of the judges, who heard some of his cases. It was a scheme, prosecutors said, to influence the judges’ decisions and deprive the state of their honest service. They were convicted of bribery, conspiracy and fraud, and Minor also was found guilty of racketeering.

If justices throw out the statute, it would be the second victory for the three, which saw a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently toss out all their bribery convictions after finding a lack of federal jurisdiction. Matt Steffey, professor at the Mississippi College School of Law, said the application of the federal bribery statute to a state court judge whose salary and office receives no federal funds is “shaky at best.” He said he believes they would go free if the high court finds the honest-services statute unconstitutional.

“There is some possibility that prosecutors will say the claim is procedurally barred,” he said. The 5th Circuit ruling on the bribery charges means they could be resentenced on the remaining charges. It’s not clear how much the reversal will reduce Minor’s sentence; he got the most time for a racketeering conviction, which was upheld.

A Month More of Freedom in Alabama

Former Democratic Alabama State Representative Sue Schmitz, who was targeted and prosecuted twice by the Queen of the Rove Republican Racket, Alice H. Martin,was given a month more of freedom this week.

Schmitz (pictured) was eventually convicted for a non-crime--being paid to do little or no work.

The Birmingham News reports:

Former State Rep. Sue Schmitz will not have to report to jail Dec. 30 as scheduled after a federal judge extended her reporting date to Jan. 28. Schmitz, 65, was convicted in February on fraud and mail fraud charges involving federal money that paid her salary while she worked in Alabama's two-year college system. She served in the Legislature at the same time. Prosecutors argued that she did little work for her pay.

U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor Monday issued the order to extend her reporting date, following a request by Schmitz's attorneys. Federal prosecutors opposed the request, noting that Schmitz had already obtained two extensions. Schmitz is appealing her conviction and also has a request before the 11th Circuit Court to allow her to remain free on bond during her appeal.

Alabama Slammer

Sue Schmitz, the grandmother and popular former Democratic State Representative from Alabama who was targeted by the Rove Republican Racket, is going to jail, won't pass go, and won't receive $200.

Schmitz was sent to trial twice (she won the first round) for a non-crime: being paid to do little or no-work. What Karl Rove's friends did is drag her through some Alabama mud after the entity that paid her used federal funds to do so. Read more background here.

We hope the Obama Administration pardons or commutes her sentence as a Christmas gift.

FOX Affiliate WBRC writes:

Former State Representative Sue Schmitz begins her prison sentence on December 31st. A judge denied her request to remain free while she appeals her conviction. In February, Schmitz was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for a fraud conviction. She must also pay $171,000 in restitution. Prosecutors say Schmitz was paid for a job with the two-year college system, but did little or no work.

Mississippi Liar

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney from Mississppi Tom Dawson,who appeared to be planning, outlining, and preparing to write a book while still serving as a federal prosecutor and consultant to the local U.S. Attorney, appears to have shown the world he is a liar.

Dawson co-authored a book with right-wing blogger Alan Lange about the Scruggs judicial bribery cases and the political prosecution of Paul Minor, a Democratic fundraiser from Mississippi.

Dawson has repeatedly said his motives in writing the book are for the public good not greed. As Steve Seale commented on the Magnolia Marketplace blog:

I do have concerns about Mr. Dawson’s role and said so. To amplify, I don’t believe a prosecutor (particularly one with the major role Mr. Dawson had in this case) should profit in any way from the sale of a book or otherwise about the investigation or the prosecution of the parties concerned. While I don’t question the fact that he followed whatever rules are established in this regard, Mr. Dawson himself spent several paragraphs at the beginning of the book explaining how he followed such rules and why he felt it was his duty to the public to participate. One question: absent participation in any profits/pay for being an author, why didn’t Mr. Dawson just make himself available to Mr. Lange as a source for the information in the book?

What we find ineresting is Dawson is now attempting damage control by having handlers boast about an award he recently received from fellow members of the U.S. Department of Justice or shall we more accurately say, fellow members of the Rove Republican Racket.   As we all recall, Dawson has failed to answer three simple questions about when he started to plan to write this book. Why? The writing could be a breach of ethics and involve prosecutorial misconduct.

Going to Jail in Alabama?

Former Democratic State Representative of Alabama Sue Schmitz (pictured) was targeted by the Rove Republican Racket in 2008. In our previous posting about Schmitz, we told you how former U.S. Attorney Alice H. Martin tried her twice for a bogus crime.

Schmitz worked for a not-for-profit and since her position was funded by federal dollars, Martin, the Queen of the Rove Republican Racket, took the opportunity to scrutinize Schmitz's work and throw her behind bars.

Her crime? Not sitting behind a desk, using a computer, or working a full 40 hours a week. Smells like that dishonest "honest services" crime!

No one would really give a damn if Schmitz were non-political and if the position had been funded by private donations.

Last month, a federal judge ordered Schmitz to prison on December 4. She was sentenced to two years in the big house. Now Schmitz is appealing that decision as she also appeals the entire case.

We believe this is one of the worst examples of political persecutions by the Rove-Bush machine and hope she prevails.

Only God can Save the Innocent

Although we have seen examples of prosecutorial misconduct by the Rove Republican Racket based on political vengence and opportunism, one experienced law enforcement officer writes that much of the cases surrounding prosecutorial misconduct arise out of shoddy investigations and unreliable eyewitnesses.

Sunil Dutta (pictured) is a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department. He also holds a PhD and entered the police force after working as a scientist and researcher.

In an opinion piece for the Christian Science Monitor, Dutta writes:

Major harm could result from our reliance on two very fallible tools: eyewitnesses and shoddy forensic science.  Consider a recent example: On Feb. 17, 2004, Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson deaths of his three daughters. In September, an investigative article in The New Yorker revealed that Mr. Willingham was innocent. It sparked a series of investigations that found he was the victim of shoddy crime scene investigation and outdated theories.

In 2006, when the Rove-Bush-Cheney administration fired nine U.S. Attorneys, the political masters struck the drums: go after Democratic fundraisers, Democratic boosters, Democratic political operatives, and Democratic governors.

Although Dutta writes of police departments, his observations can be applied to U.S. Attorney offices during the Rove years:

Aside from the fallibility of eyewitnesses, our political model of control over the police can lead to inadvertent mistakes. Municipal police departments dance to the tune of their political masters who thrive on the constant drumbeat of "tough on crime" rhetoric. The only evidence that police can measure to tout our tough-on-crime rhetoric is increasing the number of arrests and reducing crime rates.

This pressure to be productive, the lack of personnel and time, and the desire to wrap up an incident, combined with the unreliability of eyewitnesses, increases the odds that an innocent person may be arrested, or worse, convicted. Add to this our system that rates prosecutorial performance on conviction rates and we are on a slippery slope. And when corrupt prosecutors who present false evidence, even in death penalty cases, such as the now disbarred Arizona prosecutor Kenneth Peasley, enter the mix, only God can save the innocent.

It is obvious that the political pressure to be "tough on corruption" by the Rove-Bush Administration led many U.S. Attorney offices to target innocent Democrats and to expand the use of the dishonest "honest services" statute.

Read the full column here.

Curtailing Crticism of a "Squishy" Law

The dishonest "honest services" law is receiving a lot of bad press.

Now in New York, a federal judge was angered when a defense lawyer attacked the law, verbally insulting it.

The judge ordered comments to be immediately curtailed.

From today's Albany Times-Union:

An attorney for [former New York Senate Majority Leader] Joseph L. Bruno was warned by a federal judge Wednesday that his comments outside the courtroom need to be curtailed.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary L. Sharpe issued an order that Bruno's lead defense attorney, Abbe D. Lowell, explain comments he made to news reporters outside the courthouse on Monday following the final pre-trial conference in the case. The comments came minutes after the judge had cautioned attorneys in the case, for a second time, not to violate court rules regarding public comments.

The judge's order specifically referred to comments by Lowell that the federal honest services law being used to prosecute Bruno is ''squishy.''

Retrial of the Biggest Setback

As the goose-stepping Rove Republican Racket is known to do against political opponents, once a mistrial is declared, they go in for round two against their opponents.

Yesterday, we informed you about the delared mistrial of Kevin Ring (pictured), the lobbyist who was targeted by the Racket for giving away lavish dinners and free tickets to government aides.

Now comes news that the prosecutors want to retry Ring. The Associated Press writes:

A federal judge Monday set June 21 for the retrial of a former lobbyist ....U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle set the date after Thursday's mistrial for Kevin Ring. The jury had deadlocked over eight counts. The mistrial was the biggest setback in the government's prosecution of cases related to [the] Abramoff [lobbying scandal]. Justice Department attorneys had wanted a January or February retrial date. The judge, however, took into account the scheduled Dec. 8 Supreme Court arguments on the constitutionality of the federal "honest services" fraud statute, used to charge Ring.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder needs to intervene and stop another embarrassing episode, especially if the U.S. Supreme Court declares the dishonest "honest services" law unconstitutional.

Stretching the Law

Kevin Ring, a lobbyist, (pictured) was targeted by the Rove Republican Racket for "honest services fraud" among other charges. His alleged offense? Offering congressional and justice department staffers baseball tickets and free dinners which was not illegal to do at the time.

Last week, after much publicity inside the beltway and a long trial, a verdict didn't come through; a mistrial was declared. A former prosecutor gives a reason why the Rove Racket lost on a post at TPMMuckracker:

Peter Zeidenberg, who while at DOJ worked on the case against Bush administration official David Safavian, told TPMmuckraker that he wasn't surprised that prosecutors failed to convict Ring, because the meals, event tickets, and other goodies that Ring lavished on government officials did not represent crimes in themselves at the time. Rather, the Feds argued that, taken together, they amounted to a conspiracy to deprive the public of the honest services of public office-holders -- a tough sell for a jury.

It seem prosecutors tried to stretch non-criminal acts into a conspiracy. The Rove Racket stretched the law in an attempt to throw Ring behind bars. This was truly a political prosecution. Ring's real crime? Having worked as an associate to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Slap at the Prosecution

The U.S. Supreme Court this term has chosen to hear the case of Jeff Skilling (pictured), the former Enron executive, who was convicted of crimes including "honest services" fraud. Yesterday, we wrote about the the closely-watched cases being reviewed by the nation's highest court involving the dishonest "honest services" crime.

Today, the Houston Chronicle writes about the Skilling case (Enron was based in Houston):

[Jeff] Skilling, the former Enron CEO who was convicted on 19 counts and is serving a 24-year prison term, raised two issues in convincing the [U.S. Supreme] court to review his convictions. He contends that pretrial publicity and the effect of Enron's collapse on the Houston community tainted the jury pool.

He also says that some of his convictions were based on the theory that he failed to provide “honest services” to his employer and that the term isn't clearly defined in the law.

“This is a slap at the prosecution,” Houston lawyer David Berg said. “These cases were over-indicted and showed an absence of a sense of justice.” Barry Pollack, a Washington lawyer who tried two Enron cases, agreed. “The Enron Task Force doesn't have a great record on appeal,” Pollack said.

After the court announced Tuesday it would take up Skilling's case, a Department of Justice spokeswoman said prosecutors would not comment.

The absence of justice is evident from the Rove-Bush Cheney years and the political prosecutions by the Rove Republican Racket.

As a side note, the late Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay, former Chairman of Enron, was a friend and financial backer of President George W. Bush.

Not All Wrongful Conduct is a Crime

Last week we mentioned that there are so many laws on the books, prosecutors can find something to pin on anyone, including the Pope. We also wrote about the serious problems with the dishonest "honest services fraud" charge that is the favorite prosecutorial weapon of the Rove Republican Racket's legion of U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Today, we found a judge in Florida who is taking a stand against labeling all wrongful conduct a crime.

It seem the former Speaker of the House in Florida, Rep. Ray Sansom (pictured) tricked some of his colleagues into funding a $6 million educational project that eventually had a community college building an airport hanger that was then leased to one of Sansom's top political contributors.

According to the Palm Beach Post:

Circuit Judge Terry Lewis ruled that while Rep. Sansom is accused of doing something wrong, "not every wrongful conduct is a crime." Judge Lewis said that although Rep. Sansom might have fooled the public and his colleagues in the Legislature, such deception didn't equate to the crime of official misconduct. If legislators had been sharp enough and inquisitive enough, they could have spotted the $6 million and stripped it from the budget. "The fact that Mr. Sansom may have misled other members of the Legislature by hiding from them his 'true' intent, does not make the appropriations act itself false,'' Judge Lewis wrote. The budget, as written, wasn't a lie or a false document; it was just a bad law. If courts ever decided that writing a bad law was a crime, Judge Lewis said, it would violate the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of state government.

If Rove and friends were ever to stick their nose in this matter, they would have prosecuted Sansom for "Honest Services Fraud." Luckily for Sansom, he's a dyed-in-the-wool Rove-Bush Republican.

Dishonest Honest Services Charges

The question has been asked, "What have the majority of the political prosecutions of Democrats by the Rove Republican Racket been based on?"

In a powerful opinion piece for the The National Law Journal, Randal D. Eliason answers the question and gives the reader a lot to think about.

What was a leading charge — and in many cases the only charge — against each defendant? Honest services mail or wire fraud, or conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. Honest services fraud, a sweeping charge with ill-defined boundaries, is rapidly becoming the corruption statute of choice for federal prosecutors. This trend should make everyone — not just corrupt public officials — uneasy.

In an honest services public corruption case, defendants are charged with using the mail or wires to further a scheme to defraud citizens of their intangible right to the fair, honest and impartial services of their public officials.

Lacking guidance from Congress, judges have struggled to limit the scope of a statute that potentially criminalizes any conduct that may be deemed "dishonest." Lower courts have splintered over the proper definition of "honest services," and judicially crafted rules and limitations vary across the country. Now use of the theory appears to be on the rise.

In recent years, the Depart­ment of Justice increasingly has used honest services fraud not only for state and local corruption but also to prosecute corruption involving federal officials, such as in the Abramoff investigation. This move has come as court decisions during the past decade made prosecutions under the federal bribery and gratuities law more difficult. Courts have required the prosecution to link a particular gratuity to a particular "official act" and have narrowly interpreted the term "official act" in the statute. By charging honest services fraud in federal corruption cases, prosecutors are able to avoid these holdings. Even in cases in which bribery or gratuities could be established, it will often be easier simply to charge the same conduct as an honest services violation and not worry about the more finicky bribery statute.

This development is troubling for several reasons. Conduct that may constitute corruption often scrapes uncomfortably close to the edge of legitimate fundraising, patronage and other political activities. There are many things some might consider dishonest or sleazy that are not actually criminal.

Read the full article here.