The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

• Author: Leverenz, Nikos A.
• Position: Book Reviews

The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice

By Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton New York: Prima, 2000. Pp. xiii, 242. $24.95.

The Tyranny of Good Intentions should make those who participate in our political and legal systems uncomfortable, if not self-loathing. Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton's principal argument is that what passes for "law" in the current civic climate is far removed from "the long struggle to establish the people's sovereignty" that dates back to pre-Norman England (p. ix). Simply put, the law has been transformed from a shield that protects the people from the encroachments of government power into a sword that enables the government to lord over the people. Those who are weary of the ongoing government assault on Microsoft and the tobacco industry or of the continued evisceration of civil liberties under the tutelary banner of the drug war should immediately recognize this transformation. Nevertheless, most Americans now tacitly assume that state power is a source of freedom rather than an obstacle to freedom.

The Tyranny of Good Intentions highlights two broad areas in which the content and enforcement of the law now serve as a sword against what is loosely termed "the Rights of Englishmen": namely, "prohibitions against crimes without intent, retroactive law, and self-incrimination ... buttressed with restraints on prosecutorial powers" (Paul Craig Roberts, "How the Law Was Lost," Cardozo Law Review 20 [1999], 853).

First, the authors consider how government prosecutors, manifesting a win-at-all-costs mentality, sacrifice the quest for truth in order to advance their careers. Using show-trial techniques akin to those of the Soviets, prosecutors seek lucrative and well-publicized "agreements" with monied targets branded as public scoundrels. For example, Mississippi attorney general Michael Moore's efforts against the tobacco industry have ensured him a promising political future, not to mention a chorus of hosannas from his fellow attorneys general, U.S. senators such as John McCain, and Hollywood celebrities. Already Moore has played a cameo role in director Michael Mann's critically acclaimed film The Insider, which details the controversy surrounding a tobacco industry whistle-blower.

Second, the abdication of legislative power to administrative agencies has eroded the Anglo-Saxon legal maxim delegata potestas non potest delegari: "a delegated power cannot itself be delegated" (p. 162). The restriction against the delegation of power is rooted in John Locke's views on representation and in Montesquieu's ideas about separation of powers. It is aimed at ensuring that policy decisions be made by those directly accountable to the people, who themselves retain the right to make laws. The legislative branch now patently ignores this restriction, and both the judicial branch and the legal academy counsel continued delegation. The end result...