Explore how prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of power can infringe on justice, with a focus on ethics and legal safeguards.
Much legal talk these days is about the weaponization of the legal system to push political persecutions. This program looks at an actual case of a weaponized legal system, what the Supreme Court called a “crusade,” by exploring the Cold War trials of Harry Bridges.
Experienced intellectual property lawyer Peter Afrasiabi, who authored the definitive book on the Harry Bridges trials based on National Archives and FBI FOIA records, takes one of the four trials to which Bridges was subjected and looks at how the legal system was contorted to produce what was persecution by prosecution, identifying along the way some of the issues that led the Supreme Court to so conclude. It looks at the law relating to bills of attainder, the use of infirm hearsay evidence for substantive purposes instead of impeachment, the nature of how federal courts review trial court decisions, and agency deference.
At the same time, some lessons can be learned from that case regarding advocacy for lawyers litigating in these cases, emphasizing the importance of maintaining balance and not overstepping their bounds in making countercharges. It provides a roadmap to identify a true example of a weaponized legal system.
Part 1 will leave you wanting to see Part 2 and the subsequent trials that again returned Bridges to the Supreme Court.
Legal Technology & Education
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Founding Partner at One, LLP
Peter Afrasiabi is a founding partner at One LLP and focuses his practice on copyright, patent, trademark, and entertainment litigation. In addition, Peter is a professor and the Director of the Appellate Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Peter graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.
