What is the importance of the motivation of an action?

[Burning Petard]

Question for all you legal types. I saw a recent headline: " Kari Lake alleges legal actions against her and her attorneys are politically motivated"

I believe Trump and many of his minions have protested in similar words. So What? When did political motivations become something nice people don't have? What difference does that make for a criminal or civil case?

snailgate.

[Sue U]

It makes not a whit of difference unless the defense is one of "selective prosecution," i.e., other people do the same things I did and none of them ever got prosecuted; the state is only going after me *because of* my race/sex/gender/sexual orientation/ethnicity/religion/political affiliation, so improper, since I am getting unequal treatment than everyone else under the law. It is virtually never a successful defense in court, but as we have seen it can be pretty successful in grifting the MAGA base for more cash love offerings because no one has ever been treated so unfairly before and if they can do it to Donald Trump Kari Lake they can do it to you!

[BoSoxGal]

Setting aside the claims of Trump and his minion which are wholly bogus because these is a huge body of evidence of violations of the laws being enforced by prosecutors in the various actions against them,

If it’s a case being prosecuted by a prosecutor elected by the people or appointed by someone elected by the people, it does matter a great deal. Prosecutors must prosecute without fear or favor, meaning no breaks for friends and no persecution of foes. The powers of the prosecutor are so immense - really they are the most powerful role in public life, they can easily ruin a person’s life even short of sending them to prison - they must be reined in by adherence to the strictest ethics.

Of course that’s the ideal which I studied an entire semester in law school, so extensive are the powers of the prosecutor.

But we all know in practice there are shortcomings, which is why there is room for MAGA to be convinced that the cases at hand are also abuses of power. But they are not.

[Big RR]

Given the limits of resources, I think we all understand that prosecutors cannot prosecute every person accused of a crime; some prosecutions will be abandoned, and others will get better deals for a guilty plea than others. But as for politics, I can't see that it is a problem for prosecutors to move against highly placed politicians for threats that might well be ignored or pleaded down for the average person, as the president or his/her minions has far more ability to carry through on the threats than the average person whose threats might be laughable. Granted one cannot apply the law to only prosecute his/her political enemies (like only republicans or only democrats), but, as Sue said, such bias is quite hard to prove, and such claims are rarely successful. So sure, the prosecutors probably went after Trump et al. because of his position and power, but that does not amount to very much.

[BoSoxGal]

A strong argument can be made that politicians and public servants should be more aggressively prosecuted than John Doe, because said people have sworn oaths to follow and uphold the law and hold positions of public trust which average citizen has/does not.

[wesw]

political motivations and "hate crimes" are of the same feather


bullfeathers...

its a crime or it isn t

mindreading is for girls not jurists