Comment by anthonyrstevens
11 days ago
>> A better solution might be to make a showing of selective enforcement a means to strike down a law. If you can show that someone else was doing the same thing without being charged then the prosecution either has to charge them too or that law is repealed and no one can be charged with it anymore.
This is very interesting. I suspect there are a lot of unintended consequences that might follow.
If you're going to say things like that you have to give examples.
You just created a large, TBTF corp's veto. Pass a law or have a law passed a corp TBTF doesn't want? Break it and force the Government's hand to strike it down.
TBTF is not a thing. It's all in your mind. Evergrande and Country Garden would've been classified TBTF in the minds of many USians, yet they failed.
The dead comment below by AnthonyMouse already pointed out that even in your scenario there's no difference with the status quo anyway. It's insane that it's dead and reeks of astroturfing, as nothing about it is worth flagging.
> Isn't that the other way around? The law already can't be enforced against the TBTF corporation, so what do they care if it stays on the books? But now you can't enforce it against someone else or they can point to you not enforcing it against them.
> Except that's the point. The government would now have to do that or they lose the law. If it's a good law then they don't want to lose it, but if it's a good law then they should be enforcing it against them.
> And, of course, the correct way to deal with this is to break the TBTF corporations into many smaller pieces so that stops being a problem.
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Ideally what would happen is the corporation starts having enforcement action against it and then its leadership is forced out to rescue said corporation from failing.
This certainly seems better than just making TBTF (which I assume means too big to fail) entities be above the law.
Isn't that the other way around? The law already can't be enforced against the TBTF corporation, so what do they care if it stays on the books? But now you can't enforce it against someone else or they can point to you not enforcing it against them.
Except that's the point. The government would now have to do that or they lose the law. If it's a good law then they don't want to lose it, but if it's a good law then they should be enforcing it against them.
And, of course, the correct way to deal with this is to break the TBTF corporations into many smaller pieces so that stops being a problem.
This is basically asking for discovery of another case when you are being suing for one case.
I think the US court system is famous for being slow. Not sure if anyone wants to make it go even slower.
Congress (and state legislatures) pass laws, but don’t necessarily authorize the resources to prosecute all offenders, so prosecutors are given some latitude who to target.
IANAL, but my understanding is this: Malicious prosecution is a defense. Selective enforcement is not. The difference is for judges and juries to decide.