Federal investigations under Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) have an astounding 99.6% success rate in court, but they have come under intense scrutiny for partisan bias and little-known issues of overcharging, prompting calls from experts for urgent reform.
“We’ve completely lost our minds when it comes to criminal prosecutions,” health care lawyer Ron Chapman told Fox News Digital in an interview. “Ninety-five percent of cases never go to trial because prosecutors find vague statutes and apply very high maximums and minimums and get innocent people to plead guilty. And that’s the problem we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with innocent people who may not be innocent of all charges, but who are innocent of the charges that have been overcharged against them.”
Chapman said prosecutors often add felony charges to pressure guilty pleas, a practice criticized by the American Bar Association for violating defendants’ right to a fair trial. Federal prosecutors have a 99.6% conviction rate, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study. So federal investigations lead to more pleas and avoidance of trials altogether.
“This is absolutely an indictment of Merrick Garland,” said Chapman, the former federal prosecutor for the Marine Corps.
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Department of Justice logo (Brendan Smiarowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“This should have come from on high,” Chapman said. “They’re basically asking for a lawsuit to get this to the Supreme Court.”
Last month, two pro-life activists were sentenced to years in prison for protesting inside an abortion clinic in Washington in 2020. Federal prosecutors He claimed The pro-life activists violated the 1994 FACE Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of physical force, threat of force, or intentional damage to property to prevent someone from obtaining or providing abortion services.
But targeted investigations did not begin under the Biden administration, Chapman said, and each administration has its “own plan” and will act accordingly.
There are stark differences in the types of investigations the Justice Department is pursuing. Justin Paperny, a white-collar crime consultant at the Federal Bureau of Corrections, told Fox News Digital that the current administration is going after white-collar crimes more, while the previous administration was “more pro-business.” Health care industry professionals are also being investigated more thoroughly for fraud schemes.
“There are fewer drug-related cases than under the previous administration, but that’s probably because drugs are becoming more common in this country,” Paperny said. “Some people try to equate Hunter Biden with Trump, but you really have to question who’s the better prosecution. Everybody has their own opinion, and in these situations people are paying more attention to these things.”
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U.S. District Judge Colleen Koller Kotelly sentenced Lauren Handy, 30, of Alexandria, Virginia, to 57 months in prison and three years of probation. (Getty Images)
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Paperny, who served time in prison for financial crimes in 2007, also said that if a defendant pleads not guilty to the government, the government “will go on to incriminate them further.”
“Excessive prosecutions, the threat of 20 to 30 years in federal prison, can lead people to plead guilty who they truly believe are innocent,” he said. “So many of these cases should be handled in civil court at worst, rather than criminal proceedings. Yet we continue to see people, especially those who have exercised their right to a trial, being prosecuted and sent to prison for very long periods of time.”
“It’s very inspiring to see people going to court and fighting against all odds,” he said.
Dr. Eisan Haim, who accused Texas Children’s Hospital of secretly performing sex-reassignment surgeries on minors, previously claimed the hospital would end its program after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion saying the procedures could be considered child abuse under state law. He is one of several opponents of the Justice Department’s charges.
“I refuse to back down or be silent,” Haim said in the X post.
In December, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee Reports It details “the extent of the FBI’s weaponization of law enforcement against traditional Catholics,” a whistleblower by former FBI agent Kyle Serafin said.
According to the report, the committee investigated the FBI’s classification of traditional Catholic Americans as “potential domestic terrorists” after the FBI’s Richmond memorandum portrayed “radical traditionalist Catholics” as violent extremists and offered opportunities for the FBI to infiltrate Catholic churches as a form of “threat mitigation.”
The Justice Department’s unusually high success rate in court has raised concerns about excessive prosecutions and pressure tactics and prompted calls for urgent reform, experts say. (Bloomberg / Contributing by Tom Williams / Contributing by Drew Ungerer / Staff)
“I think this is a bigger problem than people think,” Serafin said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “My solution is broader than most people would be comfortable with, but we’re roughly $11 billion per year My contention is that the FBI’s investigative capabilities and people need to ask whether the $11 billion that’s been spent is solving the problems that the FBI was established to solve, and those problems don’t even exist anymore.”
“Most Americans are not aware that there may be a national security investigation going on against someone,” he said. “That’s what should frighten Americans.”
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The Department of Justice announced on Friday that it would not be filing charges of contempt of Congress against Attorney General Merrick Garland, an Obama appointee, for refusing to turn over audio recordings of meetings between Special Counsel Robert Hur and President Biden.
The House voted Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt after a months-long effort by House Republicans to release as much material from the special counsel’s interviews as possible.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.
Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
