New York – As the Supreme Court deliberates over whether to hear the Rubashkin case during its upcoming term, a new documentary focusing on the case against Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, investigates the abuse of judicial power.
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The documentary, titled Unjustified: The Unchecked Power of America’s Justice System, has received over 60,000 hits on YouTube in just under one week. Produced by the Emmy nominated Nicholas McKinney, Unjustified questions whether or not our judicial system guarantees a fair trial and features interviews with several legal experts including a former Solicitor General and a former U.S. Attorney.
McKinney, a principal at Long Tail Films which produces documentaries on social issues, had just begun contemplating doing a film on the problems within the justice system when a colleague suggested he look into the Rubashkin case.
” As I examined the case further and further it became clear that Mr. Rubashkin’s rollercoaster ride through the justice system was a ‘perfect storm’ of many of the issues that ail the U.S. justice system today: the often unchecked power of prosecutors and their almost limitless ability to bring charges, over-criminalization and the disparate application of sentencing guidelines,” McKinney told VIN News.
“The inequities in Mr Rubashkin’s case really point to a grave and concerning set of national issues that the film seeks to bring to light. Many of the people I have interviewed for this film, lawyers, scholars and people working around issues of justice have quite literally scratched their heads to try and understand why the prosecution was so zealous in their pursuit of this prosecution.
I do think that there was probably a strong desire to show some ‘big’ result from what was, at the time, the biggest immigration raid in US history, and that Sholom Rubashkin’s twenty seven year sentence would, at least partly, fulfill that desire.”
In a Fox News interview both McKinney and former United States Solicitor General Paul Clement, one of the legal experts interviewed in Unjustified, discuss the lack of oversight within the judicial system, with McKinney commenting on the aggressive prosecution and harsh sentencing in the Rubashkin case and Clement accusing prosecutors of looking for victories instead of justice.
“Many of the people I have interviewed for this film, lawyers, scholars and people working around issues of justice have quite literally scratched their heads to try and understand why the prosecution was so zealous in their pursuit of this prosecution.”
Uhm, did anybody consider good ol’ fashioned anti-Semitism?
Or is everybody afraid to mention that “theory”?
It doesn’t need to be anti-semitism Self Hating Jews could also be the reason I bet all of you that can only his guilt would make a great Kapo
Obviously if so many top lawyers stand behind Rubashkin it surely shows that his sentencing was way beyond measure and any crime he may have committed certainly did not merit this draconian sentence. Even when murderers are let free on bail before trial, Rubashkin was denied that privilege.He most certainly was never an intentional “criminal” and to put him in the category of those who habitually defraud others is wrong. He tried to borrow money to keep his business afloat and give fair employment to many people, and this was his “crime”. Now look at the town of Postville today – it is a mere shadow of what it was due to the government virtually destroying the business and Rubashkin. No one can say this is justice or a good thing. I personally believe his sentencing should be totally reversed and he should be given monetary compensation for all his suffering which won’t even be enough to make up for the time spent away from his family.
we say every monday , & thursday , ACHENEI BNEI YISROEL HANUSUNIM BASHIVU — HAMKOM YERACHAIM ELEM
in these HEILGHE deg , have in mind your brother who is in jail , in this country or in the case of Jacob Ostreicher in a far away land … that they should all come home immediately safe and sound .. and that we all together can see the final redemption with mosiach bekorov mmamsh — and we should all have a zissa lichtige and healty year
a GMAR CHASIMA TOVA
Why is it that when one of ours is serving time, we consider the Judge antisemitic? No one called Madoff’s Judge an antisemite. Let’s save that word for the true anti semites! My late mother was in a Frum nursing home and when one of the aids refused politely to bring her a third piece of pie, my mom called the aid an antisemite! The whole nursing home was frum!
HE had no problem to repay the loan until the feds shut him down. There would never had been the second case if not the first. The unions were also involve with this setup and repeat this set up. The judge wanted to shut him down; since the first case
fell by the wayside and then he could not pay.
Everything about the timing here, when the Appeal was denied, and the fact that his appeal to USSC was apparently denied today, Erev Yom Kippur, lends itself to the idea that maybe Hashem is trying to speak to us and tell us that we should NOT tolerate this kind of Toeiva business fraud in our community.
Yes, the sentence is too harsh, but the deification of SMR and our excuses for his obscene behavior are a communal embarrassment for which we all should klop Al Cheits this Yom Kippur.
Since the judge and the prosecutors in this case are not stronger than the will of Hashem, do you think there is a message here for us from shomayim?
Clearly, we should make every effort to secure a fair sentence for Rabbi Rubashkin. I’m only saying that along with those efforts, we should make an effort to hear the lessons that Hashem may be sending us about how a Jew should conduct himself.
Instead of looking for anti-semites everywhere, perhaps we should look at ourselves.
The Ceo from Enron did the same thing and he got a year for his crime. The bank knew what he was doing and they had no problem with it. how is that fraud?