"Honest Services"

I'm still trying to decide if today's U.S. Supreme Court decision narrowing the scope of the "honest services" law (that prosecutors have used to pursue corruption charges against such stellar examples of corporate leadership as Jeffrey Skilling and Conrad Black) is a good thing or a bad thing.

Maybe this is the push that federal legislators need to further flesh-out/define/expand the law.

On the other hand, after almost twelve years of what I can only describe as a-nasty-pile-of-medico-legal-BS-topped-off-with-a-double-scoop-of-the-jurisdictional-dodge, I don't have a lot of faith in legislators (or lawyers) . . . I feel as if too much of the lives and money and time of "small people" have already been cruelly wasted . . . moreover, it would be very disheartening if this decision means that dirtbags like John Edwards and Mike Sleazely could walk.

Of course, when it comes to the prosecution of white-collar corruption cases in North Carolina, I am not certain that making things any more "specific" is going to help.

Because you see, my allegations against Randolph Hospital executives Robert Morrison and Steven Eblin could not be more specific . . . and the evidence (of a crime with NO statute of limitations) could not be more "in your face" . . . in the black & white of sworn discovery responses.

These men, executives of a "non-profit" and supposedly held to the highest standards of honesty, KNEW they were lying when they lied. And they ultimately benefited from the lies.

What's more, the very important (dare I say, "right") people in Asheboro who sat on the hospital's Board of Directors & Corporate Membership and who were supposed to oversee what these administrators were doing - and why they were doing it - KNOW that their executives lied.

We're talking about fine, upstanding, stellar "right people" like Mike Miller of First National Bank (OBTW, here's a real-time stock quote on the local institution he drove into the ground).

Miller's "mistakes and minor transgressions" are a real downer now for FNB's shareholders . . . people who flew high and in the other direction whilst I got pummeled for doing the right thing. Now, they're throwing fits and wanting answers because they got burned flying too close to Miller's sun. Money matters now, because it's their money.

But these people need to get in line . . . BEHIND the homegrown Pediatrician & former public servant who's been told for over a decade that her life and career did not matter . . . that demanding just compensation for the cluster-screw she endured in order to serve a cover-up was somehow base and unseemly . . . that what happened to her is "irrelevant" . . . to "get over it" . . . and to "move on".

But let's face it. Honest service does not matter - to ANYBODY - particularly not those who are charged with protecting the "small" and the "ordinary" people.

And I just don't get it. What does it take?