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Conrad Black: My prison education

fullcomment.nationalpost.com

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Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#11

Post by jasonkester »

adamgravitis wrote: post #8
jasonkester wrote: post #4

I hate to say it, since this guy clearly must have suffered a lot, but this is just not a very well written article. At no point does he try to explain who he is or why he was in prison. You get the idea that he was falsely accused, and you learn (at excruciating length) that he's been released, but no details as to the how and why of either event. Then, 1000 words in, just when he's ready to tell you some of the int…

Indeed, as the above mentioned, he founded the Post. Followers of the story (largely, Canada and UK) have seen quite a drama over the last few years. It's helpful to understand he is, in fact, a British Lord - after renouncing Canadian citizenship under a Prime Minister blocking the appointment due to a personal vendetta - and was convicted of defrauding shareholders under a law recently deemed by SCOTUS as open-ende…

Thanks for that. Your one sentence did a better job of summing up what was going on than the whole article. I wish he could have worked it into the story at some point, so that the rest of us could figure out what he was talking about.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#12

Post by helmut_hed »

I've followed this case over the years and it's completely in character to see that he has no remorse whatsoever. He had been draining funds from his company, Hollinger International, into his own pockets for years. Shareholder pressure forced an investigation by the board, upon which he resigned, and was subsequently convicted for securities fraud. And of course he now describes himself as one of the "people, who, like me, would never dream of committing a crime...".

Notwithstanding his personal shortcomings, he's right about sentencing and the public defender system. Not that he has to worry about that!

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#13

Post by rpledge »

jasonkester wrote: post #11
adamgravitis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, as the above mentioned, he founded the Post. Followers of the story (largely, Canada and UK) have seen quite a drama over the last few years. It's helpful to understand he is, in fact, a British Lord - after renouncing Canadian citizenship under a Prime Minister blocking the appointment due to a personal vendetta - and was convicted of defrauding shareholders under a law recently deemed by SCOTUS as open-ende…

Thanks for that. Your one sentence did a better job of summing up what was going on than the whole article. I wish he could have worked it into the story at some point, so that the rest of us could figure out what he was talking about.

I can guarantee that there isn't a person in Canada that reads the National Post that doesn't know who Conrad Black is. I actually appreciate that they didn't waste my time with any backstory. I think in this day and age people can google shit if they want backstory.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#14

Post by JimmyL »

jasonkester wrote: post #9
gruseom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black founded the National Post and his trial was extensively covered in Canada (and even in the US). He's quite right to presume that his audience know who he is and (roughly) why he was in prison. As for how the article's written, your objection is really to the headline, which is scoped somewhat inaccurately. The article itself is written fine. (And I would have said one of its main points is that he didn't really…

Why should the reader of a newspaper (or is it a magazine?) be expected to know who founded it? I hadn't realized that this was a newspaper article, but if so that actually makes it worse. A journalist should know how to write in such a way that people don't require external context to process a story.

It should more be considered as an opinion/ccolumn, as opposed to a news story (you'll notice it's in the 'Full Comment' section of the paper). It's also not a one-off piece; since he's been in jail, Conrad Black has continued to write these columns for (what was formerly) his paper about life in prison, what he's been up to, and general news issues of the day.

In short, this shouldn't be considered (and wasn't intended) as a news report on life in prison, but rather one person's account of what life was like for them.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#15

Post by JimmyL »

adamgravitis wrote: post #8
jasonkester wrote: post #4

I hate to say it, since this guy clearly must have suffered a lot, but this is just not a very well written article. At no point does he try to explain who he is or why he was in prison. You get the idea that he was falsely accused, and you learn (at excruciating length) that he's been released, but no details as to the how and why of either event. Then, 1000 words in, just when he's ready to tell you some of the int…

Indeed, as the above mentioned, he founded the Post. Followers of the story (largely, Canada and UK) have seen quite a drama over the last few years. It's helpful to understand he is, in fact, a British Lord - after renouncing Canadian citizenship under a Prime Minister blocking the appointment due to a personal vendetta - and was convicted of defrauding shareholders under a law recently deemed by SCOTUS as open-ende…

It's worth pointing out that Black sued the Government of the day over blocking his peerage (Black v. Chretien) and lost. So while he may say that it was a personal vendetta that caused him to renounce his citizenship, it's not like he didn't have a recourse to due process.

As for his conviction, it was both for honest-services fraud (which SCOTUS is in the process of unravelling), as well as for obstruction of justice - brought on by, among other things, being caught on a security tape removing (with the assistance of his chauffeur) a number of boxes of documents from his former office without court permission and in the middle of an investigation.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#16

Post by Mark_Book »

yoseph wrote: post #3

A couple great quotes: "I had seen at close range the injustice of sentences one hundred times more severe for crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, a straight act of discrimination against African-Americans, that even the first black president and attorney general have only ameliorated with tepid support for a measure, still being debated, to reduce the disparity of sentence from 100 to one to 18 to one." I'm hones…

"I'm honestly surprised (& pleased) he would say that outright. I'm not particularly familiar with the workings of the U.S. justice system but a disparity of 100 to one sounds fairly unjust." You sound prejudiced against American justice if you can be pleased that he takes a certain position on something that you are unfamiliar with. Part of the reason why there's a 90% success rate (if that is the case) might be that prosecutors in many jurisdictions are instructed to only pursue cases they believ are winnable

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#17

Post by mustpax »

d0mine wrote: post #6
yoseph wrote: post #3

A couple great quotes: "I had seen at close range the injustice of sentences one hundred times more severe for crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, a straight act of discrimination against African-Americans, that even the first black president and attorney general have only ameliorated with tepid support for a measure, still being debated, to reduce the disparity of sentence from 100 to one to 18 to one." I'm hones…

Prosecutors win over 99% (99.2% in 2007 [1]) cases in Russia. [1]: http://www.forbesrussia.ru/forbes/issue/2008-11/7199-nevinov...

It's not much of an argument in favor of the status quo to say it could have been worse. The North Korean regime has a worse censorship record than China, but that doesn't make the situation in China any less troubling.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#18

Post by mynameishere »

yoseph wrote: post #3

A couple great quotes: "I had seen at close range the injustice of sentences one hundred times more severe for crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, a straight act of discrimination against African-Americans, that even the first black president and attorney general have only ameliorated with tepid support for a measure, still being debated, to reduce the disparity of sentence from 100 to one to 18 to one." I'm hones…

It's all banalities. Standard lefty talking points. And of course, it's a lie. "100 to 1"?

http://politics.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01...

In 2006, crack cocaine sentences were 43.5 percent longer than powder cocaine sentences; the average length of imprisonment for powder cocaine offenders was 84.7 months, while crack cocaine-related imprisonments averaged 121.5 months.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#19

Post by p2ph »

"I have learned more of the fallibility of American justice, which does convict many people, who, like me, would never dream of committing a crime in a thousand years."

It is amazing the number of people who commit white collar crime [1] make the claim that they would not dream of committing crime. White collar crime is as inexcusable as any other.

[1] obstruction of justice and honest services fraud in this instance. As I understand it, the US supreme court ordered a review of the applicability of honest services fraud. From wikipedia Quote "The jailed former media baron's obstruction of justice conviction, for which he is serving a concurrent 6 ½ year sentence, remains in place."

Tho, the rest of the article is well written, I wonder if he considers himself to be small fry, since he states "A trillion dollars have been spent, a million easily replaceable small fry are in prison", tho not in the context of white collar crime.

Need less to say, he is big fry getting away with crime. Context is everything.

Re: Conrad Black: My prison education

#20

Post by mcantelon »

"Veterans of even 20 years in the federal prison system could not recall anyone being bailed in mid-sentence like this, and particularly not on the heels of unanimous Supreme and Circuit Appeals Court decisions."

The justice system evidently works in mysterious ways for rich, connected neoconservatives. Conrad Black's fraud was blatant, he hid and destroyed evidence of it, and has shown no remorse. After siphoning more than $6M of money from the company, he served a little over two years. $3M/year is a pretty good salary for living in minimum security prison.

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