Demagogue

I've posted before about the explosive charge by Jack Quatman, a former assistant DA in California, that a judge told him to kick Jews off of a jury, and that Quatman complied. (The judge's ostensible theory was that Jews wouldn't vote for the death penalty). The defendant was convicted and sentenced to death and is now challenging his conviction on the basis of Quatman's allegations.

But the judge who is hearing the challenge has decided that Quatman is lying.

The judge (technically acting as a "referee" in this instance) found that Quatman made up the whole story--including an allegation that excluding Jewish jurors was standard practice in the Alameda County DA's office--to get revenge on the DA for taking him off of capital cases as punishment for calling a fellow assistant DA a "lazy cunt.""

People do act according to their character, and for that reason, John Quatman's allegations about Judge Golde can't be believed," Murphy [the referee] concluded.

So what was Quatman's character?

After the [California] Supreme Court appointed Murphy to investigate Quatman's claims, Chief Assistant Attorney General George Williamson unleashed a brutal attack on Quatman's character, calling former colleagues who testified last month that the 25-year prosecutor routinely lied and cheated to win verdicts.

Here's the position the state has now been boxed into taking: the defendant got a fair trial because the prosecutor is an habitual liar and cheater who routinely broke the rules to secure guilty verdicts.

Cue the flood of habeas corpus petitions from other convicts whom Quatman prosecuted.