Published: September 04, 2009 08:25 am      

Jim Bob Miller must resign

A prosecutor is a powerful person. A prosecutor holds in his hands the power of the charge - the ability to formally accuse a person of committing a crime and even deny that person his or her liberty. If prosecutors abuse that awesome power, they can forever damage reputations and ruin lives. It is no exaggeration to say that prosecutors are among the most powerful government officials in our system.

When prosecutors use the sacred trust given them by citizens to settle scores, or harm those who disagree with them, they stain the entire legal system. Wrong is always wrong, but when those entrusted to protect us and uphold the law misuse their power, the wrong is exceptionally heinous.

In a stunning development, the Oklahoma attorney general’s office has settled a case against District 18 District Attorney Jim Bob Miller by deferring a prosecution and eliciting from Miller a pledge not to seek re-election to an office he was really never elected to hold. Miller stood accused of common barratry by the state’s Multicounty Grand Jury. This crime is defined by statute as “exciting groundless judicial proceedings.”

The News-Capital reported in August 2008 that McAlester police had delivered a subpoena, issued by Miller’s office, to Harold King, the operator of the McAlester Watercooler Web site, ordering him to produce the names, addresses and other identifiers of 35 people who had posted comments on the site. Comments critical of Miller had been posted on that Web site.

To use the power of the law to silence dissent and attempt to chill public discourse is shameful and that is just what Miller did.

Some might say that Miller was only trying to protect his good name, that what he did wasn’t so wrong since he felt he was under attack. That is simply not so.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King summed up why it is so wrong for those in power to pick and chose whom they will throw their wrath upon. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly,” he said.

Miller’s attack on one was indeed an attack on us all.

The district attorney’s abysmal record — we can count on one hand the number of big cases he has won — was enough for some to insist he resign. But now, a jury of his peers has looked at him and his actions as DA and found him wanting.

No good can come from Miller running out his term. In fact, each day he stays in office eats away at the trust in the fairness of our legal system.

Miller’s attempt to silence his critics — and that is what it was — is contemptible. In this nation, the right to criticize elected officials is a sacred right enshrined in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. Miller freely chose a position of public service and with that choice he also accepted that he would be held to a higher standard — or at least he should have.

Mr. Miller, you must go.

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