Magistrate in Mobster-Ville: A Young Cajun Prosecutor Struggles with Bureaucracy While Battling Organized Crime and Corruption

By G. Wayne Casaleggio

To Th e Prospective Reader:
Magistrate in Mobster-Ville is a novel which takes place within the Metropolitan Area of New Orleans, Louisiana. It illustrates the life of a young lawyer who devotes his career to the investigation and prosecution of crimes while negotiating the roadblocks of governmental bureaucracy. While the characters, occurrences and venues discussed in this novel are fictitious, American district attorneys offices routinely deal with the types of bizarre events depicted in its chapters. In reality, prosecutors are rarely celebrated for their legal successes, but their infrequent miscalculations are publicly scrutinized by appellate courts and media outlets. The prospective reader may tend to question the motivation of a young law school graduate in pursuing a career within this thankless profession. The target audience for this work might be those considering a career in law enforcement, litigation or those who are already veterans of one of these career paths. I believe that it outlines most of the possible avenues and deviations that such a career might lead one to travel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543452587

G. Wayne Casaleggio

NA

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Copyright © 2017 by G. Wayne Casaleggio.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2017914501

ISBN:                     Hardcover                 978-1-5434-5256-3

                               Softcover                   978-1-5434-5257-0

                               eBook                         978-1-5434-5258-7

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Rev. date: 11/02/2017

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CONTENTS

To The Prospective Reader:

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter I             My Unexceptional Early Years in The Suburbs of New Orleans

Chapter II            An Unexpected Education in Law in New York City

Chapter III          A Nearby District Attorney Needs a Second Baseman

Chapter IV          A Newly Elected District Attorney Brings Me Home

Chapter V            A Promotion to Chief Investigations Officer

Chapter VI          Recruited as The Commander of a Special Enforcement Task Force

Chapter VII        Special Prosecutions for The Attorney General

Chapter VIII       Supervisor of a New State Police Anti-Narcotics Initiative

Chapter IX          The Adversarial Skills and Tactics Acquired in a Justice Career

Epilogue

Appendix

TO THE PROSPECTIVE READER:

Magistrate in Mobster-ville is a novel which takes place within the Metropolitan Area of New Orleans, Louisiana. It illustrates the life of a young lawyer who devotes his career to the investigation and prosecution of crimes while negotiating the roadblocks of governmental bureaucracy. While the characters, occurrences and venues discussed in this novel are fictitious, American district attorney’s offices routinely deal with the types of bizarre events depicted in the work. In reality, prosecutors are seldomly celebrated for their legal successes, but their infrequent miscalculations are publicly scrutinized by appellate courts and media organizations. The prospective reader may tend to question the motivation of a young law school graduate in pursuing this vocation. The target audience for this work might be those considering a career in law enforcement, litigation or those who are already veterans of one of these career paths. I believe that it outlines most of the possible avenues and deviations that such a career might lead one to travel.

DEDICATION

To adapt the quote of an infamous orator named Casey Stengel, I would like to thank all of you over the years that made this book necessary. Especially to my wife who provided so many occasions for me to write when I was required to wait for her. A special thanks to Walt and Kenny for their inspiration in boosting my confidence by demeaning the literary talents of everyone else sitting in the pub where I drink. And finally to my son who supplied my technical equipment and is still criticizing a minor typo in my first book.

INTRODUCTION

Some historians have placed the origins of the Sicilian Mafia to the 1860s when the French occupied Sicily. While most laypeople and even many in law enforcement believed that the United States Italian organized crime began in New York City or Chicago, it actually began in 1869 in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. A group of Italian immigrants created a crime syndicate which they had modeled after a Sicilian crime group known as the black hand. The black hand employed the practice of sending extortion letters to Italian merchants which bore a black ink handprint. In New Orleans this scheme was primarily directed toward Italian immigrants who had memories of the brutality practiced in Sicily. In 1890 when a city police superintendent interceded to control a violent gang war between competing Sicilian families he was killed execution style. After mass arrests of Sicilians, a trial resulted in acquittals caused by tampering and intimidation of witnesses and the assistance of very clever defense attorneys. Outraged citizens of New Orleans demanded revenge directed toward the miscarriage of justice. An organized lynch mob executed 11 of the Sicilian defendants despite the acquittals.

In the 20th century, New Orleans organized crime became associated with the investigation of the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Then District Attorney Garrison attempted to implicate New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello in his investigation of a broad organized crime / government intelligence agency conspiracy. Despite the dominant notoriety of New York City organized crime, New Orleans remained as an important site for Cosa Nostra operations.

In Louisiana today, one of the responsibilities of the parish district attorneys is the investigation and prosecution of organized crime. This is especially true of Orleans Parish Prosecutors as they protect the city streets from mob activities. Webster’s Dictionary defines a mob-ocracy as the rule or domination by a mob or the mob as ruler. The mob meaning a gang of criminals. In many of the cities of the Eastern United States such as New Orleans, Boston, New York and Philadelphia as well as urban areas of New Jersey; it was universally accepted that factions of organized crime control large portions of the political hierarchy. The duties of a district attorney’s office in these areas is particularly difficult since this position is a political one and corrupt influences on this office are common. This story recounts the experiences of a young parish assistant district attorney dealing with the pursuit of justice within this challenging environment.

In the United States today only one state retains the trappings of French Civil Law. While 49 states have fully adopted The British Common Law System, Louisiana with its rich history of Franco – American immigrants stands out as a unique arrangement of procedures and language foreign to other political subdivisions throughout the Country. Their counties are termed parishes and criminal prosecuting attorneys are identified as parish district attorneys. Other States utilize the designation county adopted from the British subdivision shire. For example, the British County Sheriff is referred to as the Shire Reeve. Americans quickly corrupted this moniker to the word sheriff and added a duplicate reference to the political jurisdiction. Consequently it is county sheriff or literally translated it is county county reeve. Therefore, in Louisiana the term parish sheriff would translate as parish county reeve.

While the State of Louisiana utilizes its French legal heritage in civil law matters, it’s criminal law procedures mimic the common-law system as do all other states. The title of this novel interchanges the term magistrate with the term prosecutor due to the French history of the State. Within the inquisitorial justice system of France the equivalent and historical predecessor of the American position of criminal prosecutor is called the standing magistrate or magistrate on the wooden floor. (Magistrature Debout or Magistrature DuParquet)

Since Judicial magistrates sit upon elevated platforms and sit rather than stand the term sitting judges or judges on the bench was created. This differentiated magistrates who could be seated highest in the courtroom from those who were required to stand at floor level. As the term suggests standing magistrates had much more vigorous duties. As stated in Wikipedia, the exact role and standing of these magistrates varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction; common duties and powers of the standing magistrates include the overseeing of ongoing criminal investigations, issuing search warrants, authorizing wiretaps, making decisions on pre-trial detention, interrogating the accused person, questioning witnesses, examining evidence, and compiling a dossier of evidence in preparation for trial. Standing magistrates have an important role in the French Judiciary, and are also a feature of the Spanish, Dutch, and Belgian Criminal Justice Systems, although the extent of the standing magistrate’s role has generally diminished over time with the emergence of the title of prosecutor.

The role of the position of prosecutor in the United States has evolved into the appointed or elected official sworn to seek justice for all citizens rather than to just advocate for a victim or blindly enforce the law. As stated in the text Management Methods from the Mafia published by Xlibris Press in 2013: a distinguished Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and former New Jersey Governor described the duties of the prosecutor as follows the power of the prosecutor sets the standard for moral leadership in the field of law enforcement. The people do not expect their minister of justice to be a witch hunter or to pour out the resources of his effort by investigating grammar school picnics to learn whether someone is selling chances on a chocolate cake. A prosecutor is bound to a higher duty than the advocacy of his cause. He is a symbol of justice. He is committed to a professionalism which would bind him, for instance, to a disclosure of facts in the very midst of trial of his case which might very well bring about its collapse, all in the interest of justice.

This significant responsibility of the public prosecutor was aptly described by Justice Sutherland in Berger versus United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935.) The prosecutor is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereign tree whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a particular and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape nor innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.

The subject of the American District Attorney’s evolving role in law enforcement was explained in an article in the July/August 1993 issue of the Narc Officer Magazine. It spoke of the modern proactive approach of today’s prosecutors. The article went on to explain that our system of law enforcement has changed dramatically since its birth in the 11th century in England. The ancient law enforcement officers called Shire Reeves, constables and bailiffs gave birth to our modern positions such as police, sheriffs and state troopers. So too, it explains that, 19th and early 20th century traditions of law enforcement also evolved. During those decades it was accepted that the County Sheriff was the chief law enforcement officer. Today State and Federal prosecuting attorneys are no longer satisfied to merely pick up a completed investigation file from the police and present the evidence at the judicial level. Historically prosecutors relied on their adversarial skills to correct any investigatory inadequacies that preceded their involvement. Prosecutors use the vernacular accepting a leaky bag to describe the limitations that they had to accept.

With the advent of what the police describe as legal technicalities which were imposed upon them by the judiciary in a very litigious society, prosecutors no longer have the luxury of only becoming involved after a criminal event reaches the judiciary. Modern prosecutors have been designated either by the legislature or the courts as the chief law enforcement officers of their jurisdictions. Today a modern prosecutor must fulfil his chief law enforcement officer designation to its fullest. He must develop his office not only to process various forms of litigation but also to devote a considerable portion of his budget toward administration of law enforcement services and investigation of major impact crimes.

Today a district attorney must have the resources to pursue not only litigation but also administration and investigation. For example, a district attorney’s office is likely to have an adult trial unit, a juvenile trial unit, a grand jury unit and a legal appellate research unit at the very least. In terms of investigative squads he must have a homicide, arson, sex crimes, organized crime, narcotics, white-collar crimes, arson, domestic and child abuse, environmental crimes, official corruption and possibly several other specialized investigative capabilities such as asset forfeiture. In addition, due to his chief law enforcement officer designation, he may order all other local law enforcement agencies within his venue to participate in special investigative taskforces. These kinds of special initiatives are also assisted by the fact that the district attorney most likely has relative hiring freedom compared with police agencies. Many District Attorneys’ offices are not bound by the rules of civil service and therefore may recruit investigative specialists when the need arises.

Although the grand jury is formally a branch of the judiciary, the prosecutors enjoy its benefits exclusively. By