Rcade's experience was a minor abuse of power:
On October 21, 1996, John O'Hara was indicted by the DA in Brooklyn, NY, on seven felony counts deemed false registration and illegal voting. The first count was when he registered to vote in 1992. Count two was that the address on my registration was not my "principal and permanent residence" the language of a bizarre New York State law. The remaining five counts were the votes he cast in each of the elections and primaries over the following year. Each count was a class E felony carrying a penalty of one to four years in prison. He did not vote twice in the same day, nor did he vote from a sham address.
He faced 28 years in prison for voting. The last felony case to be successfully prosecuted in New York for false registration and illegal voting took place in 1873, it was Susan B. Anthony.
The genesis of his alleged crime was that in 1992 he registered to vote and voted from hisy ex-girlfriend's house in Brooklyn, fourteen blocks from where he lived.
Every check, credit card slip, tax return for the past 20 years was examined by the Brooklyn DA. His apartment, campaign headquarters, and relatives houses were put under surveillance.
You might wonder why he was targeted in this Kafkaesque manner? The explanation is not much different than why prosecutors are targeting Obama campaign staffers in Ohio: to suppress political activity.
On September 10, 1996, in New York State, voting machines were delivered late throughout "selected" polling places in Brooklyn. This was no accident and tens of thousands of people were denied their right to vote. The late machines affected the outcome of a judicial race. When O'Hara saw what happened he filed an action in federal court and got the election continued. Party bosses subsequently got the US Court of Appeals to cancel the continuation before the polls ever opened.
O'Hara and his attorneys planned an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court when he was suddenly indicted and arrested for illegal voting. It worked. When you are in lockup waiting to be arraigned on seven felony counts, your priorities quickly change.
The case of People v. O'Hara spiraled into one of the most expensive criminal cases in New York history. He was tried three times on the same charge. The first trial was reversed on appeal, the second trial resulted in a hung jury, and in the third trial he was convicted (again). What followed were more than a dozen appeals. Never before had there been a criminal prosecution where someone had to swear to one residence, past and future.
Excerpted from Counterpunch, John Kennedy O'Hara is still a disbarred lawyer and convicted felon living in Brooklyn, and has applied for a pardon from New York Governor David Paterson. His on-line petition to the governor's office can be found at freejohnohara.com
