Bill Keisling’s address at A. G. Kathleen Kane rally

Statement by Bill Keisling
At Capitol Rotunda
Harrisburg
September 10, 2015

It’s said that a young and unknown lawyer from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, once stopped a hot mob from killing two murder suspects.

“I need those clients for my first real case,” John Ford has Lincoln say in the movies.

Other say Lincoln calmed the mob at the jailhouse with an impromptu speech knitting together the importance of the rule of law, and Christian mercy.

Lincoln had this to say about mob law, and lack of deliberation, and due process:

“There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law,” Lincoln said.

Bill Keisling, Harrisburg state Capitol Building, September 10, 2015

“When men take it in their heads to-day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so; (the innocent, alike with the guilty), fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

And so we’re here today to speak out against what can only be called a mob mentality, and the push by some to dispense with proper due process, in an open courtroom.

We’ve created, as Lincoln says, the walls of laws and justice — our courts — places meant to be for thoughtful deliberation and hard-won due process, precisely to protect us all against mob rule we now see.

Sadly, and stunningly, in the case of Kathleen Kane, we see a mob mentality instead of thoughtful deliberation, and due process, in quiet courtrooms.

Most stunning, Pennsylvania court officials, of all people, are the ones stirring this mob mentality. And we see newspaper reporters, who are supposed to shed objective light, themselves whipped up in this mob storm. And all that speaks for itself.

These same courts that are supposed to protect us all, and our rights, say Kathleen Kane should have nothing but a mob’s trial in the press, and a quick and secret predetermined dispatch of her fate in a star-chambered courtroom.

And that’s wrong.

Today, we’re not here to bring a mob. We’re here to speak out against a mob.

We’re here to speak up for thoughtful and deliberative due process, and fair and open courts.

Just yesterday I received this thoughtful note from a reader:

He writes,

“When I worked for Governor Casey, I was charged with a DUI. Before I could get my hearing to determine the outcome, Casey dismissed me from my Deputyship at L&I and the press was all about the charge, which is ok and news. But a few weeks after all the brohaha…. no press covered that the charges were dismissed, the blood level readings were not above a legal limit they were below!!! This decision was made at the time by a local DJ whom I did not know and who happened to be a Republican. He dismissed any charges to send the matter to the county court for determination due to lack of evidence and insufficient fact finding!

“And after the dismissal of charges, Governor Casey did not reinstate me to my Deputyship nor pay back salary. I essentially got fired and my public persona was severely damaged. Why? For the very same thing that Kathleen Kane is facing: guilt and sentencing before a hearing or trial to determine if guilt is found.

“Where innocent until proven guilty went, I do not know!

“I stand behind your efforts and with the AG to uphold the basic constitutional and civil rights she has, as any citizen has. The higher standard here is to uphold that she is innocent unless or until proven guilty …. and she should not be punished or penalized in any way prior to her ‘day in court’ and the resulting determination.

“Bill, I have never made any case privately or publicly on my own behalf regarding my own miscarriage of justice. Frankly, at the time and for some time thereafter, I was profoundly embarrassed and angry. And I thought if I responded in any way, it would appear to be whining or motivated exclusively by self-interest.

“In looking back at this chapter, I realize now that my assessment of the circumstance was just dead wrong. I should have spoken out regardless of the outcome to spotlight the deep damage, harm and injustice that occurs when any one of us, as citizens and/or elected, appointed leaders, is “guilty until proven innocent.”

“In essence I failed by NOT advocating the principle of law and civility …. innocence until proved guilty.”

***

Today, I say this to my friends in the media: you’ve pulled out all the stops to whip up an insider’s mob against Ms. Kane, and you know what I mean. You’ve even released the Kraken: you’ve brought Gene Stilp out of retirement.

I as much as anyone likes to be on the side that’s winning.

But sometimes you have to take a principled stand for someone who’s losing, whose rights are threatened, or trampled. No matter their station in our commonwealth, high or low.

And so we’re here today to speak up for proper, deliberative, thoughtful due process in our courts for Kathleen Kane.

You’d want someone to speak up for you.

In three separate occasions over the decades I’ve watched people destroyed by just this sort of mob mentality we now see in Kane’s case — a mob and a rush to judgment whipped up by partisan officials made comfortable by a too close press.

The last time this happened was with our coach, Joe Paterno.

The first time I saw it happen, just a block from here, Budd Dwyer took a gun to his head, complaining of partisan courts, manipulated by political enemies, and reinforced by a one-sided, taunting, bully press.

Come to find out, in both these cases, months afterwards, there was much more to the story than what we were told by the officials and the press at the moment. As now.

What Kathleen Kane’s case appears to boil down to is this:

Kathleen Kane embarrassed and angered many court officials in this state, who now want her disbarred, prior to trial, and banished.

On the other hand, Frank Fina sent around the same pornographic emails that Kane discovered, and he gets, from court officials, “sensitivity training.”

I tell you, this shows these court officials themselves need sensitivity training. Someone should tell them about due process, and rules of court.

Perhaps, instead of Kane, they are the ones who need to lose their jobs.

Our court system has become all about politics. We must pack the court with our guys to protect our political goals, and the upcoming redistricting, we hear both political parties say.

Pennsylvania courts to these insiders have become nothing but a political game. I say this, because to play the game, citizens have to understand this game.

The average, hard-working Pennsylvanian should also understand this:

None of these political gamesmen is speaking up for your rights, the rights of the average Pennsylvanian, to get a fair hearing, and justice, in our courts.

So we’re here to do that today.

As a writer and a publisher, I also have to speak out against the serious journalistic lapses we all know about in this story.

At a time when we see in the news that reporters all around this country are facing jail, or have been jailed, the Philadelphia Daily News reporter in this case telephones Kane’s political enemy, Frank Fina, carelessly reads him grand jury material whole cloth, and then testifies against her before a grand jury.

Will he testify against his burned source in open court?

And almost daily, we see this same newspaper company not explaining any of this, but committing leaks themselves, and complaining that Kane gave them information for a news story.

And all that’s very odd, and wrong, of course.

We and our readers, and viewers, and listeners need more information for our news stories, not less. And we need to protect our sources.

In 2005, Mary Lee Grant wrote an article, titled, Jailbait: Expect more Judith Millers.

“The reality is that more reporters are in fact going to jail for refusing to reveal sources, and their numbers are expected to rise,” Grant writes. “Prosecutors, being political animals, were once very reluctant to incur the wrath of the local media by yanking a reporter before a grand jury. All that has changed.”

Grant reminds us, “When the Committee To Re-Elect President Nixon tried to get Watergate materials from The Washington Post, The New York Times and Time magazine, a federal judge quashed the subpoena. …A judge’s intervention remains the only protection a reporter has to avoid being forced to testify before a grand jury at the direction of an aggressive prosecutor.”

We can’t image Woodword and Bernstein telephoning John Mitchell and telling him, “Your associate FBI director, Mark Felt, who goes by the name of Deep Throat, is passing out national secrets in parking garages around town.”

But that’s what appears to have happened in Kane’s case.

In this case, an alleged source, Kathleeen Kane, is threatened with jail, while the reporter and his newspaper company every day play footsie with the prosecutors, and make more leaks with the prosecutors.

And that too is a game. It’s called hypocrisy.

And that’s not right, and it should trouble every writer in Pennsylvania.

What’s completely lacking from all the coverage in the press I’ve read to date is a serious and necessary discussion regarding the sourcing of this story, the role of the Daily News reporter, and our vital Shield Law protections, which need to be strengthened and broadened, not weakened and diminished, as the Philadelphia newspapers would have it.

We must make our press freedoms stronger, not weaker.

We need more independence, and independent voices, not less.

Sadly, the Philadelphia newspaper company is not only eroding its own trustworthiness.

They’re harming us all.

So today don’t imagine we’re here to just speak up for Kathleen Kane.

We’re here to speak up for all Pennsylvanians.

And we’re here to speak up for you.