I first heard the phrase used by John Ashcroft in his wild unfounded accusations against Steven Hatfill in the anthrax case and here and there a couple of times since.
Now Thursday’s New York Times quotes a California criminal investigator as saying that they have a "person of interest" in custody in the case of the arson fire set out there which killed some fire-fighters.
When I get stuck on things like this, I usually turn to senior Stress blog legal correspondent, James Bovard.
Me: James, help me out here buddy, "person of interest" is just a made up term that doesn’t exist anywhere in law, am I right?
James Bovard: I think the technical translation is this: "Someone who the government wants to fuck with but doesn’t have enough evidence to indict."
Me: Thanks. Jim Bovard everybody. (applause)
They are still debating who burned down the Great Library of Alexandria so I suspect it will be a long time before they sort out who did all the fires since.
My law degree is worth every cent of the $49.99 I paid for it.
But I think I got ripped off – they charged $30 for a wooden frame that Wal-Mart sells for $8.
[...] I exchanged some email earlier today with Scott Horton over at Stress blog. Here’s his writeup: [...]
The first time I recall the phrase “PERSON OF INTEREST” was with that guy who the gov throught was the Olympic Park Bomber. I forget the name. He lived with his mom and I think they found dirty mags in her house or something. This was leaked to the press. He was innocent. I think later they discovered Eric Rudolph did it. Basically it is when they want to call someone a “SUSPECT” but without calling him a SUSPECT because that term is specific. Person of interest is nice and vague.
Mr. Bovard sounds to be correct. A “person of interest” is one that the government wants to fuck with, but has little or no evidence agsinst him.
One could say this vague phrase about every person on this planet. Hey, W. Gump just fits that “person of interest” deal to a tee! So does Cheney!
How do I turn them in? Hell, I don’t even care if I don’t get a reward, just investigate the hell out of them. Lock them away for an indeterminate time. No more messy habeas corpus to fool with now thanks to the MCA.