"Ward, I'm worried about the Hoosier.."
There’s a wonderful Charles Addams cartoon that shows a bunch of hobos and bums lying around Greek columns under a college reunion “Welcome Alumni!” banner. One of the disheveled alums says, “I used to think it was me, but maybe this school is just no damn good.”
In light of a second Indiana prosecutor losing his job over making outrageous suggestions about how Wisconsin’s Gov. Walker should handle his labor battles, I’m beginning to wonder about Indiana’s training of its various government attorneys.
First, as discussed here, an Assistant Attorney General went on twitter and suggested that Walker use “live ammunition” on union demonstrators.
Now a deputy prosecutor in Johnson County named Carlos Lam has resigned after conduct far worse than that. At least Jeff Cox, the tweeter, was probably joking. Lam sent a serious email to Walker suggesting that the governor—I’m not making this up—set up a fake attack on himself to attract public sympathy, writing…
“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions.”
This, by itself, was enough to show that Lam…
- …was instinctively dishonest.
- …has wretched judgment.
- ….is arguably insane.
That all adds up to “Why do we have a guy like this in the prosecutor’s office?” and proof of trustworthiness. Then, to cap it all off, Lam lied when the story broke, claiming that someone had hacked into his email account. “I am flabbergasted and would never advocate for something like this,” he initially told the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, which originally broke the story.
Latter, Lam called Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper, confessed and resigned. Maybe he can get a job working for “What Would You Do?”; still, the incident raises disturbing questions:
- How does someone who lacks such basic ethical instincts end up practicing law?
- How does such a lawyer get a job in law enforcement?
- What is it about Wisconsin’s budget battle that causes Indiana prosecutors to do things like this?, and…
- What’s the matter with Indiana?
Ethics Alarms 
I find it even more remarkable that he thought this was such an original idea that he simply had to share it unsolicited.
I don’t know what it is about the public union controversy that makes people do and say ridiculous things, but it sure does.
I feel sort of vindicated for not having a single bone in this fight.