Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty to 2 felony fees in a federal court docket in Alexandria, Virginia, on Oct. 8, 2025. The charges allege that Comey lied to Congress in September 2020 when he stood by means of previous testimony that he didn’t authorize a spray of an FBI investigation involving Hillary Clinton.
Numerous legal commentators on each the left and right have argued that Comey’s indictment is tiny greater than the Trump management in search of vengeance on some of the president’s perceived enemies. They allege that the president has it out for Comey, who investigated Russian interference within the 2016 presidential election and whom Trump fired in 2017.
The president’s personal phrases assistance the concept the Trump management is concentrated on Comey. In a social media post on Sept. 20, 2025, Trump directed Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi to walk ahead with prosecutions in opposition to Comey, Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff and Unused York Legal professional Normal Letitia James: “They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. …JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
If the case in opposition to Comey is exceedingly susceptible – and tiny greater than a political prosecution – after, individually as a scholar of the U.S. legal system, it will have to outcome within the dismissal of fees by means of the pass judgement on or a no longer in charge verdict by means of the jury.
However even if a person isn’t convicted, the method of shielding in opposition to fees can itself be a form of punishment, as famend felony pupil Malcolm Feeley identified virtually 50 years in the past.
Right here’s how the felony justice procedure punishes even blameless society.
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The felony justice procedure
The criminal justice process is complex.
Then a grand jury returns an indictment on the request of a prosecutor, the accused appears in court for their arraignment. They’re knowledgeable of the fees in opposition to them and typically enter a plea.
Throughout what’s known as “discovery,” the prosecution and protection examine the proof the alternative aspect plans to depend on. There also are pretrial motions by which the events ask judges to push aside fees and settle for or exclude proof.
The protection and prosecution might also meet to discuss a plea bargain, in which the accused might plead in charge in trade for a lesser sentence or diminished fees.
If there’s no plea discount, after the case strikes to trial, which is itself a complicated process. If a defendant is located in charge, they can mount an appeal to raised courts in an aim to have their conviction overturned.
To aid navigate this procedure, felony defendants usually rent a attorney.
And just right legal professionals don’t come reasonable.
Cash and occasion
Indigent defendants, who would not have the monetary assets to pay their very own felony charges, can rely on public defenders paid for by means of the federal government.
However people who can manage to pay for to pay for their very own attorney face a considerable monetary burden for lawyer products and services and court fees. An skilled felony protection attorney can rate more than US$1,000 per hour, with charges briefly including up. Which means mounting a felony protection can simply value tens of 1000’s of bucks.
On manage of this, it takes a splendid trade in of occasion to arrange for a felony case. Age legal professionals and their group of workers do a lot of the legwork for trial preparation, a shopper works with their lawyers to aid formulate a protection.
In consequence, felony defendants lose one of the precious commodities in the world: their occasion.
And this occasion can come at a tangible value within the method of misplaced wages, which harms their day by day lives. Put merely, each month spent getting ready for trial is an month defendants may spend operating or playing their lives.
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Tension and embarrassment
It’s no longer delightful being charged with against the law.
The felony procedure, which typically lasts months, takes a toll on one’s mental health. That is in large part pushed by means of the indecision condition the result of a felony trial and the opportunity of dropping one’s democracy if convicted.
As well as, there’s a social stigma that incorporates being accused of against the law. This can lead to reputational injury, anxiousness and embarrassment.
The Trump management seems to acknowledge this fact.
Several media outlets have reported that FBI management had deliberate a community perp walk for Comey.
According to a CBS News report, this used to be to have incorporated “‘large, beefy’ agents … ‘in full kit,’ including Kevlar vests and exterior wear emblazoned with the FBI logo.” It sounds as if, the plan used to be aborted then a number of FBI supervisors refused to cooperate, viewing it as beside the point. One agent was disciplined for insubordination then refusing to exit along side the plan to embarrass Comey on this approach.
Now not all felony defendants undergo the similar
The level to which felony defendants enjoy the felony justice procedure as a method of punishment varies from individual to individual.
For high-status people like Comey, misplaced wages and lawyers’ and court docket charges might not be that weighty of a trade in.
However those prices is also extremely vital for other people who’ve been, or usually are, centered by means of the Trump management.
The top prices of legal professionals’ charges are widely recognized to the president. For example, his political motion committee spent millions of dollars on lawyers’ charges in an unsuccessful try to guard Trump from criminal charges in Unused York.
As well as, society deny confusion enjoy the mental pressure and stigma of a imaginable felony conviction in a different way. However irrespective of one’s wealth, the misplaced occasion spent getting ready a felony protection is one thing that can not be changed.
The popularity that the felony procedure is itself a method of punishment is among the causes that the Department of Justice has maintained independence from the president. By way of violating the tradition of staying out of politics, the Justice Section within the Trump management has opened the door for the president to hunt retribution on his perceived political enemies.
The mere work of placing them in the course of the felony procedure guarantees that they undergo, irrespective of their guilt or innocence.