Russia is so feudal in its system of patronage and reward that it is virtually impossible for a leader to hand over power without controlling his successor or at least receiving an exemption from prosecution — something Mr. Putin granted his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999.
Nine-year-old Jennet Device was a key witness for the prosecution, something that would not have been permitted in many other 17th-century criminal trials.
The case for the prosecution goes something like this.
Still, the most likely scenario for a torture prosecution is something like what happened to ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
The requirement was rescinded nine years later, but by then, most states had enacted their religious exceptions, which effectively allow parents to treat ailing children through prayer without fear of prosecution if something goes wrong.
But in 2002 they were waking up with a sick feeling in the gut, knowing they might soon be indicted, wondering how they were going to pay lawyers tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid prosecution for something they might or might not have done.
His waning interest in locking up Hillary Clinton, which he expressed in an interview with the Times last week ("I don't want to hurt the Clintons. I really don't"), reveals a view of prosecution as something that a President can decide to unleash or withhold arbitrarily.
Mr. Christie said last week that he had not yet seen the subpoena, but also said "any advice I gave as U.S. attorney regarding prosecutions is something I am not going to talk about publicly".
But a closer look at those prosecutions reveals something that has not been trumpeted: more than 20 cases in which judges found police officers' testimony to be unreliable, inconsistent, twisting the truth, or just plain false.
Whether Congress wants to hamstring civil enforcement actions, which occur much more frequently than criminal prosecutions, is something that should be addressed explicitly in deciding how to enhance the privacy afforded electronic communications.
It's worth putting this in perspective, though we're talking about 20 prosecutions from something like 15,000 annual reports.
