{"id":880,"date":"2026-08-19T06:37:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2026-08-19T06:37:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:37:39","slug":"vincent-bugliosis-trophy-prosecution-wasnt-charles-manson-it-was-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=880","title":{"rendered":"Vincent Bugliosi\u2019s Trophy Prosecution Wasn\u2019t Charles Manson\u2014It Was the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<div>\n<article>\n<header>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>June 9, 2015<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1>Vincent Bugliosi\u2019s Trophy Prosecution Wasn\u2019t Charles Manson\u2014It Was the Supreme Court<\/h1>\n<h1>Vincent Bugliosi\u2019s Trophy Prosecution Wasn\u2019t Charles Manson\u2014It Was the Supreme Court<\/h1>\n<h2>\n<p>In a 2001 cover story in <em>The Nation<\/em>, Bugliosi eloquently denounced the Court&#8217;s treasonous decision in <em>Bush v. Gore.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=878\">Attacks on Black Citizenship Are Attacks on Democracy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<time>June 9, 2015<\/time><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Headline after headline about the death of the Vincent Bugliosi has focused on his successful prosecution of murderer and cult leader Charles Manson, based on the clever marshaling of circumstantial evidence detailed in his first book, <em>Helter Skelter<\/em>, written with the California author Curtis Gentry, who died last summer. \u201cIt\u2019s a shorthand way of defining me, no matter what else I do,\u201d Bugliosi once said of his involvement in the Manson trial. \u201cI can no more separate myself than I can jump away from my own shadow, and it tends to dominate the other things I\u2019ve done.\u201d\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Those \u201cother things\u201d include a nearly perfect prosecutorial record\u2014105 convictions out of 106 felony jury trials during his time as deputy district attorney in Los Angeles\u2014that helped buttress Bugliosi\u2019s authority when he trained his attention on other matters of evidence and proof, guilt and innocence, life and death.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps Bugliosi\u2019s most notable intervention in public debate came in early 2001, when he wrote a major cover story for <em>The Nation<\/em> on the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in <em>Bush v. Gore<\/em>. That essay, \u201cNone Dare Call It Treason\u201d (February 5, 2001), which Bugliosi later expanded into <em>The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President<\/em>, can be read in full here.<\/p>\n<p>Near the end of his <em>Nation<\/em> essay, Bugliosi wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Why, one may ask, have I written this article? I\u2019ll tell you why. I\u2019d like to think, like most people, that I have a sense of justice. In my mind\u2019s eye, these five Justices have gotten away with murder, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure that they pay dearly for their crime. Though they can\u2019t be prosecuted, I want them to know that there\u2019s at least one American out there (and hopefully many more because of this article) who knows (not thinks, but knows) precisely who they are. I want these five Justices to know that because of this article, which I intend to send to each one of them by registered mail, there\u2019s the exponential possibility that when many Americans look at them in the future, they\u2019ll be saying, \u201cWhy are these people in robes seated above me? They all belong behind bars.\u201d I want these five Justices to know that this is America, not a banana republic, and in the United States of America, you simply cannot get away with things like this\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>That an election for an American President can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country. Until this act\u2014which is treasonous, though again not technically, in its sweeping implications\u2014is somehow rectified (and I do not know how this can be done), can we be serene about continuing to place the adjective \u201cgreat\u201d before the name of this country?\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=876\">The Rats Terrorizing Everyone in Gaza<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><em>Curious about how we covered something? E-mail me at rkreitner at thenation dot com. Subscribers to <\/em>The Nation<em> can access our fully searchable digital archive, which contains thousands of historic articles, essays and reviews, letters to the editor and editorials dating back to July 6, 1865.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<footer>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>                Submit a correction<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>                Send a letter to the editor<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>                Reprints &amp; permissions<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p><span> Richard Kreitner<svg>\n<\/svg><br \/>\n<\/span>Richard Kreitner is a contributing writer and the author of <em>Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America\u2019s Imperfect Union<\/em>. His writings are at richardkreitner.com.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=875\">This Week in \u2018Nation\u2019 History: How Not to Make a Dust Bowl Worse<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><span> Back Issues<\/span>Guided tours through the archive of America\u2019s oldest weekly.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<\/div>\n<p><input\/><br \/>\n<input\/><br \/>\n<\/footer>\n<\/article>\n<p>Ad Policy<br \/>\n<!-- <a class=\"inifiniteLoader\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/new_infi_loader.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a> -->\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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