In many ways, Yanky Ostreicher, a 53-year-old frum father of five and grandfather of 11 has been suffering for almost a year the worst fate imaginable for a Jew from Boro Park. He has been held without charges in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, as the only Jew and the only American among the 3,200 inmates in Palmosola, one of the most notorious prisons in South America. Since his arrest on June 3, 2011, Ostreicher has been kept in a legal limbo, and US diplomats say they can do little to help him.

At least 15 court hearings have been scheduled, but only three have taken place. At a bail hearing last September Ostreicher’s lawyers presented convincing evidence to a Bolivian judge of his innocence of any wrongdoing. But just six days after the judge ordered that he be released, and his family paid his bail, the release order was countermanded and the judge re-assigned, while Ostreicher was left to rot in jail.

The May 4 filing of six amicus briefs calling on the Supreme Court to grant the Rubashkin case a hearing has triggered a spate of articles from prominent legal personalities supporting the cause, with several focusing on the prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the case.

The burst of advocacy for Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin coincides with congressional scrutiny of the issue of prosecutorial misconduct which many say plagues the nation’s courtrooms.

The problem has become a hot-button issue in the wake of the investigative report condemning prosecutorial misconduct in the high-profile Stevens case. Ted Stevens was a former senator of Alaska whose conviction on fraud charges was vacated by Attorney General Eric Holder, after revelations surfaced that prosecutors had withheld important evidence from the defense.