It’s tough to find a silver lining in the DOJ’s decision to drop all charges against convicted bribe-receiver Ted Stevens. Stevens is quite clearly guilty of receiving bribes and, as a U.S. Senator, I think he’s deserving of severe punishment. Public officials who breach the public trust must be made an example of. But the government prosecutors are likewise clearly guilty of withholding evidence that showed that Stevens’ crimes were not nearly as severe as claimed. Prosecutorial misconduct is also deserving of severe punishment, and the appropriate response is to throw out any convictions—fruit of the poisonous tree, after all—and perhaps drop the charges, as well.
Stevens will now escape punishment, and reasonably enough. Whatever his crimes were, they’re trumped by the government’s abuse of its own laws. There’s not much satisfaction to be found in seeing the punishers punished, while the criminal goes free. But if the DoJ’s only Public Integrity lacks integrity itself, that may well be a more serious problem than a senator who’s a bit short on it himself.
So we’ll get our criminal justice system fixed. Then we’ll move on to the senators.
I too support fixing our senators…
:)
This case cost the senator his seat and his reputation. It put the most important political figure in the history of Alaska into a shameful decline.
He may not be going to jail but there is little doubt he was punished severely.
If only Teddy Kennedy had been fixed. Perhaps Mary Jo Kopechne would be collecting Social Security by now.
Sorry, Waldo, but I don’t think you get it. From what I’ve read — I don’t claim to have followed the case closely — this was entirely trumped up. Which raises the question as to whether it was a political vendetta by career bureaucrats in the Justice Department.
I doubt we’ll ever know the truth, but the timing of this is certainly suspect. Why isn’t this something done BEFORE the election? And for that, I think blame rightly lies with the Bush Administration.
So, congratulations! You on the Left managed to make them so gun-shy that they allowed to stand prosecutorial abuse that even Eric Holder could figure out.
Tell me again why the Stevens situation isn’t purely about Democrat efforts to grab more power?
Um, James? Did you read the post correctly? He’s saying it was wrong on both ends: “But the government prosecutors are likewise clearly guilty of withholding evidence that showed that Stevens’ crimes were not nearly as severe as claimed.”
Stevens was certainly corrupt, but the prosecution was so badly mismanaged that I was shocked that he was found guilty. If I was on that jury I would have found him ‘not guilty.’ Yes he was probably corrupt but the prosecutors failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Cry me a river. The facts are not in dispute; Uncle Ted received over $250,000 dollars worth of free home repairs, and a car from a company which stood to benefit from his power and seniority. We all know that Bushjustice was crooked and incompetent, should it surprise anyone that they would botch the prosecution of a real criminal?
Two words Jimmy; Don. Siegelman.
Democratic Governor Don Siegelman. I’m not sure that you can handle the kind of Truth and Justice that you are about to witness.
Isn’t it also kind of noteworthy that the Justice Department was being run by Republicans back when Stevens was investigated and indicted? Don’t get me wrong, James, I’m flattered that you think our vast left-wing conspiracy is so far reaching that we had even the Bush Administration in our collective pocket….
Waldo, I entirely agree. The greater good is reversing the DOJ atrocities committed under the Bush Administration.
“Isn’t it also kind of noteworthy that the Justice Department was being run by Republicans back when Stevens was investigated and indicted?”
Sam: I think you missed the part where Mr. Young blamed this on “career bureaucrats.” I’ll take this step by step for you. Those are the ones who are there for more than one administration, or what we in the business call “a career.”
Since these people are there for “careers,” their political affiliations don’t always match up with those of the guy living over at the white house. Mr. Young is asserting, and I make no comment as to whether or not he is correct, that perhaps some of the fault lies with career bureaucrats, maybe those that were not Republicans, getting back at the Republicans running USDOJ.
Now, the Republicans would have to sign off on any investigation, since they’re running main justice (I won’t bore you with the details of how we work at main justice), but if Mr. Young is correct in asserting that the career bureaucrats trumped up some charges, it’d be pretty easy to convince some Republicans at DOJ to go ahead with the indictment, particularly Republicans who realize that the entire country hates them and their party (I exaggerate a bit), would be really upset to learn all this (actually maybe not completely true) stuff about Stevens, and are kind of worried about what they’re going to do when they are no longer political appointees- some of the political appointees can swing into partnerships very nicely, and indeed, I know one or two who did, but you have to have *done* something during your political tenure to do that, and hey! This was *something*, so they did that. Hooray! Corner offices on K street for everyone!
As Mr. Young noted, though, we probably won’t ever know what actually happened.
The New York Times has an interesting piece on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/politics/07stevens.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&src=tw
What I found particularly interesting was the fact that it was Judge Sullivan issuing the admonition; he’s known to be more pro-government than other judges in the DC Circuit (although there could also be some government fatigue setting in with His Honor; he’s also doing the Guantanamo Bay cases and has admonished government prosecutors in those cases pretty frequently).
Another thing that’s interesting is that some people cited off the record in the article seem to support Mr. Young’s position partially- that someone was trying to get a high-profile conviction, or, in the alternative, it was not bad intent (or not as bad intent) but too few resources being stretched across too many cases at DOJ. (and resources are stretched very thin at DOJ; I know people who were sharing computers for a while on another DOJ project). However, no matter the intent, hiding the evidence, inadequate assistance of counsel/not representing with zeal, it all should result in professional responsibility sanctions.