Down Goes Toobz! Down Goes Toobz!

Where is Howard Cosell when you need him? The Hulk has been smashed by a guilty verdict on all counts in his corruption trial. This is good news for all those that have fought Stevens, Alaskan corruption (Palin is not really one of them either), and the GOP lions that have laid waste to the United States Senate for so long. From The Hill:

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of all seven felony charges for making false statements.

The verdict could spell the end of a 40-year Senate career for a man who rose to be one of the most dominant figures in the upper chamber and who helped transform Alaska in its 50 years of statehood. The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated since Wednesday and found the 84-year-old senator guilty of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from Bill Allen, the former head of Veco Corp., and other friends.

Many have been convinced, since the trial started, that the prosecution was intentionally trying to dump the case. Yeah boy, the prosecution tried so hard to tank this trial that they convicted Stevens of all counts.

People may take joy in the verdict if they wish; personally I will take none. My personal distaste for Stevens and his politics, and desire to win his seat, is no match for my desire to have the rule of law followed, due process guaranteed to every defendant, and an honest prosecution with full disclosure and fairness shown to the defendant. Even Ted Stevens. All of those considerations were completely and heinously violated by this prosecution team. The consistent effect over the course of the trial was astounding and the cumulative effect disturbing.

This case should have been dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct before it ever reached the contaminated and bizarre jury process that led to this verdict.

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119 replies
  1. AZ Matt says:

    This case should have been dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct before it ever reached the contaminated and bizarre jury process that led to this verdict.

    I doubt if Ted sees any jail time. It will be appealed. As you say, it was the Keystone prosecuters tripping all over themselves. The Bush DOJ so Mukasey can take the credit.

    • Palli says:

      Yes tainted trial…deliberate? and an obstinate judge who saw through it and sacrificed impartial jurisprudence?

      Another question: Can Bush pardon Stevens (thus avoiding appeals) even though sentencing is scheduled for Feb.?

        • Ishmael says:

          Assuming that Bush gives a damn about the law, could he commute the sentence before it has been entered by the judge, if for whatever reason Bush did not want to give a pardon – like 5th amendment reasons, etc? I noticed that in the Toronto Globe and Mail report that Sullivan initially set the sentencing for January 26th, after Bush is gone, but then changed his mind and did not immediately set a date. Perhaps Stevens will want a quick sentencing date, depending on the election results, and Bush will commute the sentence because it is in effect a life sentence for an 85 year old man – at least that will be the story for public consumption.

          http://www.theglobeandmail.com…..ional/home

      • freepatriot says:

        Can Bush pardon Stevens (thus avoiding appeals) even though sentencing is scheduled for Feb.?

        presnit bunny pants could pardon his dog if he wanted to

        there isn’t any restraint on pardons outside impeachment

        • freepatriot says:

          and when ya think about it, bush SHOULD pardon his dog

          Caligula needs the company …

          and on an even funnier side, anybody hear the name of princess pandora’s favorite clothes store ???

          Out Of The Closet

          probably not larry craig’s favorite clothes store

          you couldn’t make this shit up

          and as a bonus, princess palin’s favorite clothes store is being sued for copyright infringement by a non-profit used clothing chain in Cali that helps AIDS-HIV patients

          princess pandora really is the gift that just keeps giving

          i don’t think she gets the irony here …

  2. randiego says:

    Wow, bmaz was doing all this and commenting on the last thread too! Man, the bench on this blog is deep!

  3. Mary says:

    It was a pathetic thing to watch. Thanks for tempering the “good” news with the bigger picture bmaz.

  4. timbo says:

    The bizarre process might have been part of obstruction. And, if it was, it would be to benefit Ted that the obstruction was done, correct? And, therefore, it would stand to reason that justice was done despite the attempted obstruction. Of course, the whole prosecution effort might have been incompetent on its own…although you have to wonder about how and who was assigned to handle this case and why.

    • bmaz says:

      Yes, as I have said repeatedly, that is possible. But, from all appearances, that possibility is pretty slight compared to the likelihood that the prosecution team was sloppy, aggressive, and unethical in their all consuming desire to convict the defendant.

  5. RAMA says:

    The Bush Administration can’t even do the right thing right. They’ve certainly set an entirely new set of standards for dangerous incompetence. At least Stevens is out of commission for a while.

  6. surfer says:

    My personal distaste for Stevens and his politics, and desire to win his seat, is no match for my desire to have the rule of law followed, due process guaranteed to every defendant, and an honest prosecution with full disclosure and fairness shown to the defendant.

    This should be a no brainer. It’s the only way we ourselves could feel safe.

    Thanks for holding the line, bmaz.

  7. randiego says:

    oh for crying out loud. I read the article on the ’skinhead Obama assassination attempt’.

    First, they planned to rob a gun store to get the weapons they needed, then kill a high school full of black kids, then kill Obama. Right.

    Exactly timed with the Stevens announcement. Riiiight.

    • bmaz says:

      According to a statement by Schuster just now on MSNBC, their plan was to, “after killing 88 black people at a high school, all dress in white tuxedos and drive at Obama’s vehicle as fast as they can, shooting at the windows”.

      Fucking brilliant. Those people in the “Real America” sure got the rest of us beat eh?

      • emptywheel says:

        Yeah, but were they going to drive at the vehicle by looking in the mirror, or were they going to get the B the right way this time?

        bmaz,

        Thanks for voicing your concerns about a fair trial here.

        What do you make of the fact that they came to a verdict so quickly after they got their new 12th juror this morning, and presumably starting over again?

        • freepatriot says:

          What do you make of the fact that they came to a verdict so quickly after they got their new 12th juror this morning

          I’s say ted toobz is a shitty liar

        • bmaz says:

          That is almost how it always comes down when an alternate is substituted in after substantial deliberations have already taken place. It is very disturbing, and I just hate it. Due to the privacy of the jury deliberation process, I imagine that there have been little to no well constructed studies of the phenomenon. I have had it happen a couple of times, and the verdict was so fast it was surprising. Is what I generally see in other cases reported in the press as well. There is an inherent tension built into the jury process by the requirement of unanimity. When that is disturbed by the ability to reshape the process through juror substitution, it changes the whole dynamic. To me, this is just not right.

          • LabDancer says:

            With respect bmaz, I’m not buying into that at all. Again, having done so many jury trials on both sides, maybe I’m just more pragmatic about the breadth of human group dynamics, but none of these markers amount to much if anything unusual for a healthy jury system, even cumulatively.

            By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a criticism of the woman prosecutor who conducted the cross of Stevens as being ‘partisan’ – except here, by you. Again, maybe I missed something you saw, and if so I would think you could point it out.

            • bmaz says:

              Um, read the record, Emmet Sullivan excoriated her. I assume that would constitute criticism. He did not, as you suggested earlier, sanction any of the individual prosecutors for their misconduct. He did exclude some evidence at one point, and then the next day allowed the government to call an extra witness to overcome that. Some sanction.

              • LabDancer says:

                Have you never been in a trial when the trial judge has read the Riot Act out to one side or the other and then found for that side? That sort of thing happens so often its on the list of likely options. And its so transparent that even beat reporters grow familiar with it in about a week.

                Not impressed, bmaz.

                • bmaz says:

                  I don’t really care if you are impressed or not; that is not my goal. And, yes, I have seen that all the time; judges do that to buck up incompetent and unethical prosecutors daily, if not hourly. And by doing so, and rarely if ever giving them the dire sanctions they earn, just as you suggest here, we have created a climate and presumption that anything goes just as long as they convict the bad guys. That is a large part of the slippery slope that has led us to the fucked up judicial and justice system we find rampant today. I am tired of it. It is NOT all good. Prosecutions should be straight up, and if not, the prosecutors should get their petty little asses handed to them; then they will quit this lazy compromised bullshit. But until there is some penalty to be paid by them, and until such BS is ceased being referred to as generally acceptable, that is not going to happen; we will just keep circling down the same toilet we have been for some time now.

                  • LabDancer says:

                    The particular slippery slope you’re describing was there eons before George and Barbara Bush first discussed having a family. It’s existence, IMO, has a lot more to do with judicial refereeing styles than fundamental justice.

                    • bmaz says:

                      Agreed with that mostly. The real decline started with the vicious attacks on Earl Warren and his court. That led directly to heightened politicization in the prosecutorial ranks, not just once they were there, but in getting elected to AG and county attorney jobs in the first place, which in turn drove a conviction quota mindset. The formation and infiltration by the Federalist Society types has not helped all of this one bit either I might note. I also think expanding media coverage through TV and then more TV and cable and now the internet has made it so that every case is scrutinized and judges are always wondering if doing the right thing is worth the backlash when some dope rails about it. It is a mess. But I would just like to see a few hammers dropped on some big heads, it would really make a difference.

        • LabDancer says:

          I realize this isn’t aimed at me, but…

          I’ve been involved in several trials in which a couple or so jurors will bond in minority for whatever reason, including apparently just the kind of basic insecurity [from self-guilt? who knows] that makes it hard for them to judge their fellow citizens, and those alliances tend to lengthen jury deliberations.

          But every once in a while someone with a …um… temperament problem gets on the jury. I don’t think folks spend a lot of time considering that about one in ten citizens has or has had a seriously debilitating psychological struggle in the past couple of years, and one in twenty has a flat out Axis II personality disorder. You’d think the jury voir dires would weed all of those out, but some get missed.

          In this case, I wasn’t able to tell whether the juror the others were complaining about was the same one who was excused for altruistic reasons before this morning’s sessions, which might help in understanding the story a bit better.

          As to the brevity of the Jury Deliberations 2.0, if there was only one hold out when they started, then I really don’t think any jury is going to go full anal with the new member and replay the discussions they went through with that recalcitrant one.

          As I asserted above, this was a garden variety case.

      • randiego says:

        yeah, I read that and rolled my eyes so hard I heard ‘em pop

        can you imagine the law enforcement response to a gun store robbery – especially one that successfully grabbed enough weaponry to take out a high school?

        that alone would be enough to shut down this ‘plan’ in it’s infancy

      • Leen says:

        Quite insane! And some of these freakos have ended up in Iraq (I have heard direct stories from soldiers who have returned from Iraq) Stories of wackos like these guys using Iraqi people for target practice.

      • scribe says:

        Are those real tuxedoes, or just those T-shirts printed to look like them?

        These lights seem about as dim as Cal Naughton, Jr., e.g.:
        “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-Shirt because it says I want to be formal, but I’m here to party.”

        Oh, well. I suppose it’s a good thing they caught these poor souls so susceptible to McCain’s propaganda (which will produce a few wackos ready to do like these clowns intended to – it’s a statistical certainty, as much as running Beavis and Butthead lighting stuff on fire on the TV is certain to produce at least one knucklehead who will burn down the trailer) before someone gets hurt.

        It’s the ones you don’t hear about that worry me.

        • bmaz says:

          Heh, don’t know. This is all I saw

          “Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt,” the court complaint states.

          Perhaps they were Tennessee Tuxedos!

          • Leen says:

            The sicko’s have been surfacing and Palin has stirred them up to some degree. Hope she stops and draws a line for the next week.

  8. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    bmaz, I absolutely respect and admire your commitment to due process.
    But IMHO, this man is a World Class Polluter, a key player in single-hulled tankers involved in oil spills, drilling in fragile (and irreplaceable) habitat, and all about $$$$$$$$$.

    As far as I’m concerned, this man is corrupt to the core, and his actions have huge ramifications for environmental health and the integrity of sensitive ecosystems, fish spawning regions, and more things that you really want to know or read about.

    He sold his soul to the devil.
    I’ll save my pity for people who deserve it.

  9. Leen says:

    “My personal distaste for Stevens and his politics, and desire to win his seat, is no match for my desire to have the rule of law followed, due process guaranteed to every defendant, and an honest prosecution with full disclosure and fairness shown to the defendant.” That about covers it.

    Bush, Feith, Cheney, Addington etc deserve fair trials!

  10. BoxTurtle says:

    If I were on the appeals court, knowing what I know now, I’d give Stevens the retrial. But I wouldn’t let him walk.

    A retrial under Obama’s DOJ might not be something that Sen. Stevens wants, though. I dunno if the current set of prosecutors threw the case (never blame on malice what can be explained by stupidity), but I’d bet the next set will do a better job.

    Boxturtle (Question is: If you’re in Obama’s DOJ, is this case worth retrying?)

    • LabDancer says:

      If this is handled properly on appeal, you will get your wish of either conviction upheld or new trial, but no dismissal.

      I mention “properly” because it’s not as if there aren’t a lot of partisan plants in the various courts above this trial level, EG Bush v Gore.

      But the point is, proper appreciation of any ‘harm’ to Stevens in the CONDUCT of the trial [which by the way I have yet to see], short of EGREGIOUS behavior or CORRUPT motive on the part of the prosecution [which I also haven’t seen, but I’m a ways away], EG US v Siegelman, should never result in acquittal on appeal.

      • bmaz says:

        I really fail to see how you consider the express withholding of exculpatory evidence as of no moment whatsoever. And when the defense attorney has shaped his opening statement and cross-examination of the entire government set of witnesses based upon incomplete and prima facially unethically withheld evidence, including material exculpatory evidence, how in the living hell can you say that there has been no harm to the defendant? If I was Brendan Sullivan, I would have set my defense up far differently with all the knowledge of what the government misstated and failed to disclose. If that is not harm to the defense, I don’t know what is.

        • LabDancer says:

          I won’t argue the point of it being “of no moment”, because obviously the judge, who’s in the best position, as a matter of law, thought it was of SUCH moment he excluded. That’s sanction, and in my book its very often the most meaningful sanction the defense can hope for. I’ve set up countless defenses based on aiming for nothing more.

          On the issue of how it may have affected the cross-examination of the defense, well… I wasn’t there, you weren’t there, the judge was, and the reviewing courts will have transcripts, tapes, arguments and lots of perspective. All I’ll say at this point that that your argument is categorically not dispositive.

          • bmaz says:

            The exclusion you refer to was oh so helpfully undermined by the judge immediately afterwards by allowing a new witness to clean it up. Not much of a remedy under the circumstances, and was certainly not meaningful in the least in the long run since all that evidence was allowed in under different means.

          • LabDancer says:

            golly bmaz, we may be losing the crowd on this, so let me try to clarify my position on our fraternal dispute:

            There are points in the progress of a trial where if something goes wrong, depending on the nature of that wrongness, the law is such that appeal and reviewing courts will presume that it biased the outcome. That is, it doesn’t have to be shown that it NECESSARILY led to a wrong result, but simply that it might have.

            There are other points in the progress of a trial where the same thing might happen and yet NOT have that effect.

            What bmaz is referring to is, I readily concede, one of the most sensitive points in a criminal trial. I further concede that there are more potential for harm from even otherwise relatively innocuous problems, merely because they happened at this point.

            By way of an unrelated example: imagine a defending lawyer has the key government witness on the slow rotisserie, working him up to full nuke, and the judge intervenes and out of the blue goes ballistic in the defending lawyer’s face about misconduct and calling for bar sanctions…and then suddenly goes all Emily Litella “Oh…never mind”.

            That’s gonna be presumed to leave a mark. But the presumption is always rebuttable by the other side; that is, its not an iron clad, one size fits all rule of law like gravity: it requires context, and sometimes nuanced argument.

            What bmaz is relying on here is that public reports imply such a presumption is in play in this instance. I think he has a good argument. I also think that his argument is far from the point of disposing of my own point about the presumption being rebuttable by context, and at this point I also have a good argument: the track record of the presiding judge.

            By the way, for what it’s worth, the defense has the right to raise the same argument again at this point, so I would think we can look forward to seeing the trial judge’s rationalization of his decision to continue the trial.

  11. JimWhite says:

    So, real justice turns out to be Begich in the Senate and Ted’s conviction tossed on appeal? Ted disappears to brood (while keeping his ill-gotten gains) and the country benefits.

    I suppose I can live with that, but Ted keeping the booty sticks in my craw.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      Amen.
      But I think that if Toobz gets a free pass, all the clowns who’ve been behaving like gluttons will continue to do so.
      And what message does it ’send’ to the FBI investigators to watch such a corrupt guy get off basically scot-free? Sheesh.

      • Twain says:

        Would love to see Toobz behind bars but I think he will lose his Senate seat and will forever be a convicted felon. Might give some a reason to pause before doing something corrupt. Leavenworth would be justice.

  12. randiego says:

    don’t get me wrong, I’m all for catching skinheads plotting evil things. But, please, this barely seems ‘aspirational’, much less ’situationally ready’.

  13. DeadLast says:

    It should not have been thrown out. Yes there was misconduct, but the judge sanctioned the prosecution. The truth was louder than the guns.

  14. Arbusto says:

    So bmaz, you feel the judge was wrong legally to allow the trial to proceed?

    As others have stated, Teddy will likely appeal, BFD. After 8 years of lawlessness, I’ll let Teddy take one for the Gipper. Why start straightening Justice with a crook? Shortsighted; yep. Feels good though

  15. Ishmael says:

    Agree with bmaz and Mary, there was no attempt to throw the case, quite the opposite, they were gunning hard for the win, although I disagree with bamz and Mary that the abuses were so heinous that they were not adequately remedied by the trial judge – the jury was told about the prosecution’s shenanigans, and the prosecution was lucky enough that Mr. Veco was still on the stand when it made its late disclosure/correction of previous altered disclosure regarding his FBI statement. Very close, but not fatal. OOMA guess, it likely came down to the fact that the jury simply did not believe either Mrs. Stevens or the Senator, with his Seinfeldian “it’s not a gift, it was a long-term extended loan of seven years for a massage chair” excuses.

  16. nomolos says:

    He will be pardoned so all is moot. Frankly I believe that there are all too frequently prosecutorial mishaps and whether that is because of incompetence, corruption or not enough people to do the job I have no idea. In this case, as it every other as far as I am concerned it is better the guilty go free rather than corrupt the law.

  17. freepatriot says:

    Yeah boy, the prosecution tried so hard to tank this trial that they convicted Stevens of all counts.

    even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut

    could be a lawyer from regency school of law and small engine repair

    coulda been a lawyer so incompetent that he was trying to botch the case and fucked up

    I’m not convinced this is gonna survive on appeal

    appeals courts always seem to favor the defendant when the defendant is a repuglitard

    oh, an ew

    THANK YOU

    (I probably don’t say that enough, but you’re a large part of the reason I’m still sane)

    and YEAH, I consider myself sane, that lawyer never proved anything (cuz the jugdge wouldn’t let him)

      • freepatriot says:

        I was readin the story rendiego commented on, and apparently I can’t even get out of the regional semifinals in the crazy competition

        some people really need to have their neural synaptic activity checked

  18. freepatriot says:

    guess I should check the author

    is this about that “power stuggle” thingy ???

    cuz I was just jokin when I said that …

    • Petrocelli says:

      I did a double take too … we were so eagerly awaiting Marcy’s post that we failed to see the actual writer/blogger was bmaz …

  19. bmaz says:

    That is the way the rule of law works. What message does it send to pervert and destroy the justice system and fundamental fairness to convict one freaking old man? Do it right or don’t do it. The founding fathers stated unequivocally that it was better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent on lose his right to liberty. They are STILL right after all these years. By laying down the law, and enforcing it for these asswipe lazy and unethical prosecutors, you start to clean up their act. If the convenience of feeling good about dispatching Stevens, or any individual defendant, off to the dungeon always takes precedent over a fair due process, you will never get fair due process. And that is exactly where we stand today. It must stop.

    • freepatriot says:

      seeing ted toobz take a hit like this, EIGHT FOOKIN DAYS BEFORE AN ELECTION, is really sweet

      but I agree about the “rule of Law” arguement

      if a jury was allowed to bring a guilty verdict against me after this kangroo prosecution, I’d be throwin a fit

      and I can throw a pretty good fit

      (I can scare people just by acting normal, well, normal for me)

      in the end, there is some poetic justice in ted toobz getting screwed by the bushista DOJ, right before an election, with a dog of a case like this (Mr Seigleman outta be laughing right now)

      as yea sow, shall yea reap

      too bad irony is wasted on repuglitards

    • LabDancer says:

      I am with you to this extent: I should very much like to see a full excavation of all DOJ conduct which is superficially egregrious or corrupt. Every new AG and the DOJ under her or his direction are entitled to the benefit of the doubt, to a point; and every GWB AG went well beyond that point.

    • slide says:

      Due process is a an admirable doctrine to strive for but in the real world due process is ‘what you get’ not ‘what you think you should get’. I have not seen any real due process in a court in 18 years. I am not sure there is any such constitutional right under the 14th or the 5th Amendment any longer.

      • bmaz says:

        Yeah, agreed. That is exactly why i get hot under the collar about this. A few well placed hammering of prosecutorial bullshit here and there would do a world of good overall to reset the game a little. A forum like Stevens does not even require letting a violent criminal off in the process; but it needs to be done in some visible cases somewhere to send a message. It never is, and that is the problem.

  20. scribe says:

    You got this one quite correctly.

    I, for one, am one of the group who’ve thought DoJ and the government in general were trying mightily to tank this case and protect Stevens. Not because he was a Republican, but rather because they wanted to keep some semblance of a leash on the Senate and, with him gone, reaching 60 w/o Lie-berman is so much more likely.

    They failed on their Brady obligations – miserably.
    They got chunks of their case tossed out because they failed on their prosecutorial obligations.
    They screwed up the indictment – so badly that the JURY were the ones who caught it.

    I’ve seen shoplifting cases tried better.

    Please. Stevens will serve exactly no days in custody.

    I’ll be surprised if this case survives the post-trial motions to acquit.

    For those saying it was a grad of Regent U School of Law and Mower Blade Sharpening, I have to respond that they are full of it. This is the prosecution of a sitting Senator. No one can quite remember when the last one was, though some say it was NJ’s Harrison Williams, in ABSCAM, back around 1978 or 1980. That was 30 years ago.

    Do you seriously think the DoJ would put someone inept on something that rare and important? No. Far more likely is the knowledge that a result favoring the Republicans would be very welcomed in the higher ranks of DoJ and the Party. And everything done to ensure such a favorable result.

  21. LabDancer says:

    bmaz – The two links you provided by way of examples of the “prosecutorial misconduct” which you assert should have led to dismissal don’t work for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve done so many jury trials: in my experience its exceptional when at least one of these types of incidents does NOT happen.

    The one I recall from earlier was the incident the defense raised with a part of the out of court statement made by Sen Stevens’ good ol buddy benefactor being redacted, but as I recall that flew in the face of the clear reference to the redacted content in the body of the cover letter, leaving the impression that it was, to say the least, open to the judge to rule that the defense team was being disingenuous in arguing they were caught by surprise, but instead were laying in the weeds on that one. There was debate on whether in a high profile trial of a senior legislator in the same party as the chief executive this might be more than inadvertence, but I thought you and I agreed the trial judge was far from the sort of dumbass or partisan tool who would pounce on this false conundrum as an opportunity to allow the good burghers of Alaska to continue their high pork diet.

    At the risk of oversimplifying, the Constitutional implications of justice through trial by a jury of one’s peers under the rule of law do not necessitate a perfect trial, any more than they require that this particular jury be comprised of fellow US Senators.

    I share your distress with the sorry state into which the Bush administration has dragged the DOJ – and how –

    but my impression [and I’d be pleased to learn of any better knowledge of critical details than I have on this] is that this was really a pretty garden variety case of its kind [with the furniture and tools to go with it] – with the main distinguishing features being the backdrop of the Democratic Party’s hope to achieve the so-called filibuster-proof 60, along with Senator Stevens’ altruistic – or hubristic, depending on one’s point of view, preference for a speedy trial before a jury of Washingtonians rather than a [I would have thought] more sympathetic hearing later on before the Alaskan beneficiaries of whatever else has trickled down from his long history of electoral success in that state.

    • bmaz says:

      I didn’t give any links to prosecutorial misconduct at all; I gave two hastily found links on the goofy jury deliberation process. There are a boatload of articles out there for the misconduct; many of them have been discussed at various points in the threads here. But there were no such links given in this post, so I did not expect you to be so convinced by any such links. You were not. All according to plan, you see?

      • Twain says:

        Your respect for the law is a grand thing to see. Wish we had some like you in the DOJ – soon, I hope.

    • Ishmael says:

      “The one I recall from earlier was the incident the defense raised with a part of the out of court statement made by Sen Stevens’ good ol buddy benefactor being redacted, but as I recall that flew in the face of the clear reference to the redacted content in the body of the cover letter, leaving the impression that it was, to say the least, open to the judge to rule that the defense team was being disingenuous in arguing they were caught by surprise, but instead were laying in the weeds on that one.”

      Agreed, the prosecution was dickish, and I can’t explain the blackout-redaction, but I don’t see how the redaction materially prejudiced the defence – a major part of the prosecution’s theory of the case was that Stevens had conspired with the Veco people to say that he had agreed to pay for everything if asked or billed, so I don’t see how the defence was not prepared to argue that part of the case. The defence was allowed to impugn the credibility of the prosecution to the jury arising out of the redactions, so I think the defence will not prevail on appeal. I have read that Federal Trial Practice in the US is absurdly pro-prosecution, so I am unsure why the prosecutors felt the need to go as far as they did.

  22. freepatriot says:

    can somebody explain how the fuck THIS happens:

    They screwed up the indictment – so badly that the JURY were the ones who caught it.

    excuse me ???

    how many fucking lawyers were in that court room ???

    is this JUDGE licensed to practice law ???

    and what the FUCK was the jury doing reading law books (how the fuck does that happen ???)

    I do not understand how a JURY could clarify the law for a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, and a presiding judge

    the process don’t work that way

    anybody ???

    • scribe says:

      The screw-up was that the indictment said Stevens had checked “no” on a form, when he’d actually checked “yes”.

      Seriously.

      And DoJ tried to pass it off as a typo.

      • freepatriot says:

        the indictment said Stevens had checked “no” on a form, when he’d actually checked “yes”.

        that’s not a typo

        that’s a misstatement of facts

        not sure about the implications in that

  23. DWBartoo says:

    bmaz;

    I understand your concerns … however, while we may be all choked up concerning the rule of law … and I agree totally with you that this should ALWAYS be of fundamental concern, let us consider:

    We may rest reasonably assured that SENATOR Stevens had the best defense that money can ‘buy’, AND we may also be relatively certain that the good Senator is ‘friends’ with some of the most-power people in this nation, which is reeling BECAUSE the rule of law has been virtually dispensed with, and that he might even receive a pardon …

    How many defendants ever walk into a courtroom with ALL those things in their ‘favor’?

    How may we glibly speak, bmaz, of the ‘rule of law’ when we KNOW that many defendants are NOT adequately represented AND have NONE of the other ‘advantages’ possessed by the good Senator?

    If your concern is ‘fairness’ as it relates to the rule of law, then I would suggest that such concern might better be directed toward consideration of the role of MONEY in our system of justice, as that is precisely the point where any and all claims of inherent ‘fairness’ are shattered and made mock of.

    If the law and its practioners cannot or will not address THAT issue, then
    any hand-wringing beyond concerns about FUNDAMENTALLY fair access to RECEIVING more than merely ‘adequate’ justice, seem to me, at least, to be rather ‘misplaced’ and more akin to arguing about the number of devils who may dance on the eye of an gnat.

    • Leen says:

      “the role of money in our system of justice” A justice system for the peons, and one for the fat cats or well connected. Although so great to see Cunningham, Abramoff and a few others go down.

      • DWBartoo says:

        A two-tiered sysrem of justice.

        One for the haves and have-mores.

        And one for the lesser beings who comprise the majority.

        Afterall, why strive for great wealth if not to insulate one’s self and one’s family from the slings and arrows, as well as from the degrading experience of being treated as if one were of the hoi polli … (sniff) especially before a mere judge.

        Indeed.

      • DWBartoo says:

        Nor can I, Leen.

        I wonder how many of our fellow citizens are in the same, precarious, and leaky, boat?

        Actually, such was the point of my comment @ 45.

  24. Mary says:

    OT, but on a brighter rule of law note:
    GIMTO “Overseer” Hartmann Under Investigation

    Not that investigations mean much. Still, the AF investigation is interesting bc it is spinning off from a preliminary inquiry, which means the prelim found grounds for starting an investigation. I also thought that, with Haynes now at Chevron (and DOJ deep sixing the charges against dept of interior employees that Chevron doesn’t want to cooperate on) this was interesting about Hartmann:

    The chief counsel to Connecticut-based MXenergy Holdings Inc. and an Air Force reservist with experience as a military prosecutor, he was called up for active duty in July 2007 specifically for the Guantanamo post

    In any event, although nothing will likely come of it, score one more for JAG for at least making a good faith stab at trying to do the right thing when your CIC is not someone prone to ordering the right thing.

  25. Mary says:

    52/56 – well, it was even a bit more than that. What they alleged that he checked “no” for was a required form disclosing whether any gifts had been received. He actually checked yes, that he had received gifts.

    What I don’t understand is how defense counsel never caught that, but DOJ’s argument was that it was not relevant bc although he checked yes, he didn’t list the gifts at issue in the litigation.

    I’m with bmaz, on the exculpatory evidence issue in particular. To sit on exculpatory evidence in an extremely high profile criminal case involving a long serving US Senator – that’s not minor.

    • freepatriot says:

      doesn’t that kinda negate the whole case ???

      What they alleged that he checked “no” for was a required form disclosing whether any gifts had been received. He actually checked yes, that he had received gifts.

      so let’s see if I got this right:

      there is a form, filled out by toobz. That form asks “have you received any gifts” ??? and Toobz checked “YES”

      versus

      The case against toobz, claiming that toobz checked “No”

      and the JURY pointed this out to everybody in the courtroom ???

      I suspect there are more disclosure issues involved, but if I understand this correctly, I don’t see how this jury could convict

      looks like toobz admitted to receiving gifts, he just didn’t list them

      curiouser and curiouser

    • DWBartoo says:

      How many cases exit, do you suppose, where defendants who were not ‘high profile’ … ‘long serving’ Senators have had the prosecution ’sit on’ exculpatory evidence?

      Steven’s may very well win on appeal for precisely the reasons offered by bmaz as well as somewhat reasonably, from the Senator’s perspective, have expectations of being pardoned.

      The ‘exceptional’ nature of this case is NOT what happened, but precisely and only because it involves Senator Stevens.

      Others who have had even more grevious ‘experience’ must simply hope that their plight is significantly ‘newsworthy’ as to warrant the ‘interest’ of attorneys more competent than those whom they previously had access to.

      While EVERY instance of justice ‘denied’, as bmaz postulates in this case, and I do not disagree with his concerns, as such, deserves scrutiny, and if warranted, as bmaz argues, dismissal AND consequence for those who misbehaved; we all know that in most examples of misconduct, even when quite blatant, justice is not served.

      I cannot,in good conscience, accept the idea that Steven’s case even begins to approach the reality of those whom Bush has consigned to a limbo of perpetual uncertainty and complete and total injustice. At worst he may lose his ’seat’, as opposed to his ass, and whatever passes for his good name. As you and bmaz have implied, the larger issue is what we all may lose.

      Though I may hope, and I do so hope, that Steven’s receives the justice he deserves, my greater hopes are reserved for other’s opportunity of the same, before hell freezes over.

      At heart, the problem here, the real ‘problem’ in this case, if we are to be honest, is NOT the prosecution’s behavior but the judge’s response to that behavior, whose motivation is open to speculation.

      Did the prosecution intend, actually, to ‘win’ or to ‘lose’? Or did they intend to make a sufficent rat’s nest of things as to confuse that intention so completely that we should find ourselves speculating and wondering …

      In confusion lies opportunity … for those who can make use of it.

      DW

      • bmaz says:

        You keep harping on the fact that it happens all the time to common defendants; but that is the freaking point. If you hammer the crap out of governmental/state misconduct on a big, notorious case like this, it has effects all down the line. If you do it only once every blue moon, in a case that nobody in the world knows or hears about, it doesn’t mean squat. You want to affect the whole system positively, you do it with something that will have an impact far and wide,

      • Leen says:

        Do the courts ever throw the public a bone? Such as in the Stevens case to calm the mobs down so that they are not pushing the courts and Justice system to go after the bigger fish that deserve to be fried and refried? (Cheney, Addington, Yoo, Rove etc?

  26. Leen says:

    Ot
    Aljazeera reports about the U.S. attack in Syria
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZzRAmgaSqg

    Dana Perino refused to answer any questions about the attack
    U.S. State Department refuses to comment on deadly attack in Syria
    The spokeswoman (Dana Perino), during the daily press conference, rarely used “I can’t comment on it at all,” “I’m not going to comment in any way,” “I don’t know, I don’t know,” “all I can tell you is that I am not able to comment on reports about this reported incident” to answer reporters’ questions on the attack.
    http://news.xinhuanet.com/engl…..262913.htm

  27. oldtree says:

    I am reminded of Al Capone taking the fall for tax evasion rather than the murders. Imagine, 40 years of corruption in Alaska and the senate. How many died? How many Billions changed hands that either weren’t taxed, or were paid for using taxpayers money?
    In a corrupt system, we get a guilty verdict against the right one. We have prosecutors that we will have to learn about as the facts come forward. It smells. The evidence must have been overwhelming.

  28. randiego says:

    Man, step away for a few minutes and an all-lawyer cage match breaks out

    seriously though, your passion is inspirational!

    • LabDancer says:

      I expect everyone here is familiar with the tendency of within-profession disputes to seem more inflated than they are. As gunslingers deal in lead, lawyers deal in language, so a certain healthy hyperbole is far from abnormal. There is quite a bit less difference between what I see bmaz meaning and what I mean than may be readily apparent. We agree the US DOJ is in an historically disgusting condition, and that way too many state, county and municipal prosecution agencies have followed it into debasement. We agree something quite dramatic needs to be done about all that. Where we diverge is on the matter of whether this particular case necessarily presents an opportunity to in part redress this horrible situation.

      • bmaz says:

        Yeah, no kidding. I have enjoyed it immensely and understand perfectly the small fulcrums we are tilting back and forth on this thread. That is what it is about though.

      • NMvoiceofreason says:

        We need a law. “In every case where any witness presented at trial has recanted or where scientific evidence has been contradicted or falsified by prevailing standards, the conviction SHALL be vacated and a new trial shall be granted. In every case filed in the Supreme Court, there shall be full oral argument and a decision upon the merits with a written opinion. In every case where a case is under appeal and evidence related to actual innocence has not been fully examined by the trial court, the appeals court shall endeavor to construct a full and fair hearing to document such proof.”
        “In every case where the prosecution has failed to comply with the requirements of Brady v. Maryland for disclosure of information, the case shall be dismissed with prejudice. In every case where the prosecution has failed to disclose such material and hidden the fact from the court, all prosecutors involved shall be disbarred and charged with obstruction of justice. In every case where the prosecution has knowingly helped a witness avoid testifying or has acted in a manner to prevent a witness from testifying, all prosecutors involved shall be disbarred and charged with obstruction of justice. The same shall apply if the prosecution presents evidence it could reasonably believe to be false, or a reasonable person could believe to be false under the circumstances.”
        “In every case where a person is incarcerated, they shall have equivalent access to computers, internet, search engines, and legal research materials as that provided by the State for its prosecutors, including amount of time the materials are available each day.”

        Call it the INHERENT RIGHT TO JUSTICE ACT of 2009.

  29. emptywheel says:

    Here’s Toobz:

    I am obviously disappointed in the verdict but not surprised given the repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct in this case. The prosecutors had to report themselves to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility during the trial for ethical violations. Exculpatory evidence was hidden from my lawyers. A witness was kept from us and then sent back to Alaska. The Government lawyers allowed evidence to be introduced that they knew was false. I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have.

    I am innocent. This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial. I ask that Alaskans and my Senate colleagues stand with me as I pursue my rights. I remain a candidate for the United States Senate.

    Take them all down with you, Toobz.

  30. randiego says:

    OT – speaking of inspirational, I just checked out the last 6 minutes of Barry’s speech today in Ohio. It’s a doozy.

    I’m pinching myself. It’s freakin awesome having everyone agree that the Dem is the grownup in the room.

  31. Petrocelli says:

    Blerg … suffered through ten minutes of Blitzer but caught a quote from Palin, affirming that Stevens will do the right thing for Alaska … wingnut V wingnut is a fun spectator sport …

  32. emptywheel says:

    Incidentally, WSJ law blog suggests Toobz lost because he testified, which makes sense to me (I’d add his wife in there too). Doesn’t change all the prosecutorial things, but it suggests it’s Toobz’ fault to some degree.

    DC juries aren’t the same as Senate colleagues.

    • DWBartoo says:

      You mean, Marcy, that Senator Stevens is not a victim of complete injustice?

      It must be difficult for him, whose presence must make others quake and sweat, to find himself treated so un-exceptionally and un-specially; why, it must rankle quite fiercely, trying his patience, if not vexing his soul.

      No doubt this whole experience, should he be vindicated, having the decision reversed on appeal, or failing that, be pardoned by an appreciative President (sentencing having been, perhaps, tailored to such a ‘posibility’), shall change the good Senator, opening his eyes, as it were, to a world with which he has had no truck, thereby causing him to become a better, more thoughtful, more considerate, and more compassionate being …

      One suspects he has learned something.

    • LabDancer says:

      Stevens had a very experienced trial lawyer. When one of those types ‘puts’ the client on the stand, that usually mean one of two things:

      [a] a Hail Mary, or
      [b] client hubris.

      This came up in Libby’s trial, but that’s a while back so: It also means typically a letter of instructions, drafted by the defense legal team for review and signature of the client as having been reviewed fully; one that given the nature & circumstances of this client can be expected to be extremely long and precise – features which, it appears, Senator Stevens apparently respectively has little patience with or tolerance for.

      I would expect his legal team to know that only too well, and being, I expect, suitably impressed with the degree of his sense of own personal luminosity, persuasiveness and invulnerability, would have drafted the letter to include the sort of language one associates more with that of Mr Rogers and Sesame Street.

      I wouldn’t reflexively suppose the reviewing courts to show a whole lot of luv to Toobz – these crimes are so arrogant and his attitude on and off the stand is such that it may be seen as not exceeding the legal equivalent of the dreaded Mendoza line – named after the Seattle baseballer whose career batting average is generally regarded as the level below which fans are unlikely to accept one’s performance as strictly professional.

    • bmaz says:

      Yeah, that is easy to say. But I think that if he indicated a willingness, I would have put him in the chair too. Juries want to hear from the defendant, irrespective of all the instructions to the contrary in the world. I would have to see the scripts to know how bad they dinged him on the stand; but it would have been hard to put on all that good character evidence from Hatch, Powell etc. and then not have the character to take the stand and look them in the eye. Very easy for lawyers who don’t actually try cases (like the journalistic kinds at WSJ) to make proclamations, but it is a wee bit different down there in the docks.

      Ismael – I read that sentencing was set for the end of February. It will not be accelerated, because Stevens would have to waive post trial motions that are critical to his appeal path to so so.

      • LabDancer says:

        With respect, I demure.

        The nature & reality of making one’s living by defending those charged with crimes suggests its often quite difficult to resist a big fat fee & a whole lot of free publicity, but my own working philosophy is that it is often best to have the defendant’s character spoken to by others at some distance from his dilemma – the further the better – rather than reveal it first hand.

        Also, its my own impression that children’s faerie tales and Republican party electoral tactics have made the case for the spirit of human generosity being a far greater thing in the abstract than in sordid reality.

        That said, the decision is to put or not to put is a widely discussed one among those in the profession, and where one starts from in considering what to do is not necessarily an effective predictor or where one ends up.

        But as a matter of tactics, I start from the notion that typically the prosecution team will trend to the lazy assumption that the defendant will testify because his lawyer will want to advise him of his dire circumstances. It’s also usually true, and without in any way denigrating your point of view on the matter, bmaz, speaking for those who trend otherwise: thanks.

        • bmaz says:

          Oh, i didn’t say I make a habit of putting client in the chair; but there are some circumstances where you really have to consider it. This was one of those. Now I have no idea it I would have thought it a good idea or not without having been in Brendan Sullivan’s shoes. But he is a good, experienced lawyer, and my guess is that his client wanted to testify. It may not have been to his advantage in hindsight, and you always have that significant risk, but all I am saying is that i don’t know that it was an unsupportable decision. Even given the dings he took doing it, it may still have been a net positive to the defense. Might actually have been the evidence, not his own testimony, that did him in. Who knows. All I am saying is that I think it is somewhat superficial for the WSJ guy to blithely conclude that was the determinative factor in the guilty verdict. My guess is that wasn’t particularly the clincher.

        • LabDancer says:

          There are surprising consequences to the exceptions. I once prosecuted a fairly open-and-shut looking kidnapping of a baby from her divorced father by a small delegation of young fundamentalist religiots and in response the lawyer for one of them put his client on the stand, who plead gullibility as a defence [not usually a promising one]. Within a minute or so of my cross he started to suffer from what proved to be an uncontrollable nose bleed, and within the half hour threw up when confronted with the awesomeness of his behavior. The ensuing acquittal I put down to a wide human tendency to show compassion for apparently honest genuflection.

          Some years later when defending a client in roughly equivalent circumstances, and not without a good deal of trepidation beforehand, I put my client on the stand, upon which his severe retardation was put on full display in an unrelenting ferocious cross by the prosecutor.

          Same factors – same result.

          • bmaz says:

            It’s a crapshoot, no doubt; sometimes you just conclude that your best odds lie in rolling the dice though. sometimes, you have no inclination whatsoever to do it, but after days of a trial, you just see or sense something in the jury that clicks with putting him on.

    • cinnamonape says:

      Actually, ew…that makes a lot of sense to me. Nina Totenberg read a transcript of some of the tete-a-tete between Stevens and the prosecutor and not only did he come of as being arrogant, he actually dug himself into a hole of deep “I can do anything I want, I’m a U.S. Senator” privilege that it was likely to have played a role in jurors adjudging his veracity.

      One back-and-forth she read was where Stevens’ defended having and using for years “gifts” in his home that he never reported. His argument was that he had told the donor that he was not accepting the gift. That’s why he never put it on the form. The prosecutor then asked “Why did you then use the chair for several years”.

      Stevens: “Well, because it was still in the house. XXX never took it away.”

      Prosecutor: “But XXX visited you many times after you told him that you weren’t accepting the gift.”

      Stevens: “Well, yes. But I never accepted the gift.”

      Prosecutor: “But you used it.”

      Stevens: “I’m not currently using it…it’s in my garage.”

  33. DWBartoo says:

    Well, bmaz, you have your concerns ,as I have mine, they are not so divergent as you may think,

    In this case however, I agree with Lab Dancer @ 91.

  34. Bluetoe2 says:

    What did you expect from a politically compromisede DOJ, that may well have sabotaged their own case for political reasons? Stevens political career is finished and another Republicon is looking at prison. What a surprise. Even if it was a flawed process it was far better than the one afforded those wasting away at Guantanamo.

  35. GeorgeSimian says:

    But he can’t run for office, now, can he? I mean, we don’t have to wait for the appeal to know that he’s not going to be re-elected, do we?

  36. cinnamonape says:

    OT But anyone hear this story of some 36 telemarketting workers for Americall in Hobart Indiana that walked off the job because they wouldn’t read an incidiery anti-Obama script saying that Obama supported freeing criminals that preyed on children?

    Call Center Workers Walk Out Over Extreme McCain Script

    Amazing! Some people have integrity…they are willing to risk their jobs rather than promote the hate.

  37. freepatriot says:

    see, here’s the problem

    you lawyer guys like to argue, but you always end up agreeing with each other

    the part I really like is where you charge people $180 an hour to argue with each other and you charge people $180 an hour to agree with each other

    combined, that’s $360 an hour if you agree or disagree

    and god forbid, some other fool decides to fund a third lawyer to argue/agree with the two original lawyers

    there’s probably a couple of thousand dollars of lawyering in this thread alone

    no wonder we’re broke

    we’re a nation of fricken lawyers …

    (wink)

    • bmaz says:

      $180/hr lawyers?? where you been hiring your lawyers, out of a trailer at Wal-Mart? either pay for a real one, or do it yourself; you aren’t going to get dick for $180/hr.

  38. freepatriot says:

    oh contrair, good sir

    The University of South Carolina has a law school too, ya know …

    an I coulda got a regency law school grad to question my competence for half that …

  39. AKSteve says:

    It’s a bit awkward getting to this post 118 comments later, but let me try. I apologize if I repeat what others have said, I did try to scan through them all.

    I did attend the three political corruption trials in Anchorage and have some thoughts on the prosecutors and their intentions and abilities.

    The prosecutors had two active attorneys in each case in Anchorage, but there were four who were actively involved in all three cases.

    Joseph Bottini has been an Anchorage US attorney for about 20 years. He has been so involved in all this that he had every fact at the tip of his tongue and knew the relevance of any point or issue made and could respond immediately to anything. There was a tinge of righteousness in his tone at times, but it was never overbearing (well probably it was to the defendants) and often well-deserved. He worked closely with the FBI on developing this case.

    Nicolas Marsh is probably in his 30s and I’ve heard that the rest of the team thought of him as ‘the brain.’ He’s a DC based attorney from of Public Integrity Section of DOJ. His knowledge of the law and the cases was scary. Marsh was the wonk of the team (he reminded me of Tobey Maguire as Spiderman’s alter ego Peter Parker), and he could be a little mechanical in an opening or closing, but he was also an active and effective member of the team, and got better at talking to the jury as time went by.

    Jim Goeke was the other Alaskan Office US attorney involved. He could have been one of the Blues Brothers. Young and brash, he also had a complete grasp of all the facts, but sometimes had to pull back a bit in his aggressiveness.

    Edward Sullivan was the second DC Public Integrity Section attorney. Young and a little shakey in his first time addressing the jury, he got over that quickly.

    All four of members of this team – but particularly the first three – impressed me as completely on top of the law and of the case and totally committed to getting convictions. It’s absolutely unthinkable to me that any of these guys would have done anything to sabotage this conviction.

    Another key person is Mary Beth Kepner. She looks like this sweet young woman who could be invisible in a crowd, but she’s the FBI agent who initiated the whole investigation and worked closely with all the informants and was at the table right behind the attorneys in all the trials. Other Alaska FBI agents were highly skeptical of her operation of first, but hold her in very high regard now.

    In a recent post on my blog, I mused about what was different about the Stevens case that could account for the bungling.

    1. The venue. This wasn’t Alaskan jurors, most of whom, have had Uncle Ted as their senior US senator all their lives and who fly in and out of the Ted Stevens International Airport and have absorbed the Ted Stevens larger than life benefactor of all Alaskans narrative. This was a jury of skeptical Washington DC residents – mostly African-American women.

    2. The new head of the prosecution team – Brenda Morris – the deputy of the Public Integrity Section, a DC native, and African-American woman. I did not travel to DC for the trial (but I’ve heard from several people who did.) Was she on the case because of her expertise in this kind of trial (which her resume says she has) or because she was an African-American woman (to counter all those white male attorneys who’d been handling the cases up til now)? My guess is probably both those reasons. Had she been keeping up with all the details of the earlier cases? How well did the old team take to the new boss? There are lots of questions here.

    3. The defense team was headed by one of the best and most expensive in the country and there was plenty of staff to help out. The Anchorage defendants had one attorney each – two in one case. The overwhelming imbalance became obvious when the defense attorney had to get up and leave the defendant sitting alone while he went out of the courtroom to get his witnesses. The prosecutors had 15-30 people swarming in and around the courtroom. Their offices were down the hall and they wheeled in a cart full of thick notebooks everyday. So this defense team seemed, from here, to be a little better match. But even so, in the Anchorage trials there were thousands of hours of audio and video tape to review and the Stevens trial was on the fast track.

    4. And finally there was the judge. In Anchorage, the local US Attorneys (and the defense attorneys) work closely with the judge all the time. (Though the Kohring case had an imported Seattle attorney – John Henry Browne – who acted like the big city attorney coming in to show the small town guys how to do things and he was totally ridiculous in that act, and outclassed by the Prosecutors.) How did all that familiarity affect the trials? The local defense attorneys worked much less combatively with the judge and the Prosecutors than did Browne. Was it just they knew each other and trusted each other? Or were they considering they’d be facing this same judge in other cases? Did the civility help their case or keep them from challenging more aggressively? At the time (remember, these were my first times in a federal courtroom for a trial) I thought the judge was pretty low key, interested more in making sure the facts got out and doing things with practical efficiency than worrying about dotting all the i’s and crossing the t’s. He wasn’t cutting corners, he just wasn’t hung up on the letter of the law if it obstructed the spirit of the law. He called out the prosecutors as well as the defense attorneys, but with more amused annoyance than with anger. He knew they were doing what they could for their cases and appreciated that, and didn’t get upset. He just called them on it, like a referee calling fouls. But in hindsight, it does seem – particularly by his comments about the sentencing guidelines about the seriousness of public officials violating the public trust and thinking through the fact the he too is part of the justice department – there may have been a little bias for the prosecutors. The DC judge apparently wasn’t low key and strongly chastised the prosecutors with a lot more emotion. Was he really that angry? Was he trying to show his impartiality in case there was an appeal? I have no idea.

    In any case, given how well organized the prosecutors were in Anchorage and given the justice department’s record under Bush – so well chronicled on this site – I couldn’t help also wondering if someone on the prosecution in DC had intentionally tried to scuttle things. But I’d bet a ton of money that it wasn’t one of the four prosecutors who worked on the trials in Anchorage last year.

    As I looked toward the verdict, it appeared to me that the jury, the tapes, and Stevens’ demeanor in the cross examination were key factors that would probably convict him. This DC jury wasn’t going to be awed by the Uncle Ted aura. Just the opposite was probably going to be the case. He was part of the establishment that has kept DC without real representation in Congress.

    In the Anchorage trials, the juries all said the tapes played a key role. These are hard to prove cases – the word of an informant versus the word of an elected official. But when the juries heard the defendants’ own words on tape, the doubts were dispelled. When they heard Stevens saying “The worst that will happen is a fine or some prison time” I think that undercut everything else presented on his behalf.

    Finally, when Stevens treated Prosecutor Brenda Morris with disrespect and condescension in the cross examination I couldn’t help but think, the jury has lots of African-American women on it. Watching the female African-American prosecutor treated this way by this old white man isn’t going to endear them to Uncle Ted.

    That said, I respect EW and BMAZ very much. You are both inspirations for thoughtful bloggers and I respect BMAZ’s concerns. The rule of law is all that stands between us a tyranny. Ted Stevens getting off because of improper procedures on the part of the prosecutors would be unfortunate, but not nearly as problematic as letting prosecutors get away such actions. I’m not in a position to evaluate whether there were enough compensating factors to overcome the problems raised by the infractions. But Stevens cannot claim his defense team wasn’t as good as he could hope to get and they should have been able to make his case effectively. That leaves any lingering problems with the judgment of Judge Sullivan.

    I’m also concerned that the convictions of corrupt politicians causes undue joy among their opponents. While it’s reasonable to be happy that justice has occurred, gloating over the fall of someone like Ted Stevens disturbs me. This is an older man who may have lost some of his capacity to make good judgments. But it also absolves the rest of us (most FDL readers probably excepted) for not working harder to dismantle the systems that put our elected officials into a world of sycophants who build their egos the way Stevens’ was built. And the lobbyists who do everything they can to make ambiguous the lines between friendship and professional advocacy so that people like Stevens get caught up in things like this. I say that, knowing that this was probably the least of the things that the FBI is trying to prove against Stevens. Apparently the smoking guns that would be needed on fisheries legislation, on sweetheart deals for ex-staffers as with the Alaska Sealife Center, seem to be eluding the prosecutors and so they went with this case they felt they could win.

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