US Attorney General Eric Holder has asked U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to drop the case against former Senator Stevens (R-AK). Prosecutors did not turn all required evidence over to the defense team along with other miscues. Steven stated that he is "grateful that the new team of responsible prosecutors at the Department of Justice has acknowledged that I did not receive a fair trial and has dismissed all the charges against me."
This has led to some right wing crowing that Stevens is innocent and that a Senate seat was stolen by Democrats and even that this is somehow Obama's fault. Now what Holder has done is to give up on a case that is poisoned by prosecutorial behavior not to declare or represent any sort of innocence on Steven's part. As for this case having anything to do with Democrats or Obama ignores the time line, Obama was a Senator in the midst of and election campaign and the Justice Department is run under the Executive Branch - Bush/Cheney.
Holder finding that Stevens did not receive a fair trial is disturbing, and it is at least somewhat reassuring to see the DOJ go toward correcting it. Holder has established an internal investigation to find out who and what went wrong. Judge Sullivan is also wanting answers. This would be bad for some careers.
I do find it odd for Republicans to be getting all up in the air about a convicted felon getting off on technicalities - I thought that was liberal judges and Democrat territory...
So much for consistency.
1 comment:
I find it stretching credulity way beyond the breaking point that this could be anything other than a deliberate hackjob of a prosecution. Lawyers simply do not get to that level without knowing precisely what the F*&% they are doing. And given the high profile nature of the case there was no possible way that prosecutorial misconduct would not have been found out and dealt with.
Unfortunately I don't expect that those who pulled the strings will ever be held to account or even investigated. They'll look for the lowest possible level fallguy and pin in on them.
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