“Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists…it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.” Lewis Powell, Jr.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Minutes after the news hit the wires my friend the LA criminal defense attorney emailed me in a state of fury. As a lawyer to mostly poor clients, she was outraged by the fact that when a federal court refused to step in and prevent Scooter Libby from going to prison during his appeal, George Bush galloped speedily into the breach and commuted Scooter’s 2 1/2 year sentence.
Later this afternoon when we talked on the phone, her anger had not diminished.. “I mean, I had to beg and grovel to get four, not five years for a low level drug deal,” she said, “and Bush is worried because he feels Scooter has ‘suffered enough.'” She snorted. “Oh, please.”
She talked about other cases she’d seen lately in which pathetic homeless men and women on Skid Row get caught chipping off half a rock to sell in order fund their own drug habits, and do a year or three of hard time.
“Equal justice,” she said. “Right.”
When I was in D.C. last week, the word was already out that Bush would likely commute Libby’s sentence, not pardon the former White House aide.. Everyone said that the political fallout wouldn’t amount to anything.
May everyone turn out to be wrong.
As Dick Durbin put it, “Even Paris Hilton had to go to jail.”
“The truth matters, and station in life does not,” prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald argued during Libby’s sentencing hearing.
Well, that’s what we’d like to believe anyway.
For those of you who subscribe to the LA Times, I would like to call your attention to this from Brad DeLong’s blog:
“Why Bush will Commute Libby’s Sentence – but Not Pardon Him”
http://tinyurl.com/2afqe7
While I agree that Bush commuted Libby’s sentence to appeal to his loyalist, conservative base — all he’s got left — I must strongly object to the public defender quoted who compares him to her clients: confessed drug dealers, however “small.” This was, whatever you may think about him and his party’s views, an otherwise law-abiding member of society (as far as we know) who took a hit for his boss, to spare the latter.
So he was a martyr of sorts to his party, and Bush “owes” him.
In no way is this comparable to drug dealers and junkies who make no contributions to society, and only do harm. (I know it’s easy to make a flip remark here, along the lines that conservative Republicans do just that, but please don’t. And I’m not even a Republican or Bush/Libby fan, and I intensely dislike Cheney.)
Dershowitz, Bork and Pokey Question Libby’s Verdict
A dozen legal scholars, including Alan Dershowitz, submitted an amicus to Judge Reggie Walton arguing that that there are serious constitutional questions concerning Libby’s case.
Judge Walton granted the scholars permission to file their brief, however, his order contained a caustic footnote questioning their motivation, suggesting would not give any weight to their opinion.
The vindictive Judge Walton said no to bail to Libby, ignoring 12 prominent Law Professors. Below is his footnote, slapping the 12 constitutional professors in the face. It makes you question the judges’ impartiality.
It also makes you wonder why it is more important to put the loosing end of a “he said, she said case into prison prior to appeal, while Judges have released numerous convicted MURDERS, while waiting appeal.
This case and Judge have the stench of week old fish.
http://www.jrtelegraph.com/2007/06/dershowitz_bork.html
I don’t know linda. I read your comment and thought about it. Read it again, and thought about it some more. Read it once more, and, now, I’m thinking out loud. Right off the top of my head, I’m unwilling to allow that Libby was an otherwise ‘upstanding’ citizen who simply martyred himself for the good of his party, anymore than I am willing to allow that all citizens busted for drugs are nefarious, serial law breakers. The truth is, in either case, I just don’t know. And, guilt or innocence isn’t really about the trajectory of ones life, but about a particular crime, and the particular evidence of the crime. I’m also unwilling to opine that a individual illicit drug dealer/user sowing their damage over city blocks, is a greater threat to society than a DC insider whose behavior has implications for an entire country. I’m also not sure that white ‘corporate’ crime should be less punishable than inner city drug crimes. Witnessing the recent displays of Baca and Paris, and Bush and Libby, I’m beginning to see Martha Stewart as a real modern day heroine. Given the likely back-stories of Libby’s crime, and a low level drug crime, I even have trouble equating two and a half years and four years. And, I just can’t keep myself from asking if appeasing his loyalist base was the only reason Bush commuted Libby’s sentence.
Oh, don’t make me puke. The Democrats get away with murder and then act outraged when Bush compensates for an overzealous judge and a prosecutor, who entrapped Libby after continuing an investigation in which it had already been concluded that no crime had been committed.
Were Demorats outraged when Sandy Berger skated after stealing and burning 9-11 Commission classified information? Were they outraged when Clinton pardoned cronies and crooks (one and the same)? How much time did Clinton serve when he perjured himself in the Paula Jones case? Don’t liberals care about women?
If liberals were really concerned about justice, they would have defended Libby.
So drug dealers and junkies make no contribution to society and only do harm? I’m glad that someone straightened me out on that issue, especially someone who dislikes Cheney. By the way, what was Scooter Libby’s contribution to society? Maybe I should ask Valerie Plame.
Sparky, you’re clueless. Have you even researched what Scooter Libby did in his job and how effective he was in helping our nation?
Maybe Valerie Plame, who was not covert, should recognize her husband’s contribution, because if it wasn’t for his lies and rantings for the Democrats, no one would know who she is, and she couldn’t have cashed in on those book deals.
Democrats can lie and show no shame.
Woody, you sound like a know-it-all; maybe you can tell me all about the wonderful world of Scooter Libby.
Libby’s jury was composed of 90 percent democrats.
Please don’ try and tell me this was a fair trial.
This was a political witch hunt, with much of the evidense withheld from the jury.
I predict that Libby will prevail on appeal.
Selections from:
Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment:
II. The Historical Origins of Impeachment
B. The Intentions of the Framers
The following is from a report written and released by the Judiciary Committee in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis.
“In the same convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to “pardon crimes which were advised by himself” or, before indictment or conviction, “to stop inquiry and prevent detection.” James Madison responded:
[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds tp believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty…63 ”
Footnote #63: “Madison went on to any contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected.”
http://tinyurl.com/2eftnn
“Presidential Impeachment?”
There was NO CRIME committed, except perhaps lying under oath.
But let’s play Bush/Cheney game.
Let’s say that Bush/Cheney wanted to embarrass Joe Wilson by exposing the fact that his wife Valerie who worked at the CIA had recommending her husband for the mission that he had attributed to the White House.
If they KNEW she was covert, all the White House would have to do is “declassify her statusâ€Â, and publish the story.
But, what happened to Richard Armitage, the guy who actually leaked the story of Valerie Plame and her husband to Robert Novak which resulted in the article that Joe Wilson was so mad about and all the fuss is about?
Nothing happened to Richard Armitage who worked for Secretary of State Colin Powell, because no crime was committed.
Borrowing liberally from another conversation elsewhere (because, I can’t say it a whole lot better than this)…. http://tinyurl.com/2m5ra8 The question was asked:
Why didn’t Fitzgerald go after Armitage? Did he, in the end, conclude that leaking Plame’s name was not a crime?
“The answer is that the reason why Armitage, Libby, and the other leakers weren’t prosecuted under the [Intelligence Identities Protection Act] is that the IIPA requires proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the leaker had actual knowledge that the CIA agent’s employment was classified at the time of the leak.
To prove that, you need to be able to prove how the person found out about the fact of CIA employment. In the case of Armitage, it was clear that he didn’t know; he found out from a document that said nothing about Plame’s covert status. In the case of Libby, it was less clear what he knew, but Fitzgerald nonetheless concluded that he couldn’t prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt.
The real issue is what Cheney knew and when he knew it. Libby’s lies [appeared to be] intentionally designed to keep Fitzgerald from getting a closer look at Cheney and determining what role Cheney had in the leak campaign and whether he knew Plame was covert. That’s why the obstruction was a big deal. That’s why no one was charged; the IIPA requires that you prove knowledge and Fitzgerald couldn’t.”
Posted by ‘Steve’ at 5:42
The crime(s) were: five felony counts of obstruction of justice, making false statements, and perjury, of which Libby was found guilty of four.
For a discussion of the IIPA see Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/oqo5a
It’s interesting that principally all of the votes in opposition were made by Democrats. Irony is not dead.
Sorry, Pokey. Those posts were all kind of reverse order from your question, but made sense as I went looking for the answers. I suppose it would have made too much sense to collect them all in a notepad and arrange them in a more useful order 😉 Hindsight, as they say.
Anyway, have a great 4th!
Want to discuss the persecutions, I mean prosecutions, of Rush Limbaugh for prescription drugs, Ann Coulter for voting where she was told, and Tom Delay for phony charges that get tossed out one-by-one–all by Democratic D.A.’s? Democratic initiated trials against Republicans are simply overblown political attacks. Where’s your reason? Where’s your compassion? Where’s your sense of justice?
Yeah, right.
In order to establish a violation of Title 50, United States Code, Section 421 [the Intelligence Identities Protection Act], it is necessary to establish that:
1) Libby knew or believed that Plame was a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal. (he did not)
2) Plame carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years. (she did not)
No evidence was provided with regard to Plame at all, in Judge Walton barred the defense from discussing Mrs. Wilson’s status at the trial.
Just in passing, for the record, in researching other things, I happened to notice that the judge who originally turned down Libby’s appeal bond was the trial judge, Reggie Walton. BUT, Libby’s lawyers appealed the bond issue and it was the appeals court made up of a panel of three judges, two republicans, and one democrat—that turned him down on Monday. They did so, according to their opinion, because they concluded that Libby’s eventual conviction appeal was likely to lose, so didn’t grant the bond.
One more thing, Reggie Walton, the trial judge, is not a liberal. In fact, he was appointed to judgeships by Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. He is, however, known as a very tough dude who tends to hand out longish sentences.
It didn’t help that Walton received a number of threats to him and his family from Bush supporters after he sentenced Libby.
Turns out, Walton was definitely the wrong guy to threaten. It REALLY put him in a bad mood.