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Conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens Is Thrown Out
A federal judge has thrown out the conviction of the senator who educated us all about the true nature of the Internet. Ted Stevens had been convicted last fall of lying about free home renovations that he received from an oil contractor, 8 days before he lost his Senate re-election bid. The judge blasted the US Department of Justice prosecutors for mishandling the case in ways that might rise to the level of criminality. "In 25 years on the bench, I have never seen anything approach the mishandling and misconduct in this case," Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said. He called the allegations "shocking and disturbing." According to the article, "Several jurors have told The Washington Post that the evidence against Stevens was overwhelming during a month-long trial that ended in October."
Much of the hearing today focused on what transpired during an April 15, 2008, interview with the key witness, Bill Allen. During that interview, according to notes taken by two of the prosecutors, Allen said he did not recall talking to a friend of Stevens's about sending the senator a bill for work on his home, according to Sullivan.
Under oath at trial, however, Allen testified that he was told by the friend to ignore a note Stevens sent seeking a bill for the remodeling work.
"Bill, don't worry about getting a bill" for Stevens, Allen said the friend told him. "Ted is just covering his [expletive]."
Ok, so we have Ted Stevens asking for a bill on the remodeling, like he should. But it sounds like one was never received or produced. So what was Stevens convicted of?
After a month-long trial, Stevens was convicted of not reporting on Senate disclosure forms that he accepted about $250,000 in gifts and free renovations to his home in Girdwood, Alaska. Most of the gifts and free remodeling work were supplied by Bill Allen, chief executive of Veco, a now-defunct oil services company.
Ok, regardless of whether or not an invoice was ever produced, the Senate is required to report things like this on their financial disclosure forms so that under the table payments can be discovered. It still sounds like he's guilty for failing to put "I just got these bitching additions to my house from this contractor for $0." Which should spark an investigation.
My point is whether they find him guilty or not, he failed his duties as a senator. It's a shame the prosecution botched this case and withheld that evidence from the court as he's still guilty of failing to disclose this information publicly on his financial disclosure form.
My work here is dung.
What is annoying here is this doesn't mean he isn't guilty - it's just that the prosecutors really messed up.
Why is this YRO?
Now, the process that have freed this sleeze-ball are also the processes that help in preventing the innocent from being railroaded. I'd rather free an occasional sleeze than see a lot of innocents convicted unjustly.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Procedural mistakes should not overturn convictions that are this overwhelming. The practice of law used to require one book, when we found this nation maybe a 100 now there are 10's of thousands of books involving the law in various aspects and it has gotten to be too much. We need to reboot the justice department by rewriting the laws so they are prudent, consistent and concise.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I don't think there should be a problem with what Stevens did. If the government were prohibited from interfering in the economy, there wouldn't be any incentive for a oil company to renovate a politician's house, of all things.
In such situations, all I have to ask is, "where does the actual use of force come into play?" Answer that, and you'll know who is responsible for the violation of rights. In this case, as in the rest, the force - through selective laws that hinder competition and benefit a select few - is supplied by politicians.
None of the things Steven's was accused of receiving illegally were false. Just the amount of value in them.
So a $250,000 felon, or a $80,000 felon..either way he still should be a felon by any reasonable definition.
I'll say that the decision to not retry him is reasonable given his age. His record is, ahem, clean, but his tattered reputation is frankly, well deserved.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Apparently, prosecutors illegally withheld evidence from the defense that was contradictory to their case.
Perhaps if Stevens was given a fair trial, the jury may have seen things differently.
My father-in-law faced one of the prosecutors in a tax case once. She pulled a lot of the same crap then, harassing witnesses, changing the story she was trying to prosecute, etc.
This is almost certainly like O.J. Simpson, where a guilty man was framed.
Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
After hearing and reading a bit about the actions of the prosecution, I unfortunately agree with this decision. The actions they took were so egregious that they should not be allowed to proceed.
Now... whether the charges on Stevens should've been permanently thrown out forever, I don't know - that seems a bit much. But you can't consistently withhold evidence from the defense and expect your case to be supported by an impartial judge.
Stevens is almost certainly guilty, from everything I've seen and read, but that doesn't mean he's not entitled to a fair trial.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
The Justice Department had a pretty solid case at the beginning, and the Prosecutors bungled it either due to negligence or incompetence. So, the head of the dept changes, reviews, and cans one of the best cases as an example to others in his department that the "no holds barred" approach was no longer acceptable, and that all cases would be held accountable. I tip my hat to the new AG, godspeed in cleaning house, you have a mess on your hands.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Several jurors have told The Washington Post that the evidence against Stevens was overwhelming during a month-long trial that ended in October.
Doesn't matter, and surprised /. would post such a trolling and/or clueless aside. The judge ruled the prosecution mishandled evidence and witnesses. The finders of fact, the jurors, were therefore incapable of reaching a just verdict. Their opinions don't matter, because what they heard and saw has been ruled as hopelessly corrupted by prosecutorial misconduct.
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Yeah, considering that our legal system is a Common Law system, and that it inherited from British Common Law with all it's many-centuries history, it's ridiculous to think that legal practice was ever simple enough to be contained in only a hundred books, much less one.
The enemies of Democracy are
This is trolling: Where's the sense of proportion? This was a mutual dealing between two people. It just so happens the guy receiving the favors has a vote in congress. Maybe there's something here, but its like fixing a scratch on the wall in a mobile home.
Compare this against what's happening with taxpayer dollars; Trillions of dollars going from my and your pockets directly into shady Banks, who will lose our money just like they lost their own.
I first heard about the case being dismissed on NPR on April 1st. I was assuming it was an April Fool's Day gag that all the news outlets were picking up.
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
Ted Stevens is awesome. Only in Alaska can a man this corrupt live to 85 and never go to jail. Alaska is the anarcho-capitalist Promised Land.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Were the prosecutors Republicans or Democrats? It's one thing to have an impartial prosecution of a politican before an election, but a crooked deeply partisan is unacceptable. He does sound guilty though, but who knows what the prosecutors lied about.
I honestly can't believe that as much media attention as that whole rigamarole got that said prosecutors would be able to get away with this kind of mishandling of a federal case.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Well, the thing with home renovations is that it's not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.
Especially with plumbing for your home: that's a series of tubes. So, Mr. Stevens was simply suggesting a way for you to not just dump something on.
As the Liberal Media have been pointing out, the prosecutors here were the corrupt and politically biased Bush Administration Justice Department, which was led by the corrupt Alberto Gonzalez, who Stevens had voted to confirm a few years before. So if there was intentional misconduct, well, nyahh nyahh.
Of course, if there was prosecutorial misconduct, and they have to drop those charges, chances are good that they've blown their Double Jeopardy roll and can't try him again and can't throw the old man in jail.
But that doesn't mean Stevens wasn't corrupt enough to deserve not to get re-elected, even though the Republicans are now trying to pretend that since they're the minority party, they should get a do-over on the election.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." - Anon
You _would_ like to take credit for such an oft used quote, wouldn't you Mr. AC. Robert Hanlon objects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_Razor
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Fired is the least of their worries. If the behavior was as egregious and deliberate as the judge made it out to be, charges will be involved. Criminal charges including least of all subornation of perjury. If convicted of that simple charge, the minimum that would happen to the lawyers is that they never practice law again.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Blame Al Gore for inventing the darn thing in the first place.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Overturning the Stevens conviction is a cover, but not for what you might think. THe big problem facing the Obama administration is that the Justice Department is radically broken. For the past eight years hiring of career Justice Department employees has been a partisan affair, with conservative political beliefs being the litmus test. Partly because of this a culture of corruption has spread.
So, how does the Stevens reversal play into this?
1) Reverse Stevens convictions, getting approval from Republicans, so when you
2) start overturning other political witch hunts you have cover, and then
3) use the overturned cases as a way to go after corrupt Justice Department officials, giving you concrete reasons to fire them.
So, this is just the beginning. Wait and watch.
Instead of dropping the charges, the DOJ should have asked for a new trial - which is exactly what Steven's attorneys were asking for.
No, the bullshit is that Don Siegleman is still a convict while Steven's walks. The prosecutorial misconduct was far, far, FAR, FAR worse in the case of the former governor than it was for the former senator. Just to start with, the prosecutor who went after Siegleman is married to the campaign manager of Siegleman's opponent.
And at the same time flagrant tax cheats and criminals are nominated to cabinet positions with scantly a snicker from the media. We are at war in this country, and neither side displays even the slightest shred of integrity or ethics.
Quo vadis, USA?
End anonymous moderation and posting on
There is also the small matter of the prosecution sending one of their witnesses home to Washington State because he was ill.
This witness was also on the defense list. The prosecutors sent him home without notifying the defense, which is such an obvious abuse that the judge nearly stopped the trial right then and there.
But no matter. The prosecution got what they wanted - Stevens is no longer a Senator. That can't be rectified.
Remember, the rules apply to all of us. When they come to accuse you of something, will you be so trusting of the prosecutors?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Stevens in his OWN VOICE recorded talking with Allen: ... We ought to just cool it. I told Ben the same thing: just cool it, you know, go about our business and smile and have a happy face ... Do the things you used to do and just keep going. If it's a violation of the elections law, that's a corporate violation. This thing, it shouldn't, it shouldn't get to your mind, old buddy."
...
STEVENS: That's, that's the way it should be. But as a practical matter, the question is, what can they convince the jury, uh grand jury, to charge us with? That's the problem. But when I was a district attorney, I handled grand juries, lots of them. They're funny people, but they also are people from within the community. And your reputation and everything else comes into play, as far as grand juries are concerned
ALLEN: Well it has been, I'll tell you."
STEVENS:...You've got to get a mental attitude that these guys can't really hurt us. You know, they're not going shoot us. It's not Iraq. What the hell? The worst that can be done, the worst that can happen to us is we round up a bunch of legal fees and might lose and we might have to pay a fine, might have to serve a little time in jail. I hope to Christ it never gets to that
Oh yeah it sounds like an innocent man there, not one playing the odds that his massive Alaska support base will get him off of whatever he does. He *knew* it was illegal and did it anyway.
He also readily admitted he didn't pay for many of the things he received; the grill, the furniture, the permanent generator, the massage chair. Yet he didn't disclose those things as he was *legally obligated* to do.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
No wonder Stevens got off the hook. When it comes to people in power, there is plenty of reason to believe that the law is more overly applied by
political opponents than it is applied at all.
Same thing with Obama's economic team.
Did the Sec-Treasury cheat on his taxes? Yeah, but, making a big circus out of it was overkill from a political opposition. I would only really be bitter about Obama's people getting all nazi-fied over taxes if they started nailing everyone else to the wall.
This is my sig.
Sorry, but you're wrong.
However, it is incorrect to equate the Louisiana Civil Code with the Napoleonic Code. Although the Napoleonic Code strongly influenced Louisiana law, it was never in force in Louisiana, as it was enacted in 1804, after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. While the Louisiana Civil Code of 1808 has been continuously revised and updated since its enactment, it is still considered the controlling authority in the state.
While it would have been true to say Louisiana's legal system is influenced by the Napoleonic code and is very different from the common law systems in all the other states, it's not the same thing as saying it uses Napoleonic code.
Hope you don't take offense for having this pointed out.
Moderators: Before moderating a comment Insightful/Informative, check to see if a child post has already refuted it.
There is plenty in 9/11 to blame Clinton for... Most in fact...
Actually, I think you can blame most of 9/11 on Osama Bin Laden and the hijackers.
Honestly, your post is flamebait. This kind of prepared terrorist attack is nearly impossible to prevent, particularly in a reasonably free nation. I blame neither Clinton nor Bush for 9/11. Also, with regard to this:
Clinton was a lawyer and rejected the offer [wikipedia.org], because there was no grand jury indictment against Osama (yet)
The source for your link is an LA Times opinion piece. Please don't do that here.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume