Siegelman appellate ruling an example of criminal Bushite corruption of judicial system
To uphold most of the charges against the former Democratic governor of Alabama when evidence of prosecutorial misconduct reaching into the Bushite Department of Justice under AG Michael Mukasey, after the trial record was closed and none of the post trial charges examined by that appellate court is a miscarriage of justice, of justice denied.
And Democrats in Washington and in some state houses are clueless or deliberately playing ostrich either of which is unacceptable You would never know from their spinelessness that the Democratic Party won in November.
Paul Rosenberg at Open Left explains: "The appeals court ruling that upheld most of the charges against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has drawn critical commentary from Scott Horton at Harpers and emptywheel at FireDogLake, both worth reading in their entirety.
"In particular, Scott notes:
nearly all the disclosures that undermined confidence in the fairness of the Siegelman trial occurred after the trial record was closed-and none of these disclosures were examined by the Court of Appeals. Even though the appeals court looked into jury misconduct, it did not have before it the much more powerful evidence of misconduct that a whistleblowing member of the prosecution team subsequently disclosed to the Justice Department-because the Bush Justice Department, in violation of its plain ethical duties, chose to keep all of that secret. So although an appeal has been taken and resolved, not one of the truly significant issues with the Siegelman case was ever briefed or argued. That remains for the future.
"emptywheel is more specific:
But note, in particular, the centrality of Nick Bailey's testimony in the Court's decision to uphold most of the convictions.That's important because--as 60 Minutes reported on its piece on Siegelman--there are allegations Prosecutors coached Bailey's testimony and then did not turn over notes from that coaching to Siegelman's defense team to use to impeach Bailey
"And then goes on to quote from a previous post by Horton back in last July. The upshot is that this ruling has barely scratched the surface of the wrongdoing alleged in this case.
"The reality of this case is that it's just one part of a much, much larger pattern--and I'm not just talking about the US Attorneys scandal. That scandal itself is just one aspect of the Bush Administration's multi-faceted corruption of the judicial system.
"The problem with the Democrats is that they don't even seem to vaguely grasp the sheer magnitude of what the Republicans have done. They're like parking cops giving out tickets to mass murderers and war criminals.
"Siegelman was targeted because Rove and the Republicans couldn't defeat him at the polls. Other US Attorneys were sacked because they wouldn't trump up voter fraud cases. Voter fraud cases were trumped up to legitimate voter suppression of minority voters. And the GOP has been doing minority voter suppression for decades on end.
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