Prosecutorial Misconduct Leads to Dropped Charges Against Ted Stevens
By Susie Madrak Wednesday Apr 01, 2009 9:45am
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Nope, this is not an April Fool's day joke:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has decided to drop all charges against former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct, NPR reported on Wednesday, citing Justice officials.
Stevens was convicted last fall of seven counts of lying on a Senate disclosure form to conceal $250,000 in gifts from an oil industry executive and other friends. Allegations of prosecutorial misconduct have delayed his sentencing.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided not to continue to defend the conviction in the face of persistent problems stemming from prosecutors' actions, NPR reported on its web site.
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WTF?
jail was if they declared him an enemy combatant.
Stevens is just as bad as some "enemy combatants" Infact he probably caused more damage when he was a senator than some of the "enemy combatants" because most of them turned out to be innocent, while he is anything but.
I thought you said, "Infect he probably caused more damage."
when comparing him to as Insect. Cockaroach I believe.
I have no problem with this. Stevens is an old man and he's not in the Senate anymore. If Holder tries to defend the actions of the Bush DOJ he's going to end up owning it.
So you believe that a corrupt government official's only debt to society is to give up his or her government office? Surely you jest.
Stevens is a small fish and he'll likely be dead before Obama's first term is up. Who cares if he goes to jail? I doubt he ever would have anyway. The most important thing is that Stevens is out of the Senate. He is no longer in a position to trade influence for cash and we have another Dem in there.
Why don't I get to do whatever I want?
Amusing eccentricity as well as age (which is why you correctly left out the often redundant "old" in your usage. I think Stevens would be better referred to as a cad than a codger.
Maybe a curmudgeon?
a conniving cantankerous curmudgeon??!
Amitola.
I try. #:)
of another "c" word but I'll be civil and not say it.
codpiece?!
The logical dissonance of some of you is astounding, are you serious or were you just jesting?
cognitive of.
something every day. I didn't even know logic made sounds dude.
... neither does cognition.
For what it is worth, cognitive and logic processes go hand in hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOwDXNJbZK0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgbS_mOmAC0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vSGZhLSIsQ
Julie Andrews is a ho?
Hey he wasn't too old to break the law for Christs sake! Let him rot in a prison cell! There are plenty of old people rotting in our prison system now who never did anything as criminal as Stevens did.
Shocked, I tell you...
They'll give back to him his senate seat too.
Poor, misunderstood Teddy.
Steven's lost his senate seat fair and square in the election.
The real question is,...does he get to keep the jacuzzi?
I say let him keep it as long as we never have to see pics of Stevens and his wife in it.
Can wrinkles get wrinkled?
I just don't want to know any information about that subject.
fair enuff
Thanks! :)
passed on puckered patter.
especially when there is 'shrinkage' involved.
Eew, I just grossed myself out.
I had that thought too, but decided not to share. My feeling is that some things are so small that shrinkage wouldn't be noticeable.
Good one, po'd patricia!
of the distance between Jonah's G's thumb and forefinger the other day. Just skip the small stuff, eh?
Will Ted Stevens get his senate seat back?
Answer
Keep 'em coming, Shoeless! You're on a roll!
Kaiser, I hope.
http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h277/nmybel...
"Obama conspired to have Stevens convicted" and shit like that. They won't tell you that the Justice Department was run by Chimpmander in Chief and the Karl's Kronies Klanspeople at the time.
At least it'll be great to visit freepertown to see what fantasies they come up with over this one. Living vicariously through the demented shattered vision of others... such a wonderful vice!
But this part of the article caught in my craw the second time I read it:
"Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, also of Alaska, welcomed the Justice Department's decision, but said, "I am deeply disturbed that the government can ruin a man's career and then say 'never mind.'"
I wonder where this bitch was when Don Siegelman got arrested by KKKarl and his merry band of fucktards. Sure was a lot of outrage by Rushpublicans there!
case?
You'll just confuse him by interrupting.
Are you people in here too?
the lights won't come on and you'll never notice.
I've seen shit you've posted on here, and never once called you out for the fool or asshole you made yourself out to be. Thank you for giving me reason to start.
You don't have to call him out
Just get adjoining public toilet stalls.
The happily ignorant will take the simple route and blame Obama...again.
this is just too suspicious. Like an athlete throwing a game. F'ing cheney never goes away.
why do shitty lawyers exist at the DOJ?
nice to see eric holder continuing the long tradition of the two-tiered justice system
not to mention the two-tiered economic bail-out
Every good attorney knows that sometimes they have to eat shit. The loopholes created by BUSH'S DOJ would have made an appeal a walk in the park for Steven's legal team...Holder probably saw it as not worth the money or effort.
not being a lawyer, nor familiar with the nuances of this case, i have no rebuttal.
that said, letting a historically powerful, corrupt and crooked politician walk away from the charges is beyond infuriating. i do wonder if the case would be handled differently if it was a case about some regular dude breaking the law, whether or not it stemmed from the Bush admin's dept of 'justice'.
seems like a convenient excuse to grant a political favor, but, then again: i am not a lawyer, nor familiar with the nuances of this case
oh well...
This is no longer a nation of laws, not that it had been much during the previous 8 years.
This is definitively not the change I was hoping to believe in...
or dirty leebruls, Samson-.
Get with the program, dude. Sheesh!
I've seen this article about the net this morning but I've not seen one single bit about what exactly the supposed misbehavior entailed. Any details anywhere? Someone's gonna need that or it's gonna look like another thing the Obama administration has done that doesn't quite fit the profile (like Geithner, raids on pot clubs in Cali after they said there wouldn't be, etc).
http://abajournal.com/news/npr_stevens_convic...
I heard that prosecutors kept a potentially exculpatory transcript of an interview with the contractor from the defense team. In it, the contractor said that the value of the renovations were inflated in his previous testimony. Either way, all of this was before Obama and Holder got in office.
You mean all those Reagents and Liberty University grads installed by Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling didn't do their jobs right?
Gosh, that's a shock.
Well, kudos to Holder for not letting a personal desire to skewer Ted Stevens get in the way of justice. So, is he going to double the DOJ to review all the cases that were fucked up for the last eight years.
Oh, and maybe he could prosecute ALBERTO FUCKING GONZALES!
You and I are thinking along the same lines. If the prosecutors screwed the dog then Holder is doing the right thing.
He'd also be doing the right and LEGAL thing to arrest, try and convict the torturers, war criminals, wagers of war of aggression and other assorted criminals from the Bush administration. But I don't see him doing any of that yet.
prosecuting the "lawyers" who did this.
Rich white guy gets away with it? Shocker.
I'm also guessing this 'misconduct' will go unpunished, or the punishment will fall on the wrong people.
...if the Bushco prosecution team set this up intentionally, knowing that it would be tossed on appeal.
Wouldn't surprise me.
anytime in the past few months.
This shit is starting to piss me off...
The case was over before this new administration took over. The next step would have been an appeal and apparently Holder felt the appeal would not only be granted but would succeed. If he knew that up front, spending the time and money fighting an appeal would have been a waste and basically foolish.
The GOP would have then equated Holder with Ken Starr for wasting valuable time, tax dollars and pursuiting politically laced vendettas.
with conducting DOJ's operations according to what the reaction of the GOP may or may not feel or do about them?
I don't see Holder following any GOP instruction. This appeal will be unwinnable. Murderers walk everyday in courtrooms on obscure technicalites. This pile of turds said "hello" to Holder when he first opened the doors to the DOJ.
I don't think we have the same definition for the term "over"
Justify it all you want, this was just plain incompetence in the best of cases. Denial is the first stage of grief I guess...
The trial was held and it was over. A verdict had been reached. Next step would have been an appeal by Stevens lawyers.
A trial being over means that it is closed unless or until an appeal is granted.
The DOJ throwing the towel w/o going to court is an awful tactic:
a) It grants Stevens the benefit of absolution via victimization.
b) Jeopardizes the rule of law regarding public officials.
Lose-Lose situation anyway you slice it.
"The DOJ could have changed the prosecuting team anytime in the past few months."
The DOJ changed the prosecuting team immediately after the judge held Bush's team in contempt. As soon as Holder took office. It doesn't matter. The misconduct gave Stevens grounds for appeal. You know, "free as a bird, guilty as sin." It's as inevitable as the tides for the well-connected and wealthy.
but folding just like that, with a mere threat of appeal?
Any normal citizen would have had to endure years of effort to fight such a conviction on the same grounds.
True enough.
I don't know what Holder thought the odds of upholding the conviction on appeal would be. I'm not knowledgable enough to tell you myself either.
I guess it would have been nice to see Stevens at least have to deal with a long court trial and lots of stress, but maybe starving him of publicity will be just as painful for him. Either way, I hope Holder uses these saved funds to go after Gonzales, Cheney, Bush, and Rove - but I'm not holding my breath.
It makes up for Gary Condit.
like an April Fool's Day joke - and we're the fools for following the rules while all these crooks get to keep living the high life.
Perhaps that hot tub someone mentioned will do him in - not good for the elderly to stew in hot water.....
Stevens is old and tough. You would have to stew him a long long time before he got tender.
of perhaps a sudden myocardial infarction, or perhaps a lovely cerebral hemorrhage.... these things happen to those who stew in hot tubs...
Don't tell Teddy that
Teddy is soft on the inside. Stevens is mean and tough all the way through.
Just because Teddy the pervert bought his way out of his many convictions doesn't change the fact that he was found guilty as hell and will continue to be just the latest Reslug criminal and crook.
The crooked Reslugs will welcome him back with open arms to help them break more laws.
With a standing ovation greater than the one they gave for Diaper Dave Vitter.
Somebody's probably going to get a new beach house and a Cadillac for this decsion....and a back slap so firm it will leave an imprint between the shoulder blades for weeks.
So basically, the Bush administration got Stevens off the hook without a pardon. All they had to do is sabotage the prosecution and leave it in a mess when they walk out the door.
to assuage his ego when he lost his seat.
Saw this one coming from a mile away. Stevens' lawyers brought the withheld evidence to light very early on in the case. Bushco's DoJ decided to trudge on rather than back off and regroup. Now some of the- if not THE- key evidence is inadmisable in court.
The reason you know this is because the jury convicted the sleazy, skeevy old fuck despite the GOProsecution's most earnest efforts to fuck up the case.
What was the judge wearing under his robe?
Judge wore nothing and so Stevens eagerly was on his knees under the table.
Depends
done on purpose. I would hope THOSE asshole get in trouble for that.
The "haves" beating the system again.
Imagine if it was you. You'd be somebody's prison bitch by now.
Perhaps Holder is clearing the way to clean up the Seigleman case? Perhaps he DID find prosecutorial misconduct in the Stevens case. It would be impossible for him to go after the Seigleman prosecutors if he didn't balance things. As a good AG should do. Stevens is aged and lost the election. I hate to do it, but I'm letting it go.
I'm not fan of Stevens, but if there was gross prosecutorial misconduct, Holder was right on that part. Not filing a new case is another matter. I'd like more details, though.
Well, ONE thing you don't have to 'wonder' about....had it been a Democrat on the receiving end of this we all know just how far the (ahem) Justice Dept. would have gone.....
Hopefully this will give more impetus to the wingnuts' heads exploding...at least they can't claim 'witch hunt'.....
...our system of justice is THIS F*CKED UP!!
I mean, isn't this why "oli" is still walking like a free man and evan "a hero" on the propaganda network?? This is absolute bull shit...again!!
How... um... unexpected.
or any repuke for that matter, however, the rule of law must be followed for everyone, even for petulant a**hole.s like him. Prosecutorial misconduct is serious. Any tainted prosecution is an affront to the constitutional protections provided to criminal defendants. Holder shows some real non-partisanship with this act today. The BIG question now is, HOW ABOUT THE SAME INVESTIGATION INTO DON SIEGLEMAN'S (D., RAILROADED) CONVICTION???
Given the history of rampant republican't corruption in Alaska, that no doubt includes state judges and courts.
One has to wonder if some lawyer deliberately screwed the pooch to get Stevens off. That should be investigated, but it doubtlessly won't be.
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