Woeful, Cynical Misconduct

[groovedaddy]

The depth of prosecutorial misconduct in the 2008 trial of Senator Ted Stevens is shocking. An inquiry ordered by Judge Emmet Sullivan of Federal District Court in Washington has found “serious, widespread and at times intentional” concealment of evidence by the Justice Department that could have helped Mr. Stevens prove his innocence. The department has a separate inquiry that must point the way to repairing the public integrity section, which is responsible for prosecuting public officials.

The Alaska senator was convicted of failing to report a gift from an oil company executive and lost his bid for re-election shortly after. Mr. Stevens was killed last year in a plane crash, a year after an F.B.I. agent offered an affidavit asserting prosecutorial misconduct. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. acted responsibly in setting aside the conviction. But the damage to Mr. Stevens was done.

Judge Sullivan presided at the trial and dismissed the senator’s conviction in 2009 and ordered an extraordinary investigation by an outside attorney into whether criminal contempt charges should be brought against the prosecutors. The judge cited the finding last week that the prosecution was “permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated” Mr. Stevens’s defense.

Despite those findings, no charges were recommended because, the investigation noted, Judge Sullivan did not specifically order prosecutors to turn over exculpatory evidence. This technicality raises questions of whether something more explicit may be required in evidence law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/opinion/woeful-cynical-misconduct.html?nl=todaysheadlines&adxnnl=1&emc=tha211&adxnnlx=1322848828-P9vLNzJthPePCY+p1706qw

[Myrina]

1. Interesting. Wonder who was paying to have that evidence buried?

And why? Why had Ted become a liability?


:shrug: