Fitzgerald’s Legal Strategy (with likely sentencing guidelines)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Fitzgerald’s Legal Strategy
December 10, 2008
By Sharon Otterman


Patrick J. Fitzgerald (Frank Polich/Reuters)

United States Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald took a fairly unusual legal step on Tuesday by deciding to arrest Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois and his chief of staff, John Harris, based on the information in a criminal complaint, rather than waiting for a grand jury to indict them.

As the novelist Scott Turow, a former assistant United States attorney, noted on the op-ed page of The Times today, this puts the government’s case against Mr. Blagojevich in the express lane, and potentially strengthens the defense’s hand. The government now has 20 days to either hold a preliminary hearing on the case or bring an indictment....

***

Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to stop crimes in progress — among them the possibility that the governor would actually succeed in his alleged efforts to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. As a result, said Alison Siegler, the director of the Federal Criminal Justice Project at the University of Chicago School of Law, he used a tactic more frequently seen in the federal prosecutions of bank robbers and drug couriers than of political figures who have been subjects of long-standing criminal investigations.

In addition, hiding evidence does not seem to be a central concern of Mr. Fitzgerald, perhaps to dispel potential criticism that this prosecution was politically motivated, or because the wire-tap evidence is simply so devastating. “The fact that this 76-page complaint is so detailed suggests that they wanted to give detail,” Ms. Siegler said. “They may have wanted to quash any idea that Mr. Blagojevich is an unfair target.”...

Even if he (takes) a plea rather than try to convince a jury of his innocence, some legal experts said it was still likely that the governor would face substantial jail time. The length of his sentence will be related to the amount of money he sought to illegally gain, “which I think is pretty substantial,” said Anthony S. Barkow, executive director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University Law School.

Here are the likely sentencing guidelines that will be applied, according to Mr. Barkow, based on the amount of money involved:

–If he sought $200,000 to $400,000, he could be sentenced to 78 to 97 months (57-71 with a plea)
–If he sought $400,000 to $1 million, he could receive 97-121 months (70-87 with a plea)
–If he sought $1 million to $2.5 million, he could face 121-135 months (87-108 with a plea)...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/fitzgeralds-legal-strategy/?hp

[JuniperLea]

1. Fitz must have a lot more than what we know...

To be so bold in this.

[liberal renegade]

2. don't do the crime

if you can't do the time. fucking creep!