Siegelman

[Lanya]

[I haven't followed this at all. Very interesting.]

June 28, 2007
 Seven years, four months for Siegelman
Posted by Mark Kleiman

He actually got more time than Richard Scrushy, the zillionaire who's accused of having bribed him.

Here's the latest.

Scott Horton has been all over this story (as has Glyn Wilson of the Locust Fork Journal blog) and it's had a couple of mentions in the mainstream press, but the basic media narrative is still "corrupt politician goes down" rather than "political persecution succeeds." Other than Horton, with TPM cheerleading, and Wilson, who seems to know the case cold but whose blog I hadn't heard of before, no one is covering "the Siegelman scandal" yet. But given some of the lurid details ? the woman who gave an affidavit about the husband of one of the two female U.S. Attorneys for Alabama boasting that "his girls" were going to put Siegelman out of action had her house torched and her car run off the road ? plus the Justice Department angle, the Abramoff angle, and the Rove angle, this one smells to me like a major scandal brewing.

This would be a better country if big campaign contributions didn't buy official favors: ambassadorships, for example. But the theory under which Siegelman was prosecuted would, if carried out consistently, put virtually every governor, every mayor, and everyone in the White House Personnel Office in prison. It's hard to believe the prosecution was brought in good faith, and it fits into what seems to be a pattern of DoJ under Ashcroft and Gonzales going selectively after Democratic officials. Time for some hearings, I think.

Footnote Horton expresses outrage that Siegelman was sentenced more harshly due to conduct that was charged against him but of which the jury acquitted him, and for refusing to express remorse. (The second complaint echoes the one made on behalf of Scooter Libby by, among others, Richard Cohen.) You won't get any argument from me about how outrageous those practices are, but Horton is wrong to imply that they reflect some special animus against Siegelman. Those are the rules, in the Kafkaesque world of the sentencing guidelines, and they apply to everyone.

On the other hand, I've never before heard of a defendant getting additional time for criticizing the prosecutor and the court. That doesn't mean it's unique, but I wonder if it's Constitutional?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2007/06/seven_years_four_months_for_siegelman.php

[Amianthus]

Horton expresses outrage that Siegelman was sentenced more harshly due to conduct that was charged against him but of which the jury acquitted him, and for refusing to express remorse.

Nothing real new.

OJ was fined millions of dollars for a crime that a jury acquitted him.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Nothing real new.

OJ was fined millions of dollars for a crime that a jury acquitted him.
=================================================

 How is the OJ case related to this?

OJ was acquitted of murder, but was found guilty of civil damages against Ron Whatsisname and Nicole Simpson because he caused their wrongful death. The standard for murder is "beyond a reasonable doubt", but for the civil lawsuit was "the preponderance of evidence", which is not the same thing.

It's not as though anyone has actually collected one dime of damages against OJ either, despite his having millions of dollars of assets.

Eventually, when he dies, his home in FL could be sold to pay off judgment against him.

[gipper]

OJ wasn't "fined" for the murders. He lost a civil suit claiming wrongful death and the jury assessed him the sum at issue in its judgment. The previous criminal trial, an anomaly by any rational standards, was decided on a reasonable-doubt basis, allowing the leeway, apparently, that let the jury believe there was an orchestrated frame-up by rogue cops. (There wasn't, though Mark Furman came across as racist scum.) As a separate legal proceeding in the nature of a civil law suit, the second proceeding was not subject to the constitutional concept of double jeopardy, and further was not subject to the civil law notions of res judicata or collateral estoppel because the standard of proof in the civil suit was lower: a preponderance of the evidence. Thus, the earlier finding on the same facts of "no liability" (not guilty) could not bind a later proceeding using a lesser standard.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I thought that this was what I said.

Less the terms 'res judicata' and 'collateral estoppel' , that is...