We’re all Scooter Libby now
I haven’t commented much on the Libby trial, but my opinion is the same as it was during the trial of Bill Clinton: I’d love to see Bush pardon Libby at the same time as he introduces a bill to reign in prosecutorial abuses on everyone, not just the politically-connected (or rich).
To paraphrase what I wrote then, this is not happening because Scooter Libby was Cheney’s aid. It is happening because a prosecutor set his sights on Scooter Libby, and once that happens anyone is in trouble. If Republicans want Libby freed, they need to introduce laws that free anyone convicted under similar circumstances. “We do not need two sets of laws, one for politicians and one for everybody else.”
Most people are a lot closer to James Ochoa than to Scooter Libby. A presidential pardon is not something they can count on when a prosecutor tells them to plead guilty or go to jail for 25 years to life. When faced with the choice between a plea bargain and a lifetime in prison, a lot of people without connections are going to lie (as Balko says, ironically committing perjury) and accept the plea bargain.
Once caught up in our criminal justice system, many people—especially minorities—are assumed guilty. Most people cannot count on the prosecutor’s lies falling apart before trial. Most people cannot count on the justice system accidentally catching the real perpetrator and realizing it.
Prosecutors need to be encouraged to let the crime speak for itself. Currently, if a prosecutor has a poor case, they’ll try to get a plea bargain. Never mind that one reason for a poor case is that maybe the accused didn’t do it! Even when a suspect is completely exonerated, prosecutors will claim that they must have been guilty of something, and they’ll keep prying into the victim’s private life looking for it.
Prosecutors should be discouraged from continued fishing expeditions after the original crime has been solved—especially when the crime turns out not to have been committed by the person they’re focused on. Perjury should not be a put into jail free card.
- Please Plea Me
- “According to [Deputy Attorney General] Chatman, the real culprit here is Ochoa’s cowardice. He wasn’t wrongfully convicted because the prosecutor went forward with charges despite the presence of exculpatory DNA evidence, he was wrongfully convicted because Ochoa himself didn’t have the guts to roll the dice with a 25-year prison term. It’s his own damned fault.”
- Durham-in-Wonderland
- Comments and analysis about the Duke/Nifong case from KC Johnson.
- The Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby
- “I cannot approve of lying under oath—not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely.”
- A Liberal Defends Scooter Libby
- “Judge Reggie Walton got appointed by George Bush because Walton had a reputation as a tough-minded jurist who believed in punishing the guilty. Bush wanted to make conservatives happy by appointing judges who didn’t give out wrist-slaps to convicts. Furthermore, most of the same people criticizing both the conviction and sentencing of Scooter Libby wanted Bill Clinton removed from office for the same exact crime, and that arose not from a criminal investigation but from testimony in a civil lawsuit. Neither conservatives nor liberals have made a great virtue of consistency on this case.”
- Friends in High Places
- Radley Balko lists people “more deserving of pardons or clemency”.
- Statement by the President On Executive Clemency for Lewis Libby
- “The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.”
More reigning in bad laws
- A one-hundred-percent rule for traffic laws
- Laws should be set at the point at which we are willing and able to jail 100% of offenders. We should not make laws we are unwilling to enforce, nor where we encourage lawbreaking.
- A free market in union representation
- Every monopoly is said to be special, that this monopoly is necessary. And yet every time, getting rid of the monopoly improves service, quality, and price. There is no reason for unions to be any different.
- Bipartisanship in the defense of big government
- We’ve got to protect our phony-baloney jobs. Despite their complaints about Trump’s overreach, Democrats have introduced legislation to make it harder for them to block his administration’s regulations.
- The Last Defense against Donald Trump?
- When you’ve dismantled every other defense, what’s left except the whining? The fact is, Democrats can easily defend against Trump over-using the power of the presidency. They don’t want to, because they want that power intact when they get someone in.
- The Sunset of the Vice President
- Rather than automatically sunsetting all laws (which I still support), perhaps the choice of which laws have not fulfilled their purpose should go to an elected official who otherwise has little in the way of official duties.
- 20 more pages with the topic reigning in bad laws, and other related pages
Note: just as I went to publish this, I noticed that the president has commuted Libby’s sentence, but not pardoned him. This case comes to pretty much the same end as the Clinton case did: a symptom has been attacked, but the illness remains in place. So I guess we’re not really all Scooter Libby now.