Davis, a Democrat from Birmingham, said Thursday he is backing Montgomery attorney George Beck for U.S. attorney in Alabama's middle district. Davis says Beck is one of the top defense lawyers in the state and should win Senate confirmation.
Sen. Richard Shelby has quietly nixed others proposed for this job, including Michel Nicrosi (she's now running for Attorney General) and Joe Van Heest. From what I understand, Davis is equally determined to quietly block Shelby's choice, Democratic donor Larry Morris' daughter Anna Clark Morris. It's possible Beck is a well-qualified attorney who is acceptable to both sides in this quiet power struggle. It probably doesn't hurt that Beck is not an up and coming young attorney who might be viewed by those currently in power as a potential challenger in a few years -- U.S. Attorney seems to be a good jumping off point to seek higher office hereabouts.
Alice Martin, embattled U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, announced today that she will resign effective this Friday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance has been nominated to replace her and the Senate Judiciary Committee will likely vote on her acceptance this Thursday. Vance is very highly regarded in the Alabama legal community.
Martin has a high national profile for the Eric Rudolph case as well as public corruption cases including those involved in the two-year college scandal and former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Martin will leave a legacy that will be interpreted in two different ways. Some will see her as a successful prosecutor of public corruption cases. Others will see her as politically motivated and tainted with allegations of misconduct in several different cases. This community will likely remember her for her involvement in the Don Siegelman case.
Looking to the future, there's more at that link about Joyce Vance, who will be taking over as the U.S. Attorney in Alabama's Northern District.
A hearing from the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was Don Siegelman's last chance to have his convictions overturned short of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Attorneys for Siegelman and Scrushy had asked the full 12-judge court to review the appeal. The court's refusal was posted on its Web site Friday.
Siegelman attorney Vince Kilborn said he believes the Supreme Court would be particularly interested in reviewing key questions: whether prosecutors proved at trial that there was a "quid pro quo" agreement between Siegelman and Scrushy and if U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller erred by not telling jurors such an agreement is required in federal bribery cases.
"This case has drawn national attention. I believe this is a case that will be of interest to the Supreme Court," Kilborn said.
Related: Special prosecutor Nora Dannehy interviewed Karl Rove today. Dannehy is investigating charges that political considerations led to the firing of several U.S. Attorney's during Bush's second term.
Whatever else you may say, the prosecutors in the Siegelman case aren't shy about asking for the moon. Kind of like selling a house, I guess, where you need to give yourself a lot of room to drop the price. Question is, where will the appellate court decide to compromise, 5 years or time served?
Prosecutors originally asked the judge to sentence Don Siegelman to 30 years; they got about 7. Since then the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Siegelman's release on bond and dismissed 2 of the 7 original convictions. And of course, many questions have been raised about Siegelman's prosecution and conviction.
I'll never be a federal judge but I think "time served" would be a fair compromise in this case. Don Siegelman could finally get on with his life and maybe, just maybe, the government would be spared an even more public airing of the seamier sides of his prosecution.
Yeah, I know, some public figures in this case deserve more embarassment if not prosecution themselves. I said it would be a compromise, with significant humanitarian consideration for the fact that Seigelman needs and deserves an opportunity to get on with his life and get shut of prisons, legal teams and courtrooms.
Pretty obvious, huh? But in the eyes of the law, they should receive equal treatment. Yesterday tryan pointed out that the standard for conviction appears to be different. Alaska Sen. Stevens (R - Bridge to Nowhere) was not charged with bribery because such a charge "requires proof of a specific quid pro quo" while the Siegelman jury was instructed that "NO SPECIFIC QUID PRO QUO WAS REQUIRED" for a bribery conviction.
Today, we witness more evidence that Ted Stevens is not Don Siegelman, and the two are not equal in the eyes of the law. Ted Stevens is running for reelection and asked that his trial begin soon so as not to interfere with the election. In 2006, Don Siegelman was running for governor and he also wanted his trial to begin well before the primary election in June. One delay led to another, and another and Don Siegelman's trial didn't begin until May 1st.
Siegelman was indicted on October 26, 2005. His trial began about 6 months later and he was convicted June 29, 2006 -- three weeks after the Democratic primary.
Ted Stevens was indicted last Tuesday, July 29 and his trial is set to begin on September 24 -- only 2 months later. Do the wheels of justice turn more quickly if you're a Republican?
Actually, I hope the justice system works as it should for Stevens -- no political delays, no conspiring, just a fair trial with justice at the end of it. That's what every American should expect from our legal system, but what Don Siegelman and too many others have not received.
David Fiderer has written a good piece at Huffington Post about the alleged emails between members of the Siegelman jury, during the trial and during deliberation, and what the Court and prosecutors did when made aware of them. It's well worth the time to read it for yourself.
Anyone who has ever served on a jury knows that the folks in charge are extremely picky about communication with anyone about the case. They tell you not to do it and, as I recall, they threaten you with serious legal consequences if you talk about the case outside of school, so to speak. When the issue of the juror emails was raised back before Don Siegelman was sentenced, I thought there would surely have to be a new trial. But no, Judge Fuller said it was not a problem and had no impact on the outcome, etc., etc. and so forth. As I recall, Siegelman's defense team wasn't even successful in getting the court to order the preservation of the electronic records involved so that the issue could be revisited during the appeal -- which has dragged out an unconscionably long time.
Now, more information has come to light about these emails, which may or may not have been genuine. They involved two jurors, one of whom was the foreman. These were the only two jurors who spoke publicly after the trial.
Mooncat's condensed version is something like this: 1) Paper copies of the purported email exchange were snail-mailed to the defense counsel and a number of other people. 2) Defense counsel raised a ruckus. Unbeknownst to the defense, the government asked Postal Investigators to determine if the paper copies of the emails were genuine or forged. Apparently the Post Office was tasked with this because it was now snail mail, not email. 3) Eventually, the Postal Inspector decided they were forged. 4) This was shared with the Judge and the prosecution but not with the defense. 5) The Judge ruled that everything was hunky dory and proceeded with sentencing Siegelman.
How did they determine that the email's were forged? Did the postal inspector go to the ISP provider and subpoena the records? Apparently not, which makes the whole investigation suspect. And of course the information absolutely should have been shared with the defense so they could have asked these relevant questions at the time. The whole thing has a bad smell.
That's all bad enough and embarassing for the DOJ and the Court, but here's the part that I find really disturbing -- Hendrix and Langer are the two jurors mentioned above. Emphasis mine.
Both dismissed any notion of rifts among jurors, even though the jury itself had twice notified the judge that it was deadlocked. Both insisted that it was simply a matter of needing sufficient time to adequately evaluate each of the charges against each of the four defendants.
Other jurors saw it differently. Here's how one juror, in a sworn affidavit, describes the deadlock vote:
"Five for guilty, five for not guilty, and two undecided. The jurors 100% not guilty were [redacted]. Two jurors had hostile words at each other and at this time, the foreman [Hendrix] slipped a note to the judge without our knowledge and told him that we were deadlock.
[Hendrix's private note said that some on the panel were being "lackadaisical."]
"The judge said that he could keep us until the next 4th of July and we needed to have a unanimous decision. Our whole objective changed at that point after nine days, we felt he applied extreme pressure on us to get us to make a unanimous decision. We all decided to agree with whoever was in charge so we could leave and go home. I told everybody I was through deliberating - do whatever you want to do. Just tell me which way I should vote so I can go home. Thestake of the two men's lives were totally irrelevant at this point for all of us, and we had a more pressing objective in mind - just to leave and go home for good. We did not vote our conviction. We voted based on the pressure applied by the judge."
In a post-trial hearing into allegations of juror misconduct, seven other jurors admitted knowing that Hendrix and Langer had used information not available to the other jurors, which they used to direct the discussion and push the holdouts into voting guilty.
They wanted to go home, so they caved to pressure from the jury foreman. How embarassing for the members of the jury and how embarassing and shameful for our system of justice. Where is Henry Fonda when you need him?
Watch Bill Moyers' interview with investigative journalist Jane Mayer and tell me that the U.S. Justice Department under Bush/Cheney is deserving of our trust. Good grief! The atmosphere in the DOJ is such that they're afraid to even trust each other!
Mayer remembered one top Justice Department lawyer and “very conservative member of this administration” who said that after participating in White House meetings authorizing torture, he believed that “lunatics had taken over the country.”
Mayer said two other top DOJ lawyers had to develop a system of speaking codes because they feared they were being wiretapped while others described an “atmosphere of intimidation,” mainly from Vice President Dick Cheney:
MAYER: There was such an atmosphere of intimidation. … They felt so endangered in some ways that, at one point, two of the top lawyers from the Justice Department developed this system of talking in codes to each other because they thought they might be being wiretapped…by their own government. They felt like they might be kind of weirdly in physical danger. They were actually scared to stand up to Vice President Cheney.
With that level of fear, intimidation and distrust inside the DOJ, how can we as citizens believe them when they say there was no political motive behind the investigation and prosecution of Don Siegelman?
Once the Bush/Cheney crowd is gone -- and there is now an effort to keep political appointees from "burrowing in" to career positions at Justice -- there needs to be a thorough housecleaning coupled with a legal reckoning for those who misused their authority.
Ranking member of the HJC Lamar Smith (a Texas Republican friendly, naturally) kindly sent Rove a list of written questions and Rove just as kindly sent his written answers back. As I said, none of this is under oath. The whole Smith/Rove Q/A exchange is here.
The Readers Digest condensed version is something like this: Rove never communicated, or asked anyone to communicate on his behalf, with Dana Jill Simpson, anyone at the DOJ, anyone in Alabama government and so forth about the Siegelman investigation, prosecution, potential prosecution, sentencing, etc. He also regurgitates the affidavits of Terry Butts, Matt Lembke and Rob Riley, which are fairly worthless unless someone can ask questions about them. He also regurgitates statements by prosecutors, then states that Siegelman has presented no evidence of his (Rove's) involvement and says Simpson is not a credible witness. The really condensed version is "NOT ME!"
By far the largest portion of Rove's statement is given over to attacking Simpson's credibility. Rove must be really worried about Dana Jill Simpson's allegation. I don't believe he mentions the phone records she provided at all.
If all is innocent and conversations with the President are not involved, why doesn't Rove just respond to the subpoena -- like any other citizen would be compelled to do -- and come before the Judiciary Committee, swear on the Bible and say "I knew nothing, I communicated with no one, I conspired with no one and I never had anything to do with that woman?" He could clear his name in an afternoon and put the whole thing to bed. Worried a little about perjury charges, maybe?
I hope they do call Rob Riley, Bill Canary and the rest of the Alabama crew Simpson says were involved. If they can't get Rove, they can at least make sure the mini-Roves take a fall. Bush is sure to pardon Karl anyway, but I'll bet he would let Rob and Bill C. pay their debt to society the old fashioned way, with jail time.
We liveblogged AirAmerica's Sam Seder interviewing former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman last Friday and now video of the full interview is available. The interview starts at about 9:30 into this video. Hat tip to Lindy for the link.
Siegelman makes a strong argument that the House Judiciary Committee should call witnesses who have no pretense to executive privilege, such as Rob Riley and Bill Canary, to get to the bottom of whether there was political meddling in his prosecution by the DoJ. Siegelman talked at some length about Karl Rove's connections to Alabama politics and he clearly does not hold Bush's former political advisor in particularly high esteem. This is from the audience Q and A session at abut 1 hour into the video:
Q: Citing a previous panel discussion on holding the current administration accountable where a questioner argued that Republicans are evil. We just heard your story. ... I don't see how they cannot be evil. Can you elaborate?
Siegelman: I think Karl Rove, like the Roman Emperor Caligula, was bred for evil.
But, I do not condemn the Republican party or all Republicans. There are a lot of Reublicans including Arlen Spectre and Richard Thornburg and Grant Woods and others who've stood up and said, you know, I'm an American first. Yes, I'm a Republican but I'm an American first.
They've got a bad apple in their basket. If I were them I'd be trying to get that thing out of there as fast as I could. Again, I've said it before, if it was bad for America it is going to be a disaster for Republicans in November.
As you probably know, Siegelman was prosecuted by the Bush Justice Department -- the first case was thrown out by the judge, but they soon found other charges to bring against this popular Alabama Democrat. The second trial resulted in a conviction for accepting a bribe -- Siegelman appointed a donor, who had also been appointed by three previous governors, to the CON board -- received a very stiff sentence and was immediately hauled off to prison, where he served 9 months before being released on bond by an appellate court. A Republican attorney has since come forward with allegations that Karl Rove meddled with the Justice Department's prosecution of Siegelman. Rove freely denies these allegations in the media, but has refused to appear before Congress and do the same while under oath. Larisa has a good summary if you need a refresher on the case.
We had an opportunity to visit with Gov. Siegelman for a little while last night. He looks and sounds good, although quite a bit thinner than I remembered. He confirmed that he is doing well -- "much better than a year ago" -- and we all agreed that the last months have been considerably better for Siegelman than for Karl Rove. Maybe there is some justice after all.
Watch for liveblogging of the interview in the comments.
(This is IMPORTANT, folks! Can anyone tell us more about checking the numbers when you vote? You don't have to show a DL or SS card to vote in Alabama so how can they match them up? - promoted by mooncat)
Some of you may have already noticed this, but I just found it today. I attended a voter registration drive in a nearby town. It was pointed out that we should notice the upper right hand corner of the application. There are now spaces for you to enter your driver's license number; if you don't have one then you must enter the last 4 digits of your social security number. If this information is not entered, then the application my not be processed. At voting time, if the informaiton you show at the polls does not match the information they have on record from one of these forms, then you may have a problem voting (you should be issued a provisional ballot).
We were also told that state voter rolls have undergone a purging. I have been encouraging everyone on my email list to check their voter registration to make sure that it's current. I've encouraged them to tell their family, friends and congregation members to do the same. Now, I'm asking you all to do the same. Just call your local Board of Voter Registration to check on it. You may want to continue to do so right up to election day.
Rove is not appearing before the House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Politicization of the Justice Department and Allegations of Selective Prosecution in response to a subpoena. Apparently he feels that his status as a Republican political consultant extraordinaire and retired White House official gives him special dispensation to poke Congress in the eye with a sharp stick anytime he likes. Unfortunately, while the hearing went on with an empty chair where Rove should have been, the committee did not send the Sergeant at Arms out to retrieve him. Maybe later.
In a nutshell, instead of appearing before Congress, Rove sent a letter through his attorney claiming that he was not at liberty to testify due to Executive Privilege. Committee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez ruled that Rove's claim was pretty much hogwash. Emptywheel has a pretty concise explanation of why it is hogwash:
No one has ever asserted that Bush was invoking executive privilege with regards to this appearance by Rove. In fact, Rove himself, back in May, not only admitted that Bush had not yet done so but implied that Bush would have to do so in this case (and, he suggested, Bush would "probably" do so--though that hasn't happened yet).
Rove: Congress--the House Judiciary Committee wants to be able to call Presidential Aides on its whim up to testify, violating the separation of powers. Executive Privilege has been asserted by the White House in a similar instance in the Senate. It'll be, probably be asserted very shortly in the House. [my emphasis]
But no one has asserted that Bush has invoked executive privilege in this case. The sole legal rationale Rove has given for not showing up, even in the absence of executive privilege being invoked, is a memo that Steven Bradbury wrote that may or may not apply to this case. For example, that memo only applies if Rove is willing to claim that politicizing prosecutions was part of his official duties as Senior Advisor to Bush. Suffice it to say that not even Mr. Unitary Executive thought that memo was sufficient basis for blowing off HJC, and that on a topic (rationalizing torture) that probably would be considered among the official duties of OVP's counsel in this Administration.
So, unless Rove was discussing things like prosecuting Don Siegelman for political reasons with George W. Bush, he really has no grounds to claim EP. And Rove certainly should have appeared to assert his privilege in person. The Bush administration is clearly contemptuous of Congress and, by extension, of the Constitution.
Rep. Sanchez says the committee will continue with attempts to get Rove to testify, but they will follow the process laid out in the law. I think it's pretty clear that the Bushies are planning to run out the clock on the Congressional investigation, with the idea that the next Congress will let it drop. Personally, I hope the next Attorney General pursues criminal action against them all.
Tommy Stevenson of the Tuscaloosa News interviewed Governor Bob Riley and has posted video of the segment that touches on the Don Siegelman case. It's interesting that Governor Riley has avoided any comment on Siegelman's case all these years, but decided to break his silence now. Why the change of policy?
Here's what Riley says he told Siegelman in the old State House before the 2006 trial:
"But I’m going to tell you, just so you know, and you know that I know that you know, that there is nothing that I have ever done personally, there is nothing that my family has ever done to you or said about you," the governor said. "Now you can keep going out and saying Riley’s doing this, but no one will ever find a time, any time that we’ve ever done it and I'm not going to start now."
Here are some additional Riley quotes I gleaned from the video:
"I have made a point for 6 years to not comment on anything regarding that case. I have never talked to a prosecutor and I never will." ...
"Dana Jill Simpson has no, zero, credibility. Anyone that has ever talked to her, anyone that has ever listened to her, understands that. The only people that give her any credibility are Don Siegelman's attorneys." ...
"I know Karl. If I called up Karl Rove and said we've got a political problem in Alabama, he would probably laugh me out of the ... These things are so ludicrous."
"The very idea that anyone at a national level, for anyone ... that anyone in the White House would take a personal interest in any gubernatorial race is a little, really stretches ... "
"I haven't talked to Rove in 2 years."
Watching the video, it doesn't seem like Stevenson pressed Riley particularly hard to talk about the case, but that he was willing to relate the story of that serious chat with Don Siegelman. Siegelman's memory of that episode is not nearly as clear as Riley's, which is also interesting.
On Friday, Bush finally traveled south. His first stop was Mobile, Alabama, where he met with Bob Riley, the Republican governor whose associates were engaged in a collaboration with Karl Rove to politically destroy Don Siegelman, the Democratic former governor. During the stop in Mobile, Bush went out of his way to congratulate Michael Brown, saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Bush was willing to make such a public statement in support of Brown, carefully staged in a holding area for a national press corps that included a wall of television cameras.
The incident in question happened a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. The story line that Riley's "associates were engaged in a collaboration with Karl Rove to politically destroy" Siegelman is undoubtedly one Riley would like to keep from taking root.
THE RAW STORY has confirmed that Leura Canary, the US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama is under investigation by the Department of Justice. She's the attorney who instigated the Siegelman prosecution in Montgomery. The Middle District offices are also being probed.
Individuals close to the investigation, who spoke under condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about the inquiry, would not discuss which specific issues OPR is investigating in Canary’s case.
Leura Canary was appointed by President Bush as U.S. Attorney for the Middle District. Her husband is a friend of Karl Rove and consultant of current Governor Bob Riley.
Ms. Canary’s office investigated Siegelman and timed indictments to crush Democratic chances in Alabama's gubernatorial elections. Also,
Canary has stated she recused herself from the Siegelman case, but no evidence has been furnished by the Justice Department to prove that Ms. Canary did in fact recuse herself.
Federal prosecutors are no longer seeking stiffer prison sentences for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.
...
The latest filing does not say why prosecutors want to drop their appeal.
Siegelman was sentenced to 88 months in prison and Scrushy to 82 months by Judge Mark Fuller. Prosecutors had asked for between 188 and 235 months for Siegelman and had appealed the lighter sentence.
I'm thinking the prosecutors will be lucky if Siegelman has to serve any more time at all. Someone saw the writing on the wall and decided the sentencing appeal was a total waste of effort and source of bad publicity.
Mr. Rove has already defied a Senate subpoena on the issue of politicized prosecutions, claiming executive privilege, and he seems intent on defying the House’s subpoena. His claim of executive privilege is not only weak; it is shamefully cynical.
If he was drumming up political prosecutions in the Justice Department, and talking about it with operatives in Alabama, those conversations are not privileged. And if there is any privilege to be protected — such as a conversation with the president that did not involve illegality — he would still need to show up in Congress and plead the privilege to specific questions.
It is time for Michael Mukasey, the attorney general, to stand up for justice by enforcing Congress’s subpoenas. If he will not do that, Congress must ensure that its investigative authority is not thwarted.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for Mukasey to force Rove (or Miers and Bolten) to respond to subpoenas. These guys are in full "run out the clock" mode now, betting the farm the next Congress will be too busy getting the country back on track to worry about prosecuting them. Personally, I'm hoping Congress will take Karl into custody via inherent contempt. That little cell in the basement has his name all over it.
"Karl Rove saying he's had nothing to do with firing U.S. Attorneys and nothing to do with my case is like President Bush saying he's had nothing to do with the war in Iraq because he hasn't pulled a trigger," said Siegelman.
...
"I think Rove is probably the most devious and evil political operative who has been trained to come on to the political scene in certainly the last fifty years," he said. "I can't think of anybody in the annals of history who could even rival this man's pernicious thoughts. It is a lifetime's work for him... I think he learned two things from Watergate: you don't need to establish a secret plumbers union at a mid level office in the White House when you can take over Department of Justice and have them do your dirty work for you, and secondly, you don't leave tapes behind, you destroy evidence."
Don Siegelman has had a lot of time to think about the way Rovian/Nixonian politics work. He gets it.
There's more interesting reading at that link, including Siegelman's thoughts on Rove's relationship to John McCain's presidential campaign.
Karl Rove is incapable of giving a straight answer.
Asked Sunday whether he had meddled, Rove told ABC’s “This Week,” “I found out about Don Siegelman’s investigation and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper.”
If he didn't meddle, the simple and obvious (not to mention true) answer would have been "No." End of story.
Karl Rove did not say that. In fact, he did not address the question at all. Draw your own conclusions.
Former Gov. Don Siegelman will be on Dan Abrams' show, The Verdict, tonight at 8 pm on MSNBC. Karl Rove's lack of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee is a likely topic, as is the investigation into Siegelman's case which was quashed by Special Counsel Scott Bloch last fall.
WriteChic has video from Dan Abram's last segment on Siegelman and Rove. That one also featured Scott Horton and is well worth watching.
Is this deal making or just a delaying tactic? The House Judiciary Committee gave Rove until yesterday to testify voluntarily -- which his attorney indicated he would do -- but now he says no testimony, he'll answer some written questions instead. Yeah, right. Believe that and I have a bridge to sell you.
If Rove never talked to the President about Siegelman's case, he has no leg to stand on to claim immunity from testifying based on executive privilege. As to Rove responding to written questions without being under oath -- get real. I wouldn't trust Karl Rove to give the correct time of day unsworn.
Here is Dan Abrams' segment on Rove from Monday with guests Scott Horton and Don Siegelman (by phone.)
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Is the Middle District of Alabama finally going to get a new nominee for U.S. Attorney, almost a year after Barack Obama was sworn in as President?
Whatever else you may say, the prosecutors in the Siegelman case aren't shy about 
As we've seen, getting Karl Rove to swear to tell the truth is like nailing jello to a wall. 
Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman is in Austin and will be 
THE RAW STORY
From 
