Month: July 2007

by hilzoy

So I asked myself: self, if George W. Bush is so worried about excessive sentences, how has he acted in previous cases in which a sentence might seem excessive? Herewith, some examples, which I’ll put below the fold. Here’s the short version: Serving twelve years for a rape that DNA testing shows you didn’t commit does not get you a pardon. Being represented by a lawyer who slept through large chunks of the trial does not get you a pardon. Being convicted of murder in proceedings that a court-appointed special master describes as “”a breakdown of the adversarial process” caused by the incompetence of your lawyer does not get you a pardon, even when someone else confesses on tape to the murder you were convicted of. Likewise, when someone else confesses to the murder you were convicted of and you ask for a stay of execution in order to conduct tests that will establish your innocence, no dice. And when you are unquestionably incompetent to assist in your own defense but no one seems to take that fact into account, or tells the jury, that’s just too bad. None of these sentences are in any way excessive, as far as George W. Bush is concerned.

But when you are Scooter Libby, convicted of four felony charges, and you face thirty months in jail, that’s excessive.

If anyone wants to do their part to reduce sentences that really are excessive, you can make a contribution to the Innocence Project here, and think of Scooter while you give.

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by hilzoy

Publius was off quoting Cato, so I decided to quote Publius:

“[The President] is also to be authorized to grant “reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT.” Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind. On the other hand, as men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy, and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men.”

Well, that would be a compelling argument if we could assume that our Presidents would always have a sense of of honor and shame. That, in itself, is a good argument for not electing people who don’t have a sense of honor.

Oops.

More below the fold.

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by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

“President Bush today commuted the prison sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, sparing him the 30-month term to which he was sentenced last month for lying to federal investigators about his role in the White House leak of a CIA officer’s identity.

Bush took the action just hours after a federal appeals court ruled that Libby was not entitled to remain free while he was appealing his conviction on four felonies.”

And why? TPMMuckraker has the official statement:

“Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

Give me a break. If President Bush is so very worried about excessive sentences, he should pardon Genarlow Wilson*. But of course he’s not concerned about that at all, outside of this particular case:

“The Bush administration is trying to roll back a Supreme Court decision by pushing legislation that would require prison time for nearly all criminals. (…)

In a speech June 1 to announce the bill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged Congress to reimpose mandatory minimum prison sentences against federal convicts — and not let judges consider such penalties “merely a suggestion.”

Such an overhaul, in part, “will strengthen our hand in fighting criminals who threaten the safety and security of all Americans,” Gonzales said in the speech, delivered three days before the FBI announced a slight national uptick in violent crime during 2006.”

Nope: for all those other criminals, mandatory jail time is fine. The only one for whom sentences are excessive, even when they’re within the federal guidelines, is Scooter.

Being antiquated, I actually remember when Ford pardoned Nixon. I was horrified: bad people were not supposed to get away with things. But unless I’m completely misremembering, the only reason anyone thought that was a good idea, at least in public, was that the country needed to get past Watergate. It was taken for granted that a President shouldn’t go around pardoning people to keep them from cutting a deal and incriminating others, or because he doesn’t think his friends should go to jail, or even just because he’s the Decider, and if he wants to hand out Get Out Of Jail Free cards to all his friends, hey, that’s his right.**

Bush, typically, didn’t bother even trying to come up with a decent explanation for what he did. He didn’t address questions like: Mightn’t this give people the idea that there are two different standards of justice, one for people with powerful connections and another for the rest of us? Is it OK to exempt your friends from the rule of law? Isn’t it especially problematic to commute someone’s sentence when you yourself might have had a hand in that person’s criminal actions? And double especially when no one other than the now-free criminal has been held to account, despite your earlier promises?

He didn’t bother with any of that.

Not that I expected him to. I mean: remember this?

“At one point, McClellan vowed: “The president has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration. He’s made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.”

Bush replied “yes” when asked in June 2004 if he would fire anyone who leaked the agent’s name.”

Why not go even further back, to this?

“During the year and a half that I covered George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, I must have heard his stump speech a thousand times. The lines changed little over the months, and the ending almost never changed — Bush would raise his hand, as if taking an oath, and promise to restore honor and dignity to the White House.

He also vowed to restore civility to the poisonous atmosphere of the nation’s capital, declaring at a GOP fundraiser in April 2000 that “it’s time to clean up the toxic environment in Washington, D.C.”

A few months later, Bush told voters at a campaign event in Pittsburgh that his administration would “ask not only what is legal but what is right, not what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves.””

His words mean nothing. He wouldn’t recognize honor or dignity if they sat down next to him on the bus. He’s a narcissistic child with the intellectual curiosity of a limpet, a heart the size of a pea, and a hollow empty void where his character ought to be.

Yippeekiyokiyay.

***

UPDATE: Emptywheel makes an important point (emphasis added):

“He commuted Libby’s sentence, guaranteeing not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth.“

ANOTHER UPDATE: Steve Benen: “Perhaps we should call this what it is: “amnesty.””

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by hilzoy

I had been reading all these suggestions that John McCain’s fundraising numbers were going to be really bad. When I first saw them, I thought: gosh, $11.2 million doesn’t seem that shabby to me. On reflection, it still doesn’t. However, the real story for McCain’s campaign has to be not just the numbers themselves, but the numbers in conjuction with the fact that, as NRO writes: “They raised $11.2 million in the second quarter, but spent $14.4 million,” leaving what the AP describes as “an abysmal $2 million cash on hand.” More from the AP, plus reflections on Obama’s numbers, below the fold.

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