A Time for Change

Former Republican Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens

Just days before voters decided whether Ted Stevens would be re-elected as Senator from Alaska, a jury found him guilty “lying on a Senate disclosure form in order to hide $250,000 in gifts he received from an oil company executive and friends.”  He was accused of ”failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of ‘freebies’ from an oilfield services company on Senate ethics forms. But in December, an unnamed FBI whistle-blower accused prosecutors of withholding evidence from the defense, and the Justice Department asked a judge to dismiss the charges against Stevens on Wednesday.”  That left the problem in newly appointed Attorney General, Eric Holder’s, lap.

According to CNN, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), former Senator Ted Stevens was screwed by our own Justice Department: ”Here’s a guy who gave better than 60 years’ service to the country and was screwed — screwed by our own Justice Department,” Hatch said. But he praised Holder for “standing up and fixing this foul situation.  I think he’s more than shown integrity and decency in this matter, and it’s not an easy thing for him to do that,” Hatch said. “He has, in looking at it, realized now what people like myself have been saying is 100 percent right.”

The highly politicized Justice Department, that was more interested in prosecuting people for political payback, committed egregious prosecutorial misconduct.  On Wednesday, “the Justice Department acknowledged that Stevens was not given access to notes taken by prosecutors during an April 2008 interview with Allen, the former chairman of an oilfield services company at the center of a corruption probe in Alaska. The notes show that responses by Allen, the prosecution’s star witness, were inconsistent with testimony he gave against Stevens, and that information from the interview could have benefited Stevens at trial, the motion says.”  This, of course, flatly violates Brady v. Maryland, which held that it is a violation of due process to withhold material evidence vital to a defendants case.  That is exactly what the prosecutors did here.

“In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial,” Holder said in a written statement.

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The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will review the prosecution team’s conduct in Stevens’ case, Holder said. Asked whether the prosecutors should be charged themselves…

In attempting to correct the misconduct of his predecessors’ Department, Eric Holder has already demonstrated that he intends to restore some semblance of honesty and integrity into the Department of Justice.  Well done.

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