Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, while normally loathe to criticize the work of juries in criminal cases, feels that the jury in the Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial has really screwed the proverbial pooch by handing down guilty verdicts against Libby.
Your Maximum Leader followed the case as closely as one could by reading the papers and news accounts. He doesn’t see, from what he knows, how one could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby should have been convicted of the 4 counts.
Being a reasonable man, your Maximum Leader is willing to concede a few points to those of you who might be on the other side of this issue. First off, he read the accounts and wasn’t in the courtroom. That is a big deal. As it the fact that your Maximum Leader wasn’t in a jury room and susceptible to the “group-think” that sometimes occurs in a jury room. It is possible that your Maximum Leader’s singular understanding of the case is somewhat different than that of the jurors.
Your Maximum Leader also feels as though the jury’s instructions from the judge may not have been all that good. The various questions that came up from the jurors at various times seemed to indicated that the instructions were not particularly good. Your Maximum Leader seems to remember reading something about the instructions somewhere. But he can’t find anything to link you to…
Your Maximum Leader caught a short bit of the one juror’s Q & A session with the press on the steps of the courthouse. (Excursus: A practice that your Maximum Leader feels should not be allowed. But… Most disagree on this point.) During what he saw there were more than a few times when the juror claimed that he and his fellow jurors wondered why they were seeing Libby and not someone else in front of them. That raised the hairs on the back of your Maximum Leader’s neck.
The reason that Libby was the only person brought to trial in the case was the fact that he was the only person the Special Prosecutor thought he could conict of anything.
With all of the resources (unlimited resources in fact) and time (unlimited time in fact) that Patrick Fitzgerald had at his disposal a person could expect to see more indictments and trials. Unless of course, no crimes were commited. Why was no one charged with the acutal “leaking” of Valerie Plame’s identity? Your Maximum Leader posits it is because there was no crime.
After a Special Prosecutor spends the people’s money on investigations and grand juries, the Special Prosecutor has to charge someone with something. But what if there is no crime? In that case, the Prosecutor reviews what he has and decides to find something that he can convict someone of doing. That way the money and time isn’t “wasted” on “nothing.” Supporters of Special Prosecutors can look back and say that someone was punished and we can all pretend to be happy for justice being done.
Only justice isn’t done and we shouldn’t be happy. People should be outraged that the Office of the Special Prosecutor exists. They should be outraged that they have little oversight and unlimited resources. They should be distressed when they learn that the only prosecutions will be for items tangentially related to the putative reasons behind the appointment of a Special Prosecutor in the first place. And people should lament when someone will be deprived of their liberty as a result of the whole process.
The jury in this case was right to wonder why they were in the deliberation room trying to determine if Lewis Libby conspired to obstruct justice or perjured himself and not trying to decide who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to the press. Perhaps what they should have thought - or at least one of them should have thought - was is Patrick Fitzgerald just trying to get a conviction so his investigation doesn’t seem like a waste. Then they should have moved to acquit.
Carry on.
