Obama Justice Department Wants a SECOND DOSE of Humiliation in ALABAMA BINGO TRIAL

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Teresa Tolbert, a rural mail carrier who spent 10 weeks serving on the bingo jury,
said it would have been hard for jurors to be more unimpressed.


:smoke: :smoke:



" Federal prosecutors apparently intend to retry the Alabama bingo case, even though a juror in the first trial said the panel voted overwhelmingly to acquit across the board. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson yesterday set the second trial for October 3. Prosecutors are proposing three separate trials this time, even though they opposed defense requests for separate trials earlier. The first trial ended last week with full acquittals for two defendants and a mix of not guilty and no decision for the other seven defendants.



What to make of all this? A leading legal commentator says GOP felon Jack Abramoff maintains an ugly grip on Alabama politics. And in a twisted piece of irony, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seems to be supporting Abramoff-style skulduggery. A reasonable person might expect federal prosecutors to be dissuaded by the fact that jurors in the first trial voted 8 to 4 for across-the-board acquittals. But that reasonable person would be wrong. One can only wonder what Obama attorney general Eric Holder is thinking--or if he is thinking at all.



One round of humiliation apparently is not enough for the Obama Justice Department. They want more. An expensive second federal trial, on charges that clearly are driven by Republican politics, would come as the president is being attacked for excessive spending . . . by Republicans. Raise your hand if the DOJ's actions make zero sense to you. Raise your hand if you hope that a genuine progressive runs a primary campaign against the incredible shrinking Democrat in the White House. (Both of my hands are up.) Scott Horton, legal-affairs contributor at Harper's, says the Alabama bingo case is the DOJ's "highest-profile political litigation since its botched prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens." How bad does the Obama DOJ look in all of this? Horton lays it out in a piece titled "Justice Department Rolls Snake Eyes in Alabama Gambling Trial."

Writes Horton:

The prosecution showed Justice to be firmly aligned with Alabama’s then-governor, Republican Bob Riley, who had leveled the initial vote-buying accusations during a heated election-time political debate over gambling issues. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer touted the case against the Alabama politicians as “astonishing” when he announced the arrests. The jury, however, turned out to be quite unimpressed with the evidence offered.


http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/08/hbc-90008196

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cont'



http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/08/obama-justice-department-wants-second.html


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[ixion]

1. Rec'd to zero

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The key issue is in this paragraph:

"Riley initially launched the politically charged bingo investigation; it was then picked up by a U.S. Attorney’s office headed by Leura Canary, the wife of Riley’s campaign adviser."


My comment:
( Leura is the Bush appointed State AG who prosecuted Don Seigleman, and her husband, Riley's campaign adviser,
is also the Business Council of Alabama president and CEO William Canary, but back in the day those councils were known as The White Citizen Council.
Leura, for some strange reason, was not removed from her powerful post as Fed. AG until recently, staying on as a Bush hold over and becoming embroiled in other controversial cases ).

"Local political figures cried foul, but Breuer insisted that the matter was being handled entirely by the main branch of the Justice Department. He then assigned Brenda Morris, one of the lawyers now under investigation for the mishandling of the Stevens file, to a lead position in the case. Many of the same problems that afflicted the Stevens file occurred in Alabama, too: the judge described the prosecution’s conduct in the latter as “ridiculous”, dismissed many of the charges himself, and threatened to sanction prosecutors over their misconduct. One of the prosecution’s key witnesses, a senior FBI agent, disappeared from the courthouse and never offered evidence, amid suggestions of serious misconduct. And in the end, the evidence actually offered never came close to the claims prosecutors had made to the local media at the outset of the case."

It also needs to be known that Karl Rove had/has a tight grip on Alabama and was involved with Seigleman's case.

K&R

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3. In a nutshell, these actions are best summed up by this quote:

:mad:

"...One can only wonder what Obama attorney general Eric Holder is thinking--or if he is thinking at all..."



Why hasn't Eric Holder applied the SAME misdirected tenacity and stubbornness towards the wall street criminals and corporate banksters?


( sound of crickets in the background )


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[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Oh, he IS thinking, yes indeedy.