Anchorage--
I will be appearing Wednesday afternoon from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the program "Alaska Political Insider" on the network of Coastal Television Your Alaska Link. The program is on Anchorage's ABC affiliate, Channel 13. I will be discussing the three chapters I co-authored for the book Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend, which was published this month by Palgrave Macmillan. The talk may also turn to the chapter I wrote for another volume on the same topic to be put out later this year by the same publisher.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Where to Find the Hot Documents Regarding the Special Counsel's Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Ted Stevens Case
Anchorage--
The White Collar Crime Prof Blog has rounded up the links for the materials released last week related to the special counsel's report. In posts dated March 15, 16, and 20, Solomon Wisenberg and Ellen Podgor have posted the report; the report's executive summary; the responses/rebuttals of each of the "subject attorneys" scrutinized in the report; and the analysis of Ted Stevens' attorneys.
Alaska Gets Grade of D+ on "Corruption Risk Report Card"
Anchorage--
A comprehensive study released Monday gives Alaska a D+ on a "Corruption Risk Report Card," ranking the Last Frontier 27th among the 50 states.
Alaska was also graded on 14 categories related to accountability, transparency, and efforts against corruption. The grading there was low, with marks of F for "Public Access to Information," "State Pension Fund Management," "State Budget Processes," and "Redistricting."
The summary on the 49th State in the State Integrity Investigation states "Alaska boasts relatively strong ethics laws, but loopholes and a lack of oversight result in less accountability in practice than on paper." Sean Cockerham--also a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News--wrote an article specifically for this study surveying the Last Frontier's issues with corruption and accountability. As noted on this blog, the Alaska Legislature enacted legislation strengthening ethics laws after the federal investigation into public corruption exposed much unseemly conduct on the Last Frontier.
The study was produced by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International.
A comprehensive study released Monday gives Alaska a D+ on a "Corruption Risk Report Card," ranking the Last Frontier 27th among the 50 states.
Alaska was also graded on 14 categories related to accountability, transparency, and efforts against corruption. The grading there was low, with marks of F for "Public Access to Information," "State Pension Fund Management," "State Budget Processes," and "Redistricting."
The summary on the 49th State in the State Integrity Investigation states "Alaska boasts relatively strong ethics laws, but loopholes and a lack of oversight result in less accountability in practice than on paper." Sean Cockerham--also a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News--wrote an article specifically for this study surveying the Last Frontier's issues with corruption and accountability. As noted on this blog, the Alaska Legislature enacted legislation strengthening ethics laws after the federal investigation into public corruption exposed much unseemly conduct on the Last Frontier.
The study was produced by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International.
A Point to Ponder
Anchorage--
"Real life is messy. And as a general rule, the more theatrical the story you hear, and the more it divides the world into goodies vs baddies, the less reliable that story is going to be....One of the central problems with narrative nonfiction is that the best narratives aren't messy and complicated, while nonfiction nearly always is."
--Felix Salmon, commenting on inaccuracies exposed in theatrical performer Mike Daisey's monologue on working conditions of Chinese factory workers manufacturing Apple products after the monologue was presented as fact on the radio program "This American Life" (which then retracted the broadcast).
"Real life is messy. And as a general rule, the more theatrical the story you hear, and the more it divides the world into goodies vs baddies, the less reliable that story is going to be....One of the central problems with narrative nonfiction is that the best narratives aren't messy and complicated, while nonfiction nearly always is."
--Felix Salmon, commenting on inaccuracies exposed in theatrical performer Mike Daisey's monologue on working conditions of Chinese factory workers manufacturing Apple products after the monologue was presented as fact on the radio program "This American Life" (which then retracted the broadcast).
Monday, March 19, 2012
Pain Reigns for Many in Ted Stevens Case
Anchorage--
I am going to let others talk today about proposed federal legislation that would require more extensive sharing of evidence from prosecutors in federal criminal cases, a possible Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the special counsel's report on prosecutorial abuses in the Ted Stevens case, and the likelihood of release of all or part of an internal Department of Justice probe into that misconduct by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility ("OPR").
I'm writing today about anguish.
High feelings have simmered for years about the Ted Stevens case. They have boiled over again since the release of that special counsel's report Thursday morning finding instances of intentional misconduct by individual prosecutors in turning over evidence to the defense before and during the Ted Stevens trial in 2008.
While grimly satisfied that the special counsel's report found that some federal prosecutors did dirt to then-U.S. Sen. Stevens, some of the Senator's closest associates are hurt that there has not been universal acceptance of the notion that the report represents exoneration and absolute proof that Ted Stevens was innocent of the charges brought against him. One example of the view seen as hurtful would include veteran Alaska journalist Michael Carey's op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times today (behind paywall if a reader who hasn't subscribed has exceeded quota of free content). While excoriating the prosecutors for misconduct, Carey also states that "We don't know what a fair trial would have produced." Another expression of a nuanced view of the report's meaning has of course come on this blog.
Also feeling a lot of pain the past few days are a number of friends and current and former colleagues of the individual prosecutors called out as intentional wrongdoers in the special counsel's report. These government lawyers by and large concede mistakes in providing discovery, while each of those prosecutors disclaims any intent to violate ethical rules and constitutional obligations.
What is striking is that those closest to the late Senator and those closest to the accused prosecutors who pursued him tend to say the same thing: There is no way the person they have known well could have intentionally broken the law.
In the spirit of that pain felt by so many these days, I take the opportunity to urge this blog's readers to take a few minutes to think the best possible thoughts about those who have views different from yours. Spend a little time giving the benefit of the doubt to those up against you. Conceive of some good motivations they could hold, and imagine some laudable impulses behind their actions.
I am going to let others talk today about proposed federal legislation that would require more extensive sharing of evidence from prosecutors in federal criminal cases, a possible Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the special counsel's report on prosecutorial abuses in the Ted Stevens case, and the likelihood of release of all or part of an internal Department of Justice probe into that misconduct by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility ("OPR").
I'm writing today about anguish.
High feelings have simmered for years about the Ted Stevens case. They have boiled over again since the release of that special counsel's report Thursday morning finding instances of intentional misconduct by individual prosecutors in turning over evidence to the defense before and during the Ted Stevens trial in 2008.
While grimly satisfied that the special counsel's report found that some federal prosecutors did dirt to then-U.S. Sen. Stevens, some of the Senator's closest associates are hurt that there has not been universal acceptance of the notion that the report represents exoneration and absolute proof that Ted Stevens was innocent of the charges brought against him. One example of the view seen as hurtful would include veteran Alaska journalist Michael Carey's op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times today (behind paywall if a reader who hasn't subscribed has exceeded quota of free content). While excoriating the prosecutors for misconduct, Carey also states that "We don't know what a fair trial would have produced." Another expression of a nuanced view of the report's meaning has of course come on this blog.
Also feeling a lot of pain the past few days are a number of friends and current and former colleagues of the individual prosecutors called out as intentional wrongdoers in the special counsel's report. These government lawyers by and large concede mistakes in providing discovery, while each of those prosecutors disclaims any intent to violate ethical rules and constitutional obligations.
What is striking is that those closest to the late Senator and those closest to the accused prosecutors who pursued him tend to say the same thing: There is no way the person they have known well could have intentionally broken the law.
In the spirit of that pain felt by so many these days, I take the opportunity to urge this blog's readers to take a few minutes to think the best possible thoughts about those who have views different from yours. Spend a little time giving the benefit of the doubt to those up against you. Conceive of some good motivations they could hold, and imagine some laudable impulses behind their actions.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Links to My Comments in Other Media Outlets on the Special Counsel's Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Ted Stevens Case
Anchorage--
Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times explored the big picture and a counterfactual universe in her story "Unknown is, would he have been found guilty?"
Bill McAllister of the Anchorage CBS affiliate KTVA-TV, Channel 11, interviewed me at length the day the report came out. The piece that appeared on television about the report is here, and the station also posted here the raw video of the entire 24-minute interview of me.
Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times explored the big picture and a counterfactual universe in her story "Unknown is, would he have been found guilty?"
Bill McAllister of the Anchorage CBS affiliate KTVA-TV, Channel 11, interviewed me at length the day the report came out. The piece that appeared on television about the report is here, and the station also posted here the raw video of the entire 24-minute interview of me.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Wildly Different Pictures Painted on Thursday
Anchorage--
Ted Stevens liked old-style Western movies with clear story lines. The release of more than 800 pages this week that will almost certainly stand as the last words filed on court dockets regarding the criminal case against him results in a product more like Rashomon, the Japanese film in which truth is a plural noun seen in multiple perspectives.
Some Alaskans seem to see the special counsel's report on the misconduct of the original prosecution team as an appeal which Ted Stevens won. That is of course not what the report is. The report is an investigation of why the federal government failed to fulfill its obligations to share ("discover") evidence to the defense in the Ted Stevens case with an eye to figuring out if any individual should be charged with contempt of court for any of those failures.
If the report was instead a decision of an appellate court in the Ted Stevens case, that appellate opinion would have included some discussion of the facts brought out in court that supported the jury verdicts of guilty on seven counts (verdicts that were overturned when the case was dismissed in the wake of the discovery failures). In an appeal of the convictions that the jury verdicts would have turned into if Ted Stevens had ever been sentenced, those facts considered on appeal would have included the many e-mail messages Ted Stevens sent showing his knowledge of the details of the renovations of his home. Those facts also would have included the "Boot Camps"--the one-on-one vacations Ted Stevens took repeatedly over the years with long-time VECO CEO Bill Allen, at least one of which occurred years after Stevens told Allen that the Senator knew that he owed money to VECO for work done on those renovations.
To special counsel Henry Schuelke and his associate William Shields, individual prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence helpful to Ted Stevens while suffering under the problems imposed by a poor management structure and a super-shortened time frame that the government fell into. The report demonstrates that prosecutors clearly did not turn over all the evidence to the defense that they should have. It is particularly striking that Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Bottini, who handled the questioning of Bill Allen, did not advise the defense that Bill Allen had told the government for the first time about the "Ted is just covering his ass" conversation with Bob Persons from 2002 only 17 days before Allen testified about that conversation at the Ted Stevens trial even though Allen had had scores of interviews and debriefings with federal agents before he first brought up the conversation.
To Ted Stevens' defense team, several prosecutors engaged in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice. In a 23-page analysis/brief released simultaneously with the special counsel's report, the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly portray the original Ted Stevens prosecutors the same way those prosecutors saw Ted Stevens: evil. And just as the Department of Justice accused Ted Stevens of consorting criminally with Bill Allen, the Ted Stevens defense team accuses the Justice Department of making a corrupt bargain with the devil incarnate--that same Bill Allen. (Ted Stevens' defense attorneys also portray themselves as injured innocents, a picture that is far from the complete truth: Williams & Connolly's lawyers made a series of tactical decisions before and during the trial about how they would handle the issues raised by Bill Allen's sex life and Ted Stevens' Torricelli note that are not reflected in the documents put out Thursday.)
The individual prosecutors whose conduct is scrutinized by the special counsel's report paint a sorry picture of their employer's efforts in the Ted Stevens trial. While admitting that mistakes were made and denying individual culpability--or at least any intent to violate the law--these lawyers point to numerous big errors in judgment and instances of petty bickering by others on their team. Far from the juggernaut that many people see when they are up against the federal government, the Justice Department comes across in some of the filings of "the Stevens Six" as a combination of a fumble factory and an episode of "Days of Our Lives."
There is of course more to come from me on the report and the meaning of this case, and maybe I will get a chance to see Rashomon so that my next reference will be based on actual experience rather than critics' comments. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Howard Weaver, for the memories of when you used to say "Truth is a plural noun" around the offices of the Alaska Advocate.
Ted Stevens liked old-style Western movies with clear story lines. The release of more than 800 pages this week that will almost certainly stand as the last words filed on court dockets regarding the criminal case against him results in a product more like Rashomon, the Japanese film in which truth is a plural noun seen in multiple perspectives.
Some Alaskans seem to see the special counsel's report on the misconduct of the original prosecution team as an appeal which Ted Stevens won. That is of course not what the report is. The report is an investigation of why the federal government failed to fulfill its obligations to share ("discover") evidence to the defense in the Ted Stevens case with an eye to figuring out if any individual should be charged with contempt of court for any of those failures.
If the report was instead a decision of an appellate court in the Ted Stevens case, that appellate opinion would have included some discussion of the facts brought out in court that supported the jury verdicts of guilty on seven counts (verdicts that were overturned when the case was dismissed in the wake of the discovery failures). In an appeal of the convictions that the jury verdicts would have turned into if Ted Stevens had ever been sentenced, those facts considered on appeal would have included the many e-mail messages Ted Stevens sent showing his knowledge of the details of the renovations of his home. Those facts also would have included the "Boot Camps"--the one-on-one vacations Ted Stevens took repeatedly over the years with long-time VECO CEO Bill Allen, at least one of which occurred years after Stevens told Allen that the Senator knew that he owed money to VECO for work done on those renovations.
To special counsel Henry Schuelke and his associate William Shields, individual prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence helpful to Ted Stevens while suffering under the problems imposed by a poor management structure and a super-shortened time frame that the government fell into. The report demonstrates that prosecutors clearly did not turn over all the evidence to the defense that they should have. It is particularly striking that Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Bottini, who handled the questioning of Bill Allen, did not advise the defense that Bill Allen had told the government for the first time about the "Ted is just covering his ass" conversation with Bob Persons from 2002 only 17 days before Allen testified about that conversation at the Ted Stevens trial even though Allen had had scores of interviews and debriefings with federal agents before he first brought up the conversation.
To Ted Stevens' defense team, several prosecutors engaged in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice. In a 23-page analysis/brief released simultaneously with the special counsel's report, the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly portray the original Ted Stevens prosecutors the same way those prosecutors saw Ted Stevens: evil. And just as the Department of Justice accused Ted Stevens of consorting criminally with Bill Allen, the Ted Stevens defense team accuses the Justice Department of making a corrupt bargain with the devil incarnate--that same Bill Allen. (Ted Stevens' defense attorneys also portray themselves as injured innocents, a picture that is far from the complete truth: Williams & Connolly's lawyers made a series of tactical decisions before and during the trial about how they would handle the issues raised by Bill Allen's sex life and Ted Stevens' Torricelli note that are not reflected in the documents put out Thursday.)
The individual prosecutors whose conduct is scrutinized by the special counsel's report paint a sorry picture of their employer's efforts in the Ted Stevens trial. While admitting that mistakes were made and denying individual culpability--or at least any intent to violate the law--these lawyers point to numerous big errors in judgment and instances of petty bickering by others on their team. Far from the juggernaut that many people see when they are up against the federal government, the Justice Department comes across in some of the filings of "the Stevens Six" as a combination of a fumble factory and an episode of "Days of Our Lives."
There is of course more to come from me on the report and the meaning of this case, and maybe I will get a chance to see Rashomon so that my next reference will be based on actual experience rather than critics' comments. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Howard Weaver, for the memories of when you used to say "Truth is a plural noun" around the offices of the Alaska Advocate.
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