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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004
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To: American Spirit who wrote (837)1/11/2003 4:28:19 PM
From: Glenn Petersen  Read Replies (2) of 10965
 
AS, I know that Westi already posted this, but the reality is that Pickering's intervention in the cross-burning case was all about sentencing proportion. Racial politics in the south are complicated. What is not complicated is that Pickering had the balls to testify against the KKK in the south in the mid-1950's. I wish that I was convinced that I had the balls to do that.

Pickering's nomination has become a political football. I give Bush a lot of credit for renominating him and giving him a chance to regain his reputation. Given Lott's stupidity, the easy thing to do would have been to cut him loose. The Democrats should let the nomination come to the floor without the threat of a fillibuster. Have a debate and vote. It might be an education for the country.

Message 18431318

This race-baiting is all the more offensive because it is demonstrably false about Judge Pickering's career and a gross distortion of the 1995 case called U.S. v. Swan over which the judge presided. That case concerned three young white men who burned a cross in the yard of a mixed-race couple. If Mr. Schumer has a complaint it should be with the Clinton Justice Department, which was relaxed enough about the crime to offer the defendants plea bargains. Two--the ring-leader, who was a juvenile, and a low-IQ adult--accepted the offers and served no prison time.

The third defendant, Daniel Swan, rejected a deal that would have meant a year and a half in jail and decided to take his chances with a trial. He was convicted and, under the mandatory sentencing guidelines, received five to seven-and-a-half years. Judge Pickering got Swan's sentence reduced on the grounds that it was disproportionate to the other sentences and because Swan had no history of racial animus.
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