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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (648052)	3/15/2012 11:51:07 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1578734

Report Slams Sen. Stevens' Prosecutors March 15, 2012 by Mark Memmott npr.org In a "blistering" 500-page report released this morning a special prosecutor concludes that Justice Department lawyers "intentionally withheld" information that could have bolstered then-Sen. Ted Stevens' defense during the Alaska Republican's 2008 trial on corruption charges, NPR's Carrie Johnson tells us. She adds that Special Prosecutor Henry Schuelke says the case against Stevens was infected by the failure to turn over evidence that could have helped him damage the credibility of the government's key witness. Stevens, as Carrie has previously reported for us: "Was convicted of making false statements and related charges after a five-week trial in 2008. While Stevens was appealing the decision, U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder took the extraordinary step of abandoning the case a year later, after evidence surfaced that the Justice Department team withheld documents from Stevens' defense that would have helped the former lawmaker poke holes in the account of the key witness against him." Among the critical information that prosecutors didn't share with Stevens' attorneys: — Witness Rocky Williams was willing to testify that he "had the same understanding and belief as Senator Stevens and his wife" that the senator had indeed paid for renovation work done on one of his homes. — Witness Bill Allen, who allegedly had given "benefits and others things of value" to Stevens connected to the renovation work, provided "significant exculpatory information" about Stevens to prosecutors. In a statement today, the law firm that represented Stevens (Williams & Connolly LLP) says the report shows that "corrupt prosecutors obtained an illegal verdict against Sen. Stevens on October 27, 2008. As a result, a sitting senator lost certain re-election and the balance of power shifted in the United States Senate." The special prosecutor says, however, that "although the evidence establishes that this misconduct was intentional, the evidence is insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt" that prosecutors violated federal law, "which requires the intentional violation of a clear and unambiguous [judge's] order." Stevens and four others died in the August 2010 crash of a small plane while they were on a fishing trip in Alaska. He was 86. As Carrie tells our Newscast Desk, the government's actions during the Stevens case have "led to calls for new laws and federal rules to govern prosecutors' conduct." Update at 10:35 a.m. ET. Justice Department Says "One Failure Is One Too Many": Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman has emailed this statement to reporters: "The department has cooperated fully with Mr. Schuelke's inquiry into the prosecution of former Sen. Ted Stevens and provided information throughout the process. The department is in the process of making an independent assessment of the conduct and, to the extent it is appropriate and in accordance with the privacy laws, we will endeavor to make our findings public when that review is final. "When concerns were raised about the handling of this case following the 2008 conviction of Sen. Stevens, the department conducted an internal review that culminated in the attorney general ordering a dismissal of this case. Since that dismissal in April 2009, the department has instituted a sweeping training curriculum for all federal prosecutors, and made annual discovery training mandatory. We have taken unprecedented steps to ensure prosecutors, agents and paralegals have the necessary training and resources to properly fulfill their discovery and ethics obligations. "We know that justice is served only when all parties adhere to the rules and case law that govern our criminal justice system. While the department meets its discovery obligations in nearly all cases, even one failure is one too many and we will continue to work with our prosecutors to ensure they have all the support and resources they need to do their jobs. But it would be an injustice of a different kind for the thousands of men and women who spend their lives fighting to uphold the law and keep our communities safe to be tainted by the misguided notion that instances of intentional prosecutorial misconduct are anything but rare occurrences."

To: longnshort who wrote (648052)	3/15/2012 12:04:15 PM
From: Bill	Respond to of 1578734

rofl

To: longnshort who wrote (648052)	3/15/2012 12:09:28 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1578734

Inquiry finds misconduct by prosecutors in Ted Stevens case Evidence concealed in Stevens corruption case, report says By Brad Heath and Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY usatoday.com The government's botched corruption case against Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was "permeated by the systematic concealment" of evidence favorable to his defense, a court-appointed investigator concluded in a report released today. A jury convicted Stevens in 2008 on seven counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure statements. Days later, Stevens lost his Senate re-election bid. In 2009, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan threw out the conviction. The 525-page report said the evidence prosecutors failed to disclose "seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness." Inquiry finds misconduct by prosecutors in Ted Stevens case Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010, was accused of violating federal ethics laws by failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts and services he used to renovate his Girwood, Alaska, home. One of the key witnesses against him was former oilfield executive Bill Allen. The report found that federal prosecutors made "astonishing misstatements" to Stevens' attorneys in an attempt to conceal information about their chief witness's role in pressing a child prostitute to sign a false declaration indicating that he never had sex with her when she was underage. Prosecutors worried that this information might undermine his credibility in the case against Stevens and never disclosed it to Stevens' attorneys, the report says. In addition, the investigation found that at least one prosecutor allowed Allen to lie in court. Allen's company paid for renovations to Stevens' home, and Stevens twice sent him letters asking to be billed for the work. Allen told jurors during Stevens' trial that the senator was "just covering his ass." Allen testified that he had told investigators long before that Stevens didn't want to be billed, when in fact he revealed that information for the first time less than a week before the trial began. The report suggests that Stevens' attorneys could have used the fact to argue that his statement was false. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Bottini "knew the testimony was false and knew that he had an obligation … to correct that testimony there and then, but he did not," the report found. It said Bottini "endorsed and capitalized on Mr. Allen's false denial during his summation." "The complete, simultaneous and long term memory failure by the entire prosecution team, four prosecutors and the FBI case agent, of the same statement about an important document made at the same meeting by their key witness in a high profile case is extraordinary," Schuelke's report said. It said prosecutors fretted repeatedly over the notes in which Stevens asked to be billed, "but no cure for the problem created by those notes for the government's case was found until the week before the trial began when Mr. Allen's memory suddenly improved, after prodding" by an FBI agent. Bottini's lawyer, Kenneth Wainsten, maintained in a letter released Thursday that "Bottini's conduct throughout the Stevens prosecution was ethical, proper, and in keeping with his reputation for unimpeachable integrity and fairness." Catherine Ann Stevens, Ted's wife, released a statement saying the family is "shocked by the depth and breadth of the government's misconduct." Brendan Sullivan, one of Stevens' attorneys, said the misconduct documented in the report went far beyond what he had anticipated. "I expected the worst, but the depth and breadth of the wrongdoing is shocking," he said. "It's the worst corruption in our generation at the Department of Justice." The report was prepared at the request of Judge Sullivan by Washington attorney Henry Schuelke. Its findings had remained under seal since November while some of the prosecutors named in the case fought to keep it concealed. The Justice Department has acknowledged that it failed to tell Stevens' lawyers about inconsistent statements Allen made to federal investigators. The Supreme Court has said since 1963 that prosecutors have a constitutional duty to disclose that type of evidence. Schuelke's report said the prosecutors could not be charged with criminal contempt of court for their conduct because Sullivan had never given them a "clear and unequivocal" order that they "follow the law." Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said the department "cooperated fully" with the inquiry and is in the process of completing its own review of the matter. Attorney General Eric Holder told senators at a hearing March 8 that the Justice Department's own investigation of what went wrong in Stevens' case is nearly complete and that the probe recommended disciplinary actions for at least some of the prosecutors involved. He said he intends to make as much of the department's investigation public as possible. An investigation last year by USA TODAY found that the Justice Department usually took years to review instances of misconduct and that lawyers found by courts to have committed serious violations faced little risk of losing their jobs.