On the Libby Commutation
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I have only one hasty stitch on the Scooter Libby commutation. I will leave the political commentary to others.
As you may know, there has been a lengthy jurisprudential ordeal over the so-called federal "Sentencing Guidelines" — see my previous post. The most recent development was the Supreme Court's holding in Rita v. U.S., No. 06-5754 (June 21, 2007), that appellate courts are permitted, but not obligated, to consider any sentence within the Guidelines as reasonable.
Now here's the rub: The Bush Justice Department has argued — repeatedly, in many cases, in many federal courts — that the Sentencing Guidelines deserve great deference, especially regarding minimum sentencing. (You might have guessed that the issue on appeal is almost always that the sentence was too harsh, not too lenient — the Administration's "defer to the Guidelines" position is merely a corollary of its "tough on crime" stance.)
For those who couldn't guess by now where I'm going with this: Libby's sentence — including the prison time — was well within the Sentencing Guidelines.
So, for Bush to posit that Libby's sentence was "excessive" directly contradicts the long-standing policy position of his own Justice Department. Go figure.
Sometimes you can just choke on the hypocrisy.
(Via several posts at Sentencing Law & Policy — most relevant one here.)
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Upon further reflection, I do have some political commentary:
--How is it "pandering to your base" to give your base's opponents the perfect talking point? (Compare and contrast: "Willie Horton.") Bush wasn't "pandering to his base" — he was pandering to Cheney.
--Among the Republican presidential candidates, very bad for Mitt "No Pardons Never" Romney and Rudy "White Collar Perp Walk" Giuliani. The others can probably deflect the issue with somewhat less difficulty.
--Among the Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, the Libby commutation is fair game for them all — except Hillary Clinton. If she dares mention Libby, then her critics should not hesitate to spit the Marc Rich pardon (among others) right back in her moral defective face. (UPDATE: This is beyond weird — Scooter Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer.)
As you may know, there has been a lengthy jurisprudential ordeal over the so-called federal "Sentencing Guidelines" — see my previous post. The most recent development was the Supreme Court's holding in Rita v. U.S., No. 06-5754 (June 21, 2007), that appellate courts are permitted, but not obligated, to consider any sentence within the Guidelines as reasonable.
Now here's the rub: The Bush Justice Department has argued — repeatedly, in many cases, in many federal courts — that the Sentencing Guidelines deserve great deference, especially regarding minimum sentencing. (You might have guessed that the issue on appeal is almost always that the sentence was too harsh, not too lenient — the Administration's "defer to the Guidelines" position is merely a corollary of its "tough on crime" stance.)
For those who couldn't guess by now where I'm going with this: Libby's sentence — including the prison time — was well within the Sentencing Guidelines.
So, for Bush to posit that Libby's sentence was "excessive" directly contradicts the long-standing policy position of his own Justice Department. Go figure.
Sometimes you can just choke on the hypocrisy.
(Via several posts at Sentencing Law & Policy — most relevant one here.)
---
Upon further reflection, I do have some political commentary:
--How is it "pandering to your base" to give your base's opponents the perfect talking point? (Compare and contrast: "Willie Horton.") Bush wasn't "pandering to his base" — he was pandering to Cheney.
--Among the Republican presidential candidates, very bad for Mitt "No Pardons Never" Romney and Rudy "White Collar Perp Walk" Giuliani. The others can probably deflect the issue with somewhat less difficulty.
--Among the Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, the Libby commutation is fair game for them all — except Hillary Clinton. If she dares mention Libby, then her critics should not hesitate to spit the Marc Rich pardon (among others) right back in her moral defective face. (UPDATE: This is beyond weird — Scooter Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer.)
Posted by Kip on
3 July 2007
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