Pryor, B AG jr

see also WH sr

just one guy, born 1962?

omfg

1 25 an

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a ruling temporarily blocking the release of Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's final report in the waning days of President Joe Biden's administration.

The three-page order prevents Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Biden DOJ and "all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals” from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice.” But as Politico's Kyle Cheney reports, Cannon — who then-President Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench in 2020 — may not have the jurisdiction to intervene in the publication of the report, which is required by the federal special counsel statute.

Whether the report sees the light of day will ultimately rest with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has overturned Cannon's rulings on two previous occasions. Legal nonprofit National Security Counselors posted to Bluesky that the 11th Circuit, which meets next week, is not likely to go agree with Cannon's decision.

"[T]hey get the final say, and they're not going to play the delay game that Trump really wanted Cannon to play," the organization wrote.

Portland, Oregon-based attorney Patrick De Klotz observed that Cannon's decision was handed down right around the same time the president-elect praised the judge as "brilliant" during a Tuesday press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate. And civil rights lawyer Subodh Chandra condemned Cannon for "aiding and abetting suppression of the truth," adding: "Shame. Shame. Shame."

Other legal experts speculated that Cannon's move was less about the report itself and more about her jockeying for a position on the Supreme Court. Attorney Jeffrey Evan Gold, who is a legal analyst for CNN, NBC, ABC and others, responded to the news of Cannon blocking the report's release by referring to her as "Justice Cannon." Northeastern Illinois University political science professor William Adler wrote that Americans should "get used to" saying "Supreme Court nominee Aileen Cannon." And Politico magazine contributor Joshua Zeitz opined that it was "pretty easy to see how this goes."

"Alito will retire, Trump will name her to the court, and she’ll easily be confirmed with unanimous GOP support and a handful of older Democratic Senators who think it’s still 1978," Zeitz wrote.

Click here to read Cheney's full report in Politico, and click here to read the full text of Cannon's order.

===

ref

Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the controversial jurist who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Donald Trump in July, failed to disclose her attendance at a May 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school.

Cannon went to an event in Arlington, Va. honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to documents obtained from the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University. At a lecture and private dinner, she sat among members of Scalia’s family, fellow Federalist Society members and more than 30 conservative federal judges. Organizers billed the event as “an excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues.”

A 2006 rule, intended to shine a light on judges’ attendance at paid seminars that could pose conflicts or influence decisions, requires them to file disclosure forms for such trips within 30 days and make them public on the court’s website.

It’s not the first time she has failed to fully comply with the rule.

In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo helped organize.

Current rates for standard rooms at Sage Lodge can exceed $1,000 per night, depending on the season. With both Montana trips, Cannon’s required seminar disclosures were not posted until NPR reporters asked about the omissions this year as part of a broader national investigation of gaps in judicial disclosures.

Cannon did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In response to questions from ProPublica, the clerk in the Southern District of Florida wrote in an email that Cannon had filed the Sage Lodge trips with the federal judiciary’s administrative office but had “inadvertently” not taken the second step of posting them on the court’s website. She explained that “Judges often do not realize they must input the information twice.”

The clerk said she had no information about the May 2023 banquet.

“Judges administer the law, and we have a right to expect every judge to comply with the law,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Cannon’s husband, Joshua Lorence, a restaurant executive, accompanied her to the 2021 and 2022 colloquiums, which featured noted conservative jurists, lawyers and professors as well as lengthy “afternoon study breaks,” according to records obtained by ProPublica. Cannon emailed university staff to submit airport parking expenses and inquire about rental car reimbursement.

The rule for paid seminars is among the policies set by the Judicial Conference. Federal judges are also required by law to file annual financial disclosures, listing items such as assets, outside income and gifts.

Cannon’s annual disclosure form for 2023, which was due in May and offers another chance to report gifts and reimbursements from outside parties, has yet to be posted. (Cannon reported the two Montana trips on her annual disclosure forms, but the required 30-day privately funded seminar reports had not been posted. In 2021, Cannon incorrectly listed the school as “George Madison University.”)

The court’s administrative office declined to say if she requested a one-time extension to give her until Aug. 13 to file. A spokesperson would not discuss whether she met the deadline or the status of her disclosure, which must be reviewed internally.

Cannon’s performance during almost four years of a lifetime appointment has drawn criticism from lawyers, former federal judges and courtroom observers who told ProPublica that she doesn’t render timely decisions and has made unpredictable rulings in both civil and criminal matters. On July 15, she threw out the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith that alleges Trump mishandled classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence; Cannon called Smith’s appointment unconstitutional since he was not nominated by the president and approved by the Senate.

Smith is appealing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has asked the court to remand her decision and replace her.

By contrast, Trump, who appointed Cannon in 2020 to the Fort Pierce courthouse, has praised her brilliance, and Federalist Society founder Steven Calabresi called her a heroine for throwing out the criminal case against Trump.

For decades, judicial education programs sponsored by George Mason’s Law and Economics Center have drawn in 5,000 state and federal judges and four current Supreme Court justices, according to its website. The school says its programs strive for balance and intellectual rigor. But conference agendas and speaker lists that the university must file with the courts detail lectures and panel discussions built around Federalist Society principles that are associated with conservative legal movements.

Ken Turchi, associate dean for external affairs, said the law school plays no role in judicial disclosures. “Judges’ decisions to submit (or not submit) disclosure forms are theirs alone — it’s a self-reporting process,” he said.

The guest list for the May 2023 Scalia Forum included William H. Pryor Jr., chief judge of the 11th Circuit, which is now hearing Smith’s appeal. Pryor and dinner speaker Kyle Duncan, a 5th Circuit judge, did file their required disclosures for the Scalia dinner.

Pryor’s court has overruled Cannon twice in the Trump case. It sided with the government in September 2022 on a motion for a stay and found that it “had established a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.” In December 2022, it ruled that she erred in naming a special master to examine classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. After that decision, Cannon had to dismantle an expensive operation set up by her special master, a senior federal judge in New York.

Gabe Roth, who directs Fix the Court, a nonprofit judicial reform group, said compliance with the privately funded seminar rule has improved in some circuits since his group pressed for compliance with the Administrative Office of the Courts.

“They’re a more effective way for litigants and the public to get a sense of what types of individuals and groups a judge might be hanging out with and learning from,” he said.

Records show that Cannon submitted minor reimbursement requests related to the Scalia Forum trip after she returned, including the 158 miles she drove round trip to the airport. She inquired with George Mason staff about details for an Alaska excursion recommended by a former lawyer in the Trump-era White House Counsel’s Office.

Cannon registered for George Mason’s Hill Country Colloquium at a Texas resort in December 2023 but had to back out for scheduling reasons.

“I hope to join that event, and others, in future years,” she wrote.

If you have information about Judge Aileen M. Cannon, please contact Marilyn W. Thompson at marilyn.thompson@propublica.org.

---

an badash 11 22

Last month a three-judge panel overruled a federal judge **Donald Trump** not only appointed to the bench but hand-picked to hear his case surrounding the Dept. of Justice executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort and residence and retrieving thousands of White House items and documents, including hundreds of classified and top secret documents.

Trump has appealed their ruling, and on Tuesday a three-judge panel at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was selected to hear his case.

Two of the three he appointed. Both have previously ruled against him.

The judges, according to Politico’s Josh Gerstein, are William Pryor Jr. (Bush 43 appointee), Britt Grant (Trump appointee), and Andrew Brasher (Trump appointee.).

“BUT,” Gerstein stresses, “Grant & Brasher joined in earlier ruling against him on MAL,” referring to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago case against the United States of America in which he both claims he is the rightful owner of the documents because they are personal, and he declassified them all. (Both claims cannot be true.)

As The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell puts it, “Really unfortunate for Trump to have drawn 2/3 judges for oral arguments before 11th Circuit today who ruled that Cannon ‘abused her discretion’ in granting him a special master.”

Back in September a three-judge 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel temporarily blocked Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling barring the Dept. of Justice from using about 100 classified documents. Trump had requested the court block DOJ from accessing those documents.

“We cannot discern why plaintiff [Trump] would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings,” the three-judge panel said, as Bloomberg News had reported.

As Bloomberg’s Zoe Tillman reports, in today’s trial, which begins at 2 PM ET, DOJ will argue “to free thousands of documents seized from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate from a review that’s kept them out of investigators’ hands for months.”

For those interested, oral arguments can be heard via the 11th Circuit’s government website, here.

2012? luther?

But it was over climate change that Cuccinelli would make his greatest mark.

He put Virginia out in front—along with Texas and Alabama—as one of the first states to sue the Obama administration over the Environmental Protection Agency's endangerment finding on greenhouse gases.

talk of a possible replacement for late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took center stage at Saturday night's Republican debate from South Carolina. Among the names cited by candidates was Bill Pryor, Alabama's former Attorney General, who was mentioned by GOP front runner Donald Trump.

Pryor's name is familiar to Alabamians. A native of Mobile, Pryor served as Alabama's Attorney General from 1997-2004, becoming the youngest state AG in the U.S. A Republican, he was first elected in 1998 and again in 2002.

While AG, Pryor drew the ire of many conservatives when he backed the decision by the Alabama Court of Judiciary to oust Chief Justice Roy Moore from his position for Moore's refusal to follow a federal court order for the removal of a monument of the 10 Commandments from the front of the state's judicial building.

Pryor, who is Catholic, argued the Moore had "flagrantly disobeyed the law, incited the public to support his misconduct and undermined the integrity, independence, and impartiality of the judiciary."

"Because the chief justice intentionally and publicly engaged in misconduct, and because he remains unrepentant for his behavior," Pryor wrote in a pre-trial brief, "this court must remove the chief justice from office to protect the Alabama judiciary and the citizens who depend upon it for fair and impartial justice."

Moore was removed from office only to be reelected in 2012.

In 2005, Pryor was nominated by President George W. Bush a U.S. Circuit Judge for the 11^th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. His nomination led to a partisan controversy in the Senate Judiciary Committeethatone conservative magazine referred to as the "most extraordinary Judiciary Committee sessions in recent memory."

During the hearing, Pryor's comments on Roe v. Wade (he called it "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law) and a high court decision on an Alabama death penalty case ("Issue should not be decided by nine octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the Supreme Court," Pryor said) drew the ire of Democrats.

When questioned by Senators about those and other controversial statements, Pryor didn't back down.

"I have a record as attorney general that is separate from my personal beliefs," Pryor told the Senators. "I am able to put aside personal beliefs and follow the law, even when I strongly disagree with it."

Pryor was eventually confirmed on a 53 to 45 vote after a brokered deal between Republicans and Democrats.

Pryor is a 1984 graduate of Northeast Louisiana University and a 1987 graduate of Tulane University School of Law. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law and deputy AG in Alabama from 1995-1997. He still serves as a visiting professor for the University of Alabama's School of Law.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/who_is_bill_pryor_donald_trump.html

LONG report and support docs

2003

William Pryor: Unfit to Judge

INTRODUCTION

“Right-wing Zealot is Unfit to Judge”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution(May 6, 2003)

“Unfit to Judge . . . Mr. Pryor’s speeches display a disturbingly politicized view of the role of courts.”

Washington Post (Apr. 11, 2003)

These editorial conclusions refer to Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor, Jr., nominated by President Bush to a lifetime seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Pryor, 41 years old, has used the power of his office in an effort to push the law in an extreme far right direction harmful to the rights and interests of ordinary Americans. Pryor has done this not only through litigation in which Alabama was a party, but also by electing to file amicus curiae briefs in cases in which Alabama was not involved and Pryor had no obligation to participate. Pryor is also a frequent public speaker whose speeches make clear that the ideological positions he has taken in these cases are his own.

As discussed in this report, many aspects of Pryor’s record are troubling, including his record on civil rights, reproductive choice, religious liberty, and the Eighth Amendment. Of particular concern are Pryor’s views on the limits on Congress’ authority to enact laws protecting individual and other rights and how he would seek to implement those views if confirmed. Over the past decade, the so-called “states’ rights” or “federalism” revolution promoted by the Federalist Society and other right-wing advocates has severely limited federal civil rights and other protections, particularly by restricting the authority of Congress to require compliance with laws it has passed.

Pryor is one of the architects of this movement and has been a leading activist in these damaging efforts. He personally has been involved in key Supreme Court cases that, by narrow 5-4 majorities, have hobbled Congress’ ability to protect Americans’ rights against discrimination and injury based on disability, race, and age. Worse, he has urged the Court to go even further than it has in the direction of restricting congressional authority.

Moreover, Pryor has advocated the view that the Constitution should not apply to some of the most critical issues pertaining to individual rights and freedoms — including reproductive choice, gay rights, and school prayer — and that these matters should be decided by the states, based on majority vote, regardless of whether constitutional rights are violated. Pryor’s ideology would effectively create a balkanized America in which individual citizens may have fewer constitutional rights depending on where they live.

In addition to advocating his harmful states’ rights and majoritarian ideology, Pryor has tried to push the law far to the right in other areas as well. For example, Pryor has urged Congress to consider repealing or amending Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as pushed for other modifications of this critical civil rights law. Pryor’s efforts to undermine the Voting Rights Act have prompted more than a dozen leaders of the civil rights movement, including Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King III, to oppose his confirmation.

Pryor would deny gay men and lesbians the equal protection of the laws. He believes that it is constitutional to imprison gay men and lesbians for expressing their sexuality in the privacy of their own homes and has voluntarily filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court urging the Court to uphold a Texas law that criminalizes such private consensual activity. Pryor is also a staunch opponent of a woman’s right to choose. He has called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history” and has supported efforts to erect unconstitutional barriers to the exercise of reproductive freedom.

Pryor has also tried to undermine the separation of church and state, urging the courts to uphold a judge’s official sponsorship of sectarian prayers before juries as well as religious displays of the Ten Commandments. Most recently, Pryor has supported the efforts of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore to display a nearly three-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state Judicial Building, a display ruled unconstitutional by a federal district court. More than forty Alabama clergy and other religious leaders, including Christian clergy, have opposed Moore’s monument as a violation of the separation of church and state.

Not only is Pryor’s ideology extreme, but he also often expresses his views in a manner that is contemptuous of those who disagree with him and of the legal principles that protect the rights and interests of ordinary Americans. Pryor’s extreme positions on so many critical aspects of Americans’ individual rights seriously place in doubt his ability to maintain an open mind about these matters were he to be confirmed.

Pryor’s ideology is well-documented. Indeed, in the words of one reporter writing about Pryor’s possible nomination earlier this year, Pryor would not be a “stealth” nominee but “the opposite -- a B-52 candidate, if you will -- who has spent his career flying high, carpet-bombing the landscape with conservative views on federalism, abortion, church-state separation and a host of crime and punishment issues.”¹

As discussed below, Pryor’s crusade to push the law far to the right has been partially successful in terms of his states’ rights agenda. In other areas, the courts have rebuffed him. The situation would be far different, however, if Pryor were an appellate judge deciding these critical questions of constitutional and statutory interpretation. And because the Supreme Court hears so few cases, the federal courts of appeal are the courts of last resort for most Americans.

As more than 200 law professors wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2001, no federal judicial nominee is presumptively entitled to confirmation. Because federal judicial appointments are for life and significantly affect the rights of all Americans, and because of the Senate’s co-equal role with the President in the confirmation process, nominees must demonstrate that they meet the appropriate criteria. These include not only an “exemplary record in the law,” but also a “commitment to protecting the rights of ordinary Americans,” a “record of commitment to the progress made on civil rights, women’s rights, and individual liberties,” and a “respect for the constitutional role Congress plays in promoting these rights and health and safety protections, and ensuring recourse when these rights are breached.”² Based on these criteria, as discussed below, Pryor’s confirmation to a lifetime position on the important Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit should be rejected....

http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/william-pryor-unfit-to-judge

==-

he busted his mentor Moore on 10 command sez wiki?! NO

executes kids and mentally retarded?

When Bill Pryor was running for re-election as Attorney General for the state of Alabama in 2002, he demanded that the execution dates of 8 prisoners be moved up so that they could be put to death prior to the fall vote.

started RAGA (rove helps raise $)

"Pryor’s political career has literally been a crusade to ‘Christianize’ America through government action,"

prosecuted Siegelman as AG, tossed out, rove? white house said try again (blackmail with cheating on wife was suggested?)

Bush 2 rewarded hit jobs with nom, filibustered by dems, so he got recess appt.

attorney general to file a brief attacking the Violence Against Women Act.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/06/13/killer-bill-pryor-s-mad-quest-for-the-federal-bench/

Weekend Edition June 13-15, 2003

Pryor Unrestraint :

Killer Bill Pryor’s Mad Quest for the Federal Bench

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

"Bill Pryor’s a pretty harsh guy," says Barbara Howard, a defense attorney from Montgomery who handles death penalty cases. "I suspect he did this as a political ploy."

This "pretty harsh guy" is the man George W. Bush now wants to install in a lifetime position on the 11th Circuit federal court of appeals, covering Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Pryor is so maniacally devoted to the death penalty that he objected loudly to the recent Supreme Court decision in the Atkins case ruling that executing mentally retarded and brain damaged people violated the Constitution.

The would-be federal appellate judge finds nothing wrong with having court-appointed, low paid, inexperienced and often incompetent lawyers defend death penalty cases, even when they snooze off during testimony or fail to cross-examine key witnesses against their clients.

Pryor also tartly dismisses allegations of racial bias in the administration of the death penalty as a diversionary tactic by out of state (read northern and Jewish) defense lawyers. At gatherings of the Federalist Society, he gripes endlessly about the appeals process available to the condemned and has vowed to do everything in his power to truncate appeals and accelerate executions.

From his perch in Montgomery, Pryor ridiculed the Supreme Court’s decision in Ring v. Arizona, which ruled that only juries can impose the death penalty. He contends that juries are too susceptible to emotional appeals for leniency from crafty defense lawyers, thus he backs Alabama’s arcane and vicious law allowing judge’s to impose the death penalty even when a jury has recommended life in prison. President Bush claims that Pryor is squarely in the tradition of his two favorite Supremes, Scalia and Thomas. But even Scalia, God’s willing executioner, voted to defend the right of juries in the Ring case.

Pryor, a pious father of two, even thinks that children should be sentenced to death and he has done so in record fashion: Alabama has now sentenced more juveniles to death on a per capita basis than any other states.

In short, Bill Pryor is doing his bloody best to impress George Bush, the man who as governor of Texas set the high bar for state executions, with his prosecutorial zeal. By all measures, he has succeeded on both counts.

Under Pryor’s gruesome reign, Alabama has been sending more people to death row than any other state, surpassing even kill-happy Texas. And the people who go to death row are predominately poor black men.

Roughly 90 percent of the people on death row were represented by court-appointed public defenders, working on a tight budget controlled by the state. Trying cases against such underfunded and overworked lawyers creates an enormous courtroom advantage for Pryor and his prosecutors as the press forward in their mission to set death house records.

The application of the death penalty in Alabama is racist at its core.In Alabama, blacks account for 12 percent of the population. Yet, more than 70 percent of the inmates on Alabama’s death row are black. George Wallace’s view of racial relations seems downright humanitarian next to Pryor’s coarse version.

Still when push comes to shove, Pryor is willing to kill just about anyone to prove a point. On May 10, 2002, he gloated over the electrocution of Lynda Lyons, the first woman executed in Alabama in the last 45 years.

In Alabama, you can also be put to death for a crime that a jury of your peers decided wasn’t deserving of the ultimate sanction. That’s because Alabama allows judges to overturn jury verdicts at the request of prosecutors. And they regularly do so.More than a quarter of the inmates on Alabama’s death row are there because judges threw out jury sentences of imprisonment and imposed the death penalty.

Although he purports to be a devoutly Catholic man, who is also in tune "with the vision of Pat Robertson", Pryor seems to have forgotten the Sixth Commandment handed down to Moses by the Supreme Deity of the Christian faith. It’s a curious lapse of memory given that Pryor fought tirelessly on behalf his mentor, Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. For years, Moore crusaded to open his court sessions with a prayer and read out stern Biblical passages along with his unfailingly sentences. Moore also grabbed national headlines with his campaign to have the 10 Commandments enshrined on a stone monument inside the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme court building, prompting a lawsuit that landed in federal court.

At a "Save the Commandments" rally on the steps of the Alabama Supreme Court, Pryor railed against the ACLU like a crazed prophet from the Old Testament: "God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time and this place for all Christians to save our country and our courts."

To argue the state’s losing case in favor of Moore’s religious monument, Pryor hired Herb Titus, the founding dean of Pat Robertson’s law school. This was not the first time Pryor had recruited lawyers from Robertson’s operation. A year earlier he tapped Jay Sekulow to serve as his assistant attorney general. Sekulow, who was assigned to handle school prayer cases, previously had headed Robertson’s legal outfit, theAmerican Center for Law and Justice.

"Pryor’s political career has literally been a crusade to ‘Christianize’ America through government action," says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "He wants to overturn a half-century of court rulings upholding religious liberty and other fundamental constitutional protections."

While Pryor argues that child convicts should be put to death with dispatch, he fervently draws the line at fetuses. "I will never forget January 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution up and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children," Pryor said in 1997. Indeed, he opposes abortion in almost every instance, including rape and incest. Pryor even backed a ludicrous bill in the Alabama legislature that would have appointed a lawyer to act as a guardian ad litem for the fetus of any woman considering an abortion.

His views haven’t mellowed over time. "Abortion is murder and Roe v. Wade is an abominable decision," Pryor said last year. "I support the right to life of every unborn child."

Once those fetuses reach term, though, Pryor washes his hands of them, especially if they are poor or black. As attorney general he tried to undermine a consent decree aimed at improving Alabama’s notorious state child welfare system, which stored troubled kids in abusive foster homes and wretched psychiatric wards. When asked about his maneuvers to shirk the requirements of the consent decree, Pryor cloaked it in the addled rhetoric of states rights. "It matters not to me whether the actions would leave children unprotected," Pryor said. "My job is to make sure that the state of Alabama isn’t run by federal courts. My job isn’t to come here and help children."

This man who detests federalism with a fervor not seen since the secessionists of old now wants to serve on a federal appeals court.

One might wonder why a man who professes such profound hostility toward the law would choose to become a lawyer, never mind a federal judge. Rarely at a loss for words, Pryor is quick with an answer. "I became a lawyer because I wanted to fight the ACLU-the Anti-American Civil Liberties Union." Pryor says he chose Tulane University Law School because it didn’t have any "wild-eyed leftist student organizations."

Pryor’s certainly no leftist, but he sure is wild-eyed, especially when it comes to sexual relations. He holds the ignominious honor of being the only attorney general to file a brief attacking the Violence Against Women Act. Ever the defender of prudish virtue, Pryor threw himself into a defense of Alabama’s Dildo Law, which forbade the sale of vibrators. Dredging deep into the recesses of Federalist Society legal theory, Pryor argued that there is no right to privacy in Alabama and that the state had the authority to outlaw any kind of pleasure devices it wanted, even when accompanied by a doctor’s prescription.Naturally, Pryor is unwilling to apply the same legal mumbo jumbo to assault weapons.

His homophobic sentiments rival those of Senator Rick Santorum, the famously anti-gay Republican from Pennsylvania. In an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court in the Texas same-sex sodomy case, Pryor urged the court to uphold the ban. "A constitutional right that protects ‘the choice of one’s partner’ and ‘whether and how to connect sexually’ must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography and even incest and pedophilia." Santorum and Pryor must have attended the same Christian Coalition prayer breakfast.

Pryor’s legal resume bulges with other entries to impress the neo-cons and corporate courtiers inside the Bush White House. Take Pryor’s position on tort claims, which he quaintly calls "lawsuit abuse". Of course, he follows the usual Republican talking points on limiting punitive damages, capping fees for trial lawyers and the like. But he goes much, much further than even many of the most extreme ideologues in his party. Pryor has filed briefs calling for the elimination of almost every federal law that impinges on corporate enterprise, from the Americans With Disabilities Act to the Clean Water Act.He believes that the Environmental Protection Agency should be eliminated and its functions devolved to the states. As the Anniston Star points out, "in Alabama there is no environmental protection agency to speak of."

These favors on behalf of big business are returned in kind. In 1999, Pryor founded the Republican Attorneys General Association, a shadowy PAC-like organization that solicits large contributions from corporations facing federal or state lawsuits and funnels the money into state attorney general races. Millions have come and gone in the past four years, but there’s no way to determine which companies gave money or precisely how much, since the funds go into the RNC’s "soft money" accounts. Pryor refuses to disclose the donors and shrugs off talk about conflict of interest.

But a March 30, 2000 story in the Washington Post revealed that RAGA collected more than $500,000 in a single day for a conference in Austin which featured a special briefing for the contributors by Karl Rove, Bush’s top political strategist. Among the donors were Aetna, Microsoft, Ameritech and tobacco companies. At the time, all of these companies faced potential legal action by the states.

"I think this erodes every attorney general," said former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger. "If you don’t prosecute a case against someone when people think you should, or defend someone when people think you shouldn’t, that’s your job. But once somebody thinks one of us is doing that for political reasons, it affects us all. This is absolutely an effort by people with special interests to stop attorneys general from pursuing their traditional role as protectors of the public interest, not special interests."

Pryor doesn’t like defense attorneys much, except when it comes to defending corporations. Take his position on the tobacco settlement, which he tried to sabotage even though the deal meant billions of dollars to his state, one the poorest in the nation.

"Bill Pryor was probably the biggest defender of tobacco companies of anyone I know. He did a better job of defending the tobacco companies than their own defense attorneys." That’s not the assessment of "a greedy trial lawyer", but the Attorney General of Mississippi, Mike Moore.

Eventually, the settlement was approved. But Alabamans lost out thanks to Pryor’s meddling for big tobacco. For example, Mississippi’s share of the settlement amounted $1,500 per citizen, while Alabama garnered only $900 per citizen.

Gone are the days when senators had to divine the political views of inscrutable judges, who endeavored to conceal their more controversial opinions on abortion or the death penalty until they were confirmed and invested on the bench. With Bill Pryor there’s no need to read between the lines. This is after all the man who zestfully defended Alabama Governor Fob James’ demented plan to chaining prisoners to hitching posts as form of punishment. The fiendish plan was soon struck down by a federal court.

"Please God, no more Souters," Pryor wailed a few years ago to a gathering of Republican ultras. The prosecutor was referring, of course, to that great bugaboo of the far right: David Souter, the enigmatic judge from New Hampshire appointed by Bush the First, who quickly emerged as the Supreme Court’s most reasoned and restrained justice and the only effective foil to the Scalia-Thomas-Rehnquist block.

Pryor wants everyone to know he’s no David Souter. Indeed, Pryor, like many of his fellow Bush nominees, boasts proudly about his most rancid views on civil rights, abortion, and tort reform. Pryor’s agenda is as toxic as it is transparent: jail the poor and execute as many as you can as quickly as possible; allow the public sphere to be infested with Christian dogma; roll back civil rights and voting rights gains; and protect interest of corporate elites regardless of their crimes.

You can hail Pryor for being honest if you like, but his brazen resume seems to speak more to the corrosive tenor of our times, where barbarous opinions now serve as a calling card for a lifetime position on the federal courts.

greg palast?

baldwast BBB?

in cty Ala similar scam ousted gov don siegelman, rove et al went after, fed judge said DOJ shd be investigated, and dismissed charges, overturned by scotus 260; congr hearings stalled b/c rove refused to testify and b2 admin lost docs. gop said trouble w/ tabulaor but gave printout that DS won and sent all home, then redid # and posted on cty probate ct website, .23% win for Riley 2002 p261 (tho no change in downballot); next aM CANVASS BD BLOCKED ENTRY, ALL GOP;

statue says certify fri, but did immediately; demanded recount as law allows, butAG Bill Pryor cited obscure law; rove imported in 1994 by Biz Council of Al to get state and esp judicial postions263 crooks and 8:1 al scotus; al gop kudos to Kitty McCullough, aka kelly kimbrough, rove partner at KR &Co 264 pryoer get fed judge gig from b2, hey find that book of payoff gigs; she got help from Dan Gans, electronic vote expert who had worked for riley, then alex strat gp JA bragged on riley win 265

Folks who ask these questions underestimate Alabama's strategic importance. They also underestimate the grotesque greed and lust for power that has come to grip the modern GOP. Most importantly, they ignore the fact that Don Siegelman was a central figure in three financial and political scenarios that spelled potential danger for the Republican Party and the money men who support it. Let's examine these scenarios:

* The Duel Over An Air Force Refueling-Tanker Contract--Journalist/lawyer Andrew Kreig, of the D.C.-based Justice Integrity Project, has reported that the Siegelman prosecution was driven largely by the fierce competition between Boeing and EADSfor a $40-billion Air Force refueling-tanker contract. Republicans are known to wear patriotism on their sleeves, so you might expect them to support an American company such as Boeing. But EADS planned to build a manufacturing facility in Mobile, Alabama, and that meant the business forces that control our state strongly supported the European contender. Where does Siegelman fit into this picture?

He had helped Boeing expand a plant in Huntsville, Alabama, and locate a new facility in Decatur, Alabama. Siegelman served as governor from 1998 to 2002, and business interests feared he would favor Boeing over EADSduring a second term. How to get Siegelman out of the picture? About three months after Siegelman took office, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor launched an investigation that later would be taken over by federal officials. Key events in the investigation seemed to be timed around the 2002 election, which Siegelman lost to challenger Bob Riley, and the 2006 election--when Siegelman had appeared to be the strongest likely challenger to Riley. Who ran Bill Pryor's campaign for the attorney general's office? Why, none other than Karl Rove. Did Pryor's efforts eventually pay off? Bush appointed him to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Did the effort to bring down Siegelman pay off? No, it did not; the tanker contract went to Boeing.

Creep of the Week: Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor

By D'Anne Witkowski

Printed 5/5/2005 in issue 1318

Bill Pryor

Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor is one of the seven Bush nominees for lifetime appointments to the federal bench that is currently causing all the ruckus over judicial appointments and the filibuster in the Senate.

As he well should. Pryor is Bush's pick for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. You may remember that Pryor was nominated last session only to be blocked by Senate Democrats using the filibuster. However, in 2004 Bush went over the heads of the Senate and placed Pryor on the 11th Circuit anyway in a temp job of sorts.

During his temporary appointment, Pryor was the deciding vote in the case challenging Florida's adoption law that bans gays and lesbians from adopting children. Needless to say, gays and lesbians are still banned from adopting children in Florida.

Now Pryor's up for a lifetime appointment. A vote could happen in the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next week or so. Majority Leader Bill Frist is so hell-bent on getting folks like Pryor approved he's threatening to eliminate the filibuster to do so.

Pryor has been called too extreme by Senate Democrats and anyone who values an impartial judiciary. Lambda Legal called Bill Pryor "the most demonstrably antigay judicial nominee in recent memory."

According to Kevin Cathcart, Lambda's executive director, "In the friend-of-the-court brief he filed in Lawrence v. Texas, Pryor placed the right of sexual intimacy for gay people on a par with prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography and even incest and pedophilia."

The Human Rights Campaign opposes, him, too. "Mr. Pryor has spent his career opposing the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. We are concerned that his profound prejudice will prevent him from making clear, unbiased decisions as a federal judge, and we strongly oppose his nomination," said HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg during Pryor's first nomination in 2003.

Not surprisingly, Pryor's not a big Roe v. Wade fan, either, calling the ruling "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history."

Contact your Senator and tell them to continue the fight against judges like Pryor. Write to your hometown newspaper and tell them why extremist judges do not deserve lifetime appointments. For more information check out the "Courting Justice" campaign at http://www.lambdalegal.org.

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For other people named William Pryor, see William Pryor (disambiguation).

William H. Pryor, Jr.	William H. Pryor, Jr.
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Incumbent	Incumbent
Assumed office June 20, 2005	Assumed office June 20, 2005
Appointed by	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Emmett Cox
Attorney General of Alabama	Attorney General of Alabama
In office January 3, 1997 – February 20, 2004	In office January 3, 1997 – February 20, 2004
Governor	Fob James Don Siegelman Bob Riley
Preceded by	Jeff Sessions
Succeeded by	Troy King
Personal details	Personal details
Born	William Holcombe Pryor, Jr. (1962-04-26) April 26, 1962 (age 51) Mobile, Alabama, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Kristan Wilson
Children	Caroline Victoria
Alma mater	University of Louisiana, Monroe Tulane University

William Holcombe "Bill" Pryor, Jr. (born April 26, 1962) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Previously, he was the Attorney General of the State of Alabama from 1997 to 2004.

[hide]

Background[edit]

Born in Mobile, Alabama, to William Holcombe Pryor, Sr. and his wife, Laura Louise (née Bowles), Pryor was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic family. He and his siblings attended McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile. He earned his B.A. from Northeast Louisiana University in 1984 and his J.D. from Tulane University Law School in 1987, where he served as editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review.

Legal career[edit]

Pryor served as a law clerk to Judge John Minor Wisdom of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1987 to 1988. Pryor worked as a private attorney from 1988–1995, serving as adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University from 1989-1995. Pryor currently teaches federal jurisdiction at the University of Alabama School of Law.

Political career[edit]

From 1995-1997, he served as Alabama's deputy attorney general. He became the state's Attorney General in 1997. He was, at that time, the youngest state attorney general in the United States. Pryor was elected in 1998 and reelected in 2002. At reelection, Pryor garnered nearly 59% of the vote, the highest percentage of any statewide candidate.^[citation ^needed]

Pryor received national attention in 2003 when he called for the removal of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had disobeyed a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building. Pryor said that although he agreed with the propriety of displaying the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, he was bound to follow the court order and uphold the rule of law. Pryor personally prosecuted Moore for violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics, and the Alabama Court of the Judiciary unanimously removed Moore from office.^[citation ^needed] ^NOT ^TRUE

Eleventh Circuit nomination and confirmation[edit]

Pryor was nominated to the Eleventh Circuit by President George W. Bush on April 9, 2003 to fill a seat vacated by Judge Emmett Ripley Cox, who had assumed senior status. Originally, William H. Steele had been nominated to the seat in 2001, but his nomination had become stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee during the 107th United States Congress because African-American groups protested his decisions in two civil rights cases as a magistrate judge. His nomination was withdrawn in January 2003. Pryor was nominated as Steele's replacement.

Despite the fact that the 108th United States Congress was controlled by the Republican Party, Senate Democrats refused to allow Pryor to be confirmed. Due to a filibuster of his nomination, President George W. Bush installed Pryor as a circuit court judge on February 20, 2004 using a recess appointment to bypass the regular Senate confirmation process. Pryor resigned as Alabama's attorney general that same day and took his judicial oath for a term lasting until the end of 2006, when his appointment would have ended had he not been eventually confirmed. On May 23, 2005 Senator John McCain announced an agreement between seven Republican and seven Democratic U.S. Senators, the Gang of 14, to ensure an up-or-down vote on Pryor and two other stalled Bush nominees, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. On June 9, 2005, Pryor was confirmed to the Eleventh Circuit by a vote of 53-45, and received his commission on June 10, 2005 and on June 20, 2005, he was sworn in at the age of 43. Pryor was the only judge appointed to the Eleventh Circuit by President George W. Bush.^[citation ^needed]

Notable Opinions[edit]

Pelphrey v. Cobb County (11th Cir. 2008). Pryor wrote the majority (2-1)opinion, joined by Judge Charles R. Wilson, affirming the district court ruling that sectarian prayers used to open commission meetings did not violate the Establishment Clause as long as the prayers were not exploitive.^{[clarification} ^needed] U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks dissented.
Zibtluda LLC v. Gwinnett County, Georgia, (11th Cir. 2005). Opinion affirmed district court ruling that a local ordinance limiting the placement of adult entertainment establishments was constitutional. The opinion was notable for Pryor's quote of a line from The B-52's hit song "Love Shack" in describing the proposed establishment.

Family[edit]

Pryor is married to Kristan Wilson Pryor; they have two daughters, Caroline and Victoria Pryor.

Pryor's father, William Holcombe Pryor, Sr. is a former band director and now Roman Catholic deacon at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, his own alma mater and that of two of his four children.^[1]

References[edit]

^ McGill-Toolen Catholic High School-About McGill-Toolen

William H. Pryor, Jr. at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

External links[edit]

CounterPunch [1] / By Paul Craig Roberts [2]

Going to Jail for Being a Democrat: How Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman Got Roved

March 2, 2008 |

Don Siegelman, a popular Democratic governor of Alabama, a Republican state, was framed in a crooked trial, convicted on June 29, 2006, and sent to Federal prison by the corrupt and immoral Bush administration.

The frame-up of Siegelman and businessman Richard Scrushy is so crystal clear and blatant that 52 former state attorney generals from across America, both Republicans and Democrats, have urged the US Congress to investigate the Bush administration's use of the US Department of Justice to rid themselves of a Democratic governor who "they could not beat fair and square," according to Grant Woods, former Republican Attorney General of Arizona and co-chair of the McCain for President leadership committee. Woods says that he has never seen a case with so "many red flags pointing to injustice."

The abuse of American justice by the Bush administration in order to ruin Siegelman is so crystal clear that even the corporate media organization CBS allowed "60 Minutes" to broadcast on February 24, 2008, a damning indictment of the railroading of Siegelman. Extremely coincidental "technical difficulties" caused WHNT, the CBS station covering the populous northern third of Alabama, to go black during the broadcast. The station initially offered a lame excuse of network difficulties that CBS in New York denied. The Republican-owned print media in Alabama seemed to have the inside track on every aspect of the prosecution's case against Siegelman. You just have to look at their editorials and articles following the 60 Minutes broadcast to get a taste of what counts for "objective journalism" in their mind.

The injustice done by the US Department of Justice (sic) to Siegelman is so crystal clear that a participant in Karl Rove's plan to destroy Siegelman can't live with her conscience. Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who did opposition research for Rove, testified under oath to the House Judiciary Committee and went public on "60 Minutes." Simpson said she was told by Bill Canary, the most important GOP campaign advisor in Alabama, that "my girls can take care of Siegelman."

Canary's "girls" are two US Attorneys in Alabama, both appointed by President Bush. One is Bill Canary's wife, Leura Canary. The other is Alice Martin. According to Harper's Scott Horton,a law professor at Columbia University, Martin is known for abusive prosecutions.

What was the "crime" for which Siegelman and Scrushy were convicted? Scrushy made a contribution to the Alabama Education Foundation, a not-for-profit organization set up to push for a lottery to benefit secondary education in Alabama, to retire debt associated with the Alabama education lottery proposal. Scrushy was a member of Alabama's Certificate of Need board, a nonpaid group that oversaw hospital expansion. Scrushy had been a member of the board through the terms of the prior three governors, and Siegelman asked him to serve another term.

Federal prosecutors claimed that Scrushy's contribution was a bribe to Siegelman in exchange for being appointed to the Certificate of Need board. In the words of federal prosecutor Stephen Feaga, the contribution was "given in exchange for a promise for an official act."

Feaga's statement is absolute nonsense. It is well known that Scrushy had served on the board for years, felt he had done his duty, and wanted off the board. It was Siegelman who convinced Scrushy to remain on the board. Moreover, Scrushy gave no money to Siegelman. The money went to a foundation.

As a large number of attorneys have pointed out, every US president appoints his ambassadors and cabinet members from people who have donated to his campaign. Under the reasoning applied in the Siegelman case, a large number of living former presidents, cabinet members and ambassadors should be in federal prison_not to mention the present incumbents.

How in the world did a jury convict two men of a non-crime?

The answer is that the US Attorney used Governor Siegelman's indicted young assistant, Nick Bailey, to create the impression among some of the jurors that "something must have happened." Unbeknownst to Siegelman, Bailey was extorting money or accepting bribes from Alabama businessmen in exchange for state business. Bailey was caught. Presented with threats of a long sentence, Bailey agreed to testify falsely that Siegelman came out of a meeting with Scrushy and showed Bailey a $250,000 check he had accepted in exchange for appointing Scrushy to the Certificate of Need board. Prosecutors knew that Bailey's testimony was false, not only because they had Bailey rewrite his testimony many times and rehearsed him until he had it down pat, but also because they had the check. The records show that the check, written to a charitable organization, was cut days after the meeting from which Siegelman allegedly emerged with check in hand.

It is a crime for prosecutors to withhold exculpatory evidence. The Washington Post reported on February 26 that Siegelman's attorneys have called for a special prosecutor after CBS quoted prosecution witness Bailey "as saying prosecutors met with him about 70 times. He said they had him regularly write out his testimony because they were frustrated with his recollection of events. The written notes, if they existed, could have damaged the credibility of Bailey's story, but no such notes were turned over to the defense, as would have been required by law."

In video documentaries available online, Bailey's friend, Amy Methvin, says that Bailey told her that he was going to parrot the prosecutors' line, "pay for play," "quid pro quo." Methvin says Bailey went into a speech about money exchanged for favors. "You sound like a robot," Methvin told him. "You would have it memorized, too, if you had heard the answers as many times as I have heard the answers," Bailey replied.

The prosecutors also had help from some jurors. On a WOTM Special Report hosted by former US Attorney Raymond Johnson, Alabama lawyer Julian McPhillips produced emails from two jurors about influencing other jurors in order to achieve a conviction. Jurors are not supposed to discuss a case outside the court or to consider information other than what is presented in court and allowed by the judge. The outside communication among the jurors is sufficient to declare a mistrial.

However, Federal District Judge, Mark Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee, ignored the tainted jury. Fuller's handling of the case suspiciously favored the prosecution. He bore a strong grudge against Siegelman. Fuller had been an Alabama district attorney before Bush made him a federal judge. Fuller's successor as district attorney was appointed by Siegelman and produced evidence that suggested that Fuller had connived with his former senior assistant in a "pension spiking" scheme, which some viewed as a fraud or attempted fraud against the state retirement system.

Despite his known animosity toward Siegelman, Fuller refused to recuse himself from Siegelman's trial. According to the WOTM Special Report,Fuller owns a company that was receiving federal money during Siegelman's trial. Fuller did not disclose this conflict of interest. The charges raised by 60 Minutes cast the trial as Karl Rove's effort to rid the Republicans of the candidate they could not beat. The strange conduct of the presiding Republican judge, who had recently become a rich man as the company he owned was awarded a mass of discretionary federal contracts, only raises more very troubling questions.

The Justice Department's answer to the accusation that it framed Siegelman is that Siegelman was indicted by career prosecutors and convicted in a fair trial by a jury of his peers. These claims are no more truthful than anything else the DOJ says. Horton reports that career prosecutors advised against the case, concluded it was a political vendetta and walked away from it. Canary's "girls" were "flailing about trying to find loyal troopers who would shut up and do what is expected of them," a category into which Scott Horton says Louis Franklin and his deputy Stephen Feaga fell. The jurors were presented with what Bailey's and Methvin's testimony indicates to be Bailey's perjury suborned by the US Attorney's office and misled about what the testimony actually meant.

Horton says the case was "pressed forward with brute political force." According to Horton, Leura Canary refused to recuse herself despite her obvious conflict of interest. After she was forced to recuse herself, she continued to control the case from her office. In Horton's words: "Her husband was managing the campaign against Siegelman and leaks from the investigation were emanating from someone at his address. But beyond this, her husband, Bill Canary, had a long, well established, close working relationship with Karl Rove covering work he did in Washington and Alabama over a period of more than 17 years. Leura and Billy Canary were close friends of, and socialized with, Karl Rove."

On his Bush League Justice program, MSNBC's Dan Abrams reported that a Republican attorney said under oath that "key Republicans on [Republican candidate for governor Bob] Riley's team discussed talking to Karl Rove about the case, quoting one of them who said, "Not to worry, that he had already gotten it worked out with Karl, and Karl had spoken to the Department of Justice.'"

The Bush Justice Department first went after Siegelman during his 2002 reelection campaign. When Siegelman was first elected in 1998, the Republican Alabama Attorney General, William Pryor, began investigating Siegelman. There was nothing to investigate, but his "investigation" was the entry for Leura Canary, who federalized the "investigation." Politically motivated leaks from the "investigation" were used in an effort to defeat Siegelman's reelection.

It almost worked, but Siegelman narrowly won.

Unable to defeat Siegelman even with leaks from a phony investigation designed to smear him, the Republicans decided to steal the election. After all districts had reported the vote count, Siegelman thanked the voters for reelecting him and went to bed. During the night the Republicans, with no Democratic voting officials present, "recounted" the ballots in Baldwin County. Six thousand Siegelman votes that had been reported disappeared in the recount. The next morning Republican Bob Riley declared himself the winner.

The theft was so hastily arranged that the thieves forgot to change any of the other vote outcomes on the ballots. All other races had the same totals as originally reported, a statistical impossibility had there actually been a computer glitch as the election thieves claimed.

The Republican attorney general Pryor refused a recount. The Bush Justice Department and Republican federal judges looked the other way, as did the Republican propaganda sheets that masquerade as news media in Alabama.

President Bush rewarded William Pryor for his service by making him a federal judge in a recess appointment as he could not be confirmed by the US Senate.

According to MSNBC and other reports, a prosecution witness against Siegelman also made charges against Pryor and US Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL), but neither of the Republicans were investigated.

The case against Siegelman was drawn out in the media for two more years in the hopes of smearing him forever. When Leura Canary's false case was finally brought to court, Federal District Judge U.W. Clemon threw it out of court. Clemon cited an assistant US Attorney and an assistant state attorney general for contempt of court. All charges against Siegelman and his co-defendants were dropped on October 5, 2004.

Vindicated, Siegelman began his campaign for recovering the governorship in 2006. The word came from Washington to "take another look at the case," a phrase that could well be understood as "get Siegelman at all costs." Siegelman was indicted a second time on October 26, 2005, costing him the Democratic primary. The jury twice deadlocked and was twice sent back by Siegelman's adversary, Judge Fuller. With charges of jury-tampering in the air, Siegelman was acquitted of 25 counts and found guilty of "pay for play." Judge Fuller had Siegelman handcuffed and manacled and immediately whisked off to prison for a seven-year sentence. Normally a non-dangerous person is left at liberty while the case is being appealed.

The Siegelman case makes it clear exactly what Bush, Rove, and the disgraced Bush flunky Alberto Gonzales intended by firing the eight Republican US Attorneys. These eight refused to politicize their office by falsely prosecuting Democrats in order to achieve a Rovian political agenda. Apparently, there were only eight honest persons among the 1,200 Republican US Attorneys. Bush, Rove, and Gonzales had no problem with the other 1,192. Professors Donald Shields and John Cragan report that the Bush Justice Department has investigated seven times more Democratic than Republican officials.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Terry Butts said that justice in America today is about political agendas, "not about convicting real criminals." Butts said that Siegelman's attorneys and allies expect reprisals from the US Attorney's office and Alabama's Republican establishment.

Siegelman has been in prison for over a year. His appeal cannot move forward, because Judge Fuller's court has not produced a transcript of the trial needed for appeal. In other words, Republicans are preventing Siegelman from being released on appeal by a higher court.

Karl Rove refused to testify about the case before Congress.

On February 25, 2008, Fox "News" gave Karl Rove airtime in which to deny the accusations and evidence against him, which he did.

The Department of Justice refuses to release Siegelman trial documents to Congress. It won't even let Congress see what Leura Canary had to say to her bosses about the ethics challenges brought against her, which they swept under the carpet.

:{Siegelman's family home was broken into.

Siegelman's attorney's office was broken into and ransacked.

Jill Simpson's house had a mysterious "electrical fire" and her car was run off the road.}:

Is a justice system that functions in this way worthy of respect? Can we believe any convictions obtained by federal prosecutors?

Author's note: Scott Horton, Harper's Online [3], has reported extensively and courageously on the frame-up of Don Siegelman. Raw Story [4] has a multi-part report by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane. The 60 Minutes broadcast is available from YouTube [5] as is the WOTM Special Report. YouTube also has a multi-part documentary on Richard Scrushy. Brad Blog [6] provides good coverage including a MSNBC broadcast on the Siegelman prosecution which traces it back to Karl Rove. Ernest Partridge's Online Journal account provides additional information including the study by Professors Donald Shields and John Cragan. See also Glynn Wilson [7] at The Nation.

See more stories tagged with:

gop [8],

injustice [9],

alabama [10],

don siegelman [11]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/story/78407/going_to_jail_for_being_a_democrat%3A_how_alabama_gov._don_siegelman_got_roved

Links:

[1] http://www.counterpunch.org/

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/paul-craig-roberts

[3] http://harpers.org

[4] http://rawstory.com

[5] http://youtube.com

[6] http://bradblog.com

[7] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071105/wilson

[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gop

[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/injustice

[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alabama

[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/don-siegelman

[12] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B