US Constitution - Article II - Section 2.
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.
Judge Reggie Walton is a very sensitive man. He is also not afraid to put his sensitivity upon display for the world to judge. Today's display can be found in footnotes to his Memoranda Opinion concerning supervised release remaining in force for Lewis Libby.
Josh Gersten's article in the NY Sun makes note of Judge Walton's deep feelings:"It is fair to say that the Court is somewhat perplexed as to how its sentence could be accurately characterized as ‘excessive,'" Judge Walton wrote in a footnote to his 10-page opinion upholding Libby's probation. "Although it is certainly the president's prerogative to justify the exercise of his constitutional commutation power in whatever manner he chooses (or even to decline to provide a reason for his actions altogether), the Court notes that the term of incarceration imposed in this case was determined after a careful consideration of each of the requisite statutory factors ... and was consistent with the bottom end of the applicable sentencing range as properly calculated under the United States Sentencing Guidelines."
Both the prosecutor and the defense team are in agreement concerning the matter of supervision but Judge Walton felt an apparently deep need to respond to the President's use of the word "excessive" in the explanation proffered regarding the commutation of Libby's sentence.
It was very kind of Judge Walton to affirm the President's right to exercise his legitimate Constitutional authority but it would have been more helpful had he explored his [lack of] reasoning in accepting the Special Counsel's assertion of the underlying offense to which the conviction applied. Or is that too sensitive a subject?
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