Throughout the trial of Senator Ted Stevens -- and in the post-trial period -- there have been repeated indications that the prosecution was not playing by the rules and that the case against the former Senator who lost his reelection bid when he was convicted was not quite kosher.
Friday the presiding judge lowered the boom on the prosecutors:
An angry federal judge held Justice Department attorneys in contempt Friday for failing to deliver documents to former Sen. Ted Stevens' legal team, a rare punishment for prosecutors in a case where corruption allegations have spread to the authorities who investigated him. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said it was "outrageous" that government attorneys would ignore his Jan. 30 deadline for turning over documents.
Last month, Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to provide the agency's internal communications regarding a whistleblower complaint brought by an FBI agent involved in the investigation into the former Alaska senator. The agent, Chad Joy, objected to Justice Department tactics during the trial, including failure to turn over evidence and an "inappropriate relationship" between the lead agent on the case and the prosecution's star witness.
I think this story is just beginning.
Update:
Judges rarely hold prosecutors in contempt.
The most notable recent case occurred in September 2007, when a North Carolina judge jailed prosecutor Mike Nifong for one day on a contempt charge for lying during the rape case against Duke lacrosse players.
But sanctioning federal prosecutors is even more unusual. A Washington bankruptcy judge did so in 1987, ruling that the Justice Department unlawfully tried to put a financially troubled computer firm out of business. In 1995, a federal judge in Texas held a prosecutor in contempt for refusing to provide him information that had been sealed by another judge.
In Alaska some
further details of the contretemps were published in late December. Most significantly, the Anchorage Daily News printed the whistle blower's affidavit against his FBI colleagues and the prosecution
detailing his claims of breathtaking prosecutorial misconduct.
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