Political Prisoner in Alabama

If every elected official who appointed someone to a government position, who had made a contribution to them, were sent to jail, they would all be in jail. The class of people appointed to positions of importance are the same class who can afford to make substantial contributions.

http://www.washingtonspectator.com/index.php/Blog/entry/political-justice-in-alabama-don-siegleman-goes-to-prison.html

August 12, 2012 | Lou Dubose

Last week federal District Judge Mark Fuller sentenced former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to six-and-a-half years in prison for accepting a $500,000 political contribution from health-care company executive Richard Scrushy, before appointing Scrushy chairman of a state medical commission. The story has received little attention from national media focused on the presidential campaign. I have written about the politics of Siegelman's prosecution in the past and will write more about it in the future.

For the moment, I will describe several of many anomalies that make it apparent that Siegelman was selectively prosecuted because he was a Democratic star who had been elected attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor in a Republican state.

Scrushy was already serving on the state commission when he contributed $500,000 to a fund Siegelman had set up to promote a state lottery that would fund scholarships for Alabama high-school graduates who could not afford college tuition. Siegelman elevated Scrushy to the chairmanship of the board and derived no personal gain from the contribution.

Judge Fuller was an active member of the state's Republican Party, serving on the party's executive committee before George W. Bush appointed him to the federal bench.

Before he was appointed to the federal bench, Fuller had served as a district attorney in Alabama. His office was investigated for "salary spiking," the practice of increasing the salaries of select employees.

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Before Siegelman was convicted in 2007, the same charges against him were dismissed by a federal judge hearing the case before it was assigned to Fuller. A former U.S. attorney who briefly represented Siegelman as a private lawyer told a House subcommittee that Bush Justice Department officials ordered federal prosecutors in Alabama to "review the case from top to bottom"after it was initially dismissed.

Testifying before the same subcommittee hearing in 2007, Richard Thornburgh, who had served as attorney general under the first President Bush, said the U.S. attorney in Alabama did far more than review the case; she essentially opened a new investigation. "I have had a hard time figuring out why the U.S. attorney would go to such lengths to convert these trivial irregularities into federal felony charges," Thornburgh said at the October 23, 2007 hearing.

Fifty sitting or former state attorneys general wrote to Judge Fuller while he was trying the case, arguing that it was not clear that Siegelman had accepted a bribe from Scrushy.

More recently,113 former state attorneys general urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, which it declined to do in June.