Few doubt that U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, used his office corruptly to enrich himself and therefore was properly indicted. However, those who cherish unfettered justice and the U.S. Constitution also believe his conviction was tainted and he should be freed, as Attorney General Eric Holder has ruled.
Holder's decision is a bold, uplifting step toward restoring honesty and confidence in the Justice Department, whose mission for eight years was twisted, poisoned and exploited by vindictive politics and the right-wing dogma of attorneys general working for George W. Bush.
Stevens was convicted partially as the result of "prosecutorial misconduct"—Justice attorneys wrongly concealing from defense attorneys information that might well have led to a different jury decision.
Prosecutors in this deception deserve not only contempt for abrogating their sworn duty, but also the harshest criminal justice and professional sanctions available.
Attorney General Holder also is obliged to look deeper into ranks of attorneys appointed during the Bush-Cheney years for other abuses. There's the case of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and Mississippi trial lawyer Paul Minor, who have charged they were prosecuted because of their Democratic activities.
It's worth asking: Do state bars where Justice lawyers are licensed also have the stomach to investigate and mete out severe punishment, including disbarment?
Lending credence to the astonishing possibility that the U.S. attorney general and some of his district attorneys were dragging political opponents into court on trumped-up charges and sending them to prison is the testimony of Justice attorneys who charge they were fired for refusing to file charges against Democrats.
The second U.S. president, John Adams, gave the new United States of America one of its most enduring and important public standards when he insisted the new nation function as "an empire of laws and not of men."
It was an all-too-familiar and frightening spectacle practiced by the Bush Justice Department. Attorneys were hired if they passed religious and ideological litmus tests about religion, abortion and gays. These ethically barren lawyers also shrugged off the constitution. Suspects were snatched off streets and jailed without counsel and indefinitely on phony charges and with White House claims that state secrets prevented the governmnt from offering evidence to support charges.
Histories most heinous tyrannies used these jackboot police-state tactics to rule by fear.
Sacrificing the rights of any person, whether a corrupt U.S. senator or an alleged terrorist, threatens the rights of all Americans. In freeing Stevens, the Obama administration is returning courts to institutions of justice and repudiating injustice.
