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June 4, 2012
Supreme Court Denies Siegelman, Scrushy Appeals
By Andrew Kreig
True to recent form, the U.S. Supreme Court denied relief June 4 to former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges. This sets the stage for Siegelman's reimprisonment in the most notorious federal political prosecution and frame-up of the decade.
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True to recent form, the U.S. Supreme Court denied relief June 4 to former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges. This sets the stage for Siegelman's reimprisonment in the most notorious federal political prosecution and frame-up of the decade.
The court denied without comment the certiorari petition of Siegelman and co-defendant Richard Scrushy, former CEO of HealthSouth, Inc. In 2007, U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller sentenced them to seven-year prison terms on multiple charges from Siegelman's solicitation of donations from Scrushy in 1999 for the non-profit Alabama Education Foundation. Siegelman supported the foundation's initiatives to increase school funding with a state lottery over the opposition of a Republican-orchestrated coalition.
On receipt of the court's decision, Siegelman gave a brief comment to his supporters, who have helped him through the years with legal bills of millions of dollars. As published on a list-serve run by Alabama supporter Pam Miles, Siegelman wrote, "Cert Denied.....:)...I'm Blessed by having your love and support..."
The court, as usual, gave no details on its vote to deny the petition. But Democratic Justice Elena Kagan, left, presumably recused herself because she had advocated Siegelman's imprison
ment when she was the Obama Administration's Solicitor General in 2009. The new administration stood shoulder-to-shoulder with its Bush predecessors in continuing the frame-up and cover-up. This was part of a "look forward, not backward" mantra that Obama articulated most famously on torture cases, but which applied also to Rove-era political prosecutions. Kagan's recusal made possible a 5 to 3 Republican majority for the case (although the precise totals aren't otherwise known) on a Supreme Court increasingly divided on partisan political lines as rarely before in modern history. Our Justice Integrity Project has been collecting hard evidence from legal scholars that the court's result-oriented decision-making is becoming an unprecedented disgrace of historic proportions, and is something every thinking voter needs to appreciate. Still to come are the court's decision on the health care law But already the clear outlines are visible in which Democrats and Republicans tend to vote as blocs on tight cases, with important legal scholars discerning political motives more than consistent legal principles in close decisions. Such scholars rarely share such views with the lay public, however, because expert court-watchers do not want to antagonize players in the close-knit, high-prestige world of legal scholarship and advocacy.
Evidence of Supreme Court scandal, which we've carefully accumulated and shall provide in-depth later this summer, rarely finds such a tragic and dramatic result as the federal-state persecution of Siegelman, Alabama's most important Democrat of his era. The June 5 ruling appears to have been Siegelman's last chance to avoid revocation of his appeal bond and resentencing by his nemesis, Judge Fuller, chief middle district judge from 2004 to 2011. Fuller allegedly "hated" Siegelman even before the Bush administration's second secret indictment of Siegelman, and tried to frame him while also benefiting from some $300 million in Bush contracts for a military contracting company the judge secretly controlled as its largest shareholder.
Last week, the Montgomery Independent reported that Fuller cashed out his interests at Doss Aviation with an $18 million payment as he undergoes allegations of adultery and drug-use made by his wife of three decades, Lisa Fuller, in a divorce action filed in April. The divorce case files has now been sealed, part of the pattern of secrecy that has blighted this case at all judicial levels since its inception. We have reported that the secrecy can be traced to a culture of silence whereby attorneys and judges protect each other, especially given the vast defense contracts -- including the Boeing-Airbus rivalry over $35 billion involved in the next generation of Air Force tankers -- looming as part of the motive for the Siegelman prosecution.
Siegelman, whose Karl Rove-inspired prosecution helped gut Alabama's once-competitive Democratic Party, served nearly a year of his term before release on bond when whistleblowers and legal experts helped show in 2007 and 2008 that he had been targeted for political reasons. As trial judge, Fuller paved the way for conviction with innumerable pro-prosecution rulings that ignored clear-cut legal irregularities plus allegations of monumental scandal.The prominent, blunt-speaknig Alabama businessman Luther "Stan" Pate has said his fellow Republicans clearly famed Siegelman. But Fuller, Rove and the vast bulk of other politicians and judges have denied wrongdoing or irregularities.