After facing angry letters & calls, judge refuses to keep Scooter Libby out of jail

The news just keeps getting better and better today.

A judge has just refused to allow Scooter Libby to stay out of jail pending his appeal. No date has been set for Libby to report to prison, but it is expected to be within six to eight weeks.

It's nice to see justice -- and not influence -- being done.

Interestingly, the judge's decision today could well put our not-so-beloved president in a hard spot.

The Washington Post reports:

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's decision will send Libby's attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force President Bush to consider calls from Libby's supporters to pardon the former aide....

Walton never appeared to waiver from his opinion that a delay was unwarranted. After 12 prominent law professors filed documents supporting Libby's request, the judge waived it off as "not something I would expect from a first-year in law school."

He also said he received several "angry, harassing, mean-spirited" letters and phone calls following his sentencing but said they wouldn't factor into his decision.

This is also posted on In This Moment.

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Political Prisoner

A federal appeals court Thursday ordered Georgia Thompson, former state purchasing supervisor for the state of Wisconsin be immediately freed from prison. The order to release her immediately was extraordinary in and of itself. Usually such actions take weeks, if not months.

The three-judge panel in Chicago acted with unusual speed, ruling after oral arguments by Thompson's attorney and the U.S. attorney's office.

During 26 minutes of oral arguments, all three judges assailed the government's case, with Judge Diane Wood saying at one point that "the evidence is beyond thin."

During a news conference later Thursday, Doyle, a former state attorney general, said the three judges did an "extraordinary thing" by entering an order finding Thompson innocent and ordering her immediate release.

Decisions at that level of the federal judicial system usually take weeks or months after oral arguments.

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle said Ms. Thompson had been tried and imprisoned for doindg her job. I would go farther and say that she was imprisoned for doing her job in a Democratic administration.

Now - my question is...How many more Georgia Thompson's are out there, wasting away in prison cells, or wending their way through the legal system at great expense because charges were brought by U.S. Attorneys against members of Democratic administrations in a craven effort to influence elections by charging Democrats with non-existent crimes?

A few days ago I asked about the U.S. Attorneys who did play ball and kept their jobs - well now we have a window into why they stayed employed. Given what we know now, I would say it's pretty obvious that they were willing to prosecute people and destroy lives for purely political reasons.

How very Soviet of them.

I wonder if those who wanted to tune this whole fiasco out because they don't care if some prosecutors got fired care now?

[Hat tip to our colleague Corpus Juris for staying on top of this issue and bringing this specific instance to my attention.]

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