Monday, April 6, 2009

Series of Errors Doomed Stevens Prosecution

LegalTimes.com - Series of Errors Doomed Stevens Prosecution, April 6, 2009. The government prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens was messed up by the government's failure to share potentially exculpatory evidence with the defense. There might be repercussions -- e.g., a change in personnel at DOJ.

On April 1, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. announced he was moving to dismiss the case with prejudice—five months after Stevens was convicted of public corruption charges. In its motion to dismiss, the Justice Department said it found more government evidence that Stevens’ lawyers should have received. The move to dismiss the case is more than an embarrassment for the Public Integrity Section. It presupposes a shake-up in the section’s leadership and invites a new era of heightened scrutiny from judges, defense lawyers say, though history shows prosecutors seldom face criminal charges for misconduct.

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