Thursday, May 21, 2015

11th Circuit rejects Don Siegelman again

Here's the opinion by visiting Judge Ebel, a senior 10th Circuit judge.  The Montgomery Advertiser has this report on the former Alabama Governor:

A federal appeals court Wednesday denied former Gov. Don Siegelman's bid for a new trial, saying he relied on arguments that judges rejected in an appeal from his co-defendant in their 2006 trial on bribery and corruption charges.
Siegelman argued that the district court should have considered whether then-U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, who recused herself from Siegelman's investigation in 2002, had honored the recusal. Former HealthSouth CEO
Richard Scrushy made the same arguments in his motion for a new trial, citing emails from a whistleblowers in which Canary suggested a gag order be placed on Siegelman during the trial; forwarded an email on its coverage and approved a staffing decision.
The three-judge panel rejected Scrushy's argument in 2013, writing "there is no evidence that Canary's emails influenced any decisions made by the U.S. Attorney's office in prosecuting Scrushy." In the former governor's case, the court wrote that it had to follow its decision on Scrushy.
"Regardless of whether Canary possessed a stronger conflict of interest with respect to Siegelman, our determination in Scrushy that there was no evidence that Canary influenced the prosecution team , , , binds Siegelman on this appeal," the opinion said.
The three-judge panel also rejected Siegelman's arguments that his sentence had been miscalculated, saying the district court made no error in sentencing him to 78 months in prison.



1 comment:

  1. This case has always been a witch hunt and an unmitigated tragedy for the defendant, starting from the day the trial judge remanded him after the verdict. Just goes to show you that the popular refrain that politicians and people with money don't go to prison isn't true anymore. But the equally popular refrain that innocent people get convicted remains sadly true.

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