Federal Judge Spotlights Misconduct by Federal Prosecutors in Siegelman Case

By Scott Horton
Harper's

U.W. Clemon, formerly Alabama’s most senior federal judge, has written a scorching letter to Attorney General Eric Holder itemizing gross misconduct by federal prosecutors involved in the Siegelman case and demanding that the Justice Department open a full investigation into the matter. “The 2004 prosecution of Mr. Siegelman in the Northern District of Alabama was the most unfounded criminal case over which I presided in my entire judicial career,” he writes. “In my judgment, his prosecution was completely without legal merit; and it could not have been accomplished without the approval of the Department of Justice.” Clemon goes on to note that prosecutors engaged in judicial forum shopping, attempted to poison the jury pool, and filed and pressed bogus charges.

Holder has declined to release the full text of the letter, but it was quoted at length in an article by attorney-journalist Andrew Krieg at the Huffington Post. Clemon, who retired from the bench at the beginning of the year in order to return to the practice of law, issued the letter more than a year after handing down a decision in United States v. White, which I discussed in “Corruption in a U.S. Attorney’s Office.” Judge Clemon found “disturbing evidence” suggesting that prosecutors had attempted inappropriately to pressure a witness to give false evidence against Siegelman. Notwithstanding these startling conclusions, documented in a published court opinion, it appears that the Justice Department took no steps to investigate the allegations of serious misconduct.

(More here.)