The Paducah Sun/Editorial: "OOPS, Stevens' Honor Restored, But Not His Senate Seat." I AGREE.

The Paducah Sun/Editorial

OOPS
Stevens' honor restored, but not his Senate seat

"In my 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case."

Emmet Sullivan
U.S. District Judge

Never mind.

We’re real sorry you were falsely convicted of seven felonies, ignominiously ending your half century of public service. Too bad your conviction wasn’t set aside until after you lost the U.S. Senate seat you had held for 40 years. Such is life.

That’s what the Justice Department is telling U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who was convicted last October of seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal gifts and home renovations from a wealthy contractor. Yesterday a U.S. District judge dismissed the corruption convictions against the Alaska Republican.

Judge Emmet Sullivan said, "In my 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case."
It was so bad that the judge opened a criminal investigation against the six prosecutors who bungled the case. Sullivan appointed a special prosecutor to investigate rather than trust the Justice Department to conduct an internal probe.
The judge found that the prosecutors deliberately withheld from defense attorneys information that would likely have exonerated Stevens.

In particular, prosecutors withheld notes from an interview with their star witness in which he gave contradictory statements from those he later made on the stand regarding renovation work at a Stevens-owned house at the center of the case.
Despite the conviction, Steven nearly held onto his seat, losing to the former mayor of Anchorage by less than 4,000 votes.
The conviction was on appeal, but Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he was dropping the case after the prosecutorial misconduct became public.

Although no one has tried to tie the case to political opponents, either in Washington or Alaska, unrelated circumstances and the convenient timing of the conviction — a month before the November elections — provide rich fodder for conspiracy theorists. Democrats were just a seat or two from gaining a super-majority in the Senate. Thanks to the controversy, the seat went from safely Republican to up-for-grabs. And anything that smacked of corruption in Alaska politics had the bonus benefit of tainting a Republican presidential ticket featuring Sarah Palin.

So the conviction — and now its reversal — are lighting up the blogosphere with predictable rumors of political conspiracies.

But, whether or not bloggers dredge up anything of substance, Stevens’ treatment was inexcusable. He said “(the prosecutors’) conduct had consequences for me that they will never realize and can never be reversed.”

This is not the worst thing Stevens has suffered. The 85-year-old has a tough hide, having survived more than his fair share of personal tragedy. As a child, he helped care for his blind father and mentally disabled cousin while living in the home of his paternal grandparents. Both his grandfather and his father died before Stevens was 15. He lost his first wife in a plane crash in which he also sustained serious injuries. He is also a cancer survivor.

He’ll survive this, too. But the 2008 election results can’t be overturned.

The zealous, and perhaps renegade, prosecutors failed to send Stevens to jail. But, whether intentionally or not, they succeeded in the more consequential feat of snatching a U.S. Senate seat from one party and delivering it to the other. It’s disconcerting to know they can do that even to one of the most powerful men in the country.