I was driving home from work when I heard NPR break the story that Eric Holder has decided to drop all charges against Ted Stevens. My first thought was that there would have to be some pretty egregious prosecutorial misconduct to throw out Stevens' guilty verdict. After all, from what I heard of the case, Stevens was manifestly guilty.
Wouldn't you know--there was.
Holder began his career in the department's public integrity section; and, according to sources, he was horrified by the failure of prosecutors to turn over all relevant materials to the defense.
There's been a lot of hand-wringing on the diary regarding the story that Stevens beat the rap. Sorry, but they're missing the point. If the misconduct was as bad as Nina Totenberg made it sound, Holder really had no choice--and his action is probably the strongest signal yet that this administration has rediscovered the rule of law.
It's this simple, folks. You do not withhold potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense. Period. Even if the defendant is guilty as the day is long.
My read on this is that Holder was so furious when he got wind of how the prosecutors acted that he thought, "This is serious business--I've got to clear the decks, and fast." So he fired the entire prosecution team and got a new one in its place. However, when he personally reviewed the previous prosecutors' behavior, he must have seen something that made him think that Stevens' conviction was certain to get thrown out on appeal. So he decided not to risk further embarrassment and throw out the indictment.
To my mind, this couldn't send a better message. As we all know, there are going to be serious questions about the legitimacy of any convictions resulting from Gitmo--even with those who are manifestly guilty--because of the torture. Likewise with Stevens--the evidence against him was overwhelming, but because of an apparent win-at-all-costs attitude by the prosecutors, that guilty verdict just got tainted. Apparently Holder felt it would be too tainted to let stand. If that's the line he's going to take, more power to him.
Update: CNN's write-up of the dismissal reports that prosecutors may have used perjured testimony as well:
Sullivan said the Justice Department was forced to request the dismissal because of "extraordinary evidence of government corruption."
"Not only did the government fail to provide evidence to the defense that the law requires them to provide, but they created false testimony that they gave us and actually presented false testimony in the courtroom," he said.