It’s a rare event indeed when I come down on the same side as the flaming liberal, Alan Dershowitz. And , here is that rare occasion, which I’ll slice to a couple paras with added emph by myself:
The outcry against President Bush’s decision to commute Scooter Libby’s sentence is misplaced. President Bush acted hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals denied Libby bail pending appeal. That judicial decision was entirely political. The appellate judges had to see that Libby’s arguments on appeal were sound and strong — that under existing law he was entitled to bail pending appeal. (That is why I joined several other law professors in filing an amicus brief on this limited issue.) After all, if he were to be sent to jail for a year and then if his conviction were to be reversed on appeal, he could not get the year back. But if he remained out on bail and then lost the appeal, the government would get its year. In non-political cases, bail should have and probably would have been granted on issues of the kind raised by Libby.
But the court of appeals’ judges, as well as the district court judge, wanted to force President Bush’s hand. They didn’t want to give him the luxury of being able to issue a pardon before the upcoming presidential election. Had Libby been allowed to be out on appeal, he would probably have remained free until after the election. It would then have been possible for President Bush to pardon him after the election but before he left office, as presidents often do during the lame duck hiatus. To preclude that possibility, the judges denied Libby bail pending appeal. The president then acted politically. But the president’s action — whether right or wrong on its merits — was well within his authority, since pardons are part of the political process, not the judicial process.
Keep in mind, dear reader, Dershowitz is a Democrat. If he were making a totally political argument, from his point of view, he’d be arguing that the sentence was not stiff enough , and should be imposed immediately… he’d be part of the leftie echo chamber. But he’s not.
In the end, Dershowitz got this one right. The question in my mind, is how many of his fellow democrats will heed his advice.
