Libby Juror: Please Reverse Us
After the OJ Simpson jury's post-trial remarks, I honestly thought I'd never hear anything less intelligent from a juror. Apparently, I was wrong. After having voted to convict Scooter Libby on four felony counts, Ann Redington told Chris Matthews that she wants George Bush to pardon Libby and effectively reverse her decision:
Saying “I don’t want him to go to jail,” a member of the jury that convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case called Wednesday for President Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.The woman, Ann Redington, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that she cried when the verdicts against Libby were read Tuesday. She said Libby seemed to be “a really nice guy.” ... “He seemed like a ton of fun. ... I didn’t want to see him and his wife and say he was guilty of a crime,” Redington told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But she she said she had no choice given the evidence. ...
“I would like him to get” a pardon from Bush, Redington said. “It kind of bothers me that there was this whole big crime being investigated and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed.”
The only crime committed, however, was the perjury and obstruction by Libby. Fitzgerald didn't charge him with leaking Plame's identity, and he's not charging anyone else for that action, having determined (a) it wasn't a crime, and (b) Richard Armitage is the one who did it. Armitage confessed to it over three years ago, before Fitzgerald even got the case, and he worked for Colin Powell and not Dick Cheney.
And who determined that Scooter "Ton of Fun" Libby committed a crime? Ann Redington and her peers on the jury.
Again, if Libby lied to investigators and a grand jury, then he did commit crimes and the jury had no choice to convict. However, it certainly doesn't give any confidence in the verdict to have one of the jurors ask for the President to let off the hook the man she just put on it.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the jury system is the worst form of criminal justice -- except for all the others. (via Memeorandum)
Posted by Ed Morrissey on March 7, 2007 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (5)
