Former Lt. Gov. and Attorney General
Bill Baxley must be the most optimistic Crimson
Tide fan in the state.
Last Thursday after both defense lawyers and prosecutors suggested
that U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson postpone the proposed …
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Former Lt. Gov. and Attorney General
Bill Baxley must be the most optimistic Crimson
Tide fan in the state.
Last Thursday
xml:lang="en">after both defense lawyers and prosecutors suggested that U.S. District Judge "en">Myron Thompson xml:lang="en">postpone the proposed Oct. 3 start of the second trial of VictoryLand owner "en">Milton McGregor xml:lang="en">and six other defendants, Thompson moved the trial date to Jan. 9, 2012. Baxley, who represents Montgomery lobbyist
Coker, quickly
pointed out a problem with the new date Thompson set.
Baxley
alerted the judge that the date conflicts with the BCS Championship
game in New Orleans. “Hope springs eternal” he told the court. Not
impressed, Judge Thompson, is also not a graduate of the
universities of Alabama or Auburn, the past two BCS football
champions, but did indicate he might be sympathetic toward a day
off if his alma mater, Yale, was being considered for the game.
Although he
tentatively set the retrial date for Jan. 9, he did not rule on
whether he would separate the defendants into multiple trials. He
also did not rule on a prosecution motion to allow attorneys to
question jurors about the decisions they reached in the first
trial, which ended earlier this month. Those decisions will come
later.
"en">Thompson wasn’t asked by the attorneys to release information as to why the lead FBI agent in the case was removed from the trial on the first day and not allowed back into the courtroom. There was some information during the trial that the agent,
Keith
Baker, had lost his
notes, and several hearings about the Baker matter were called by
Thompson and discussed with the lawyers in the case outside the
presence of the jury and the public.
Baker was one
of the agents who arrested McGregor and a person who had conflicts
with the VictoryLand owner in the past. He was expected to be the
lead FBI witness in the case, but was never called after his
ejection from the courtroom.
The jury in
the first trial acquitted all charges against two of the nine
defendants and acquitted all the defendants of a total of 91
charges. A mistrial was declared against seven defendants because
the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the remaining
charges against them.
There were no
convictions on any of the more than 120 counts, which charged
McGregor and the other eight defendants with offering or soliciting
bribes to pass a bill which would have allowed a statewide election
on bingo gambling.
"en">National columnist weighs in on trial
"en">Scott Horton "en">, an Alabama native and columnist at Harper’s magazine weighed in on the bingo trial verdict last week.
"en">“ "Georgia, serif">The Justice Department’s public-integrity section,” he wrote, “was hit with another embarrassing setback, this time from the jury in the bizarre Alabama bingo case — Department of Justice’s (DOJ) highest-profile political litigation since its botched prosecution of former Senator "#222222">
"en">Ted Stevens,
xml:lang="en">R-Alaska.
"Georgia, serif">“The prosecution showed DOJ to be firmly aligned with Alabama’s then-governor, Republican "Georgia, serif">Bob Riley "#222222">
"en">, who had leveled the initial vote-buying accusations during a heated election-time political debate over gambling issues. Assistant Attorney General "#222222">
"en">Lanny Breuer
xml:lang="en">touted the case against the Alabama politicians as “astonishing” when he announced the arrests. The jury, however, turned out to be quite unimpressed with the evidence offered.
"Georgia, serif">“Riley initially launched the politically charged bingo investigation; it was then picked up by a U.S. Attorney’s office headed by "Georgia, serif">Leura Canary "#222222">
"en">, the wife of Riley’s campaign adviser,
xml:lang="en">Billy Canary "#222222">
"en">. Local political figures “cried foul,” but Breuer insisted that the matter was being handled entirely by the main branch of the Justice Department. He then assigned
xml:lang="en">Brenda Morris "#222222">
"en">, one of the lawyers now under investigation for the mishandling of the Stevens file, to a lead position in the case. Many of the same problems that afflicted the Stevens file occurred in Alabama, too: the judge described the prosecution’s conduct in the latter as “ridiculous” dismissed many of the charges himself, and threatened to sanction prosecutors over their misconduct.”
I believe the
same may happen in Montgomery after all the information about
prosecutorial misconduct is revealed.
"Georgia, serif">Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. Email him at:
"mailto:bob@montgomeryindependent.com">bob@montgomeryindependent.com
