More Misconduct In The Siegelman Case

I didn't get to this on Friday, but there was a major revelation in the Don Siegelman investigation, involving interventions with the US Attorney who had recused herself and contacts between state prosecutors and jurors:

The USAtty, Leura Canary, supposedly recused herself from the case due to substantial conflicts of interest involving her husband, a GOP political strategist running the political campaign for Siegelman's gubernatorial rival. In subsequent emails (PDF), Canary specifically gives directives and strategy to the AUSAs in her office handling -- on multiple occasions [...]

AUSAs in the case had multiple ex parte communications with jurors, while the jury was deliberating on its verdict -- passed through US Marshalls at the courthouse -- which were never disclosed to either the judge or opposing counsel. Via Time:

Grimes last year also gave DoJ additional e-mails detailing previously undisclosed contacts between prosecutors and members of the Siegelman jury....

The DoJ conducted its own inquiry into some of Grimes' claims, and wrote a report dismissing them as inconsequential. But the report shows that investigators did not question U.S. marshals or jurors who had allegedly been in touch with the prosecution.

A key prosecution e-mail describes how jurors repeatedly contacted the government's legal team during the trial to express, among other things, one juror's romantic interest in a member of the prosecution team. "The jurors kept sending out messages" via U.S. marshals, the e-mail says, identifying a particular juror as "very interested" in a person who had sat at the prosecution table in court. The same juror was later described reaching out to members of the prosecution team for personal advice about her career and educational plans. Conyers commented that the "risk of [jury] bias ... is obvious".

This is really incredible, and grounds for disbarment if not indictment. Siegelman called these revelations "more frightening than anything that has come before." The fingerprints of GOP operatives are all over this case, and the fact that these revelations came out of John Conyers' office makes me think that he knows it as well. Karl Rove still needs to be compelled to testify in this case.

And Siegelman, a Democrat, left no doubt that he believes that the apparent politicization of his prosecution was just one example of many such cases. "If this were isolated to just the middle district of Alabama, it would be shocking enough. But I guarantee this kind of misbehavior has been going on all over the country."

He added: "Whoever is the new Attorney General has to be strong enough to weed out the Karl Rove clones who have been embedded in US Attorneys' offices throughout the United States. If not, it is going to eat at our system for years to come."

At one point, Siegelman turned philosophical: "If I've been put through this for a reason, it's to expose the fact that this is not an isolated incident. I am prayerful that Congress will dig in and demand the truth. These folks have got to be weeded out."

Emptywheel has a lot more.