I've tuned out FireDogLake for a while, but happened to browse this excellent suggestion today: writing a letter to the Judge in the Scooter Libby trial. White collar criminals often get too lenient a sentence, government officials even more so.
Al Kamen of the WaPo writes:
Time for fans and friends of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to step up and make sure District Judge Reggie B. Walton doesn't hammer him at sentencing on June 5 for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame investigation.“When a person is about to be sentenced in federal court,” Libby's lawyer, William Jeffress, writes in a memo to anyone interested, “it is proper and very common for the judge to receive letters from friends of the accused attesting to his character, integrity, and service to his country, community and family.”
“Many friends and admirers of Scooter Libby have asked how they may submit letters of this kind” prior to sentencing, Jeffress relates. Libby, under federal guidelines, might get 18 months to three years in prison, but Walton could alter that considerably.
....
Emptywheel adds:
Firedoglake - » Letters to Reggie
If you want to write letters urging Judge Walton to throw the book at Scooter,The correct term is “upward departure from the range specified in the Sentencing Guidelines.”
You can send your letter to Judge Walton, but you should specify on the envelope that it relates to the sentencing of I. Lewis Libby.
This way they can sort the Judge’s regular mail out from the Libby Letters and the Judge’s regular business will not be disturbed.
I would not want to see you guys create havoc in his chambers.
So, if you mail, try putting
“In re sentencing of I Lewis Libby”
in the lower lefthand corner of front of the envelope. By nice to the hardworking folks in Judge Walton’s chambers.
ha ha. I can't honestly say I'm going to write Judge Walton a letter, but it is a funny thought nonetheless, and I hope plenty citizens of blogtopia (y!sctp) follows through, and Scooter gets 10 years added to his sentence instead of 6 months reduced from it.
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and then Bush commuted his sentence for the Fourth of July, 2007. Idiot.
Technorati Tags: Frog March, Libby, Plame
