what info other than my (and others)paranoia are in the record to date that could put in play any thought that the prosecutors screwed up on purpose on behalf of one of their own?

remember dude, like Pynchon said, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you….

please dont link to Coulter without warning.
shocking and I violated my browsers virginity.

giving the government a second bite of the apple encourages malicious prosecution.

Respectfully disagree here. What encourages malicious prosecution is a failure to prosecute malicious prosecution. Any prosecutors who were involved in concealing evidence need to be dealt with both in court and in all of the appropriate professional organizations (I’m assuming this’ll get you disbarred.). And they should also be responsible for any of the legal fees (probably substantial) that Uncle Ted ran up.

But frankly, I don’t see how throwing the case out would do much to stop malicious prosecution. If I’m a sleazy prosector, and I think I’m more likely to win my case by withholding evidence than I am to have my case thrown out for doing the same, then I’m going to withhold the evidence, and I’m going to do it again and again and again. If, on the other hand, I know that I’m running a very serious risk of losing my job and going to jail if I cheat, then I’m much more likely to play by the rules.

Furthermore, I think that throwing out cases like this would actively encourage sleazy lawyers to deliberately taint cases in order to get people off. I don’t think that’s what happened here, but I think it sets a VERY bad precedent. Everyone has to play by the rules. Stevens didn’t, so I think he should be (re)prosecuted. The prosecutors didn’t, so I think THEY should be prosecuted, too.

What I find ironic about all of this is that I thought the government started with a fairly weak case. Had I been on this jury, I probably would have voted “not guilty”…right up until I heard Stevens testify. At that point, I thought that he was so brazenly corrupt that there was simply no way I could have let him off, regardless of how tainted the rest of the prosecution’s case was.

“… the integrity of the greater rule of law.”

As you explained to me, bmaz, a moon or so ago; the idea is that a ‘big’ case will show the rotteness of prosecutorial behaviors toward all and sundry … and that the ‘trickle-down effect’ will improve the ’situation’ for those who are neither wealthy, well connected, or esteemed politicians?

Might I suggest, if there is no ‘consequence’ for those who have lately behaved very badly (Bu$h Co, the Wall Street Wisdoms, and whomever else one may wish to include as et cetera …), that the the ‘rule of law’, which we all hope and wish, one presumes, should obtain will remain a sorry joke.

Should those who behaved badly, simply skate, then there will be other, very serious consequences.

Trust has been utterly destroyed. And the ‘truth’ is a but a toy for Karl Rove to twist, bend, deny and use to stoke the already red-hot furnances of prejudice, arrogance and greed, with all the ‘help’ which the MSM can muster.

No doubt, bmaz, you are correct that Justice would better be served by dismissal of all charges against Stevens.

Have you any thoughts as to when the trickle-down ‘benefits’ might appear?

I noted, the other day, a discussion concerning the fact that the Statute of Limitations on lying to Congress is five years. Given how complicity (from the MSM, and from the so-called ‘opposition party, among others) has served to hide truth for five or more years … and perhaps, considering the seriousness of the charges, unless lying to the public is acceptable in this ‘democracy’, and the use to which ’secrecy’ is put, might the ‘law’ (or those who formulate it) consider a ‘change’, or, by their ‘reasoning’, might such ‘change’ come around and bite THEM in the back end?

I know my use of the term ‘joke’ will offend certain sensitive lawyerly ears, but if ’something’, showing that no one is above the ‘law’ dooes not soon occur, then the law will not only be a continuing joke, but an ass to boot …

If the interests of society are not served well by their ‘institutions’, then I think it only fair to ask just who is well served. The Law and the Economy, as such institutions, deserve scrutiny AND change, not the assumption that flawed as they are, that that is the best we can mange to come up with, or that some deity has given us the ‘Institution’ and we dare not change it.

The law should, one imagines, be of particular interest to the members of Congress, considering how many of them are lawyers. Without a doubt, they, personally, as individuals, are all very interested in the ‘outcome’ of the Steven’s case.

That and….. whut th’ bloomin’ hey is Stevens doin’ wearing a piece of clothing adorned wit’ a boid ONLY found in ANTarctica??? Well, I never!