Posted by William A. Jacobson Saturday, March 17, 2012
###
So many things had to go wrong for Obamacare to evade a Senate filibuster.
Arlen Specter had to switch parties. Al Franken had to pull out a slight victory.
And Senator Ted Stevens needed to lose relection just after being convicted of corruption.
Now a new report reveals how bad the misconduct was:
The late Sen. Ted Stevens was found guilty in 2008 of making false statements on financial disclosure forms, but the verdict was set aside after it was discovered that prosecutors failed to give the defense evidence that could have helped clear the Senator.
The release of a scathing report last week detailing widespread prosecutorial misconduct that botched the corruption trial of the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has reignited calls to revisit the rules requiring government prosecutors to hand over evidence that could help exonerate criminal defendants.
Though the underlying cause of the derailed prosecution has been known since April 2009, when Stevens’ conviction was set aside after the Department of Justice said it had failed to disclose evidence that would have helped the Senator’s defense team, details of prosecutors’ “willful nondisclosure” in last week’s report stunned legal observers, who say this is just the latest case that illustrates how badly the rules need revision.
It truly is amazing how close we came to avoiding the disaster known as Obamacare. But close was not good enough.