Only after the trial ended did it come to light that Sholom Rubashkin’s judge, Linda R. Reade, had cooperated completely with, and was effectively an important member of, the prosecution.
A mass of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memoranda and emails were eventually adduced to show that starting more than a year before the military-scale descent on the Agriprocessors plant, Judge Reade started meeting with prosecutors to plan the attack on Mr. Rubashkin.
In the ensuing year, she repeatedly met with prosecutors, was involved in many aspects of the case, and was even referred to in one ICE email as a “stakeholder” in the case.
Judge Reade did not disclose her involvement in the prosecution and did not follow clear guidelines that I believe required her recusal on the trial itself. Instead she sat through the trial and the sentencing hearings, and then strained the guidelines and even the prosecution’s requested sentence and gave Mr. Rubashkin a staggering 27-year sentence for a first-time, non-violent commercial offense designed exclusively to save his business and its employees, and of which there was no victim. There is no modern American precedent for such severity (although American criminal sentences are vastly more severe than those of any other advanced country).
This case has understandably caused widespread outrage in legal circles in the United States, as has the judge’s apparent bias and her dragging American justice into disrepute, if that is still possible, by being an active member of the prosecution as the case was being put together and then imposing a pitiless prosecution on the facts and on any questions of proportionality or mercy for a widely admired and generous member of the community.
Wow, what a travesty! I wish I could say I’m surprised, but this case is not as singular as proposed—other than the glaring conflict of interest by the reigning (presiding is too limited a word in this case) judge. My first response to this is what “halal” slaughterhouse benefits from Rubashkin’s demise?
Knowing both the political and business practices of Tyson and Hormel, the facts of this case are ludicrous. Even in the whitest of the white-bread Midwest, both of these companies have set up private little Mexicos to ensure lower labor costs and avoid other pesky regulations.
It’s a well-known tactic to employ leftist organizations to destroy the competition. The true believers get their sacrificial cow, and the unscrupulous get their temporal rewards. Thank God there will be justice one day and all of them will be called to account. I pray Mr. Rubashkin is able to recover and even exceed his previous success.