Posted on 02/11/2006 7:18:56 AM PST by Rodney King
SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers for a death row inmate, including former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, sent fake letters from jurors asking California’s governor to spare the man’s life, prosecutors said Friday.
The jurors denied they thought Michael Morales deserved clemency because some of the testimony at his trial may have been fabricated, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
“We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn’t say that,” Barankin said. Story continues below ↓ advertisement
San Joaquin County prosecutor Charles Schultz also said the letters sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week were “untrue” and “pure fiction.”....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
So they figured that if they get the clemency or a stay, it bought time? They figure out what happened and then can't undo the clemency or lift the stay? Sounds like a horrible tactic, no?
I have a theory about Ken Starr....
He was given a job, to find dirt on Clinton over Whitewater, an illegal scheme to sell land and convert those sales to campaign contributions, let the land sales falter, and an S&L pick up the bad loans...
In other words, money came in... and the S&L took the hit with federally insured funds. Clinton won, Rose Law Firm won, McDougal won, and the taxpayers lost.
Starr took that case and despite missing records showing up in Hillary's office and other assorted things that should have kept his attention tight, he gets into a "perjury in a sexual harassment case".
Now sexual infidelity to Bill Clinton was like the Briar Patch was to Brer Rabbit... "Please don't throw me in that briar patch!!" he would scream as the attention was diverted from his REAL crimes into an area that the Clintons knew would never draw blood. Even after being caught lying under oath and persuading others to give false testimony, Clinton served out his presidency and his wife is looking at getting the job.
Had Whitewater been proven (which is should have it Jim McDougal had not died in solitary confinement with his heart medicine out of reach and no guard to hand it to him), BOTH Clintons would have been done.
Starr helped both of them.
Star must be dining with Jimma Carter.
Don't know if Starr was part of the plan but I agree with you on Clinton. He used Monicagate like a rodeo clown.
This is such a strange story. Why is Starr even involved in this case?
A great question.
the defense investigator who claimed to have secured their signatures[was] Kathleen Culhane
I'm inclined to think, without more evidence, that either the jurors are lying to the DA or the PI faked the affidavits.
The odds of Starr, or any attorney, suborning perjury or fabricating evidence are pretty slim. That's an all but automatic disbarrment, in addition to a felony.
Very few attorneys, especially ones that are now law school deans are going to risk their freedom and/or career on an inmate appeal.
Kenneth Starr finds these strange cases just like he did with the Clintons. He wasted so much taxpayer money on nothing. I mean he was hired to do a job and he did not perform as he should. He is just a regular unethical lawyer just like all. He should have brought down the house of Clintons, instead he made them bigger celebrities than they already were.
I think you're right.
Starr was never the right wing idealogue the media portrayed him to be. He was never more than a company man working in a company town.
Its not uncommon for law school deans to take cases like these "pro bono" for various reasons, including a desire for publicity or just a sense a justice, if they feel the defendant was wrongfully convicted or doesn't deserve death.
"This is such a strange story. Why is Starr even involved in this case?"
Maybe a Truman Capote kind of an attraction to a death row inmate?
This must be smear practice. The article does not actually accuse Starr of being the lawyer who did this. I can't imagine Starr, dean of Pepperdine University School of Law, would ever touch something like this. The mainstream media overrode their dislike of the death penalty to grasp at a shady attack at a former leftist threat.
I think that title has to go to Bush I. Bill Clinton has something on that guy that has kept him pinned in absolute uselessness since the campaign of '92.
Bushpa, as former head of the CIA and a working VP under Reagan, certainly knew all there is to know about Clinton, Mena, Lasiter, Cocaine, Whitewater, Foster, etc. Yet, during the ill-fated campaign of '92, he steadfastly refused to use what he knew, including Arkansas Court Records, to attack Bill. He threw that race.
We all know 'Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows,' but Bushpa is definitely pushing the envelope with his new-found friend and sidekick, BJ Clinton. Anatomically speaking, 'sidekick,' is not the right word, because despite all the nice talk from feckless Bushpa, BJ constantly kicks him, AND GW, from behind.
Will we ever know what the Hell is with this?
Bush 1, was former director of the CIA. Clinton as president, should know every bit of dirt that went before him. I think Bush 1 is a fabulous patriot and would not do anything that was not in the long term interest of the US. However, when achieving those goals, one can not always use means approved by mother terasa, espectially since we live in a very imperfect world.
I wouldn't give too much credit to this report at this time. I find it hard to imagine that Starr would endanger his law license and his position as the dean of a law school by pulling a stunt like this.
It's possible that some of the other lawyers for the crook may have sent the false declarations to the governor.
The only thing I have to say about this report is "Bull Puckey."
"The odds of Starr, or any attorney, suborning perjury or fabricating evidence are pretty slim."
I agree with you. It seems strange that anyone would go to such lengths over this. I find it hard to picture the DA actively intimidating the jurors too. All this, over a clemency review? Not even an actual trial?
It's the type of thing that makes one think that something else entirely is actually at stake here.
Semper Fi
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