We just received word that Sylvia Minor, the wife of Bush Justice Department victim Paul Minor, died late yesterday afternoon after a long battle with breast cancer.
Paul Minor is a Mississippi attorney who was wrongfully prosecuted and convicted by the Bush Justice Department in a case with many similarities to the Don Siegelman case in Alabama.
Minor's attorneys had sought an emergency release so their client could be with his wife of 41 years in her last days. But government lawyers filed a 77-page motion opposing the release, claiming that Minor was a threat to the community.
Judges on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals bought that argument and denied the release. Minor's attorneys had filed a request with the Justice Department for an emergency furlough. But any action taken on that request now will come to late.
The Paul Minor case has stunk on a legal level for quite some time. This is just one of many posts we've written that illustrate that.
But now the people who ramrodded the case--primarily U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton and U.S. Judge Henry Wingate--have sunk to a level of human depravity that is hard to comprehend.
Paul Minor was targeted not because he had committed any crimes but because he was a generous supporter of Democratic causes and candidates. He was a particularly strong supporter of John Edwards, who at one time figured to be George W. Bush's main obstacle to re-election in 2004.
That's why Karl Rove and Co. wanted to shut down Paul Minor's financial support. And Lampton and Wingate have to know that. They also have to know that Minor was convicted only because Wingate concocted jury instructions that do not remotely reflect actual law in the case.
Now, Paul Minor's wife has died--and he was not able to be with her. This shows that corruption in the Bush Justice Department hasn't just had legal and financial costs. It's had dreadful human costs, as well.
Will this spark a sense of outrage about the depths our justice system has reached? If it doesn't, our country might be too far gone to save.
2 comments:
Schnauzer,
It's very sad. It's also sad that most people here in good old Mississippi don't know who Paul Minor is and don't care.
The Repugs are void of a sense of justice; they just want power. The Dems seem to be so fragmented that they can hardly function.
If I didn't have faith in God to fix all these problems, I don't know what I would do.
My condolences to the Minor family.
"But government lawyers filed a 77-page motion opposing the release, claiming that Minor was a threat to the community."
Threat? Like he was gonna, what...give Democrats money, or something? Yeah, that's real scary there. I'm shivering under the covers tonight.
Is there ever a circumstance where a judge can just throw crap like this in a lawyer's face and sentence them to a few hours in lockup for deliberately wasting his time?
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