Judge Reggie Walton is the federal jurist who presided over the perjury trial of I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. An appointee of the current President Bush, Walton is known as a tough-on-crime conservative. After a federal jury convicted Libby of perjury following a jury trial lasting several weeks, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 2 ½ years in prison. Speculation is now rampant whether Libby will serve any time in prison or receive a pardon from President Bush.

A group of some twelve prominent mostly conservative law professors, including former U.S. Appeals Court Judge and failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, recently filed a friend-of-court brief urging Walton to delay Libby’s incarceration until he has exhausted all of his appeals, a process that could take years. Bork was especially outspoken during the Clinton sex scandal, proclaiming that President Clinton should be impeached and convicted for lying under oath to a federal grand jury after he denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky. In an Oct. 12, 1998 article in the National Review, Bork thundered that Clinton’s lying under oath “strikes at the heart of our system of justice and the rule of law. It does not matter in the least what the perjury is about”.

Judge Walton last Friday issued this order in the Libby case. In a priceless footnote to that Order, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, he had this to say about the brief filed by Bork and the eleven other academics seeking leniency for Mr. Libby:

“It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interest of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.”

It has long been a dirty little secret that there are two standards of justice in this country, one for the privileged rich and well-connected who can afford the priciest of lawyers (think Paris Hilton, for example), and an entirely different, and infinitely more harsh, system of justice for everyone else. I think Walton’s footnote shows that he understands this quite clearly.

This country and the judiciary need more jurists like Judge Reggie Walton, and fewer sanctimonious hypocrites like Robert Bork.

William R Groth's blog | login or register to post comments