EDIT: from my original source, facebook:
Regarding your editorials “The Menendez Indictment” (April 16) and “Quid Pro Clinton” (April 24): I am the only governor in the history of American jurisprudence to be sent to jail for “bribery” in a campaign-contribution setting where the contribution was to a state ballot initiative, not to my campaign, there was no charge of self-enrichment and where the judge instructed the jury to convict if the members could “imply” or “infer” a quid pro quo. There was no testimony of a quid pro quo, much less an express one, and no allegation of personal gain or personal benefit. There was “official action.” I reappointed a Fortune 500 CEO to a nonpaying state board to which he had been appointed by three previous governors. I was the fourth. That’s it.
In the McCormick v. U.S. ruling (1991) the U.S. Supreme Court said that in a campaign-contribution setting, because the First Amendment is at play, it takes an “explicit” agreement where the terms of the agreement, swapping a contribution for official action, are “asserted” before one crosses the line from politics to crime.
In run-of-the mill bribery cases where there is personal gain, the law has allowed juries more flexibility to “infer” or “imply” a bribe from circumstantial evidence. In my case, 113 top lawyers told the court: “This case is about criminalization of the First Amendment—the giving and receiving of campaign contribution[s].”
Noted journalist George F. Will wrote of my case: “Until the court clarifies what constitutes quid pro quo political corruption, Americans engage in politics at their peril because prosecutors have dangerous discretion to criminalize politics . . . if bribery can be discerned in a somehow implicit connection between a contribution and an official action, prosecutorial discretion will be vast”
So while at this juncture there has been no allegation of an “explicit” quid pro quo in the case of Sen. Robert Menendez, what will give his lawyers heartburn is while what their client did might have been legal, their client may still end up in jail if his judge adopts my judge’s jury instructions and allows the jury to “infer” or “imply” a corrupt agreement.
Don E. Siegelman
Federal Corrections Center
Oakdale, La.
Mr. Siegelman was governor of Alabama 1999-2003.
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