LA Times July 8: A Prosecutor Who Didn't Back Down

[tuvor]

# Patrick J. Fitzgerald pushed for the jailing of two reporters who refused to testify. Legal observers disagree on whether he was right.

By Stephen Braun, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald lived up to his billing as a hard-nosed U.S. attorney when he pressed for the jailing of a reporter who refused to testify in his investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name. But his action just as likely was spurred by the unique fact-finding mission given special prosecutors, legal observers and those who have worked with Fitzgerald in the past said Thursday.

The imprisonment Wednesday of New York Times reporter Judith Miller for failing to testify before a grand jury served to aid Fitzgerald's probe, several lawyers said.

It showed the targets of his inquiry that he meant business. A second reporter, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, agreed to testify after also being threatened with jail. Cooper said he had been prepared to go to jail but that his source called him at the last minute to release him from his confidentiality pledge.

Even if Fitzgerald's investigation fails to produce any indictments, said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former prosecutor who is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Fitzgerald, he said, "has to show he investigated the case in a fair and comprehensive manner." So Fitzgerald's move against Miller and Cooper allows him to show that he took all available measures to get at the truth.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-fitzgerald8jul08,0,1244179.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[DemInDistress]

1. But why no perp walk

like they did to Susan McDougall.Remember,handcuffed,shackled with leg-irons.Then was placed in some of the harshest jails possible and for what? that pisses me off,I"m angry

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Precisely.

If this were a fair world, Miller would be subjected to the same abuse that McDougall had to endure.

[whalerider55]

3. talk to the judge...

i think that h/she sets the conditions of rendering and incarceration. the prosecutor can only recommend; as much as we would want it in this particular case, i doubt we'd want to allow what happened to macdougal to serve as a syandard for the treatment of those ordered to jail for contempt.

i completely understand the sentiment, tho.

whalerider