Fired Prosecutor Says Gonzales Pushed Death Penalty

[BurtWorm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702310_pf.html

Figures Show Attorney General Often Overrules U.S. Attorneys' Arguments Against Capital Charges

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 28, 2007; A07

Paul K. Charlton, one of nine U.S. attorneys fired last year, told members of Congress yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been overzealous in ordering federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, including in an Arizona murder case in which no body had been recovered.

Justice Department officials had branded Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix, disloyal because he opposed the death penalty in that case. But Charlton testified yesterday that Gonzales has been so eager to expand the use of capital punishment that the attorney general has been inattentive to the quality of evidence in some cases -- or the views of the prosecutors most familiar with them.

...

Justice Department data presented at the hearing demonstrated that the administration's death penalty dispute with Charlton was not unique. The Bush administration has so far overruled prosecutors' recommendations against its use more frequently than the Clinton administration did. The pace of overrulings picked up under Gonzales's predecessor, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, and spiked in 2006, when the number of times Gonzales ordered prosecutors to seek the death penalty against their advice jumped to 21, from three in 2005.

Barry M. Sabin, deputy assistant attorney general for the department's criminal division, testified, "I don't know and haven't evaluated the circumstances of the numbers." He added: "There should be great respect for those who are most familiar with the facts of the case, the co-defendants and the local community." But by law, the attorney general has final say over whether capital charges are filed.

...


In April, Gonzales testified in Congress that Charlton had used "poor judgment in pushing forward a recommendation on a death penalty case." An internal Justice Department memo, laying out the reasons each prosecutor had been fired, said Charlton had shown "repeated instances of defiance, insubordination."

[PDJane]

1. That's not a surprise.......

Bush is really fond of the death penalty.

In fact, death is his legacy, both here and abroad.

[BurtWorm]

2. Gonzales was his abettor in Texas as well.

Or, should I say, "abattoir?"