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9486 in the collection
Prison Inmates Weigh In on Libby Sentencing
June 5, 2007 from Talk of the Nation
NEAL CONAN, host: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I’m Neal Conan in Washington.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney was sentenced earlier today to two a half years in prison. He was convicted of perjury and obstruction in the investigations of who leaked the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.
In a few minutes, we’ll hear from an English professor who asked his students at a correctional institution how they would sentence Scooter Libby. We’ll hear are the answers. We also want to hear from you. Give us a call. 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org or join the conversation at our blog, npr.org/blogofthenation. Does the punishment fit the crime?
But first, we got to Washington Post national political reporter Dana Milbank. Dana, nice to talk to you again.
Mr. DANA MILBANK (National Political Reporter, Washington Post): Hello, Neal.
CONAN: Two and half years for Scooter Libby, any surprises there?
Mr. MILBANK: Not a whole lot of surprise in the sentence itself. It’s somewhere in the middle range of what people had expected. What’s very surprising is the judge seemed disinclined to let Scooter stay out on bail pending his appeal. Now, they’re going to have another hearing in nine days on that, but the judge was very skeptical, which is unusual in these white-collar cases.
CONAN: And so if he rules against him, then Mr. Libby would be, well, hauled off to prison.
Mr. MILBANK: Right, in 60 days or so. And what this means is if the White House is going to do a pardon, they’re going to – they may not really be able to wait until the end of the president’s term, which would be a much more politically pleasant time to do that. So this may force the issue.
CONAN: And any response from the White House today on the president’s reaction to this news?
Mr. MILBANK: Well, they have another nine days to, sort of, let this play out. And they’ve been very good all along at not responding and - finding new ways and reasons not to respond to this.
CONAN: I did hear – see a quote that the president said, he felt terrible, just terrible for Scooter Libby’s family, but would not intervene in the case until it’s – all the appeals have run their course.
Mr. MILBANK: Well, that would – and if he’s serious about that, and if Judge Walton is serious about the direction he seems to indicating today, that’s a – that means that Libby’s going to have to do some time.
CONAN: There was an interesting scene in the courtroom here in Washington, D.C. On his behalf, Mr. Libby’s lawyers presented a raft of commendations about his character, his service in government from any number of distinguished individuals.
Mr. MILBANK: Yes. And the judge said at one point – he looked to be getting a little weary from this whole thing. He said, you know I’ve read all these letters, and Ted Wells, the defense lawyer says, I understand, but kept on reading them. Perhaps the most intriguing one was the character reference from Paul Wolfowitz who’s been having troubles of his own in these recent days. But he’s been something of a mentor for Scooter Libby and was appealing for maximum leniency, which clearly the judge did not give.
CONAN: And there were some supporters there in the courtroom today as well.
Mr. MILBANK: A handful of supporters. Mary Matalin made it and Barbara Comstock, of course, Libby’s wife, several others supporters. There were also some activists who were in the courtroom, were quiet there under the watchful eye of the U.S. Marshals, but started chanting at Libby as soon as he got out of the building.
CONAN: And we had also assessed a $250,00 fine, which is certainly no small amount of money. So his lawyers said, look, enough has already happened to Scooter Libby. He’s lost his job; he will never work for government again. He’s got this terrible burden of a felony conviction.
Mr. MILBANK: Well, and the $250,000 fine is nothing compared to what he’s paying those very same lawyers who are doing all these arguing for him. So he’s incurred millions of dollars, yeah, in debt for this, has a legal defense fund going. That certain of what you say it was, indeed the argument made by the defense and the prosecution. Pat Fitzgerald was saying that there should be no special treatment for people in high positions. In fact, they have a larger responsibility to, you know, uphold the integrity of the judicial system. So the judge basically said, you know, weighing all of these, that he figures those arguments essentially canceled each other out and he wanted to go within the federal guidelines.
CONAN: And he did go out of his way to cite that argument you just mentioned, that people in high positions have special responsibilities.
Mr. MILBANK: He did. The judge was doing a lot of it on the one hand, on the other hand, but ultimately the decision comes down to the 30 months in prison, which is very much on the side of sending a message out there, not just to Libby, but to others in government that this will not be accepted.
CONAN: Finally, Dana, Mr. Libby did not testify in his behalf during his trial. Did he make a statement today?
Mr. MILBANK: He did. It was very brief and sort of graciously thanking the judge and the court for the various kindnesses. Of course, or the unkind part was yet to come but just asking that the totality of his life be considered as oppose to this deed, which of course, Libby, who is appealing this is unable to, at this point, to say that he’s remorseful since he’s maintaining his innocence.
CONAN: Yeah. That’s a definite problem because judges like it when you say you’re sorry.
Mr. MILBANK: I’m sure the judge would’ve liked that but he was a – he has a fairly tough reputation and certainly earned that today, wound it.
CONAN: Dana Milbank, thanks very much.
Mr. MILBANK: My pleasure.
CONAN: Dana Milbank, national political reporter for the Washington Post. He joined us from their studios here in Washington, D.C.
And we turn now to Joe Cooper, who teaches English composition at the Webster Correctional Institution in Connecticut. He asked his students there to study the Libby case and consider his crime and his sentence. And he got some surprising answers. He joined us now by phone from Quinnipiac University. Nice to have you on the program today.
Professor JOE COOPER (Law and Media Ethics, Quinnipiac University): Thank you, hello, Neal.
CONAN: Hi. So I know that there was a range of opinion but as it came down, you’re prison students there thought that maybe that Mr. Libby should not do any time?
Prof. COOPER: Yes, this surely did come down, and it wasn’t so much that they have a great feeling for Scooter Libby. Perhaps, they had a feeling for his predicament and his plight. But they didn’t – it wasn’t so much that they were generous, and they certainly didn’t feel any sentiment in favor of the administration or didn’t have any strong feelings about the leak.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
Prof. COOPER: What I think they were headed for was feeling about what happens in prison? What is accomplished by doing time and what isn’t accomplished while one is in prison? And I think that’s pretty much where they came down.
A number of them have some skills and all of them have some muscle. And I think the assignments gave them an opportunity to imagine what they could be doing instead of sitting in a prison cell or in a prison yard. And that took them to imagining what Scooter Libby could be doing rather than sitting in a prison cell or in a prison yard.
CONAN: Well, we’ll get to some of their suggestions or recommended sentences in just a minute, but I wanted to quote one of the prisoners you quoted in the piece you wrote at Salon.com.
“I’m doing time because I didn’t tell everything I knew. I didn’t snitch. If I told everything, there would have been trouble for me even in prison. So Scooter did what he had to do.” In other words, there’s some sympathy that this prisoner writing. I didn’t snitch neither did Scooter. It’s a matter of honor. He did the right thing.
Prof. COOPER: Yes. And again, it wasn’t a – it had nothing to do with the administration’s policy. It had very little to do about the leak. It came down to, I think, of a code that most of these prisoners have had to observe to survive on the street. One said something along the lines of the streets handle the street. There is an unwritten but clearly understood guideline for conduct. Those who were running afoul of the law. And I don’t mean to condone it in any way.
CONAN: Yeah, one…
Prof. COOPER: Many prosecutors and police don’t condone it, but there were some simply (unintelligible).
CONAN: There was another prisoner who took the opposite tact and compared Scooter Libby to the rapper Lil’ Kim who was convicted of lying to a grand jury, very similar crime, about the involvement of her entourage in a gunfight with the crew of a rival rapper outside of New York City radio station. Kim and Libby both broke the law, wrote the inmate, and as Kim got prosecuted, so should Libby. In fact, he said, Libby should be treated more harshly than Lil’ Kim because his crime was more serious. And she did a year. He’s been sentenced to do it in a half.
Prof. COOPER: But that - and the student and several others wrote and spoke about something you mentioned just a few minutes ago. In Lil’ Kim’s case, she did eventually admit to testifying off. She eventually expressed remorse. As you mentioned earlier in this segment, that wasn’t present for whatever reason. Scooter Libby didn’t admit to having done anything wrong. He didn’t express - I gather, from what I…
CONAN: Yup.
Prof. COOPER: …little I pick up in news, expressed any remorse. So perhaps that is a distinguishing feature between the two cases.
CONAN: We’ll get some calls on in just a minute. Tell us a little bit more about who these students are, what kind of correctional institution is this? What kinds of crimes would they have been convicted of?
Prof. COOPER: Well, thank you for giving me that opportunity to explain. These are not the kind of prisoners sometimes we see on late night TV, some networks in cable, companies put on programs where they really focus in on hardened criminals’ life or psychopath, and show them quite grotesquely. These prisoners are in a low-security institution. It’s a pre-release facility. So they may be there for a stay as short as six months but maybe as long as five years or maybe even longer. But they are looking forward to some kind of parole here, and some kind of possibility for an earlier release.
And so they’re going to do everything in their power to conduct themselves well, to take advantage of every educational opportunity that can be afforded through the prison. And in order to become eligible for this course, for which they do receive college, community college credit, they have to have taken any number of courses in preparation for it and to assemble what, I guess, equivalent of good conduct points.
CONAN: We’re talking to Joe Cooper, professor of law and media ethics at Quinnipiac University, who asked some of his inmate students to consider the case, the crime and the sentence of Scooter Libby. You’re listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And let’s see if we can get some callers in on the conversation. This is Rose. And Rose is with us from Kings Beach in California.
ROSE (Caller): Yes, I feel Libby should have gotten more time because he ruined the lady’s life as well as with his life in the leak.
CONAN: He wasn’t convicted of making the leak. In fact, he wasn’t the person who did make the leak.
ROSE: Right. But he still knew about it and he lied about it.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
ROSE: And someone in government should be held to a higher, quite a higher standard than people that - the common people because they make the laws that we all have to abide by. So they have to be - they have to do it perfect.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. Rose, thanks very much for the call.
I wonder, Joe Cooper, did the inmates you talked to, the prisoners, did they feel – and this is a government official, of course, he should do time.
Prof. COOPER: Well, someone did feel that he had a special responsibility, that he had been entrusted with information and power that he – well, apparently, misused and abused. So there were certainly an element who thought that whatever sentence would be appropriate under whatever guidelines were appropriate should be meted out. But by far, in a way - if I’m going back to the thing we touched on earlier - if he’s going to serve time, they didn’t see the virtue of him being locked up in the kind of prison they’re aware of.
CONAN: As several…
Prof. COOPER: They thought it was a waste of talent. For example, these prisoners could have been - I could imagine being some help to the families who were - had their homes devastated in Kansas as a result of the tornado. They could have, perhaps been of some use to families during evacuation in New Orleans. After that hurricane and the floodwater. There have been fires all throughout…
CONAN: Yeah.
Prof. COOPER: …in California and Florida.
CONAN: And you wrote in your piece several inmates suggested that given the role of alleged lapses of memories that played in his defense, that Libby ought to be sentenced to work with Alzheimer’s patients.
Prof. COOPER: Yeah.
CONAN: Let’s see if we can get another caller on the line. This is Lee. Lee is with us from Tucson, Arizona.
LEO (Caller): Hi. This is Leo from Tucson.
CONAN: Oh, hi Leo, I apologize. Go ahead please.
LEO: Okay. Yeah, I just want to comment. First of all, I don’t really have any sympathy for Mr. Libby, but I don’t like the way it happened in a sense that Mr. Fitzgerald knew that he couldn’t make any, sort of, apologies based on what he did because of the appellate process. And I think that following that, I think, Mr. Libby is still not being honest because he’s playing for a pardon. But now that the judge might not let him out on bond, he probably won’t get pardoned. And so I think he’s been caught up in a system where he couldn’t tell the truth and he’s actually kind of motivated not to because of all the issues available to, and I’m wondering if the prisoners talked about that at all?
CONAN: Yeah, there’s a great quote, Joe Cooper. The gang called the administration is going to take care of its own and who wouldn’t finally when all the smoke has cleared. It would go down as history as Scooter took one from the team. And they’ll take care of him. It’s only right. How did other prisoners feel about a possibility of a pardon?
Prof. COOPER: Most of them would have had voted for that solution. Would – actually, they did. They spoke in favor of that pact. They understood the predicament and they – for the most part, when they spoke and also when they wrote, they – I don’t know if you would call that sympathy but they understood the predicament. They understood his dilemma, and they referenced the stop snitching (unintelligible).
CONAN: Yeah.
Prof. COOPER: Which is certainly part of the urban culture.
CONAN: And one wrote, it would be hard for me to go against Mr. Libby receiving a presidential pardon. Why would I deny him what I’ve been pursuing and I’m still pursuing despite having been denied twice already? It wouldn’t sit well with me to deny him something that I also desperately want for myself. So they definitely see themselves in a parallel. Though, given the nature of the two populations, are there crimes parallel to what Scooter Libby has been convicted of?
Prof. COOPER: Not at all, not at all. Whatever perjury they found themselves accused of and found guilty of was a much smaller portion of the charges against him.
CONAN: And what if it involved other charges involving violent crime in some respects?
Prof. COOPER: I would say in at least half the cases, yes.
CONAN: All right. Joe Cooper, thanks very much for being with us today.
Prof. COOPER: Thank you very much.
CONAN: Joe Cooper teaches an English class at the Webster Correctional Institution in Connecticut and joined us by phone today from Quinnipiac University.
This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I’m Neal Conan in Washington.
— Talk of the Nation
National Public Radio
2007-06-05
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