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View from Montgomery
As Alabama Congressman Artur Davis and the New York Times weigh in on seeking an investigation into the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman, additional facts are developing about the issue of whether or not there was prosecutorial misconduct by the Department of Justice and others in directing the case against Seigelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. Davis, who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee in Congress, is now urging the committee's chairman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to include the Siegelman case in an upcoming hearing dealing with selective prosecution in the Justice Department. The Times said it was "extremely troubling" that Siegelman was hauled off to jail, adding, "there is reason to believe his prosecution may have been a political hit." All of the concern seems to stem from an affidavit provided by a Rainsville lawyer and former campaign worker for Gov. Bob Riley, Dana Jill Simpson, in which she charges that a group of high-level Riley campaign workers, including his son, Rob Riley, former Supreme Court justice Terry Butts and Bill Canary, president of the Business Council of Alabama, plotted to "get" Siegelman in a telephone conference call before the 2002 general election. Canary is the spouse of Leura Canary, the U. S. Attorney whose office prosecuted the recent Siegelman/Scrushy trial. She has said she did not participate in the prosecution of the case. Butts told me after the affidavit story broke that he did not participate in this call and added that he has never talked by phone with Canary in his life. In making his request for the Siegelman matter to be included in the House Judiciary Committee inquiry, Davis said that a claim of selective prosecution "is not implausible in this Justice Department." The Times suggests in its editorial that the committee should insist "that Mr. Canary and everyone on the 2002 call, as well as Mrs. Canary and Karl Rove testify in the matter." Rove was mentioned in the call as someone who had discussed the case with the Department of Justice. "I don't know whether what the affidavit says is true or not. And it doesn't really matter right now," Siegelman lawyer Vince Kilborn says. "But if there are documents produced in the congressional investigation, and they're exculpatory and they have not been produced to the defense, that's a new trial, in my opinion." If you want to read more details about this go to www.locustfork.net/blog www.locustfork.net/blog and al.com. Former Montgomery Advertiser editor and publisher dies Harold E. Martin, no relation, was buried in Montgomery Tuesday. He was 83 at the time of his death in Texas after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's. Martin came to prominence in Montgomery in 1963 when he was named vice president of Southern Newspapers, a company owned by Carmage Walls that purchased the Montgomery Advertiser from local ownership in 1963. Soon after, Martin was also named co-publisher of the Advertiser. Two events defined Martin's 17-year tenure at the Advertiser. The first occurred in 1965 when he fired Grover Hall Jr., the paper's editor of 32 years and assumed that title for himself. Hall succeeded his father, Grover Hall Sr., who was editor for 30 years. I once asked Martin why he fired Hall. "I didn't want to," he told me, "but Grover wouldn't even acknowledge that I was his boss." The second was in 1970 when Martin was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles exposing mistreatment of inmates in state prisons.
Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. Contact him at: bob@montgomeryindependent.co
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