"A miscarriage of justice" for Senator Ted Stevens

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

Ken Boehm believes that justice has been miscarried in the case of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. Today the Department of Justice dropped charges of wrongdoing against the Stevens, after a drawn out legal battle concerning financial disclosure. Boehm, chairman of the watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, said that because the Justice Department failed in its handling of the case, an elected official is not going to be brought to justice after violating the public trust.

Boehm, a former prosecutor, stated how the Department of Justice sould have done it differently.

(03:38)
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Special Report from the Liz Claiborne Inc. domestic violence Radio Row: Senior Policy Advisor for DoJ Violence Against Women Office, Jan Langbein, discusses how the federal government protects women

Langbein explains how the Department of Justice enforces the Violence Against Women Act (8:42).
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Ashcroft altered Civil Rights Division's hiring policy

Chief Counsel to Edward Kennedy William Yeomans says that to restructure the ranks of the Department of Justice, Former Attorney General John Ashcroft altered the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department’s hiring program to give career members less influence than political appointees in approving applicants (0:44).
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Congress needs to know legal justifications, says Feingold

Senator Feingold (D-WI), speaking at a hearing of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Subcommittee on "Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government," says that it is important for the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to release its legal justifications for executive-branch programs. He says the OLC changes its justifications in response to Congressional legislation, so the Congress needs to know the OLC's reasoning. (0:31)
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DOJ says legal opinions should not be public until made into policy

John Elwood, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, testifying at a hearing of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Subcommittee on "Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government," says that legal justifications for implemented policies are available to Congress, since operative policy is "law." However, he says there is a confidentiality interest in the legal opinions written by the OLC while they are advising among policy choices. (0:54)
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