Gov. Don Siegelman returns to prison today. Meanwhile, the real crooks run free.

[Octafish]

2. Please do, CanonRay. Prison can be deadly for the innocent.

A nice overview from the UK, of course:

Former governor Don Siegelman lobbies for presidential pardon at DNC

The former Alabama governor was perhaps the highest profile victim of Karl Rove's political machine, sentenced to six years for bribery. Now his last hope for freedom is a presidential pardon

Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 September 2012 13.16 EDT

EXCERPT...

While he was still in office, he was investigated by Alabama's attorney general, Bill Pryor, who was connected politically and socially with Rove. The investigation – which resulted in no charges – was used against him in his 2002 bid for re-election, which became nail-bitingly close. Siegelman lost that race after 7,000 votes were unexpectedly switched in the dead of night in a rural county controlled by the Republicans, and Pryor refused to permit a hand recount to counter widespread suspicions of vote-tampering.

Days after the election, the son of Siegelman's Republican challenger was overheard on a conference call describing Siegelman as a cockroach who would "never die". According to a Republican operative who later turned whistleblower, Bill Canary, the campaign manager for the new governor and another figure close to Rove, promised that his wife, Leura Canary, recently named a federal prosecutor, would take care of the problem. (Bill Canary denied this at the time and said he never sought to influence public officials. Rove has not denied contacts with the Justice Department over the Siegleman case.)

Leura Canary mounted an initial trial against Siegelman in 2004, on charges relating to alleged Medicaid fraud. That collapsed within a day and the outraged judge dismissed the case "with prejudice", meaning that similar charges could not be brought again.

But Leura Canary kept digging, and brought new charges on the eve of the 2006 governor's race, this time accusing Siegelman of extracting a campaign contribution from a healthcare company executive in exchange for a promise to appoint him to a state hospital oversight board. The charge hinged on a fuzzy area of federal law, because such arrangements are deemed illegal only if they hinge on an explicit quid pro quo, something that is almost impossible to prove. Under the American system, campaign donors win government appointments all the time and it is considered business as usual.

One snag in the Siegelman prosecution was that the bribery allegation fell outside the statute of limitations, because the alleged offense had taken place more than five years earlier. Canary got around that by filing additional federal racketeering charges, on which the statute of limitations runs to 10 years. The racketeering part of the indictment was subsequently thrown out, but it served its purpose because the rest of the indictment was allowed to move to trial.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/05/democratic-convention-siegelman-pardon?newsfeed=true

The fact US attorney Leura Canaray kept her job for three years under Obama DoJ -- and then-Solicitor General Kagan who reviewed the case for Holder now sits on the Supreme Court -- makes me think the good governor does not have a chance for a pardon, I will still try.

http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-please-pardon-my-dad