Wife of Imprisoned Attorney Minor Dies After Furlough Denied in Alleged Political Prosecution Case

Hissyspit

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Tue Apr-14-09 02:25 PM
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Wife of Imprisoned Attorney Minor Dies After Furlough Denied in Alleged Political Prosecution Case

Edited on Tue Apr-14-09 02:47 PM by Hissyspit

Source: Raw Story

Wife of imprisoned attorney dies after furlough denied in alleged political prosecution case

Sylvia Minor, the wife of imprisoned Mississippi attorney Paul Minor, passed away last night at her mother�s home in Baton Rouge, LA after a three-year battle with breast cancer that had spread to her brain and lungs. Her husband, whose case has drawn national attention because of alleged political prosecution, was informed in prison this afternoon. Minor was recently granted three hours to visit with his wife but was denied a furlough at the urging of the Justice Department. Ms. Minor was not lucid during his visit.

Minor was convicted in 2007 on charges of having bribed state judges and was sentenced to a term of eleven years in federal prison. Both his conviction and his recent failure to obtain a release or furlough have been called into question as stemming from the politicization of the Department of Justice and the federal judiciary under the Bush administration. Minor had become wealthy as a result of his role in the tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s, and critics of his prosecution have charged that the bribery case was brought against him solely because he was a leading donor to the Democratic Party. The case was based on loans he had made to the judges in question, a routine practice in Mississippi politics. There was never any proof of a quid pro quo.

In addition, the prosecution of Minor was initiated by the then-US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, Dunnica Lampton, who has been accused of having conflicts of interest in the case. Minor had recently brought a case against a firm owned by members of the Lampton family. Dunnica Lampton himself was initially on the list of US Attorneys to be fired by the Bush administration but was later removed from it; this has added to suspicions that senior officials may have taken a direct interest in Minor's prosecution.

More recently, Minor's request to be released while his case is on appeal was turned down in a decision that was then upheld by Federal Appeals Judge Priscilla Owen, a controversial Bush appointee and a protege of Karl Rove's, who ran her first judicial campaign in Texas in 1994.

Owen has since recused herself from further decisions dealing with Minor, but the latest denial of his request for a release still cited Owen's earlier opinion and did not reopen the issues in question.

Minor's case was recently included among numerous others in a report by the House Judiciary Committee on alleged political prosecutions by Bush-appointed US Attorneys. Among the other prominent names were former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who was convicted on corruption charges but recently released on appeal.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/04/wife-of-imprisoned-attorney-dies-after-furlough-denied-in-alleged-political-prosecution-case/