Rationing Justice

It was a great story in yesterday's Post-Dispatch about the bump in pay to which Peter Kinder's official staff are treated to when a member of the staff leaves the payroll to work on politics.  

But one piece of phrasing just begs to be pointed out.  Here's how the piece describes the departure of former Kinder chief of staff Eric Feltner:

Neither Feltner nor Bennett work for Kinder anymore. Feltner resigned in June after news broke about his indictment on misdemeanor pornography charges. He has since pleaded guilty of displaying sexually explicit materials and is on probation.

Sadly, I guess this is how the permanent record will remember Eric Feltner... as someone guilty of "pornography" charges.  Others of us may remember Feltner quite differently, as a man arrested for having sent perverted emails to someone he believed to be a 13 year old girl. 

The Wall Street Journal opines feebly on the Missouri Non-partisan Court Plan:

Though the Missouri Plan is supposed to keep politics out of the process, it has instead transferred power from voters to state bar associations and legal groups that control the judicial commission....

Mr. Blunt has said he's committed to filling the open seat with a judge "who will faithfully interpret our constitution and not legislate from the bench." That's a request the commission could easily have met with such highly qualified options as former U.S. Attorney Stephen Easton or well-respected lawyer Brenda Talent.

The WSJ apparently believes we can "keep politics out" of the judicial selection process by nominating a judge whose only distinguishing qualification for the job is her marriage to a prominent Republican politician.  Genius.­  

Fired Up! Missouri has chronicled a list of questionable behaviors on the part of Peter Kinder as well as pointing out his weaknesses when it comes to ethics.  Even more evidence is appearing showing how beneficial it is to be a friend of Peter Kinder. 

Anyone who has been following the efforts of GOPers to scrap Missouri's non-partisan court plan in favor of a more political alternative may want to note the recent restructuring of that campaign. 

We've devoted significant space on this site to exposing the folks behind the Adam Smith Foundation --the group which was initially constructed to demolish the non-partisan court plan.   As previously explained, the Adam Smith Foundation was a cooperative effort between Blunt allies Jeff Roe and James Harris aimed squarely at setting up a structure that could be used to intimidate judges and assault Missouri's longstanding process for selecting judges.

Well, perhaps the Adam Smithees got a bit more attention than they'd bargained for --and of the wrong kind.  Opponents of non-partisan courts appear to have refocused their efforts in the form of a new front group, Missourians for Better Courts.  Just like the Adam Smith Foundation, the new group was also headed up by Team Blunt alumni.  The executive director of Better Courts for Missouri is former Blunt administration stalker staffer and "low-level" aide, Jonathan Bunch. 

Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts use a web video to ask a very g­ood question...

I, for one, don't trust any of the mugs in that photo.­­­  Story Continued »

Randy Turner has some more great inside backstory on the intriguing series of events  that led to Matt Blunt's top choice for Newton County prosecutor being rejected by local GOP loyalists.  

Go read The Turner Report's news on the Governor's Anne Wells fiasco.

Flip through the recently released campaign finance report of Missourians for Matt Blunt and you'll reveal a small but interesting contribution. 

On November 2, 2007 Blunt accepted a $250.00 contribution from Matthew Schelp of St. Louis.  Schelp is employed as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern Missouri District of Catherine Hanaway and was apparently the point person in the recent investigation and prosecution of Democratic legislator John Bowman.

In addition to being the AUSA responsible for the prosecution of the Democratic legislator, Schelp works in the same shop which made sure GOP felon Nathan Cooper got a very light sentence in return for "cooperating" in another investigation in which charges were ultimately dropped and which assiduously avoided looking into the troubling political and financial dealings between Cooper and prominent figures in Matt Blunt's fee office scheme.

The infamous Thor Hearne of now-defunct GOP front group "American Center for Voting Rights" is back in the saddle, today speaking for the Missouri Bar's continuing legal education (CLE) program for Missouri attorneys as a session that can be applied toward -- how ironic -- "ethics."

It appears as though Jeff Roe and James Harris --who've created an entire entity whose purpose is to attack Missouri judges and threaten them with the same treatment they gave Cole County Circuit Judge Tom Brown in 2006-- have achieved their poorly hidden goal.

Congrats to the governor's henchmen on successfully intimidating elected Missouri judges into making wrong decisions.

Tony Messenger was using his blog to tremendous effect this week, demonstrating yet another solid connection between Matt Blunt and the effort to destroy Missouri's non-partisan court system.  Messenger shared some correspondence that shows a staffer named Jeremy Ketterer --whom James Harris pays to work for J. Harris Consulting and the Adam Smith Foundation-- getting cash from Matt Blunt's campaign as well.

But campaign cash isn't the only means Blunt has devised of paying back the folks who help advance his politically motivated attack on Missouri's non-partisan courts plan.  Far from it.  In fact, it seems gubernatorial appointments are now being parceled out to the brave partisan warriors who carry out Blunt's judicial attacks by proxy.

UPDATED Below -- One critical trait of a successful prosecutor --particularly one who upholds the law in the county that contains a state's capital city-- is a willingness to be fiercely independent of his or her own party.  People have to be sure that stopping crime, not protecting fellow partisans, is the highest priority for their prosecuting attorney.  

The people of Cole County are still waiting to have proved to them that Prosecuting Attorney Mark Richardson possesses that sort of independence.  

Richardson, a Republican elected Cole County prosecutor in 2006, is by now well-apprised of the overwhelming evidence of criminal wrongdoing in connection with the firing and personal attacks on Scott Eckersley.  Eckersley has provided rock-solid evidence that someone accessed his private email account after he had been fired.  Emails from that account were later among those provided to the press by the Blunt administration.

Earlier this week, Alternet published an article by Steven Rosenfeld detailing a new area of politicization in the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice.   The report details the DOJ’s pressure on ten new states to purge voters from their voter lists in advance of the 2008 elections.   The DOJ went after our own bellwether Missouri in its first round of attempts to purge voters in time for the Talent-McCaskill 2006 US Senate race.   

After a political deathwatch that dragged on for months longer than it should have, the news this morning is that U.S. Attorney General has finally resigned his post.  Aside from being remembered for multiple trips to Capitol Hill during which he lied to Congress, Gonzales' tenure will also be noted for his running his department in a way that always put politics first, whatever the desultory effects on American justice.

Even after the Gonzales departure, his grotesque legacy lives on in the form of partisan GOP federal prosecutors like Missouri's own Catherine Hanaway.  

The New York Times is reporting President Bush's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is resigning.

Last week, DOJ Civil Rights Division head Wan J. Kim announced his resignation.

And, of course, Missouri favorite Brad Schlozman also resigned last week from the Bush Justice Department.