Judge hands Libby defense initial win...

[bridgit]

'WASHINGTON - A federal judge handed a victory to the defense Thursday in the Valerie Plame case, siding with Vice President Dick Cheney's indicted former chief of staff in a fight over release of classified information.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton decided that he won't impose strict standards sought by prosecutors who want to limit the amount of classified information used in the trial of defendant I. Lewis Libby.

Prosecutors had proposed a stringent three-part legal test that would have allowed information to be considered for the trial only when its benefit to the defense outweighed the government's need to keep it secret.' http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060921/ap_on_go_ot/cia_leak

[PATRICK]

1. The principle in the complexities

should be that the nature of the crime is itself a betrayal of security. If a person has a gun permit that gun cannot be used in evidence in a crime? The privilege, whether by office of by right, when used to hide its own abuse is an abuse of law itself. I am sure the noodles of complexities tie all sorts of false knots over this clarity, but it seems on its face that the law is set to weigh against challenges based on prioirities of authority rather than principles of law.

Can it still be used in maintaining secrecy if the judge sees it? But there goes the jury system. This is a recognition of how personal rights and liberties and laws are abrogated dangerously when the checks and balances have been removed or skewed. When the result is that the very thing for which those rights have been set aside IS the problem it was meant to solve someone should be in a position to cry halt. But the interwoven losses traps the law in a web of powerlessness.

[Der Blaue Engel]

2. I'm really confused by this

Why would the prosecutors want to keep government information secret while the defense wants to release it, and how does the release help the defendent?

I can't wrap my head around this one. The only illuminating statement in the article only gets my brain a tiny bit closer:

Prosecutors have suggested Libby is trying to derail the case by threatening to expose national secrets — a tactic known as graymail.

Does this mean that once he tries to use classified information, the government can then step in and stop the whole trial somehow?


Am I just dense? Lawyer-types, help me out. :dunce:

[H2O Man]

3. This is a process

that Mr. Fitzgerald must follow, even if he wants to: {a} keep all the information classified and secret; {b} if he wants to use parts of it in the trial; or {c} if he wants to use all of it. The ruling by Judge Walton is also part of the same process. There will be things that favor the prosecution, and things that favor the defense, in the process of pre-trial motions and hearings.