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Open Letter to President Barack Obama - Free Don Siegelman
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on May 15, 2016
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on May 15, 2016
Dear President Obama,
I am writing this open letter to ask that you award an immediate presidential pardon to federal inmate Don Eugene Siegelman (BOP Reg. No.: 24775-001; Release date: 08/08/2017). You do not know me, but I am a lawyer who has fought for equal justice and fair play within the American system of justice for forty-three years. My work to promote the fair administration of justice has routinely subjected me to threats of bodily injury and death throughout my legal career. On a few occasions, these threats came directly from local, state, and federal law enforcement officials.
Some of my landmark cases involved individuals who were railroaded by prosecutors for crimes they did not commit. During their ordeals, these falsely accused individuals and their families suffered unimaginable pain and suffering, emotionally and otherwise. Listed below are three cases of innocent individuals who found themselves trapped in a nightmare of injustice. Decisive executive action ended each one of these nightmares.
State of Alabama v. Clarence Norris
One of my first cases out of law school was an effort to secure a full and unconditional pardon for Clarence Norris, the last known surviving Scottsboro Boy. Norris was one of nine Scottsboro Boys who were falsely accused in 1931 of raping two white girls on a freight train running through Paint Rock, Alabama. All nine Boys were arrested, tried, and convicted of rape. Eight of them were sentenced to death on multiple occasions. The ninth Boy, who was a juvenile, was spared the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court saved the Boys' lives on each occasion within hours of their scheduled execution.
I fought Alabama officials for two long years to clear Norris and the other eight Scottsboro Boys from the false criminal charges. The all-white Alabama Pardons and Parole Board's resistance to my request for a pardon for Norris was massive and heartbreaking. I was able to enlist the aid of Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley to advocate for the pardon. He, in turn, enlisted the aid of Governor George Wallace to assist us in this effort. Wallace, who will forever be remembered for literally blocking the admission of Vivian Malone and James Hoods to the all-white University of Alabama (at Tuscaloosa) in 1963, immediately pressured Parole Board Chairman Norman F. Ussery to issue the Norris pardon. On November 26, 1976, Ussery and the other two Board members signed the pardon, as did Wallace.
Norris was the only Scottsboro Boy who lived long enough to see the Boys' names officially cleared. It was one of Wallace's finest hours as governor. The pardon, which was the first and only one ever issued by the state of Alabama to a death row inmate based upon a finding of "innocence", ended a 45-year legal battle to saved the Boys' lives and clear their names.
U.S. v. Richard Arrington, Jr.
From 1988 to 1992, former Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr., fought unrelenting efforts by rogue federal prosecutors to frame him on public corruption and bribery charges. In 1991, these prosecutors wrongfully named Arrington as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the fraud trial of another individual. I traveled to Montgomery and presented Mayor Emory Folmar, an ultra-conservative Alabama Republican Party chairman, with a mountain of credible evidence that federal prosecutors were attempting to frame Arrington, a national Democratic Party leader. Folmar was enraged by this misconduct. In my presence, Folmar called President George H. W. Bush to complain about Arrington's mistreatment by federal prosecutors. Bush had White House Counsel Borden Gray call Folmar for more details about this prosecutorial misconduct while I was still sitting in Folmar's office. On instructions from Bush, Gray promptly reported this prosecutorial misconduct to U.S. Attorney Richard Thornburgh, who personally reviewed Arrington's case. In 1992, the Department of Justice in Washington ended the Arrington investigation and cleared him of all allegations of wrongdoing. At my insistence, the Department issued the first-ever public apology to a public official for smearing his name during a criminal investigation.
U.S. v. U.W. Clemon
In 1996, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles formally notified then-Birmingham U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of their intent to indict him on various fraud-related charges arising from his sister's operation of a non-profit school in Los Angeles. I represented the lead political group responsible for Judge Clemon's presidential appointment to the federal bench in 1980. I immediately launched an investigation into all aspects of the government's case, including allegations of widespread prosecutorial misconduct in the case. My investigation produced a comprehensive report to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno regarding prosecutorial misconduct in Clemon's case. Based upon this report, the Department of Justice promptly terminated the criminal investigation of Judge Clemon with no charges filed.
Injustice in Don Siegelman's bribery case
In 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Fuller presided over the bribery trial of former governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in Montgomery, Alabama. Both men were indicted in October 2005, approximately five months after Scrushy won a stunning acquittal in a Birmingham federal court on all counts in his $2.7 billion HealthSouth accounting fraud case. Both men were convicted on the bribery charges in Fuller's court. Each one received a long prison sentence. Their convictions were affirmed on appeal. Scrushy served his sentence and was released from prison in 2012. Siegelman is still imprisoned.
From beginning to end, the Siegelman prosecution was orchestrated by Karl Rove, a legendary Republican political operative. Rove hijacked the federal criminal justice system and skillfully used political hacks within the system to engineer the railroading of Siegelman and Scrushy on trumped-up bribery charges.
Fuller, who was married, never disclosed during the trial that he was having an extramarital affair with his married courtroom deputy – the very courtroom official who interacted with trial jurors on behalf of the court. Fuller later married this courtroom deputy.
In 2015, Fuller was forced to resign his judgeship after a Court of Appeals judicial panel probing his 2014 arrest in Atlanta for beating his second wife confirmed my 2014 published reports of Fuller's serial martial cheating, out-of-control wife-beating episodes, and perjury to judicial officers. Additionally, recently released transcripts in another federal criminal case revealed that local FBI agent Keith Baker, who was one of the main FBI agents investigating Siegelman, also had an undisclosed inappropriate relationship with an unnamed "female courtroom deputy" during Siegelman's trial. Judge Fuller only had one such deputy – the woman he married.
Finally, the superficial way in which Fuller handled the issue of whether two trial jurors engaged in prohibited communications during the trial to steer the jury toward guilty verdicts left a whole lot to be desired. This is especially true since a purported email exchange between these two jurors said Fuller was helping them steer the jury toward guilty verdicts.
Siegelman's pardon is overdue
Since you assumed the presidency, I have watched you issue 70 pardons to individuals who were convicted of various federal crimes. Pardons have been granted to criminal defendants who engaged in money laundering, wire fraud, bank fraud, counterfeiting of U.S. currency, embezzlement of bank funds, and the theft of military equipment. To my surprise, you have also granted pardons to cocaine and heroin dealers, as well as armed bank robbers. Even if you believe Siegelman is guilty of some kind of crime, which he is not, any crime he has committed pales in comparison to those committed by the offenders you have already pardoned.
Furthermore, I have watched you urge the leaders of other nations to free their political prisoners. Mr. President, Don Eugene Siegelman is America's number one political prisoner. He is an innocent man who was framed by Karl Rove and railroaded by Rove's political allies within the criminal justice system. Please lead other world leaders by example and set Don Siegelman free. Your inexplicable failure to free Siegelman makes you look like a hypocrite in the eyes of foreign leaders and the American public, especially since more than one hundred former state attorneys general sent you a letter in April asking you to pardon Siegelman because his conviction was unjust and tainted by politics. Heed their call and do the right thing.
The Scottsboro Boys' legal nightmare lasted forty-five years, but George Wallace ended it with decisive executive action. Richard Arrington's legal nightmare lasted four years, but George H. W. Bush, Richard Thornburg, and Emory Folmar ended it with decisive executive action. U.W. Clemon's nightmare lasted three years, but Janet Reno ended it with decisive executive action.
Don Siegelman's legal nightmare has been ongoing for eleven years, seven of which have been on your watch. Please take decisive executive action to end it now.
Sincerely,
Donald V. Watkins, Esq.
Birmingham, Alabama
Donald V. Watkins
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