Comments on: Seeing 60 Minutes, Or Not

by: Susan Fillippeli

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:04:32 +0000

I think that is a perfectly legitimate question.

by: Anonymous #21

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:02:53 +0000

Susan- you are right - transcripts are expensive and time consuming to produce. But there was no need to “engage” another court reporter. There are three court reporting positions in the Middle District. The court reporter who transcribed the trial passed away, and another one left federal service. The difficulty in the transcription of this trial, and where I fault someone - maybe not Judge Fuller, but someone in a position of authority, and the presiding judge is a good place to start - is that those two vacancies left one court reporter to cover the entire courthouse and complete the transcript of a very long trial. The question remains “why did it take so long to fill those vacancies?”

by: Susan Fillippeli

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:53:02 +0000

I have been known to move mountains from time to time. ;-)

by: Roy

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:26:19 +0000

Frankly, now that Susan is agreeing with me, I’m inclined to change my position.

by: Susan Fillippeli

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:42:54 +0000

Anonymous # 21–As I understand it transcripts are expensive and time consuming to produce. The court reported passed away two months after the sentencing, therefore another reporter had to be engaged. It is the new reporter who requested an extension until March 31.

I agree, the sooner the transcript is produced, the better. But I think there are some issues here that are beyond Judge Fuller’s control.

by: Anonymous #21

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:14:53 +0000

Susan F- I think you are right on that point. But with the delays, that only points back to the question that, once there was a conviction, EVERYONE knew there would be an appeal, even Louis Franklin. So someone somewhere somehow should have been working on a transcript. Then they could get an appeal filed, the 11th Circuit could do whatever they are eventually going to do with this, and we could get beyond this sooner rather than later, because we really need to be able to focus on something else other than Don Siegelman. If there were errors, we need to determine that; if there were not, he needs to get on with serving the rest of his sentence. But until there is a final determination of all of these issues, all we are sentenced to is Jill Simpson and Dan Abrams and on and on.

by: Susan Fillippeli

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:45:33 +0000

Anonymous # 21–you make sense, up to a point. But the delay in Siegelman’s sentencing was caused by his defense team because they requested so many continuations. So they have more than a little responsibility in the fact that they couldn’t file notice of an appeal until more than a year after the verdict.

by: Anonymous #21

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:29:24 +0000

I believe we are being subjected to somewhat circular reasoning on both sides, to be honest. First, Siegelman was found guilty, and it is not unprecedented for him to be immediately incarcerated upon sentencing. Secondly, after an examination of the evidence, there is at least a question in my mind of why he was not found guilty on the counts he was acquitted on - in other words, I found his guilt more clearly established on those counts than on those, with fewer legal questions, than on those counts for which the jury found him guilty. The difference was that, on those counts, Scrushy was not involved, which may have been enough in the eyes of the jury. However, to say that there was no reason to complete a transcript until the notice of appeal is filed is similarly circular reasoning. Yes, the notice of appeal was not filed until after sentencing - but just as you say Judge Fuller should not be blamed for the delay until sentencing, then the lawyers should not be blamed for the delay in preparing the notice of appeal, since you cannot file one until sentencing has been completed. But there was always, after the verdict, an expectation in the eyes and minds of every rational person that an appeal was forthcoming. The only way not starting on a transcript until the notice of appeal is filed in an instance such as this makes sense is if the Jill Simpson’s of the world are right and there is a vast conspiracy, and I, for one, pray that there are simpler explanations for all of this. I just keep waiting for them.

by: Roy

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:43:20 +0000

Just so there is no misunderstanding, I have no “inside information” about the hiring of court reporters in the Middle District. It is my understanding, however, that the court reporters are hired by the U.S. Administrative Office of Courts, not by Judge Fuller. In addition, the record reflects that Gov. Siegelman filed his notice of appeal on June 29, 2007. Any “delay” in producing the transcript should be measured from that date, not the date of the jury verdict, since there is no reason to complete a transcript of the trial unless there is an appeal. I don’t believe that the year that passed between trial and sentencing (during which, of course, the defendants remained free) can entirely be blamed on the judge. Finally, if you will check the court’s record, the court reporter has been gradually completing and filing parts of the massive transcript. The latest entry shows that she just completed Volume XXXIX (39).

by: Old Prosecutor

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:05:00 +0000

To “new prosecutor” - you ignore a “Catch 22″ situation. One of the things you need to show a reasonable chance of success on appeal is the transcript - therefore your position seems to be - the defendant needs the transcript to show he should be released on appeal and since the Court can’t furnish a transcript he must remain in jail.

If you are really a “new prosecutor” take a piece of advice from someone who was a prosecutor for decades. The prime function of a prosecutor is not to enforce technical procedural rules, it is not even to get convictions - it is to do justice.

To deny a trancript for 2 years regardless of the reason is not justice