Forum Post: Now at 44,890 signatures -- 10 Days to FREE Don Siegelman

From http://mad.ly/f31b63?pact=13573056484&fe=1 :

"In ten days, President Obama will be re-inaugurated. My dad will have been in prison for 4 months (since September 11th) and over 390 days total. It makes my stomach turn. The only solution I have, other than meeting with the President personally, is educating others - including those in power - and winning their support.

I think it was Bryan Stevenson who said that 1 out of 10 incarcerated Americans are innocent. If it can happen to a governor, I believe anyone may be wrongly convicted. In fact, Americans do not have a constitutional right not to be framed. It's high time Americans wake-up to the fact that our system of justice is run by humans and not "delivered from on high."

No matter what happens in the next 10 days, we have a chance to right this wrong through education. Will you help me?

The Charlie Rose Show Courtney Litz, Senior Producer (212) 617-1609 clitz@bloomberg.net

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams Aurelia Grayson Senior Broadcast Producer aurelia.grayson@nbcuni.com (212) 664-6850

Bill Moyers and Company bill@backbonecampaign.org

Why Americans should care about the Siegelman case

Republicans and Democrats agree that the prosecution brought against Governor Siegelman in 2005 had “substantial questions of law and fact likely to result in a reversal” which resulted in Siegelman’s unprecedented release in 2008.

Siegelman was touted a candidate for the 2004 presidential race after being the first governor to endorse Al Gore for President in 2000. The Bush Administration indicted Siegelman in 2002 and then again in 2005 - in a case that Pace Law Professor Bennett Gershman called "one of the most egregiously bad faith prosecutions by the Justice Department ever.”

Siegelman was convicted of an implied quid pro quo, that is an inferred bribe, or a bribe without explicit proof of agreement or self-enrichment scheme. As Republican Attorney General of Arizona and co-Chair of the John McCain Presidential Campaign Grant Woods explained, “They targeted Siegelman because they couldn’t beat him fair and square.”

Conservative columnist George Will expressed in The Washington Post, “Everyone who cares about the rule of law should hope the Supreme Court agrees to hear Don Siegelman’s appeal….today’s confusion and the resulting prosecutorial discretion chill the exercise of Constitutional right, of political participation and can imprison people unjustly.”

Civil Rights Leader Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth warned that Siegelman is the "target of the Bush Justice Department, which has now endangered the style of government we fought so hard for.”

As Columbia Law Professor Scott Horton outlined in Harper's Magazine, "The message that this prosecution sent was unequivocal: donations to the G.O.P. were fine, but write a fat check to the Democrats and you risked a criminal investigation. Moreover, this campaign was not limited to Alabama."

Sworn testimony implicates President Bush's Former Chief of Staff Karl Rove. The whistleblower, Dana Jill Simpson, had no personal reason to name Rove. Her work as a GOP operative was conditional on state contracts she received from Republicans in Alabama.

Siegelman's judge received lucrative Defense contracts with the Bush Administration while siding with the Bush Administration against a number of defendants, including Siegelman.

As former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for the Reagan Administration Paul Craig Roberts explicitly described in his article ‘It Does Happen in America,’ “Don Siegelman, a popular Democratic governor of Alabama, a Republican state, was framed in a crooked trial, convicted on June 29, 2006, and sent to Federal prison by the corrupt and immoral Bush administration.”

52 Attorneys General urged Congress to investigate and urged the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to release Siegelman in 2008.

75 Attorneys General urged Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate in 2009.

91 Attorneys General asked the Supreme Court to hear Siegelman's appeal in 2009.

113 Attorneys General offered an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Siegelman in 2012 and the court still refused the case, even in light of its ruling on Citizens United.

Most recently, Former Congressman Parker Griffith and Republican from Alabama’s 5th District claimed that, “I see the wrongness here, and I see this is not about America. This is an individual who got caught by people who put a mean-spirited, Republican party above America and this is absolutely one of the most unjust things I’ve ever encountered.”

Thank you for everything you do.

Dana www.FREE-DON.org Please sign the petition"

http://donsiegelman.org/ http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-please-restore-justice-and-pardon-my-dad?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=url_share&utm_campaign=url_share_before_sign

More info: http://occupywallst.org/forum/70-days-to-free-don-siegelman-this-is-much-worse-t/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/ask-obama-to-pardon-siegelman-100000-signatures-ne/