This is what Judge Kenneth M. Karas said Friday of his decision to send former track and field star Marion Jones to jail for six months:
"I want people to think twice before lying,” Karas said. “I want to make them realize no one is above the law."
Ms. Jones had been found guilty of perjury, of lying to federal agents.
This is what former White House Spokesman Tony Snow said of President George W. Bush's commutation of the jail sentence for former Presidential Assistant (and Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard Cheney) Lewis "Scooter" Libby:
"He [President Bush] thought any jail time was excessive. He did not see fit to have Scooter Libby taken to jail."
The AP wire of July 3, 2007 noted that Snow told
reporters at a White House briefing that even with Bush's decision, Libby has a felony conviction on his record, two years probation, a $250,000 fine and probable loss of his legal career. "So this is hardly a slap on the wrist," Snow said. "It is a very severe penalty."
Readers will recall that Mr. Libby's perjury conviction was in connection with the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame - the underlying crime that in fact was never prosecuted. His perjury was what got him convicted and sentenced to jail; his White House protectors were so eager to avoid his spilling the beans on the genesis of the underlying crime that he was kept away from jail.
Ms. Jones' actual use of performance-enhancing drugs, the underlying "crime" for which she has already forfeited Olympic Gold Medals, was not the central issue in the trial. Like the Libby trial, it was the perjury that was adjudicated.
Unlike "Scooter" Libby, Marion Jones apparently does not have a sugar daddy. Though she is a mother of four year old and seven month old sons, Judge Karas indicated that he was not moved by the prospect of their separation from their mother. On the other hand, President Bush said that Libby's "wife and young children have suffered immensely" from Libby's trial and the prospect of imprisonment (full text of commutation here).
Mr. Bush, please consider the following:
Black Americans land in prison at six times the rate of white Americans, according to a new study from the Sentencing Project.
Just as you would not want the world to think that Mr. Libby was given preferential treatment because of his White House connections, you should not want the world to assume that Ms. Jones is getting jail time because of her skin color. Please issue a commutation, and be assured that you would be doing the right thing.