February 16, 2020
Dear Ms. Martinez (Perry Martinez):
Lawyers Defending American Democracy appreciates your statement about judicial independence and the proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The statement, however, makes no reference to what apparently prompted its issuance: the President’s attempt to interfere with the sentencing phase of the President’s friend and political supporter, convicted felon, Roger Stone, for his actions promoting the President’s election campaign.
Your statement and others like it need to identify with precision the cause for concern because many might not otherwise fully understand what is at stake: a threat to America’s basic principle of impartial justice by the President’s call for leniency in the sentencing of Roger Stone.
There is little question that the President of the United States and his attorney general are entitled to set general policies with respect to such things as enforcement priorities and punishment in a given class of cases, such as those involving drug dealing, perjury, terrorism or violations of the anti-trust laws. It is quite something else, however, for the President to single out a given criminal case and attempt to affect its outcome, especially to benefit a friend and political supporter, as here, or to harm a perceived political enemy. This is a huge threat to the principles of impartiality and evenhandedness, which are essential to our system of justice. Interference here was particularly indefensible because the original sentencing recommendation, which the Attorney General overrode, was strictly within the applicable sentencing guidelines.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy is a group of more than 1,000 lawyers, judges and legal scholars from around the country who believe that forthright acknowledgement of the crisis America faces requires an acknowledgement of the circumstances constituting the crisis. Facts matter as much as principles. As Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, the life of the law is experience.
We, therefore, urge you to amplify your statement of general principles by identifying the factual basis for its promulgation and clearly explaining the harms, so that the American people can better grasp what is happening and why it really matters.
Steering Committee for Lawyers Defending American Democracy.