Lots of reaction to this morning’s Lorraine Ahearn column on the Scott Sanders trial. I”ll weigh in, for what it’s worth.
What jumps out is the way Ahearn cleverly let the jury off the hook, saying “they did what they thought was best” struggling “valiantly to avoid a mistrial, over a minor technical charge.”
See, Ahearn doesn’t want Sanders to pay for hacking into a fed computer; she wants him to pay for “violating our sense of common decency.” But when you read her reaction to the jury’s not guilty verdict, you get the feeling that Ahearn believes putting Sanders away on “minor technical charges” would be justice enough.
By the way, that goes for David Wray and Randall Brady, too.
Bonus observation: Note the way Ahearn describes the release of the tapes where Sanders and Brady are discussing Wray’s ‘troublesome neighbor’ Peggy Barker:
The City Council, offering a rare listen behind the near-total curtain of silence that state personnel laws imposed on the Wray affair, convened a public meeting one evening and played seven minutes of audio from the hundreds of hours of audio found on Sanders’ computer hard drive. Sanders testified Thursday that he routinely recorded conversations.
The City Council may have convened another meeting, but —-correct me if I’m wrong — the tapes were initially released during a regular City Council meeting under the agenda item “Matters to be presented by the City Manager.”
Ahearn’s presenting it as though the Council were releasing the tapes to the public. I realize the council voted to authorize the release of the tapes, but only after City Manager Mitchell Johnson informed them the tapes had been cleared for release. Anyone think that particular council would have pushed for releasing the tapes without Johnson’s permission? It’s also worth mentioning —once again — that Johnson’s presentation was pure politcal grandstanding. Each tape was accompanied by a self-righteous look of contempt on his face, as if he were thoroughly disgusted by the way Sanders and Brady had violated “our sense of common decency.”
By the way, anyone else notice that Mitch Johnson’s name doesn’t appear in Ahearn’s column?
