How the 11th Circuit Cheated Don Siegelman: A Summary

How the 11th Circuit Cheated Don Siegelman: A Summary
Explosive news has been breaking in recent days from motions for a new trial in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.
By Legal Schnauzer | Legal Schnauzer Blogspot

It's worth noting that the Siegelman/Scrushy motions would not have been necessary if the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had done its job. We showed in a recent series of posts that the 11th Circuit made multiple unlawful findings in upholding most of the convictions in the Siegelman case.

Now might be a good time to review the judicial hatchet job the 11th Circuit administered on the Siegelman/Scrushy appeal.
What did we learn from our multi-part series about the appeal? Clear law required the 11th Circuit to overturn the Siegelman/Scrushy convictions. But the appellate court botched its ruling on at least five key issues. And we're not talking about complicated stuff here. I don't have the first day of law school, and I could rather easily determine the many areas where the 11th Circuit got it wrong. All the court had to do was follow its own precedent--and it couldn't even do that.

How do you explain such judicial butchery? Two words come to mind--incompetence and corruption.

One member of the three-judge panel is in his mid 80s and another is about to hit 80. But I don't think these judges are senile, and thus, incompetent. So I think we are looking at corruption.

Why did the 11th Circuit uphold a trial-court judgment that it had to know was unlawful? I have some theories on that, and we will get to those in a bit. But first, let's review the five key issues where the 11th Circuit got it wrong: Read more.