Friday, 30 January 2009

Bush's unforgivable failure
By Esther Pollard - 

May be reprinted

Israel's continuing 24-year abandonment of its agent, my husband, Jonathan
Pollard, and its failure to support his bid for presidential clemency is
reprehensible.
But no matter how morally repugnant the behavior of successive Israeli
governments toward Jonathan may be, this does not excuse President George W.
Bush's abdication of his responsibility to exercise his powers of clemency
to right a two-decades-long injustice, especially in a case where no other
avenue of relief exists.

The extensive powers of clemency the American Constitution grants to the
president are his solemn responsibility. The Constitution grants these
powers as part of the president's duty to safeguard the rights of all
American citizens, especially in those cases where the judicial system
either cannot or will not correct itself.

No issue can be taken with President Bush's unwillingness to use his powers
of clemency for political expediency or reward. Nor would anyone quarrel
with his unwillingness to bow to political pressure to grant clemencies in
cases where the sentences were relatively short and the offenses serious.

Similarly, no issue can be taken with Bush's refusal to use his powers of
clemency for those who were not in prison, but just seeking a pardon in
order to restore their civil rights.

In cases such as these, where the justice system is not off kilter and the
public good is neither threatened nor improved by the president's
intervention, it is truly his prerogative whether or not to intervene.

But, in the case of Jonathan Pollard, where the ends of justice have been
ill-served, where the judicial system has been inappropriately used to
prosecute one American citizen excessively to serve other purposes, there
was at very least a moral imperative compelling presidential involvement.

The median sentence for the offense Jonathan committed is two to four years.
Jonathan is now in his 24th year of a life sentence with no end in sight.

After numerous security briefings on the issue, Rep. Anthony Weiner recently
wrote in a letter to the president: "The life sentence which Jonathan
Pollard is now serving is not a reflection of the severity of the crimes he
committed, but rather the result of past ineffective counsel and a damage
assessment report written by an intelligence community that was badly shaken
by unrelated espionage cases earlier that year."

Even former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the man who drove
Jonathan's grossly disproportionate sentence, admitted in an interview
before his death that the Pollard case was in fact "a minor matter" that had
been exaggerated to serve other ends.

Nor is parole an option, as Jonathan's attorneys have explained:

Applying for parole is not an option for Mr. Pollard, because of a severe
impediment which has been unilaterally imposed by the Department of Justice
(DOJ). The DOJ has refused to allow Mr. Pollard's current attorneys, Eliot
Lauer and Jacques Semmelman (both of whom have the appropriate Top
Secret/SCI-eligible security clearances), from seeing the documents that
were submitted to the sentencing judge prior to Mr. Pollard's sentencing in
1987. Although Mr. Pollard's lawyers have a clear "need to know," the DOJ
has refused to allow them to see their client's entire court file, which is
partly under seal. Without access to that file, persons opposed to parole
know that they have free reign to say absolutely anything about Mr. Pollard
without any risk that they will be contradicted by the documents.

The impediment cited above, hidden behind a veil of secrecy, has hamstrung
all of Jonathan's efforts to bring his case back to court, and in the
process all legal remedies have been exhausted.

Having served 24 years in the harshest conditions the American penal system
has to offer, Jonathan is ill, his immune system depleted, and his very
survival is at stake. In such a case, it was the solemn responsibility of
the president to act. It was a sacred duty, not a mere prerogative.

Clemency petitions submitted by ordinary citizens like my husband need to
have merit in order to survive the weeding-out process that takes place
before a petition makes it to the president. The fact that we received
confirmation that Jonathan's petition had made it onto George W. Bush's desk
speaks volumes about its merit.

The petition had been scrutinized by all the appropriate American officials
and approved. The injustice it describes is clear, and even more so, the
grossly disproportionate sentence Jonathan is serving.

This petition for executive clemency was my husband's avenue of last resort
to resolve an injustice that now threatens to end his life in prison. The
sublimely moral task of saving Jonathan's life, while at the same time
safeguarding the American public good by correcting this injustice, fell to
out-going President Bush.

George W. Bush failed morally, failed his presidency and the entire American
nation, when he failed to discharge his solemn responsibility to safeguard
the rights of all American citizens by acting to right a case where the
American judicial system has clearly gone awry.

It is ironic that Bush, who boasted of such strong ties to Israel and of his
friendship with the American Jewish community, chose to turn his back on a
case that is so often exploited by government elements hostile to the Jews
to call into question the reliability of Israel as an ally and the loyalty
of the American Jewish community.

Worse still, it is unforgivable that Mr. Bush's callous abdication of
responsibility in this case and his failure to exercise his powers of
clemency for the national good unjustly condemns my husband, Jonathan, to
languish in prison, G-d forbid, unto death.

Esther Pollard is the wife of imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard. For further
information on the Jonathan Pollard case, visit the J4JP website:
www.JonathanPollard.org


--
JUSTICE FOR JONATHAN POLLARD
Website: http://www.JonathanPollard.org
RSS: http://www.JonathanPollard.org/rss.htm

Posted by Britannia Radio at 21:16