[Vision2020] Senator Larry Craig Challenges Guilty Plea

[Sunil Ramalingam]

Ted,

So perhaps Craig could have gotten a dismissal, but it would have been a 
year later, assuming good conduct.  It seems he wanted to get the case over 
and avoid publicity, as you mentioned in your post yesterday; going with a 
deferred prosecution would have kept the case alive another year.  Of course 
his method of avoiding publicity also failed.

You talk about the conduct in the charge to which he pled, and the 
possibility that the law itself may be unconstitutional.  That may well be 
so.  But is that true of the charge that was dismissed?  If he gets his 
charge withdrawn, the best case scenario for Craig is that he now gets the 
deferred prosecution.  With all the publicity, that's unlikely.  Meanwhile 
his party will be backing up the bus that ran over him to take another shot 
at it, or looking for a wooden stake.

The worst case scenario is that he gets convicted at trial, after detailed 
testimony about him staring at the cop in the cubicle for an extended amount 
of time.  For his party, that's the worst case scenario, as it keeps him in 
the headlines into 2008, as it's unlikely his trial will be this year.  I 
don't think they'll allow that.

Sunil


>From: "Ted Moffett" <starbliss at gmail.com>
>To: "Sunil Ramalingam" <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com>
>CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Senator Larry Craig Challenges Guilty Plea
>Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:09:47 -0700
>
>Sunil et. al.
>
>I made my statement about the charges against Craig being dropped if he had
>contested them based on statements from lawyers commenting on this case.
>Below read quote from one of them:
>
>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.craig30aug30,0,6053476.story
>
>Several lawyers in Minnesota said Craig could have avoided the 
>embarrassment
>of having to admit committing a crime if he had hired a lawyer in the first
>place. Minnesota, like many states, has special programs that allow
>first-time offenders to have charges against them dropped after a year if
>they do not engage in any further misconduct.
>
>"Very likely, a lawyer would have gotten one of those dispositions ... and
>Craig could have said, 'I never admitted I did anything wrong,' " said
>Stephen Simon, a professor at the University of Minnesota law school.
>
>-----
>
>And for those who really want to explore the case Craig's attorney's are
>making in his defense, here's a pdf link to the legal eagles arguments:
>
>http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/09/10/craig.motion.pdf
>
>-----------
>
>Ted Moffett
>
>
>