Jonas: Black's Resentencing A "Charade"

George Jonas writes:

Last Friday, Judge Amy St. Eve slashed the 78-month sentence she had imposed on Conrad Black in 2007 to 42 months. She remarked that “this case is in a different state today, and you are a different person today.” I don’t think so. My friend and colleague was the same last Friday as he had been in 2007: An honourable and innocent man. If his exemplary conduct through 29 months of incarceration altered anything, it was some people’s perception of him.

His case, too, was the same malicious prosecutorial fantasy it had been in 2007, when a jury threw out most of the government’s charges — nine out of 13, to be exact — leaving it to the judge to salvage as much as she could for District Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s deflated prosecutors. Amiable Judge Amy, a former prosecutor herself, performed loyally, sentencing Conrad to a whopping 6.5 years on the remaining four charges.