LTE: Governor Oversteps in Windsor Pot Case
Ed Clark
November 17, 2007
Burlington Free Press
On Nov. 7, Gov. Jim Douglas ordered three state law enforcement agencies to bypass the Windsor County State's Attorney's Office on large marijuana cases and refer those cases to top Vermont or federal prosecutors ("Drug-case bypass ordered," Nov. 8). He did so because he did not like a decision made by that elected state's attorney to permit a defendant to enter a court diversion program for the nonviolent crime of marijuana possession.
The judgment of the Windsor County state's attorney may or may not have been a sound one, but it was a perfectly legal one. In Vermont, state's attorneys are elected, and if the voters have issues with their judgment they can elect someone else. Vermont is also a state with a long tradition of honoring the separation of the three branches of government, both in law and in spirit.
Douglas has violated at least the spirit of very important separation. Perhaps the several Douglas sleep-overs at the Bush White House clouded over the lessons that Douglas and all Americans should have learned in recent times about meddling with the independence of prosecutors. Does anyone remember Alberto Gonzales? Does anyone know which branch of government Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf went after first?
Ed Clark, Guildhall | 
