Lives Overturned

The opinion--especially the bold-face, capital-letter REVERSED printed below the preceding sentence--seems to sing of justice and wrongs righted and the ultimate triumph of the American way.

The Ninth Circuit's stirring decision notwithstanding, the Span family hasn't seen anything approaching justice for some eight years now.

Darlene Span and her brother, Jerry, have been jerked around unconscionably and at length in vicious, un-American ways by their own government. The Spans have been branded criminals and, they say, forced into financial ruin. Their mother and father have died since that awful day in April 1988. Darlene and Jerry have watched other family members flee an unwarranted, unending torrent of abuse.

The Spans remain embroiled in a web of civil litigation connected to the beating incident.

What has happened to the Span family is horrifying. And, horrifyingly, it continues.

The U.S. Attorney's Office is asking the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its ruling in favor of the Spans. U.S. Attorney Janet Napolitano says her office believes the appeals court handed down conflicting rulings in its two decisions on the Span case. First, she says, the court contended that the flaw in jury instructions was a "harmless error" that would not have affected the outcome of the case, and then it ruled that the Spans would likely have been acquitted if the error had not been made. She feels that legal precedent runs against the second decision overturning the convictions.

If the appeals court does not reinstate the convictions, Napolitano said, she will have all the records of the case pulled and examined. Then, she says, she will decide whether to retry the Spans.

I like Janet Napolitano. And her response to the latest ruling in the Span case, which began long before she was named U.S. Attorney, seems neat and legal and professional--at first glance.

But it's a wrongheaded, hardhearted, unjust decision.
There are many reasons Janet Napolitano should end this vicious parody of a prosecution immediately.

Some of them are spelled out in the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the Spans' convictions. The others . . . well, Ms. Napolitano will have to find them by looking into her own heart.

--Mecklin
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