WASHINGTON — A criminal inquiry into the way former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was prosecuted on public corruption charges will try to determine whether a team of federal lawyers intentionally deprived Stevens of a fair trial or simply made mistakes under pressure.
The careers, and possibly the freedom, of six Justice Department prosecutors hang in the balance.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan voided Stevens' conviction and ordered the criminal inquiry, saying, "In nearly 25 years on the bench, I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct I have seen in this case."
The federal lawyers' chief hope is that their behavior can be explained by the intense pace of preparation for an extremely high-profile case.
The 85-year-old Republican senator was charged with knowingly filing false financial reports with the Senate, failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts and improvements made to one of his Alaska homes. He was convicted in October and defeated the following month in his reelection bid.
According to Stevens' lawyers, an FBI whistle-blower and some legal observers, the prosecutors appeared to respond to the pressure by intentionally presenting false or misleading testimony and evidence, and withholding crucial information from the defense.
"Prosecutors know that a defeat [or a victory] would bring equally high-profile results for their careers," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who followed the Stevens trial. "A fair trial appeared a risk that they were simply not willing to accept."
But others say the prosecutors were simply overwhelmed and outgunned by Stevens' lawyers.
Peter Zeidenberg, a Washington lawyer and former trial attorney in the Justice Department's public integrity section, which prosecuted Stevens, said that any actions by the prosecution to conceal evidence were probably unintentional and more a product of having to sift through mountains of documents in a short time.
"Very likely, things were overlooked," Zeidenberg said. "I'd be surprised if there was a conscious decision to hold back information."
Brenda Morris, the deputy chief of the public integrity section, was named to the case just days before Stevens was indicted in late July. That meant most of the case had already been built by the other team members: Nicholas Marsh, Joseph Bottini, Edward Sullivan and James Goeke.
