United States District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan hit the wall.  Via Jonathon Adler at VC, from the Washington Post,

Stevens and his lawyers complained during the trial about prosecutors withholding information. In December, they asked for his conviction to be tossed out. As part of their request, they asked for the documents related to Joy.

During yesterday’s hearing, Sullivan repeatedly asked three Justice Department lawyers sitting at the prosecution’s table whether they had some reason not to turn over the documents. They finally acknowledged they did not, and Sullivan exploded in anger.

“That was a court order,” he bellowed. “That wasn’t a request. I didn’t ask for them out of the kindness of your hearts. . . . Isn’t the Department of Justice taking court orders seriously these days?”

Judge Sullivan held the three in contempt, and demanded to know who else at Justice was involved.  This was astounding.  At Jonathon Turley put it,

It was a rare moment in court. Federal judges routinely sanction private counsel for actions that are regularly committed by prosecutors without penalty. Judge Sullivan held all three attorneys in the courtroom in contempt.

But the question that remains from Judge Sullivan’s decision to hold the three in contempt was raised by Mike at Crime & Federalism:

The Washington Post needs to do a story on the prosecution’s outrageous conduct throughout the trial. It’s a scandal, even to people like me who think that Ted Stevens is a corrupt man.  Even the devil deserves his due, at least if we’re going to pretend to live in a nation of laws. 

Throughout the trial, issues were flying of government games, concealment of evidence, subornation of perjury and more.  The defense moved for mistrial, and the motion was denied.  The trial was allowed to run its course, and Senator Ted Stevens was convicted. 

Only after the trial has the Judge had enough.  Only after the verdict has the Judge decided that the government was too wrong, even for him to tolerate.  What does this mean for trial?  Exactly how much must the government do wrong before action is taken?

No one will argue that Judge Sullivan went off the deep end holding the government lawyers in contempt.  But it’s an unsatisfying outcome when so much wrong happened during trial and nothing was done.  Aside from the irony of a government prosecuting someone for doing wrong, while doing wrong themselves in the process, there must come a time when all the fine rules either mean something or mean nothing.  When trials go horribly wrong, with law violated wherever one looks, that the trial cannot be allowed to continue.

Now that Sen. Stevens is convicted, Judge Sullivan has had enough.  If only that had happened during the trial, before the jury was allowed to reach a verdict based upon the government’s scam case.