OPINION — Editorial

No jail time yet

But courts say time is running out

Two and a half years after His (dis)Honor Michael Maggio pled guilty to bribery, he has yet to serve his sentence behind bars. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to delay justice. Its wheels grind slow, but exceeding fine. And justice is slowly but surely catching up with Judge Maggio, undeserving of the title as he has proven. To quote the latest decision in this excruciating process, which was handed down by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals:

"Harsh words and lengthy sentence notwithstanding, the district court allowed Maggio sixty days to get his affairs in order, and then granted Maggio's motion for release pending this appeal. The district court also had allowed Maggio to remain free for the fourteen months between his guilty plea and sentencing. As the government makes a point of informing us, Maggio has not yet served any time for his misdeeds. That will soon change."

Readers who have followed this case of justice denied and delayed will have to wait and see about that, for the distinguished defendant's games with the law are scarcely at an end.

But this show may be approaching its final act, promises acting U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris. "We're going to try to get Maggio in prison as quickly as we can." Good luck with that. Because if the happily former judge has any legal arguments left, doubtless he'll use 'em. Not that he can't act quickly when he's of a mind to. In January 2015, according to the plea agreement he made, he acknowledged taking a bribe to lower a jury's judgment in a trial over the negligence of a nursing home a couple of years before.

On the very day that he heard the attorneys for said nursing home ask him to reject or reduce the judgment against it, he accepted $24,000 for his judicial campaign.

Even as he was due in court to be sentenced for bribery, Mr. Maggio was trying to wiggle out of the plea agreement he'd made, claiming the government had pushed him into accepting it. By then, Mike Maggio had switched lawyers time and again. But by then, ex-Judge Maggio had already made a federal case out of it.

As for his argument now that he'd done nothing wrong because the original $5-million judgment against the nursing home was excessive, and any judge would have lowered it, the federal appellate court dismissed that argument: "Simply put, Maggio admitted he took money intending it to color his judgment in a case. That was illegal, whether or not a judge who was not corrupt might have ruled the same way."

Case closed, or rather should be. But not this case, which shows promise, or rather threat, of going on for as long as Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the legendary case in a Charles Dickens novel that went on for ever and ever, profiting no one but the attorneys who argued it from here to eternity.

Next stop, possibly: the full appellate court, or maybe the Supreme Court of the United States, which might reject all these arguments in fluent legalese but take a while to get to it, possibly leaving Mike Maggio free to roam. It doesn't matter which route is chosen by his lawyer pro tempore so long as it makes it possible for the ever dilatory Mr. Maggio to stay out of jail for still more time in the free world.

In the meantime, the family of the lady in the nursing home--Martha Bull by name--whose death set off this sad train of events, waits and waits for justice in her case. "This is not the end," the family's attorney says, and they are still "confident in the system." Unlike so much of the public that waits and waits for justice with them. Justice for Mike Maggio, and, yes, for Martha Bull.

Editorial on 07/08/2017

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