Since I've been writing about this for about a month or so now, I thought I'd offer what seems to be the last of it. Governor Jim Douglas has announced that he's reversing his policy of skipping State's Attorney Robert Sand on major drug cases. The Governor's reasoning: he'd originally thought that instead of exercising discretion, Sand had a blanket policy of sending first time drug offenders with no history to a court-sponsored diversion program.
The governor's excuse is that when the story broke, he was misinformed. Seems he was encouraged by Sand's recent meetings with local (and Sand-supporting) law enforcement. It probably helped that the newspapers around were also flooded with letters chastising the governor as well as prominent folk like Vermont's former Chief Justice taking the governor to task, but if the governor wants to say he was misinformed, well, there you go.
As an interesting side note, kudos to the newspaper the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus for the thoroughness of their coverage here. They pinpointed what actually may have been the cause for all the problems: a local TV station doing what television reporters often do, gloss over the facts. Compare WCAX's coverage on this with the earlier link. So much for checking your facts before going on air, eh WCAX?
General rants about the quality of television news coverage to be had in the comment thread. Buenas suerte!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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1 comment:
yea, I would refer to the Times-Argus as a very expensive pamphlet, but I digress :)
This is actually pretty impressive reporting from them from my limited exposure to them. I know my grandfather was never all that impressed, though he worked for the Free Press in Btown, which is a bit bigger.
Good to see Douglas have to backtrack a bit. He may not be as invincible as once thought....
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