-Caveat Lector-
Key Whitewater Witness Faces Arkansas Prison
NewsMax.com
Monday, Dec. 11, 2000
The state conviction of David Hale, a key witness in the
Whitewater scandal, has been upheld by the Arkansas Supreme Court
on a minor legal technicality.
Hale, one of special counsel Kenneth Starr’s witnesses in the
federal Whitewater trial of former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker,
businessman Jim McDougal and McDougal's ex-wife, Susan, must
spend 21 days in a state prison because his lawyers failed to
make a timely motion, the court ruled in a 6-1 decision issued
late last week.
Hale was the chief cooperating witness in the independent counsel
probe of the Clintons known as "Whitewater."
Hale's testimony led to the convictions of the Arkansas trio on
fraud and conspiracy charges.
Hale had received federal immunity from federal prosecutors.
But a quirk in the law allowed Arkansas state prosecutors to
prosecute Hale on local charges.
In an apparent act of political retribution, Hale was convicted
in 1999 of making false or misleading statements to state
insurance regulators.
He appealed the conviction on the grounds that prosecutors had
improperly questioned him about his role in the Whitewater
matter.
He claimed that federal prosecutors had granted him immunity from
future federal prosecutions in exchange for his cooperation with
the Whitewater investigation.
Hales said that in using information from his federal case, the
Arkansas prosecutors acted wrongly.
Without judging the merits of Hale’s claim, the court held that
he or his lawyers had failed to object to the questioning in a
timely matter, and had waited too long to raise the point.
Justice Annabelle Clinton Imber wrote that Hale’s lawyer failed
to make timely objections to prosecutors' questioning of Hale
about his role in the Whitewater scheme. She wrote that the
questioning continued for a full 23 pages in the transcript
before any objection was raised.
Despite the court's rulings, the Arkansas legal action is
unprecedented, according to legal experts. States, typically,
honor federal immunity.
Defenders of Hale say the state action against him was meant to
punish him for his testimony against the Clintons and other
Arkansas Democrats.
Hale, a former Little Rock judge, charged publicly that Bill
Clinton pressured him into making a fraudulent, federally backed
$300,000 Small Business Administration loan to Susan McDougal.
Starr, however, refused to consider bringing charges against the
president unless Hale's claims were supported by another,
credible witness.
One possible witness was Jim McDougal, who died in prison
shortly after agreeing to cooperate with Starr.
Hale has already served a 24-month federal prison term after
pleading guilty in 1994 to conspiracy and mail fraud.
Hale has had two heart attacks and uses a pacemaker. He continues
taking life-sustaining medications.
The Arkansas court agreed to allow him to wait until there was
room in a state prison for him to serve his 21-day sentence
instead of making him wait in a local jail cell to begin serving
his time, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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FROM THE DESK OF:
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