The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review a 27-year prison term given to a former kosher slaughterhouse executive convicted of financial fraud following a huge immigration raid at an Iowa meatpacking plant.
Without comment, justices declined to consider an appeal filed by former Agriprocessors Inc. vice president Sholom Rubashkin as they opened their new term. The decision lets stand Rubashkin’s conviction on 86 counts of financial misconduct and a prison term that could lock up the 52-year-old for the rest of his life.
Rubashkin was convicted in 2009. His arrest came after federal immigration authorities raided the plant and arrested 389 illegal immigrants in 2008.
Rubashkin had argued that U.S. District Judge Linda Reade, who presided over his trial, could not be impartial because records showed she met with investigators to plan the logistics of the immigration raid.
He also argued his prison term was too long for a first-time, nonviolent offender.
Rubashkin hired Paul Clement, a top Washington lawyer and former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, to pursue the appeal, which the American Civil Liberties Union, a group of former attorneys general and other legal experts also supported. Clement’s office didn’t immediately return a phone message.
“This is a sad day for justice in America,” said Des Moines attorney Guy Cook, who represented Rubashkin at trial and is still involved in his defense. “It is remarkable the Court would ignore the many briefs submitted by a cross section of legal experts urging the court to review the case.”
In urging justices to deny the appeal, the Office of the Solicitor General argued Rubashkin failed to prove that Reade should have recused herself or that he suffered any actual bias as a result. Reade has said that she was never informed who the target of the raid would be or where it would take place. Instead, she was involved in bringing in enough judges and court staff to have hearings at an offsite location, the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, which was used because of the large number of defendants.
The solicitor general’s office also noted that Rubashkin’s sentence was within advisory guidelines.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction and sentence last year.
(Source: Telegraph Herald)
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13 Responses
Sadly, this will end the debate and at some point in future, the President will consider granting a pardon or early release. Hopefully, he will not have to serve all 27 years of his sentence. However, no one should attribute this to “anti-semitism” since none of the Justices have ever shown the slightest tendency in that direction. Indeed, the most conservative justices are on record in support of religious causes including many cases brought by frum yidden. SMR’s lawyer is an experienced supreme court advocate and has NEVER suggested this case was about anti-semitism.
You bet this was a sad day for justice in America. Rubashkin received a larger sentence than the CEO’s of Enron and Worldcom! These people hurt the entire stock market to the tune of 100’s of BILLIONS! The CEO of Tyco may only end up serving 8 years! It’s absurd.
I think it is time to get together and try to really vote President Obama out of office. Neither he nor Holder is really responding to our real needs where it counts. They throw us money to try to buy our votes and later ignore our real concerns.
This should be a wake up call for all of us where this country is heading under the current administration.
How sad and unjust, we have only Hashem to rely on and be mispallel for the geula to come soon.
Other than Tefilah, is there anything that wuld be helpful at this time?
My Fellow Yidden. It’s time to wake up grab your bags and run to Eretz Yisroel it’s not a Joke look and see to what’s happening to us Yidden here in the US.
This is all about backing up Linda Reade. Speaking from experience, when someone in the government takes a stand or even makes a judgment which is erroneous and everyone knows that it is erroneous, all the other soldiers in the government will back him up no matter what. They will never admit that a mistake was made. Although you say this was not about anti-seminitism, it assuredly is. Rabbi Rubashkin got a stiffer sentence than the CEO’s of Enron and Worldcom. What other reason could there be for that than antiseminitism? Same with Pollard. He has served more time than even any spy to an enemy nation who did much more harm than Pollard. If these two instances are not examples of anti-semitisim, then I don’t know what is.
Bombard both candidates with requests for pardons.
It’s time for NoBama to go L’azazel!! His administration’s deaf ears are mostly to blame for this injustice.
Only choice we have left to appeal court Shel Mallah!
Reply to No. 3
I have many issues with Obama and Holder but don’t blame SMR’s situation on them. The most conservative Supreme Court in U.S. history reviewed the facts of the case, after it was reviwed by the 8th Circuit, and came to the same conclusion. SMR did this to himself. Don’t blame the President.
My Fellow Yidden. It’s time to wake up grab your bags and run to Eretz Yisroel it’s not a Joke look and see to what’s happening to us Yidden here in the US.
He did a very bad thing got caught and has to do the time. The 27 years is crazy as killers get much less time however; this should teach everyone CRIME DOES NOT PAY. He only has himself to blame and I don’t feel sorry for him just his family. Look at all the fraud in our community before you call it being anti Jewish. We do it to our selfs
and then blame the Govt for catching these wonderful law abiding yidden. Give me a break it’s up to Hashem and Hashem not the Supreme court ruled Rubashkin has to serve 27 years.