Bush's gift to trial lawyers

“By saying that the sentence was excessive, I wonder if Mr. Bush understood the ramifications of saying that,” said Ellen S. Podgor, who teaches criminal law at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla. “This is opening up a can of worms about federal sentencing.”

By yesterday morning, in fact, Mr. Bush’s arguments for keeping Mr. Libby out of prison had become an unexpected gift to defense lawyers around the country, who scrambled to make use of them in their own cases.

Indeed, Mr. Bush’s decision may have given birth to a new sort of legal document.
“I anticipate that we’re going to get a new motion called ‘the Libby motion,’ ” Professor Podgor said. “It will basically say, ‘My client should have got what Libby got, and here’s why.’ ”

Bush did not run his decision through his own Justice Dept., where there is a special section for just such actions. Not having that legal input; Bush simply blundered ahead.