MONTGOMERY, Ala., June 28 - U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller added five to seven years to the possible prison sentence of Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman today - for talking to the media.

Instead of a possible 10 year sentence, Siegelman is looking at the possibility of 15 to 19 years behind bars, simply for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, attorneys said.

The judge is using a system of federal guidelines established for sentencing defendants in federal cases based on a quantitative grid system. It’s a 1-43 point system based on court precedents for average sentences given for different kinds of crimes. Defendants can have time taken off for good works, if they are not considered a flight risk, if they show remorse and other things. Points and prison time can be added if they would be considered a risk to go out and commit other crimes or flee, for example.

U.S. government prosecutors argued that Siegelman had engaged in a “propaganda campaign” to “heap disrespect on this court” by talking to the media while awaiting sentencing, which is ironic considering the propaganda devised by Bush political strategist Karl Rove in his long history of manipulating judicial races in Alabama.

Attorney Susan James appealed to the judge to show fairness in the case, and brought up Jill Simpson’s affidavit alleging a conspiracy at the highest levels of the federal government to get Siegelman (reported on extensively below). She said the defense team had not intended to bring it up until the appeal, but the aggressive nature of the Bush Justice Department’s prosecution of Siegelman and the proposal to add more time to his sentence compelled them to bring up the issue to get it on the record.

Sentencing is expected tonight. There’s no free wireless Internet access in the federal courthouse in Montgomery, so for now, you can read the AP story or follow the case on other blogs and the one below.

The WSFA channel 12 blog, Courtroom Chronicles, is back in business this morning. The judge is on the bench and the action has picked back up in Montgomery with more character witnesses.

We are on the way back to Montgomery today for more original reporting. The sentencing could come today, according to WSFA’s Helen Hammons.

U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller adopted sentencing guidelines Wednesday that could send former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to prison for more than 10 years and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy for more than eight years, according to the AP story.

The judge said Siegelman faces anywhere from 121 months to 151 months with a fine of between $17,500 to $175,000. Scrushy faces 97 months to 121, and a fine of $15,000 to $150,000.

Mr. Fuller does not have to follow the guidelines and can give final sentences that are harsher or more lenient, and he gave no indication of whether he was inclined to allow the defendants to remain out of jail on bail pending the outcome of the appeal

According to the WSFA Courtroom Chronicles blog, which is linked below and now seems out of commission, the trial resumes at 8:30 a.m. with more from lawyers on both sides trying to further reduce - or bump up- the sentencing range.

Then sentencing is supposed to begin in earnest. No word on how long that will take, even from the TV news.

[Updated at 6:04 p.m.]

Woops! Wait…

There’s Alan Collins now, in his dapper hat and suit. He say’s the sentence “could come on Thursday, but it could drag into Friday.”

Here’s a vignette from the overflow courtroom in the federal courthouse in Montgomery from Tuesday, plus a couple of wire stories from today.

During an afternoon break in the main courtroom where the action is going on, I went over to the overflow courtroom down the hall to check in on the “mainstream media.” Most of the reporters covering this trial mostly stay in that room, where they can have their laptops handy and watch the entire proceedings on a TV screen. This includes the free-lance reporter working for the New York Times, who never sat foot in the main courtroom on Tuesday.

The problem is, it’s kind of hard to cover the trial from there, since the audio is a tad iffy on the lawyers and the witness stand.

Many of the members of the media, especially photographers and the broadcast reporters, simply hang out in front of the courthouse in the vigil to find out what the sentence will be. For many news organizations, that’s all they care about: How long will the feds throw former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy in jail? And how soon?

Well, when I went into the overflow courtroom, there were only three reporters there. But being the joker that I am, I said, in jest, “I just thought I would come over here and harrass the mainstream media.”

In response to that, ole Bob Johnson with the Associated Press looked up, smiled and said: “Well, you’ve come to the wrong place. We’re just the Alabama media that is covering up the whole, real story.”

Now ole Bob is not one to cover anything up on purpose, I don’t think. But I must say, it is hard to glean what is really going on from his wire reports.

Can you make heads or tails of this?

AP: Prosecutors Say Siegelman, Scrushy Have Shown No Remorse
AP: Sentencing Hearing Resumes for Siegelman, Scrushy

One more story on Bob Johnson. Back during the trial of Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore, I was kicked out of a press conference because I was not on the official invitee list Moore’s PR people had put together to try and spin the story for the print media. You can read about it here. It was pretty funny.

Well, later on, during the Scrushy trial in Birmingham when I was covering that story for the New York Times, I ran into ole Bob on the street one day on the way back from lunch and had a conversation with him about that day.

He sort of dismissed me on that story, saying the local press had already “heard it all” and were not very interested in my questions, since they had all been asked and answered. But that is not true, because no one ever asked Judge Moore the question I wanted an answer to and never got.

That is, how do two small town Alabama lawyers and Sunday school teachers like himself and Hugo Black come to such drastically different conclusions about the meaning of the Constitution? Bob never asked any question like that and neither did anybody else. In fact, in all my days of popping into Montgomery to cover political and legal stories over the years, I’ve never seen ole Bob ask any questions at all.

Mostly, he tends to use the same old background paragraphs over and over again and never really do new, original news stories to inform readers in any detail about what is going on. Maybe that’s why people think the Alabama press is not getting the story.

I don’t know if it is laziness, incompetence or someone higher up telling them no one is interested in the gory details on these stories. But it certainly makes it hard to find out what’s really going on in Montgomery.

Will someone down there please explain this quantitative formula Judge Mark Fuller is using to arrive at the prison time for Siegelman and Scrushy? If you don’t understand it Bob, ask a damn question or two.