by Glynn Wilson

The Bush Justice Department’s investigation of Democrats who also serve in the state Legislature fell apart on Monday, when the first case of its kind against Rep. Sue Schmitz ended with a hung jury and a mistrial. Here’s the link to the early AP story.

The jury told U.S. District Judge David Proctor twice last week that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, but just like Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller did in the Siegelman-Scrushy case, he sent them home to think about it over the weekend and issued a dynamite charge urging them to do their best to reach a verdict and not allow a mistrial.

Upon their third written request today, Proctor relented.

“I think we’re at the point where we need to declare a mistrial,” Proctor said, then granted a motion for mistrial filed by Schmitz’s defense team.

Ms. Schmitz is a life-long Democrat from Toney in north Alabama, near Huntsville, where she was a well-liked school teacher for many years. After being caught up in a local political scandal due to a Republican takeover of the local school board, she took a job in the community college system to stay in the Alabama Retirement System, according to sources who know her and are familiar with the facts in the case.

In a series of highly political cases designed to take over the Legislature by the Alabama Republican Party, brought against Democrats in the Legislature who also work in the community college system, Ms. Schmitz was accused by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, a Bush appointee and a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, of being paid $177,000 over three years. They claimed she did not do enough work in the program to help troubled teens and, in a bit if Karl Rove-style political spin, they called her a “double-dipper” who was being paid that salary plus her pay for serving in the Alabama Legislature, as if that were a crime.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Athanas, who works under Martin, claimed the prosecutors plan on bringing the case to trial again, although that is doubtful, according to legal experts.

“The prosecution had no case at all,” said New York attorney and writer Scott Horton, who has followed the Justice Department scandals for Hapers.org. “The great surprise was that the court allowed this case to go to the jury in the first place.”

Schmitz was the first legislator to be tried in the political federal investigation of Alabama’s two-year college system. Former state Rep. Bryant Melton, D-Tuscaloosa, pleaded guilty to charges that he used his legislative discretionary money for personal gain and has been sentenced to 15 months in prison, according to the conservative AP. He agreed to testify against Schmitz in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Another legislator, state Sen. E.B. McClain, has been charged with conspiracy and is scheduled to be tried Jan. 12 in Birmingham. His trial may also now be in doubt, considering the hung jury in Decatur.

According to Birmingham attorney Doug Jones, who is representing other legislators targeted in the Alice Martin-Bush Justice Department probe, the mistrial puts a serious block on what the prosecution thought would be a “slam dunk.”

“Any mistrial is a setback for the government, but this one has to give them concern about going forward on a number of fronts, not just a possible re-trial,” he said. “Regardless of the breakdown of the jury vote, this mistrial calls into question the entire theory of the government in trying to make performance in employment that the government doesn’t think was up to par into a crime. The entire trial seemed more like an employment hearing than a criminal trial.”