Friday, November 23, 2007

Disclosures

My first trial blog was June 28, 2007. My first words were:

Disclosure First: Tom was a student of mine a while ago. I don't remember when I talked to him last. However, I have been disturbed by this case since the beginning. I haven't blogged about this, in part, because I can't talk about anything I learned about Tom through our student/teacher relationship which is the only relationship I've had with him. I decided I should go to court and hear the evidence for myself. What I say here is strictly reporting what I saw in court, stuff anyone who went could have seen.
We nodded to each other in the courtroom and shook hands a couple of times, but said nothing more than pleasantries. But I did want to talk to him before he leaves for his incarceration and so I emailed about a week ago. We talked on the phone for a couple of hours and Monday he came over for lunch.

When I started blogging, the separation between my life and my blog was ambiguous, but it really didn’t matter because I wasn’t writing about public topics and hardly anyone was reading the blog. That changed when I started blogging the trials.

At this point, since I have been writing about public events, I do think I need to be open about relationships I have with people I write about. On the other hand, my interest in talking to Tom was not about getting material for the blog. He was my student and that relationship takes precedence over the blog. There may come a time when we both feel that it is appropriate to post something about Tom here. At this point I simply want to be open about the fact that someone I have blogged about extensively and I are having conversations, even though they will not appear in the blog.

With Tom’s permission I’ll just say that I’m convinced that Tom clearly understands that he has broken the law and violated the public trust. He’s still going back through all the things he could have done differently at every step of the way - from saying “No” to Bobrick and flat out rejecting Prewitt, to whether he should have continued to work with the agreement to help the prosecutors. And he’s still frustrated in the disparity in time different players are likely to spend in prison. I think this is probably normal for someone who has screwed up and is now trying to move on. There's stuff you have to work through. I've already commented in several posts at the obvious imbalance of power in court between the resources of the government and those of the defendants. My conversation with Tom makes it clear that even those of us who sat through all three trials only saw a small portion of what all went on before everyone got to court. Perhaps more than the tip of the iceberg, but not all that much more.

As Tom looks to the future, he makes me think of the old Peace Corps ads that went something like: "Optimists see a glass of water as half-full. Pessimists see a glass of water as half-empty. Peace Corps volunteers see a glass of water and say, 'I can take a bath with that.'" In terms of optimism and seeing a positive spin on things, Tom would qualify for the Peace Corps. But I think that his ability to see the good and block out the bad is partly what got him into trouble.

Second disclosure: I've also mentioned very briefly here that I have three UAA honor students who are doing a directed studies class with me. We've been meeting, generally over dinner, with people from different academic fields and different professions to find out how their fields deal with the idea of truth. What meaning(s) does truth have in their fields? What criteria do they use to measure it? How do they know it when they see it? We have a couple of justice students in the small group and so last night our guest was Mary Beth Kepner, the FBI agent who has coordinated the Alaska political corruptions investigations and who has been at the prosecutors' table at all the trials. I had a chance to talk to her during a break in the trial and asked if she'd come to class. What she said last night was focused on the concept of truth more than the cases. We both were clear that whatever she said was not going to the blog. But as I said above with Tom, since I have been writing about the trials and am still writing about topics that arose at the trials, I feel that I need to disclose when I meet with people involved in the trials. Even if I that's all I can put on the blog.

2 comments:

  1. Another great post... I think the title of the movie comes from a "toasting" phrase (I am tempted to say it is an Irish toast -- but when I thought about it not sure why I would say that necessarily), anyway the full toast goes something like

    "May you be in heaven a hour BEFORE THE DEVILS KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD."

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  2. I do not personally know any people involved the corruption cases. I know people who know Tom Anderson's father, who of course is prominent in the community. I think in Tom's case (and again speaking without personal knowledge of the people) that it seems that what led him to this point was his weakness, not inherent corruption or spite or meanness. And what I know of his personal life, based on news stories, is that he was weak in his personal life, too. He left his wife for another woman, with whom he had a relationship that was known in Juneau (and statewide because of the infamous bowling score fight). As a woman, I'm probably attaching more importance to that relationship than should be - but a man who would take his marriage vows so lightly would probably take other areas of morality rather lightly. (I know, I know, spoken like a woman - we never forget - or forgive.) I took an oath years ago when I was in the Navy, and I still remember the Admiral who said - "There are few things in life that are so important that you must take an oath." That was one, when I married was another. And I think there is a swearing-in for legislators, also. So there were two oaths that Tom Anderson broke - the one to the state, and one to his first wife.
    Again, I don't think Tom Anderson - or the other legislatures - are necessarily evil personified. I think they are just weak. But their actions, resulting from the weakness, were absolutely wrong.

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