Word: sirica
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...Sirica resolved the matter instinctively, reverting to a career-long tendency to get everything possible on the official record. He summoned his two law clerks, a court reporter, a bailiff, and the probation officer with the letter. Sirica would open it only in their presence and he would read it immediately into the record. As he did so, the implications of McCord's message immediately hit Sirica. "I knew this might throw light on things we suspected but didn't know," he explained later. "It convinced me I'd done exactly the right thing in asking all those questions...
Three days later, Sirica acted on another of his habits: when in doubt, make matters public. He read the McCord letter to a crowded courtroom. McCord had written that he feared "retaliatory measures against me, my family and my friends," said he did not trust the regular investigatory agencies enough to give them the information but felt he must disclose that: 1) political pressures from high
...motivations of the defendants had occurred during the McCord-Liddy trial; and 3) "others involved in the Watergate operation were not identified during the trial, when they could have been by those testifying." After he had read the letter and watched newsmen rush for telephones, the import struck Sirica again, almost like a physical blow. He felt pains in his chest, ordered a recess in the proceedings and retired to his chambers to rest...
...Sirica then deferred sentencing McCord. But in the most controversial act in his entire handling of the Watergate affair, he also kept the pressure on the other convicted conspirators to talk too by giving them harsh provisional sentences ranging up to 40 years. He called their crimes "sordid, despicable and thoroughly reprehensible." He promised to review the sentences later and said that the final sentencing "would depend on your full cooperation with the grand jury and the Senate Select Committee. " Sirica's expressed purpose: "Some good can and should come from a revelation of sinister conduct whenever and wherever such...
Solid evidence that the extreme sentences would not be finally imposed came when Sirica sentenced Liddy, the one conspirator who apparently intended to live up to the omerta training of a clandestine agent by stubbornly remaining silent. Liddy was given a term of from six years and eight months to 20 years. When he was granted immunity against further prosecution and recalled before the grand jury for questioning about other conspirators, he still balked?so Sirica on April 3 gave him an additional prison term for contempt of court. Frankly conceding that he was wielding a judicial club, Sirica said...