Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 21, 1990 TAG: 9007210166
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Poindexter was convicted in April on similar charges of having lied to Congress about his role in the scandal and sentenced last month to six months in jail. He plans an appeal along the same lines that North and his attorneys successfully pursued.
The North case raises questions for legislators probing future scandals who must now weigh the benefits of public exposure against the threat of overturned convictions.
Like North, Poindexter testified on Capitol Hill under a grant of immunity from prosecution. U.S. District Court Judge Harold H. Greene has allowed Poindexter, a former Navy rear admiral, to remain free while his five felony convictions are appealed.
North, a former Marine lieutenant colonel and a folk hero to many conservatives, was convicted on May 4, 1989, on three of 12 counts stemming from the Reagan administration's secret effort to sell arms to Iran and use the proceeds to aid the Nicaraguan Contras.
The divided three-judge appeals panel rescinded outright North's conviction for altering and destroying sensitive national security documents. It found that U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell erroneously instructed the jury by limiting North's claims that his actions were authorized by his superiors.
In setting aside the remaining two counts, the appeals panel, in a 2-1 decision, held that North was denied a fair trial because of potentially improper use of his widely publicized testimony before Congress in 1987.
It ordered trial Judge Gesell to hold a "witness by witness" hearing into whether the evidence presented at North's lengthy trial violated his constitutional right against self-incrimination.
In filing a sharply worded dissent, Chief Judge Patricia Wald, a Democrat named to the court during Jimmy Carter's presidency, said: "I, on the other hand, am satisfied that North received a fair trial - not a perfect one, but a competently managed and a fair one."
But she was overruled by federal appellate court judges Laurence Silberman and David Sentelle, both Reagan nominees.
North, in Baton Rouge, La., to campaign on behalf of a local candidate, said: "I am certainly glad that the last three counts against me have been overturned in Washington. . . .It has been for my family and me three and a half long years of a bitter legal ordeal. We have been under virtual siege. I certainly hope the special prosecutor ends it now."
On the two charges still pending against North, it will be up to the trial judge - after the hearings ordered by the appellate court - to decide whether North's constitutional right against self-incrimination had been violated by improper use of his congressional testimony.
by CNB