Last week, the Justice Department moved a federal court to reconsider its ruling that Scott Bloch, formerly the head of the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel, be sentenced to at least a month in jail after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor contempt charge.
The contempt charge resulted from what the Justice Department described as Bloch's "willful[] and unlawful[] withholding [of] pertinent information from" the U.S. House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform in 2008.
Bloch pleaded to a misdemeanor charge under 2 USC 192, which provides:
Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.
The sentencing court interpreted the foregoing statutory language to require a miminimum of a month imprisonment for a misdemeanor congressional contempt charge.
Usually, the government is the one arguing for stricter and stiffer sentences. Not so here. The Justice Department is asking the court to abide by the deal struck with Bloch for probation and argues that the absence of language found in other statutes indicates that probation is permissible under the statute. For example, the Justice Department argues, other sections of U.S. Code include the following language to clarify that probation was not an option: "Notwithstanding any othe provision of law ... a court shall not place on probation any person convicted of a violation of this subsection." Such language, the Justice Department points out, is not present in 2 USC 192.
The hearing on this issue apparently is scheduled for Thursday, March 10, 2011.
