Staff writer
sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
McMURRAY - U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton began to feel faint in the days after the trial ended for Scooter Libby, and his days of presiding over the high-profile case were over.
Walton went to see the courthouse nurse, who measured his blood pressure at such high readings that he was on the verge of suffering a stroke or heart attack.
"I guess the stress of the event did take its toll," said Walton, a Donora native who spoke Tuesday at Washington County's observance of the 50th anniversary of Law Day.
The pressure on Walton began to mount even before Vice President Dick Cheney's national security adviser entered his courtroom in January 2007 to face trial for obstruction and perjury in the federal investigation into the CIA leak of the agent Valerie Plame's name.
Some members of the traditional media, and especially bloggers, predicted that Walton would go easy on I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby because the judge had been appointed to the bench by President Bush.
"I had no idea who (Libby) was," said Walton, 59, adding that he actually had been randomly assigned to the case and learned about it while leaving the courthouse at the "end of the day."
"I had no idea ... the impact the case would have on my life over the next several years."
Walton, the son of a steelworker, said the media came to the trial in droves, and he feared the amount of publicity generated about the case in Washington, D.C., would compromise the ability to select a fair and impartial jury.
Fearing the worst, he called the prosecutor and defense team into his chambers and all but issued an order gagging them from holding news conferences on the case.
"The media didn't like that. I knew it could spiral out of control," Walton said while speaking at a luncheon with the county bar association in Valley Brook Country Club, Peters Township.
Then came nearly three months of private hearings to whittle through some 2,000 documents to determine which could be presented to the jury without compromising national security.
The pressure on Walton only increased after the trial began. Representatives from 17 different national security agencies came to court, along with guards with devices to block out external listening devices. Libby arrived with some 19 attorneys. Reporters came from as far away as Russia.
"Dealing with the media was one of the biggest challenges I had to deal with. When I walked in ... I saw all these news reporters listening to every word I had to say."
In the end, Libby was found guilty and sentenced to a 30-month prison sentence that was commuted by President Bush.
"I'm not upset. That's our system. I believe in the system."