The Sacramento Bee Editorials
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Letters to the Editor (Published Sept. 26, 2000)

The case of Wen Ho Lee

Even though Wen Ho Lee is finally free, he has paid a dear price for being a political scapegoat.

We now know the government greatly exaggerated the importance of the data Lee had downloaded, upgrading its classification after the fact, while several FBI agents lied. It is also safe to conclude that some sort of racial profiling was used.

An apology and full presidential pardon should be given to Lee; Janet Reno, Bill Richardson and those who made up the trumped-up charges should be fired; and racial profiling should never again be used to identify suspects.

The cost of Lee's defense has exceeded $1 million. Those who wish to help can send non-tax-deductible donations to Wen Ho Lee Defense Fund, P.O. Box 1663, Santa Monica,CA, 90406-1663.

--Guy M. Wong, Sacramento
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Lee is free, but has justice been served? In his plea agreement, Lee was confronted with a cruel choice: freedom with a felony conviction that arose from selective prosecution, or jail with no foreseeable prospect of going free and the cost of defense mounting each day. And we are faced, after our initial moments of joy, with the bitter irony that this case happened in our land of equal justice under the law, where an individual is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.

There will be no comforting finale to this modern-day David-vs.-Goliath fight. Rather, the denouement may read "might is right" unless President Clinton grants him a full pardon and Congress convenes a bipartisan commission to investigate the case. Only then could the injustice be rectified, though the wrong could never be righted.

--Ivy Lee, Sacramento
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The Lee case is just the latest in a long string of prosecutorial abuses backed by lying police at both the federal and local levels, all of which adds up to a broken criminal justice system. While some individual cases might be explained, the totality of the situation is devastating. How can a juror trust the prosecution and its witnesses when there is this history of fabricating charges and evidence to get a conviction at all costs?

--Peter Lorenzo, Roseville
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