The Watergate cover-up defendants were denied due process in at least one respect: they deserved a change of venue. In this respect I agree with Geoff Shepard, and wrote as much.

With regard to ex parte meetings held by Judge Sirica, some documented and many others not, Shepard’s case would have been strengthened had he talked to lawyers who were in the Watergate Special Prosecution Force—many of whom are still around—and/or elicited the views of legal experts about special prosecutor Leon Jaworski’s secret meetings with Sirica. That Shepard did neither of these things suggests his case is not as cut-and-dried as he makes it out to be. I am not a lawyer, much less a legal ethicist, but I understand that certain ex parte communications were (and are) permitted under law.