And so it goes

Way back on January 4 I told you how the first terrorism convictions in the wake of 9/11 appeared to be unraveling. The judge in the Detroit case, Gerald Rosen, had discovered that the prosecutor, Richard Convertino, had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. Convertino said the information was not relevant only to be rebuked by Rosen, who reminded him that was not his decision to make.

Meanwhile, the US Attorney's office in Detroit claimed they had ordered Convertino to turn over the evidence but he fired back that they were out to get him because he had testified to Congress about terrorism prosecutions. He followed up in February by filing a whistleblower suit against John Ashcroft, charging the Justice Department had interfered with the case and compromised a confidential informant. Everybody, it seemed, was accusing everybody else and Rosen ordered a formal review of the prosecution's conduct.

The result?

The Justice Department has asked a judge to throw out the convictions of a suspected terror cell in Detroit because of prosecutorial misconduct, reversing course in a case the Bush administration once hailed as a major victory in the war on terrorism, legal sources said Tuesday.

The department told U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen that it supports the Detroit defendants' request for a new trial and would no longer pursue charges of material support of terrorism. That means the defendants at most would only face fraud charges at a new trial, the legal sources said. ...

The legal sources, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because the judge in the Detroit case has imposed a gag order, said the department's filing with the court is harshly critical of Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, the lead prosecutor in the case.

The review, it was reported, not only uncovered additional pieces of possibly exculpatory evidence hidden by the prosecution, it revealed that there were deep divisions among prosecutors about the quality of their own evidence.

The internal review ... turned up evidence that some testimony government witnesses gave at trial was wrong or overstated, leading to the decision that terrorism charges could not be supported at a new trial, the legal sources said.

It's axiomatic, but still bears repeating: Zealotry is not an avenue to truth.

By the way: What happens to the months of the two falsely-convicted men's lives stolen from them in pursuit or ersatz victory? Is there any compensation? Redress? Remember, we're not even talking mistake here, we're talking misconduct. Will anyone - anyone at all - pay a penalty for that?