Earlier today I posted two versions of what Charles Pickering did in that cross-burning case, one from Byron York in National Review and the other from People for the American Way. Here's a third version -- a March 2002 article from Michael Crowley in The New Republic. The New Republic and National Review articles overlap somewhat in their accounts of Pickering's contact with the Justice Department's Frank Hunger, but NR characterizes the contact as legitimate and harmless while TNR describes the same discussions as "a serious no-no, according to several prominent law professors." To NR, Pickering was virtuously trying to correct a sentencing disparity brought about by Justice Department officials who erroneously hyperextended a defendant's sentence; to TNR, Pickering was a zealot, violating judicial ethics to shorten a proper sentence.

I know which version I believe. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing more versions of this story.