I don't know for a fact that Scooter Libby is innocent. But it seems to me that, politics aside, there's plenty of room for reasonable doubt -- as I understand it, the key witness herself didn't remember whether Plame came up (months ago, mind you), and only guessed it from some barely-legible scratchings. And the jury's openly-partisan post-trial remarks didn't do much to inspire confidence.

But if Libby is innocent, as I fear, it would seem that his actual innocence and integrity will stand as one of his largest liabilities:

Under current federal guidelines, Libby's four felony convictions, which stem from an FBI investigation into the disclosure of a CIA operative's identity, would most likely net him 18 months to three years in prison...

Libby is at a disadvantage for the presentencing report, however, because he was convicted rather than pleading guilty. The sentencing guidelines provide leniency for those who accept responsibility for their crimes and cooperate, but since Libby continues to contest his conviction, he will very likely struggle to show remorse about crimes he still contends he didn't commit.

If you are convicted, it's important to agree about your guilt as part of your 'rehabilitiation'. And this is all well and good in cases where evidence of guilt is overwhelming -- but otherwise an innocent person, who is also cursed with integrity, will be forced to either lie through their teeth or suffer for it.

If you doubt me, consider the case of Patsy Jarrett: When she was 23, her at-the-moment boyfriend robbed a gas station and murdered the attendant. But the only "evidence" linking her with the crime was

the statement of an elderly witness who said he saw a car at the time of the crime with someone inside. He didn't know, however, whether the person was a man or a woman.

Jarrett was offered a plea of five to 15 years if she would plead guilty to just the robbery, not the murder. In those days, a plea of five to 15 years meant that absent any serious misbehavior, a person likely would be paroled at five years.

Jarrett told her attorney she couldn't plead guilty to a robbery she didn't commit. She went to trial -- a joint trial with Kelly -- claiming that she had nothing to do with either the robbery or the murder. As she told FRONTLINE, "I believed in the American system of justice. I really believed that you just tell the truth and the judge and jury will hear you and nothing will happen to you."

Jarrett was wrong. In March 1977 the jury found Jarrett and Kelly guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of robbery. They were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Ten years later, Jarrett had become a Christian -- and a sympathetic young law professor had noticed her case and filed an appeal on her behalf. The court apparently agreed: she was offered a plea. All she had to do was plead guilty to the crime (for which she had maintained innocence all along) and she would be released.

"She's a religious woman," says Angelos. "God wouldn't let her do it, it would be wrong, it would be lying and [she said] that she would rather stay where she was than commit fraud just to get out. And I said I accepted her decision and then I left."

After Jarrett refused the plea offer, the state won the appeal and she has remained in prison to serve the rest of her sentence, which may be the rest of her life.

Jarret has since been paroled in 2005, having served nearly 30 years for a crime she apparently didn't commit.

I don't know if I could do what she did, faced with the same tradeoffs. I know this kind of integrity inspires disgust in some people, who think it's the height of stupidity to tell the truth when so much is on the line. I also sympathize with their view, but lean towards Jarret's: I hope I could be that good.

Yet, as Frontline documents, every day, people are sentenced for crimes based on very little evidence. The truly innocent among them, those with the greatest integrity, will certainly suffer the most.