Got another one of those online political sites for ya. Alliance for Justice.

The Alliance for Justice is a national association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, women's, children's and consumer advocacy organizations. Since its inception in 1979, the Alliance has worked to advance the cause of justice for all Americans, strengthen the public interest community's ability to influence public policy, and foster the next generation of advocates.

One really fun thing they do is track all the nominees for the federal bench at Independent Judiciary (and they've been at it since 1985…when they say independent, they mean it). For instance, in late March this year 60 Minutes did an interview with Charles Pickering they found offensively misleading—unbalanced is how they phrased it; here's one and a half of five pages:

In Sixty Minutes Mike Wallace and Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr., tried to erase Pickering’s forty-year record of hostility to civil rights. In last night’s story, Wallace allowed to go unanswered a number of misstatements made by Pickering and his supporters regarding his role in reducing the sentence of a convicted cross burner and omitted an extensive list of actions Pickering has taken over the course of his legal and judicial career that, considered collectively, present a devastating portrait of insensitivity to and ignorance of issues of race.

Cross-Burning Case
Wallace attempted to recast Pickering’s actions in pushing prosecutors to drop an arson charge against Daniel Swan, a convicted cross burner, that carried a mandatory five-year penalty. Judge Pickering stated on the program that he was appalled by the sentence he would be forced to impose on Swan compared with the lenient plea-bargain deals to the two he regarded as the main culprits of the crime. But in giving Pickering the microphone without refutation, Sixty Minutes omitted that:

The other two defendants pled guilty, while Swan, the defendant for whom Pickering went to bat, decided to take his chances on going to trial. Disparate sentences routinely result when one party opts to plea and the other goes to trial.

• The other two defendants were differently situated from Swan. One was a minor, and the other had diminished mental capacity. Swan was the only competent adult involved in the commission of the crime.


• Swan played a key role in executing the crime. Among other salient facts, he obtained the wood, built the cross, carried the cross in his truck, doused the cross with gasoline, and burned the cross in the couple's yard. He did not actually light the cross because he had gasoline on his hands.

Pickering asserted on the show last night that he acted appropriately in seeking leniency for Swan. Far from singling out a cross burner for leniency, Pickering argued, he was showing the sort of leniency he has demonstrated in other cases in which he lowered sentences for African-Americans who have been convicted of crimes.

• In fact, in imposing lower sentences on defendants convicted in other cases, Pickering was acting within the discretion given him by federal law. In the cross-burning case, however, Pickering went beyond what he is permitted to do under the law. Pickering tried to circumvent the mandatory minimum through off-the-record threats and ex parte phone calls to force prosecutors to drop the most serious charge against Swan. There is no relationship between the actions he took in other cases to reduce sentences under the sentencing guidelines and the extraordinary, extra-legal actions he took on behalf of a convicted cross-burner.

Pickering testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 2002 that when he approved the plea agreement of the minor, who was sentenced
home confinement and probation, he did not know that the minor had fired
gun three months earlier into the home of the victims.

• But according to the Washington Post (May 27, 2003), “the record makes clear that Pickering approved [the minor’s] sentence on Aug. 24, 1994, three months after Swan’s trial aired the allegations against all three men. In addition, the sentencing document—which bears Pickering’s signature—included [the minor’s] admission of guilt for the shooting.”

I'd be less than honest, though, if I didn't let you know what brought them to my attention was a Flash animation.