Prometheus 6

I have a friend in San Francisco that I may have to visit soon...but California is getting to be as crazy as Texas.

BART 'N-word' bombshell waiting to go off
Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists
Monday, June 29, 2009

(06-28) 17:20 PDT -- Overlooked in the court hearing that ended in former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle being ordered tried for murder in the slaying of Oscar Grant was testimony about another officer's explosive outburst just 30 seconds before Grant was shot.

One of the videos made by riders at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year's Day caught Officer Tony Pirone standing over the prone Grant and yelling, "Bitch-ass n-."

Pirone and his attorney say he was parroting an epithet that Grant first hurled at him - though Grant's voice is not audible on the tape.

The sound-enhanced tape shows Pirone delivering a shoulder chop to Grant and bringing him to the ground. Pirone can be heard saying twice, "Bitch-ass n-, right?"

Prosecutors showed the tape in court on the last day of Mehserle's preliminary hearing, but the headlines went to the judge's decree hours later that there was enough evidence to send Mehserle to trial for murder.

Under questioning from Mehserle's attorney Michael Rains, Pirone insisted it was Grant who had first "called me a bitch-ass n-."

Asked if he had repeated the slur to Grant, Pirone testified: "I don't remember, but it very well may have happened."

"Is that something you would have initiated on your own, calling him names?" Rains asked.

"No, I don't talk like that," Pirone said.

Oakland attorney John Burris, who is representing Grant's family in a lawsuit against BART, called Pirone's words "shocking and disturbing."

"Pirone was out of control," Burris said, "assaulting Oscar Grant and taunting him with racial slurs, and none of the other officers seemed to put him in check."

Baltimore Officers Win Settlement In Discrimination Suit
City Must Pay For Consultant To Track Cases
POSTED: 10:56 am EDT June 24, 2009

BALTIMORE -- The Baltimore City Council's Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved a $4.5 million settlement on behalf of 15 former and current police officers who filed a racial discrimination lawsuit.

Sgt. Louis H. Hopson Jr., a 28-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, along with 14 fellow African-American police officers, filed suit in December 2004 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, alleging a pattern and practice of racial discrimination in the department dating back 12 years.

The plaintiffs charged the police department with creating a hostile work environment, retaliating against whistleblowers and engaging in disparate disciplinary actions.

The settlement requires Baltimore city to pay a $2.5 million cash award and spend an additional $2 million to upgrade the police department's training and record-keeping, as well as employ an independent consultant to monitor its internal disciplinary system.

Dash-Cam Video Released in Scuffle Between Oklahoma Trooper, Paramedic
Posted: June 17th, 2009 01:25 PM GMT-05:00
By SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press Writer

OKLAHOMA CITY --

Bothered that an ambulance driver failed to yield to him as he raced to provide backup on a call - and angered further when he thought the driver flipped him an obscene gesture - state Trooper Daniel Martin decided to stop the ambulance and give the driver a piece of his mind.

What Martin didn't know then, his lawyer said Monday, was that there was a patient in the back of the ambulance.

"He's not this ogre, this depriver of people's rights," the trooper's attorney, Gary James, said. "He's a good man."...

Martin's attorney said the trooper - whom he described as a decorated sailor and a 15-year law enforcement veteran - didn't realize there was a patient in the ambulance until well after the situation had intensified. He either didn't hear it or it didn't register, he said.

Martin was trying to make a legitimate traffic stop, James said, when White became hostile, refused to comply with the patrolman's orders and caused the situation to spiral out of control.

[P6: Are we surprised the cop in Oklahoma simply ignored the Black guy?]

Three Georgia Officers Resign After Taser Incident
Posted: Friday, June 19, 2009
Updated: June 19th, 2009 05:50 PM EDT

LOGANVILLE, Ga. --

Channel 2 Action News reporter Pam Martin has obtained surveillance video of a stun gun incident involving a Gwinnett County police officer at a Loganville Waffle House.

Danny Wilson, a Waffle House employee, alleges that Officer Gary Miles Jr. came into the restaurant while on duty and stunned him with a Taser without provocation. Wilson said Miles was a regular at the restaurant and had taunted and intimidated him in the past.

Miles, who resigned from the Police Department this week after six years on the force, later surrendered to investigators. Gwinnett police said an internal investigation revealed Miles used a Taser on Wilson without provocation.

Two additional officers were identified as being present during the Taser incident. Sergeants Joey T. Parkerson, 39, and 41-year-old Christopher T. Parry both resigned following an administrative investigation. Parkerson was a 13-year veteran of the force and Parry was a 14-year veteran.

He and his girl got hit with heavier charges than his parents and brother...but they had guns, which automatically reduces your charges.

By the way, you really should go to the other side of these links for the comments, keeping in mind these are MY neighbors talking.

2 hit with drug charges after raid at Staten Island apartment
by Staten Island Advance
Friday June 19, 2009, 5:22 PM

Two people were nabbed yesterday morning in an apartment in Staten Island's New Springville section with cocaine and marijuana, prosecutors allege.

Arthur Santopietro Jr. and Trady Ferriaoullo, both 26, were arrested during a 5:15 a.m. raid on Windham Loop.

A law-enforcement source could not confirm whether Santopietro is related to the Arthur Santopietro who was arrested less than an hour later on drug and weapons charges in a raid of a Tottenville home.

According to court records, officers armed with a search warrant found 11 small plastic bags of cocaine in a bedroom. Also recovered in the bedroom was a digital scale commonly used to weigh drugs. Police seized a marijuana cigar in the bathroom.

The defendants were charged with two felony counts of drug possession, along with misdemeanor counts of drug possession and criminally using drug paraphernalia. They also are accused of marijuana possession, a violation.

Family members busted on drug and weapon charges, Staten Island authorities say
by Staten Island Advance
Friday June 19, 2009, 3:41 PM

Three members of a Tottenville family were arrested on drug and weapons charges when cops raided their home Thursday.

Busted on Wards Point Avenue were Arthur Santopietro, 65; his wife, Karen Santopietro 59, and their son, Scott Santopietro, 32, authorities said.

A law-enforcement source said Arthur Santopietro was the target of the 6 a.m. raid.

According to court papers, officers found four weapons in a downstairs bedroom -- a semiautomatic handgun and .32-caliber revolver, both loaded, along with a .22-caliber rifle and .30-caliber rifle, both unloaded. They also seized 170 rounds of handgun and rifle ammunition.

A law-enforcement source said officers discovered a bottle of heroin in Scott Santopietro's second-floor bedroom and small plastic bags containing cocaine residue in another second-floor bedroom.

He has convenient explanations for everything that was found: He keeps drain opener because frequent head-shavings clog sinks; Sudafed because his girlfriend was sick; and the camp-stove oil was for an upcoming camping trip.

Staten Island man on the lam from the law
He and gal pal head West after South leaves a bad taste in their mouths
Thursday, June 18, 2009
By PHIL HELSEL
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

Bonnie and Clyde they're not.

But a man formerly from Great Kills and his girlfriend "on the lam" from a Mississippi methamphetamine case claim they were set up by a small-town sheriff, and vowed yesterday to keep on trucking to the West Coast.

Tom Tancredo Staffer Pleads Guilty to Karate-Chopping Black Woman
By David Weigel 6/1/09 10:49 AM

For years, conservative writer and activist Marcus Epstein has worked with the mainstream of the immigration restrictionist movement. He wrote speeches for former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) during his presidential bid, and he’s still working as the executive director of Tancredo’s Team America PAC, alongside Bay Buchanan. Epstein has been targeted for years by civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the One People’s Project, who have obtained Epstein’s guilty plea to a hate crime he committed two years ago.

From the U.S. Attorney’s factual proffer:

On July 7, 2007, at approximately 7:15 p.m. at Jefferson and M Street, Northwest, in Washington, D.C., defendant was walking down the street making offensive remarks when he encountered the complainant, Ms. [REDACTED], who is African-American. The defendant uttered, “Nigger,” as he delivered a karate chop to Ms. [REDACTED]’s head.

Epstein has pled guilty and will be sentenced on July 8, although he changed his plea to water down an admission of guilt into the belief that “the government could prove me guilty.” A spokesman for Team America PAC confirmed that Epstein is still at work until he leaves for law school in the fall, and an official statement is forthcoming.

Tancredo has taken a large public role in criticizing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, telling MSNBC that the judge “appears to be a racist.”

I went to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinal to check out Child-care providers with criminal past getting licenses, state funds (from the accompanying pictures, one would assume all the guilty parties are Black women). I wandered around the site as I am wont to do and found this bit of reporting, actually part of a series...the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinaldoes a lot of investigative series(es?). It was connected to the child care story (another series) by this bit:

Crime family reaps child-care cash

Several years before she opened her Milwaukee day care center, Shalanda Lock went by the name "Pleasure." Police and prosecutors say she danced in strip clubs and sold sex across the Midwest. And she isn't the only day care provider with ties to convicted crime boss Michael Lock.

• Audio: Reporter Raquel Rutledge talks to Nicole Brown.
• Photos: Lock's day care connections
• Section: The Preacher's Mob
• Section: Cashing in on Kids

The Preacher's Mob
The rise and fall of a Milwaukee crime boss
By John Diedrich of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: May. 16, 2009

Michael Lock seemed born to lead. He grew up in his grandfather's church and gave his first sermon at age 8. He was a star on the basketball court, could charm any girl and made his first buck selling men's suits. After high school, he opened a barbershop, a home-repair business and began amassing a small empire of property.

But Lock turned his skills and charisma to crime, hatching a diverse, vicious operation known as "the Body Snatchers" – even as he remained tight with his grandfather's church.

It's not like we haven't known this caps on medical malpractice damages don't work for quite a while now. Not only do they fail to produce better medical results, they don't even produce lower malpractice insurance rates as they should.

Tort Reform and Its Impact on Medical Malpractice Insurance
Will Non-Economic Damage Caps Help?
March 2003

The medical malpractice insurance industry is definitely in crisis, with many insurers refusing to cover hospitals and physicians. This scarcity along with skyrocketing costs are thought to be the result of numerous professional liability claims and lawsuits. Tort reform proponants list non-economic damage caps as the number one medical liability reform measure. However, non-economic damage limitations have their greatest impact on lowering hospital, and other institutions’, rates rather than those rates assessed to physicians.

Breaking news  — October 27, 2004
Nation's Largest Medical Malpractice Insurer Declares Caps on Damages Don't Work, Raises Docs' Premiums;
Douglas Heller, (310) 392-0522 ext. 309
Smoking Gun Document Exposes Insurance Industry Lies

Santa Monica, CA -- The nation's largest medical malpractice insurer, GE Medical Protective, has admitted that medical malpractice caps on damage awards and other limitations on recoveries for injured patients will not lower physicians' premiums.

The insurer's revelation was made to the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) in a regulatory filing obtained by FTCR. The revelation was contained in a document submitted by GE Medical Protective to explain why the insurer planned to raise physicians' premiums 19% a mere six months after Texas enacted caps on medical malpractice awards. In 2003, Texas lawmakers passed a $250,000 cap on non-economic damage compensation to victims of medical malpractice caps after Medical Protective and other insurers lobbied for the change.

According to the Medical Protective filing: "Non-economic damages are a small percentage of total losses paid. Capping non-economic damages will show loss savings of 1.0%." The company also notes that a provision in the Texas law allowing for periodic payments of awards would provide a savings of only 1.1%. The insurer did not even provide its doctors that relief and eventually imposed a rate hike on its physician policyholders.

Obama Open to Reining in Medical Suits
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The American Medical Association has long battled Democrats who oppose protecting doctors from malpractice lawsuits. But during a private meeting at the White House last month, association officials said, they found one Democrat willing to entertain the idea: President Obama.

In closed-door talks, Mr. Obama has been making the case that reducing malpractice lawsuits — a goal of many doctors and Republicans — can help drive down health care costs, and should be considered as part of any health care overhaul, according to lawmakers of both parties, as well as A.M.A. officials.

It is a position that could hurt Mr. Obama with the left wing of his party and with trial lawyers who are major donors to Democratic campaigns. But one Democrat close to the president said Mr. Obama, who wants health legislation to have broad support, views addressing medical liability issues as a “credibility builder” — in effect, a bargaining chip that might keep doctors and, more important, Republicans, at the negotiating table.

Seriously, though...this should have come out of Friday, the traditional day for releasing avoidable stupidity. Because I HATE having to pull all this together at 6 AM.

Former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, who joined the board of the Holocaust museum in January, likened von Brunn to the assailants at Columbine High School in 1999 and at Virginia Tech in 2007 -- "cases of individuals pursuing their own political agenda, no matter how disturbed they are" -- in contrast with domestic groups across the political spectrum who pose a terrorist threat.

If von Brunn acted alone, Chertoff said, "we certainly need to make sure we deal with it from a security standpoint, but it's not the same thing as talking about international terrorism on the other end of the scale. These are all security issues, but it's important to . . . treat them as separate kinds of problems."

They certainly are different kinds of problems.

Domestic terrorism is far more dangerous...no smuggling of people or equipment necessary, no way to stop you from buying all the weapons you need to execute your plan.

Uncertainty in Law Circles Over New Rules for Judges
By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Lawyers across the country said Tuesday that a Supreme Court ruling on conflicts of interest among elected judges could prompt a deluge of requests for judges to recuse themselves from cases. But judges predicted that few situations would involve conflicts serious enough for the new ruling to apply.

On Monday, the court ruled that judges must remove themselves from cases that involve people who donated huge sums to help them get elected. While judges and lawyers might disagree on the consequences, legal experts said that either way, scrutiny would increase.

“You’re going to see a much greater analysis put to the campaign contributions that elected judges get,” said H. Thomas Wells Jr., the president of the American Bar Association.

I got a daughter. Sue me.

Kansas: Convicted Rapist Is Found Dead in Jail Cell
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A man facing nearly 30 years in prison for raping three women who had advertised on Craigslist’s former “erotic services” section apparently committed suicide in his Kansas jail cell, sheriff’s officials said. The man, David Lee Gage, 52, of Wichita, was found dead at the Sedgwick County jail early Monday after another inmate who was headed to breakfast looked through the window to Mr. Gage’s cell and saw his motionless body, said Maj. Glenn Kurtz of the county sheriff’s office. The office did not immediately say how Mr. Gage died, except to say that he apparently killed himself.

Veteran LA police detective charged with murder
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
The Associated Press
Monday, June 8, 2009 11:33 PM

LOS ANGELES -- A veteran detective was charged with murder Monday in the slaying of her ex-boyfriend's wife in 1986 - a crime that went unsolved for more than two decades as she rose through the Los Angeles Police Department ranks.

Detective Stephanie Lazarus, 49, could be sentenced to death if convicted of breaking into the victim's condominium on Feb. 24, 1986, and repeatedly biting, beating and shooting the woman.

Lazarus, who joined the force in 1983, was identified as a suspect through a recent DNA match of saliva taken from bite marks on Sherri Rasmussen's body, said Deputy Chief Charlie Beck.

Lazarus' husband, Scott Young, who works as a detective in the San Fernando Valley, knew nothing about the slaying, Beck said.

"None of us blames him. I don't know if he's been interviewed yet, but he will be, as will a lot of people," he said.

"This was what I call a contempt-of-cop arrest," Burris said. "The cop doesn't like your attitude."

Questions about BART's need to arrest victim
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, June 6, 2009

Should Oscar Grant have been arrested in the first place?

That was one of the chief questions raised by prosecutors and Grant's family during a preliminary hearing that sent former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle to a murder trial for shooting the unarmed train rider while arresting him Jan. 1.

The hearing ended Thursday with an Alameda County judge saying he did not believe Mehserle's assertion that he accidentally shot Grant in the back after mistaking his Taser for his pistol.

Colleagues of Mehserle, 27, testified at the seven-day minitrial that if Grant had cooperated with police, he could have walked free after he was detained at Oakland's Fruitvale Station in the wake of a fight on a train.

Officer Tony Pirone, who made the decision to arrest Grant, said the 22-year-old supermarket worker from Hayward changed his fate when he tried to escape, called officers profane names, disregarded commands and kicked Pirone in the groin.

But Alameda County prosecutor David Stein took issue not only with Grant's death, but with the way he was treated beforehand.

During a long and barbed cross-examination, Stein asked Pirone, "Isn't it true that you posed more of a threat to Oscar Grant than he ever posed to you?"

Pirone admitted that he did not initially tell investigators about Grant's alleged kick - not in a Jan. 1 interview or during a walk-through on the platform Jan. 4.

U.S. Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic
By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON

In years of bitter public debate, the department has sometimes seemed like a black-and-white moral battleground over torture. The main authors of memorandums authorizing the methods — John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury — have been widely pilloried as facilitators of torture.

Others, including Mr. Comey, Jack Goldsmith and Daniel Levin, have largely escaped criticism because they raised questions about interrogation and the law.

But a closer examination shows a more subtle picture. None of the Justice Department lawyers who reviewed the interrogation question argued that the methods were clearly illegal.

Anti-Abortion Activists Worry That a New City Law Will Make Their Task Harder
By JULIE BOSMAN

About 80,000 abortions are done annually in New York City, according to state health statistics, but these days it is far from the center of the national abortion debate. The city is not known for abortion-related violence, and when an abortion provider is shot dead, as was Dr. George R. Tiller in Wichita, Kan., last Sunday, it can feel like it happened in another country.

But 36 years after Roe v. Wade, the abortion war goes on, even in a small way in New York, where next month, a new city law will take effect that could make it easier for anti-abortion demonstrators to be arrested if they restrict access to a clinic or harass people attempting to enter.

The decision to transfer Marsh and Sullivan, while leaving in place the other members of the Stevens team, has produced grumbling among some lawyers in the criminal division and elsewhere at the department, according to two other sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing probes.

The sources said the fear was that lower-level attorneys were being sacrificed by new political appointees at the department who are now applying more rigorous standards on evidence-sharing practices than were in place before.

Oh, you mean the attorneys that were screened for their political beliefs? The incompetant ones?

I hope like hell they ARE being focused on.

Two in Justice's Integrity Section Transferred
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 6, 2009

Justice Department leaders quietly transferred two career prosecutors under fire for their work in Alaska corruption cases out of the department's public integrity section this week as scrutiny of the troubled unit intensifies, according to two sources.

Prosecutors Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan received notice of their reassignment Thursday, the same day that department officials petitioned an appeals court to release from prison two Alaska legislators convicted of bribery and extortion offenses, said the sources, who requested anonymity to speak about the personnel issue.

The criminal convictions of Peter Kott, former speaker of the state's House of Representatives, and longtime legislator Victor Kohring will be sent back to a lower court for review. Justice Department officials disclosed late Thursday that they had uncovered evidence-sharing lapses in the cases similar to those that demolished their case against long-serving Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in April.

Marsh, Sullivan, and Alaska-based assistant U.S. attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke worked on the Stevens case and on the trial team that secured convictions against both Alaska lawmakers two years ago.

Legal analysts who followed those prosecutions pointed out that the government had bolstered its cases by presenting to the jury audio and video recordings of the lawmakers allegedly accepting cash and favors from executives at an oil-services company.

Lawyers defending political figures have already sought a review of their cases and called for the leaders of the Justice Department's public integrity team to be removed. Both William Welch, the section's chief, and Brenda Morris, its principal deputy, played oversight roles on the Alaska cases. They have not been moved from their leadership posts, although judges in the District have suggested that there will be an eventual change in management.

Parole Actions By Gonzales, Commission Are Faulted
By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 6, 2009

A convicted murderer whose parole was rescinded should be released because then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and the U.S. Parole Commission engaged in a string of improper and unlawful actions to keep him behind bars, a federal magistrate has determined.

In a harshly worded opinion on Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Susan S. Cole of Atlanta wrote that the parole commission showed bias in its dealings with Veronza Bowers Jr., a former Black Panther serving a life sentence in connection with the 1973 slaying of a federal park ranger near San Francisco. Gonzales intervened to keep Bowers in prison after a memo from then-Commissioner Deborah Spagnoli, a former White House aide. Cole concluded that the attorney general "had no statutory or regulatory authority" to seek a review of the matter.

"The impartiality of the Commission as a whole was affected by the actions of Commissioner Spagnoli, the Attorney General and others," Cole wrote.

"The taint on the Commission's decision-making could not be eradicated simply by an order from this Court directing the Commission to grant [Bowers] a new parole hearing." As a result, she wrote, the decision to keep Bowers imprisoned "cannot stand."

Once upon a time you could have trackback and pingbacks and such that truly make the blognet a big conversation. Then guys like this showed up.

"Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest," the FTC said.

The FTC also said that not only was 3FN hosting sites promoting illegal activities, but that its owners and operators were directly facilitating and brokering those businesses.

I am glad they got busted.

FTC Sues, Shuts Down N. Calif. Web Hosting Firm

In an unprecedented move, the Federal Trade Commission has taken legal steps to shut down a Web hosting provider in Northern California that the agency says was directly involved in managing massive global spam operations.

Sometime on Tuesday, more than 15,000 Web sites connected to San Jose, Calif., based Triple Fiber Network (3FN.net) went dark. 3FN's sites were disconnected after a Northern California district court judge approved an FTC request to have the company's upstream Internet providers stop routing traffic for the provider.

In its civil complaint, the FTC names 3FN and its various monikers, including Pricewert LLC -- the business entity named on the 3fn.net Web site registration records. The FTC alleges that Pricewert/3FN operates as a "'rogue' or 'black hat' Internet service provider that recruits, knowingly hosts, and actively participates in the distribution of illegal, malicious, and harmful content," including botnet control servers, child pornography and rogue antivirus products. 3FN also operates by the names APS Telecom and APX Telecom.

In an interview with Security Fix, FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz said the agency's action targets one of the Web's worst actors.

"Anything bad on the Internet, they were involved in it," Leibowitz said. "We're very proud, because in one fell swoop we've gone after a big facilitator of some of the utterly worst conduct."

The FTC chairman confirmed that this was the first time the agency had sought and been granted an order to shut down an Internet service provider.

Charges dropped in black man's dragging death
By JEFF CARLTON
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 4, 2009 8:39 PM

DALLAS -- Murder charges were dropped at the prosecution's request Thursday in the dragging death of a black man in east Texas, and the two white men who had been accused of killing him were released from jail.

Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley were released Thursday afternoon in Paris after a judge granted the special prosecutor's motion to dismiss the case. The two men had been charged with fatally striking 24-year-old Brandon McClelland with a pickup truck in September following a late-night beer run the three friends had made to Oklahoma.

The case was hampered by a lack of eyewitnesses and physical evidence. Last month, a gravel truck driver gave a sworn statement acknowledging he might have accidentally run over McClelland.

Report of Motive in Recruiter Attack
By JAMES DAO and DAVID JOHNSTON

A 23-year-old man charged with killing one soldier and seriously wounding another in a shooting outside an Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., was once detained in Yemen for possessing a fake Somali passport and other counterfeit documents, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Yeah, it was a Black guy whose gun didn't kill the soldier. The question I got is

Mr. Muhammad has been charged with one count of capital murder and 15 counts of terroristic acts in Monday’s shooting, in a parking lot outside the recruiting office.

Why is this guy a terrorist and not Scott Roeder?

Or will they judge according to what they think the law should be?

A litany of affidavits from prosecution witnesses now tell of an investigation that was focused not on scrutinizing all suspects, but on building a case against Mr. Davis. One witness, for instance, has said she testified against Mr. Davis because she was on parole and was afraid the police would send her back to prison if she did not cooperate.

Death Penalty Disgrace
By BOB BARR

THERE is no abuse of government power more egregious than executing an innocent man. But that is exactly what may happen if the United States Supreme Court fails to intervene on behalf of Troy Davis.

Mr. Davis is facing execution for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Ga., even though seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony against him. Many of these witnesses now say they were pressured into testifying falsely against him by police officers who were understandably eager to convict someone for killing a comrade. No court has ever heard the evidence of Mr. Davis’s innocence.

After the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit barred Mr. Davis from raising his claims of innocence, his attorneys last month petitioned the Supreme Court for an original writ of habeas corpus. This would be an extraordinary procedure — provided for by the Constitution but granted only a handful of times since 1900. However, absent this, Mr. Davis faces an extraordinary and obviously final injustice.

This threat of injustice has come about because the lower courts have misread the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a law I helped write when I was in Congress. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, I wanted to stop the unfounded and abusive delays in capital cases that tend to undermine our criminal justice system.

With the effective death penalty act, Congress limited the number of habeas corpus petitions that a defendant could file, and set a time after which those petitions could no longer be filed. But nothing in the statute should have left the courts with the impression that they were barred from hearing claims of actual innocence like Troy Davis’s.

It would seem in everyone’s interest to find out as best we can what really happened that night 20 years ago in a dim parking lot where Officer Mark MacPhail was shot dead. With no murder weapon, surveillance videotape or DNA evidence left behind, the jury that judged Mr. Davis had to weigh the conflicting testimony of several eyewitnesses to sift out the gunman from the onlookers who had nothing to do with the heinous crime.