Commander Swift concluded that the commissions were unconstitutional. He did his duty and defended his client. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in June that the tribunals violated American law as well as the Geneva Conventions. The Navy responded by killing his military career.

The Navy gave no reason for refusing Commander Swift’s promotion. But there is no denying the chilling message it sends to remaining military lawyers about the potential consequences of taking their job, and justice, seriously.

The Cost of Doing Your Duty

During the recent debate over how to handle the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, the Bush administration made a lot of noise about its commitment to fair treatment for the detainees and its respect for the uniformed lawyers of the armed forces. Anyone who believed those claims should consider the fate of the Navy lawyer whose integrity helped spark that debate in the first place.

I never thought that serving the ideals of the Constitution made you soft or tough on crime. In this gubernatorial race, it is important for the voters to recognize that the governor should aspire to serve the ideals of the Constitution because it is the Constitution that governs us all. Respecting the Constitution doesn't make you soft or tough -- it only makes you just and fair.

Righting a wrong isn't being `soft' on crime
By Ralph Martin II | October 8, 2006

PEOPLE MAKE mistakes in life, and evaluating them long after is the pursuit of critics galore.

Bush Judges Confirm Opponents' Fears
Report Documents Impact of Bush-Nominated Appeals Court Judges

Federal appeals court judges nominated by President Bush are threatening and undermining Americans’ rights and liberties, and working to reduce congressional authority to protect those rights and liberties, according to a legal analysis published today by People For the American Way Foundation.

“President Bush has fallen far short in keeping his promise to appoint judges who will interpret the law, not make it,” said People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas. “Judges nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate are undermining Americans’ rights, liberties, and legal protections.”

The report, Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears , covers cases decided between September 1, 2004 and May 31, 2006. It provides a significant update to preliminary analyses of Bush-nominated judges that PFAWF published in 2004. The new report documents that troubling trends identified in earlier reviews have continued as more Bush appointees gain more experience and tenure on the appellate courts – more and more opinions seek, sometimes successfully, to cut back broadly on Americans’ rights under our Constitution and laws.

In the Old South, though, they would call them sheriffs instead of judges.

“I just follow my own common sense,” Mr. Buckley, in an interview, said of his 13 years on the bench. “And the hell with the law.” 

In Tiny Courts of New York, Abuses of Law and Power
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Some of the courtrooms are not even courtrooms: tiny offices or basement rooms without a judge’s bench or jury box. Sometimes the public is not admitted, witnesses are not sworn to tell the truth, and there is no word-for-word record of the proceedings.

The report quotes girls who had worked as prostitutes who felt they were singled out by male staff members. A number of those girls complained of harassment, unwanted touching and sexual contact.

One girl, identified as Ebony V., who was 16 at the time of her confinement, recalled in the report an episode in which she was having sex in the office of a male staff member at Lansing when another male employee walked in on them. “He said: ‘Oh, oh, oh, oh I’m sorry’ and closed the door. It’s crazy, isn’t it?” the report quotes her as saying.

One of the most stinging criticisms leveled by the report centers on the use of a face-down restraint. The report describes how girls are seized from behind and pushed to the floor, their arms held in place or put in handcuffs. The restraint is used for such infractions as not making a bed properly or not raising one’s hand before speaking, the report said...Mr. Marchetti said restraints were used to prevent harm and also to “de-escalate situations.”

In New York, a Report Details Abuse and Neglect at 2 State-Run Centers for Girls
By LISA W. FODERARO

Lansing and Tryon. They are among the most secure facilities in New York State for girls who have crossed the law — remote state-run institutions located far from New York City, where most of their inmates are from. And to the girls who are sent there, the facilities are notorious.

“They restrain you for no reason,” Antoinette, a 17-year-old, said in an interview last week. She was confined at Tryon Girls Center, near Albany, after she was found to have committed a robbery. “They throw you down and mush your face into the floor,” she said. “It’s just like having rug burns on your face. They make girls cry and are always doing strip searches.”

Click that image...it links to the guy that kept the issue alive.

Maye's death decree tossed
Man convicted in cop slaying to get new sentencing hearing
By Jerry Mitchell

POPLARVILLE — A judge on Thursday threw out the death sentence of a Prentiss man convicted of killing a cop in a 2001 drug raid and handed Cory Maye a second chance of avoiding lethal injection.

After a two-day hearing in Pearl River County Circuit Court, Judge Michael Eubanks ruled that Maye's trial attorney, Rhonda Cooper of Jackson, did not represent her client adequately during the penalty phase of Maye's 2003 trial.

Eubanks overturned the sentence, ordered a new sentencing hearing and said he would rule on the other matters raised by Maye's new defense team later.

That's all. 

Effort to Combat Child Pornography Would Close Web Sites
By KURT EICHENWALD

As part of the battle against the spread of child pornography on the Internet, an initiative has begun allowing for the shutdown or blocking of sites offering illicit images of minors, even in cases where no criminal investigation is being conducted.

The initiative, expected to be announced today at a Congressional hearing, is part of an effort among a group of Internet service providers and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Until now, the decisions to close child pornography sites were ad hoc, based on thousands of referrals to the service providers and the Cybertipline of the center.

I'm...sorry, that's Bob Ney. Jefferson is a Democrat, Ney is a Republicker. Critical difference, eh?

Another difference: everyone called for Jefferson to step down. The Republickers fully support Ney, who confessed to being drunk enough to sell the influence of his office yet sober enough to hide it well for years...

Okay, that may be unfair. There was so much corruption going on it didn't take sobriety to hide it. Call it hiding in plain sight.

Anyway, the Lead Republicker in the House of Representatives is leaving the matter up to this confessed criminal's conscience . And as soon as he finds where he left it, I'm sure he'll turn it on again and make the right decision. Yup. I'm sure he will.

Judicial Politics Run Amok

Contests for important state judgeships around the country are getting nastier, more partisan and tons more expensive. Monied interests seeking to influence court decisions are spending lavishly to boost preferred candidates, much as they do in campaigns for regular political office. Today’s round of judicial elections in Washington State points to the seriousness of the problem and its threat to judicial integrity, independence and impartiality.

With three seats on the Washington State Supreme Court up for grabs, a record amount of money — some $2 million — has poured in to underwrite the contested races. Some of the television and radio attack ads against the incumbent chief justice, Gerry Alexander, were so unfair or misleading they would have seemed out of line even if the contests were for local alderman instead of a lofty position on the state’s highest court. The inevitable result: reinforced ties between would-be judges and their partisan supporters, and diminished public respect and confidence in judicial decision making no matter which candidates win today.

“The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar’s case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion,” Justice O’Connor wrote in a three-volume report, not all of which was made public. “They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar’s case in a less than forthcoming manner.”

Canadians Fault U.S. for Its Role in Torture Case
By IAN AUSTEN

OTTAWA, Sept. 18 — A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

He would have known to stop when you have enough.

Soon after meeting Mr. Jackson in late 2000, Mr. Jefferson prodded the Pentagon to test one of iGate’s products, documents show. He recruited investors and did favors for iGate’s leading supplier. He also lobbied political leaders in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon to include iGate in telecommunications projects, while repeatedly urging the Export-Import Bank of the United States to finance the deals.

And each time the company seemed poised to take off, records show, Mr. Jefferson sought a greater share of the potential profits for his family.

His wife, Andrea, had a marketing contract with iGate; their eldest daughter did legal work for iGate and one of its investors; and Mrs. Jefferson’s brother-in-law was iGate’s chief engineer. Even before the congressman brought up the takeover proposal, he had arranged for a consulting firm owned by his wife and five daughters to receive nearly 31 million shares of iGate stock, roughly a quarter of the company, at no cost, documents show.

Some of the charges stem from a sheriff’s investigation of the night of Aug. 26, when the home of Evans Welch, a man with a history of mental illness and petty crimes, was attacked by a sledgehammer-wielding group of young men without warning or permit.

Witnesses said Mr. Melton, who often patrols the city at night with the police and a group of teenage followers, had directed the demolition of the house, which he said was known as a place to buy illegal drugs. His two police bodyguards are also charged in connection with that event.

Jackson Mayor Is Indicted Over Crime-Fighting Tactics
By SHAILA DEWAN

ATLANTA, Sept. 15 — The mayor of Jackson, Miss., was indicted on six felony charges Friday after months of criticism and warnings that his unorthodox crime-fighting tactics might put him on the wrong side of the law.

Among the counts now faced by the mayor, Frank Melton, are burglary, malicious mischief, illegally carrying a gun and causing a minor to commit a felony. The most serious of the charges against him carry sentences of up to 25 years, said the local district attorney, Faye Peterson.

The mayor’s supporters called the charges politically motivated and said he would not resign.

What can I say?I like some types of pain.

Supreme Court to Post Same-Day Transcripts

This is progress. The Supreme Court has announced that beginning next month, it will post transcripts of oral arguments the same day they are argued. They will be available free on the court's website.

 

George linked What happened to black San Francisco? at Negrophile. It's a little long for web reading, but you should read it. I'm just very serious about the title here. Not to underplay the fact that it gets really, really fucked up in Bayview sometimes. The article doesn't ignore that. I just think it give you a pretty good sense of the people there.

My short time in the Bay Area gives me much sympathy for the Bayview/Hunter's Point residents POV. You want not to believe in an actual plan to move Black folk out of the city, but when an urban renewal plan looks 10 years into the future and says there will be an order of magnitude fewer Black folk, that is NOT a prediction. It is the repercussions of choices consciously made. When they tear down your home, give you a voucher guaranteeing you a spot in the planned replacement then let the project lay fallow for five or more years...in almost each and every case...it's hard to believe the 'guarantee' was made in good faith.

Sought-after items named in the search include hats or other garments bearing the phrases "CBC," "Corrupt Bastards Club" or "Corrupt Bastards Caucus." What the names referred to was unclear, and authorities would not comment.

FBI searches offices of 6 Alaska lawmakers, including son of U.S. senator
Updated 9/1/2006 3:57 PM ET

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The offices of at least six Alaska legislators, including the son of Sen. Ted Stevens, were raided by federal agents searching for possible ties between the lawmakers and a large oil field services company, officials and aides said.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Jaclyn Lesch said Friday the searches began Thursday and were continuing Friday. FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said a total of 20 search warrants were being executed across Alaska, but would not say where.

Roskam sneers at the street products in the United States, which he considers overpriced and badly blended. But he acknowledges there’s one feature in the American market he can’t compete with.

“Drugs are just less interesting here,” he said. “One of my best friends here never smoked cannabis, never wanted to even try my products. Then when she was 32 she went to America on holiday and smoked for the first time. I asked her why, and she said: ‘It was more fun over there. It was illegal.’ ”

[TS] The Czars’ Reefer Madness
By JOHN TIERNEY

AMSTERDAM

Arjan Roskam, the creator of the award-winning marijuana blend named “Arjan’s Haze,” has dozens of pictures of celebrity visitors on the wall of his coffee shop in Amsterdam. He’s got Eminem, Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys, Mike Tyson — but so far, unfortunately, not a single White House drug czar.

Throw their asses in jail...three strikes, all the way!

States list meth offenders on Web
Posted 8/23/2006 12:15 AM ET
By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

States frustrated with the growth of toxic methamphetamine labs are creating Internet registries to publicize the names of people convicted of making or selling meth, the cheap and highly addictive stimulant plaguing communities across the nation.

The registries — similar to the sex-offender registries operated by every state — have been approved within the past 18 months in Tennessee, Minnesota and Illinois. Montana has listed those convicted of running illegal drug labs on its Internet registry of sexual and violent offenders since 2003. Meth-offender registries are being considered in Georgia, Maine, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington state and West Virginia.

Find all these thieves and burn their asses.

Ex-Chief Of Schools in Pr. George's Is Indicted
Hornsby Accused Of Kickback Scam
By Eric Rich and Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 23, 2006; A01

A federal grand jury indicted former Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby yesterday on charges of steering school business to associates in exchange for kickbacks that were intended to exceed $100,000 and possibly include expensive art, a yacht or other indulgences.

The indictment, announced on the county's second day of school, is the result of an investigation that helped drive Hornsby from office one year ago. It centers on two alleged schemes, both of which had been disclosed in broad strokes after questions arose in 2004 about Hornsby's stewardship of the third-largest school district in the region.

Tuskegee Airmen Still Waiting
Monday, August 14, 2006; A11

 

Five months after Congress voted to bestow its highest honor on the Tuskegee Airmen -- pioneering aviators who during World War II broke the color bar banning black pilots in the U.S. military -- the Congressional Gold Medal is still not in their hands.

"Every time you pick up a newspaper, one or two more are gone," said retired Lt. Col. Spann Watson of Westbury, N.Y. "We'd like people who are still living to be able to receive them. I want to get my medal in my hand."

"There is some concern," said retired Col. Lee Archer, 84, of New Rochelle, N.Y., the nation's first black combat ace. "Since Congress approved it, I know of three people who have passed on and will never see it. But I have no intention of dying before we get the medal."

The Ethicist at the New York Times:

My father always told us kids that we were “part Indian.” After his parents died, his stories grew even grander. My brother took them seriously enough to apply and get in to grad school as an American Indian. As time has passed, this has proved to be untrue. Does he have an obligation to repay any grants or other privileges received? Name Withheld, Portland, Ore.

Or to put it another way: should the sins of the fathers be visited on their very pale children? Your brother cannot be faulted morally for believing what his father repeated throughout your brother’s childhood. It is your father who did wrong, in a small way, by indulging in a kind of ethnic boasting.

I can see it now...Peter will be like, "Hey Lucy...you got a purdy mouth..." 

Ms. Edwards and Mr. Berlin will spend six months in home detention in New Jersey. They must make restitution of $685,000 to the Internal Revenue Service and pay fines of $20,000 each.

Probation in Money-Laundering Case
By BLOOMBERG NEWS

A former officer at the Bank of New York and her husband were sentenced to five years’ probation yesterday, almost six years after they admitted conspiring to use the bank to launder more than $7 billion from Russia.

The executive, Lucy Edwards, 48, who was a vice president of the bank and based in London, and her husband, Peter Berlin, 51, who ran companies with accounts at the bank, pleaded guilty in February 2000 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating money laundering.

In Latest Turn of Mob Case, Ex-Detectives May Go Free
By ALAN FEUER

When Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa appear in court today to ask a judge for bail, a pair of questions will be buzzing in the air.

The first is fairly simple: Will these two retired detectives, defendants in the so-called Mafia Cops corruption case, actually go free?

The second is more complex: How is it possible that — after an indictment, a monthlong federal trial, a jury verdict that determined they had murdered for the mob and life sentences for both — there is even a chance that they could be released?

The answer to the first will await a ruling by Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who presides in the case. The answer to the second is this: Last month, Judge Weinstein issued an astonishing acquittal in the case, arguing that even though the men were icy killers, the statute of limitations in their case had effectively run out.

"While the government wants to say that this was somehow a planned event, it's clearly the result of a tremendously stressful environment where soldiers are subjected to the most horrendous acts of violence by the insurgency," Sheldon said, describing a unit that was in disarray, with leadership problems and outside threats. "They were extremely young soldiers who suffered repeated traumatic attacks and saw unimaginable carnage. This was not a crime of opportunity but the result of extreme pressure."

Soldiers Plan to Argue Rape Tied to Distress
Iraq Checkpoint Among 'Most Stressful'
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 21, 2006; A10

EYES ON THE PRIZE, PRODUCED BY BLACKSIDE, RETURNS TO PBS ON AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

First airing of acclaimed civil rights documentary series since 1993
PBS Press Tour, Pasadena, CA, January 14, 2006 – PBS, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, and Blackside today announced the return of the award-winning "Eyes on the Prize," a landmark series documenting the history of the civil rights movement. Originally broadcast on PBS in 1987, "Eyes on the Prize" will air on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in fall 2006 as part of the series' 19th season. Three, two-hour programs will be presented this fall, with an additional eight hours made available at a later date.

As it happened, poverty's turn in the presidential limelight was brief. Bush has talked little about the issue since the immediate crisis passed, while pursuing policies that his liberal critics say will hurt the poor. He has publicly mentioned domestic poverty six times since giving back-to-back speeches on the issue in September. Domestic poverty did not come up in his State of the Union address in January, and his most recent budget included no new initiatives directed at the poor [P6:...well, other than burying them].

Bush's Poverty Talk Is Now All but Silent
Aiding Poor Was Brief Priority After Katrina
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 20, 2006; A04

I don't feel like thinking too much about this one, so this is the sidebar from the Chicago Sun-Times.

THE BURGE REPORT

Jon Burge in 1992.

Suspects tortured but it's too late for charges
Yes, Chicago Police tortured suspects, but it happened too long ago to charge the officers. And Mayor Daley, who was state's attorney at the time, did nothing "prosecutable" by handing off a request from then-Police Supt. Richard Brzeczek to investigate a murder suspect's torture allegations.

• Brzeczek says he's scapegoat
• Allegations hurt re-election bid, black leaders say
• Burge works for ex-cop's security firm
• Victims's reactions: Lack of charges no surprise
• The players: Many familiar names crop up
• What's next?: Federal charges still a possibility
• The cases: 3 instances worth prosecuting
• Brown: Common thread in Burge, Board news
• The report: Special state's attorney's report (PDF)

The suit accuses the defendants of violating the Wilsons' constitutional and other legal rights as a result of "a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House" to "discredit, punish and seek revenge against" Joseph Wilson for publicly disputing statements made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address justifying the war in Iraq.

As a result of Cheney, Libby and Rove's conduct, the suit claims that the Wilsons have suffered violations of their rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution and by laws of the District of Columbia.

...In addition, the complaint alleges that Valerie Wilson was impaired in her ability to carry out her duties at the CIA, and to pursue her career at the agency in further service to her country, as she had planned. While no specific dollar amount is requested, the suit seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorneys' fees and costs.

The Wilsons Launch Civil Suit Against Cheney, Rove, Libby
by E&P Staff
Published: July 13, 2006 4:15 PM ET

Schrenko steps closer to prison

"I'll probably be paying the rest of my life," she says of restitution
By BETH WARREN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/13/06

Four years after Linda Schrenko assailed Democrats for corruption as she campaigned in the Republican primary for governor, the former state school superintendent is heading to federal prison herself.

Schrenko, who has a few more weeks of freedom before she begins serving an eight-year sentence, said then that accusations of cronyism and corruption against Democrat-dominated state government reflected "a good ol' boy system" that voters would no longer tolerate.

This is not innocent. Prosecutors in general don't like this business of reviewing of old convictions. Too often it doesn't reflect well on them. 

The rape kit, it turned out, was in its original storage bin from 1984, Barrel No. 22, in the same police warehouse that the authorities said they had searched at least three times since Mr. Newton first asked in 1994.

New York Fails at Finding Evidence to Help the Wrongfully Convicted
By JIM DWYER

Alan Newton, a former bank teller from the Bronx, is due to leave prison today after serving 22 years for a rape he did not commit — a victim first of mistaken identification, then of a housekeeping problem of epic scope.