Fables of the reconstruction

Nothing is Going to Get Better From the Killings of Brown and Garner

I'm glad people are protesting the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, because it shows there are some decent people left in the world, but - real talk now - nothing is going to improve as a result of all this. The media will run these stories for as long as they hold interest or something else happens that takes the focus away, and that will be it. 

Politically, these cases just entrench the status quo, not challenge it. This is a good, forceful presentation of that view:

Policing in America is not broken. The judicial system is not broken. American society is not broken. All are functioning perfectly, doing exactly what they have done since before some of this nation's most prosperous slave-murdering robber-barons came together to consecrate into statehood the mechanisms of their barbarism. Democracy functions. Politicians, deriving their legitimacy from the public, have discerned the will of the people and used it to design and enact policies that carry it out, among them those that govern the allowable levels of violence which state can visit upon citizen. Taken together with the myriad other indignities, thefts, and cruelties it visits upon black and brown people, and the work common white Americans do on its behalf by telling themselves bald fictions of some deep and true America of apple pies, Jesus, and people being neighborly to each other and betrayed by those few and nonrepresentative bad apples with their isolated acts of meanness, the public will demands and enables a whirring and efficient machine that does what it does for the benefit of those who own it. It processes black and brown bodies into white power.

Right. White conservatives want black and brown people either cowed or dead and white liberals want to think this is something aberrant that can be prevented if we just talk, think, and work together. Black and brown people just want to get to and from work or school without getting pulled over, detained, frisked, beaten, or shot. So who is the constituency for change?

Let's take particular cases. The Ferguson prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, tanked the grand jury so that they'd return a no-bill. Is this going to have negative consequences for him? In 2014, he ran unopposed as a Dem. He got 220,000 votes. In the biggest contested election that year, for county executive, the Rep and the Dem both got around 140,000 votes. Pretty much the same story last time he ran in 2010: That was the race when in St. Louis County Jean Carnahan got 195,000 votes and Roy Blount got 167,000, and McCulloch ran unopposed and got 293,000. That is, McCulloch is almost as popular with Republicans as he is with Democrats. Safe to say that McCulloch is going to have the police union on his side in 2018 and there will be no challengers to his right. Maybe the people who control the Democratic party there will be so outraged over this that they will promote a challenger against McCulloch in the primary? No, because the county is only 23% black and white Dems in St. Louis are on the cops' side.

The Eric Garner prosecutor, Daniel Donovon, also tanked the grand jury. He's a Republican, Staten Island is a swing district which leans R, and it's only 10% black. So blessing the killing of Garner will get him pats on the back, not arrows. He could run for Congress and win pretty easily with this on his resume. He'd win more easily because of it. The more people come out to protest against him, the faster his base will rally around him. Letting a white cop skate for killing a black person just helps your name recognition if you're a Republican politician. 

What will change things? Really, I have no fucking idea, but I like this thing Chris Rock said:

Chris Rock: Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.

Q: Right. It’s ridiculous.

Rock: So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

Q: It’s about white people adjusting to a new reality?

Rock: Owning their actions. Not even their actions. The actions of your dad. Yeah, it’s unfair that you can get judged by something you didn’t do, but it’s also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn’t work for.

I'd say that's right; I remember how it was, I was there, I was white, and it was pretty awful. White people are nicer today than they were 40 years ago.  But that took 40 years, and they're not all that nice yet. So in another 4o years, they'll be a little bit nicer, we hope, and it will go on like that until in 400 years or so things actually will be good.  We hope. Maybe.

Some Things to Understand About Guns and Gun Control in America

1. America is a major exporter of small arms. The powers that be in government know that and want to keep it that way. They have no intention of banning the manufacture of guns in the U.S.

2. Arms makers like it when gun buyers get scared about "totalitarian gun grabbers" because it drives up the demand for guns and ammo. 

3. The NRA is not a gun-rights group; it is a PR agency for the gun makers. See #2.

4. Measures like an "assault weapons ban" that restrict guns on the basis of cosmetic features like whether it has a bayonet lug are meaningless security theater.

5. A universal background check - that is, banning the private sale of a gun from one person to another - just means that those sales must take place through a gun shop. The shop gets a fee when it performs this service. A universal background check may or may not make you safer, but it will make gun shop owners richer.

That is all. Carry on. 

Shotgun Divorces

My opinion is that the only thing that could bring down the rate of gun violence - either in mass murders or the regular kind -  is to reduce the number of guns in the country from the current 300 million to ... something drastically lower.  How would you do that? Ban the sale of new guns and confiscate existing ones. There really is no other way; guns are just inherently dangerous items, like cars, and after you do what you can to reduce unlawful and unsafe use, there is an irreducible lump of risk. Leaving aside the pesky Second Amendment roadblock that the current Supreme Court has created for us, let's think about the political and cultural issues involved in such an effort. 

First, you have to line up enough political support to get Congress to pass the necessary legislation. The NRA aside, about 45% of Americans own at least one gun. The vast majority of them probably feel like they are not the problem, and don't want to give up their weapons. On the other hand, you have a fairly small group of people who would be full-tilt in favor of outlawing guns, with everyone else maybe vaguely supporting it. The gun owners and manufacturers would be highly mobilized and motivated, while the pro-ban forces would have to be self-funded and constantly reminding wavering allies why it was so important to do this. 

Let's say you overcome that obstacle and get the votes necessary to pass a gun ban and confiscation law.  What's the mechanism for identifying and confiscating the guns going to be? As many people don't know, the ATF doesn't have a database of gun owners. Individual gun shops are required to maintain records, but this law will put them out of business, so I doubt all of them will be able to "find" the records you would need to track down the original buyers of guns they have sold. You're going to need to hire a lot more cops and investigators. 

What are the penalties for violating the law going to be? You have to think about how many people are going to become criminals solely by operation of your new law. If 120 million people own guns right now, how many would resist turning in their weapons?  You'd probably have some measure of voluntary compliance. But largely I imagine you'd have to go find the guns and take them by force. What percentage of those incidents will end well? Probably, almost all of them, but the ones which don't ... you get the picture. 

I did leave the Second Amendment to one side, but what about the Fifth Amendment? Confiscating guns is a Taking which requires compensation. How would you determine how much each individual gun seized is worth? What would be the procedure for paying the former owner? How much money are we talking about?

The picture I am trying to paint here is a parallel to the various kinds of prohibition America has tried in the past. Obviously, there are significant differences between guns on one hand and alcohol and drugs on the other - including the fact that it's harder to make your own guns than it is to distill spirits or make drugs. But the same problems come into play. Creating a black market for guns will have unforeseeable consequences. The value of an individual gun will skyrocket. Smuggling will be rampant. And while it is hard to make a gun, it is not impossible.  

When Tragedy Strikes, People Say Stupid Things: The "Let's Confiscate Guns" Edition

In 2007 (seems to be the last comprehensive effort to make an estimate), there were 270,000,000 guns in the United States of America possessed by civilians. Except for the relatively small number of fully automatic weapons (i.e., machine guns), these guns are unregistered. We might be able to find out who the guns were sold to originally, but as we go further back in time that becomes harder, and in any event as guns are sold or stolen the task of further tracing ownership becomes obviously impossible.  Imagine if we suddenly decided to confiscate television sets when almost everyone who owned one didn't want to give them up. That would be the kind of effort that would be required.

I can't help but get lawyerly and add: Even if the Supreme Court decided the Second Amendment didn't protect an individual right to own a gun, confiscating guns would be a taking under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.  How much do you think those 270 million guns are worth? That's how much the United States government would have to pay out to gun owners whose weapons were confiscated.

 

 

Justices Attending Meetings of Political Organizations

Compare:

When the conservative financier Charles Koch sent out invitations for a political retreat in Palm Springs later this month, he highlighted past appearances at the gathering of “notable leaders” like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.

A leading liberal group is now trying to use that connection to argue that Mr. Scalia and Mr. Thomas should disqualify themselves from hearing campaign finance cases because they may be biased toward Mr. Koch, a billionaire who has been a major player in financing conservative causes. 

The group, Common Cause, filed a petition with the Justice Department on Wednesday asking it to investigate potential conflicts by Justices Scalia and Thomas and move for their disqualification from the landmark Citizens United case ... .

Contrast:

On June 8, 2008 more than 1,800 ACLU members, staffers and volunteers flooded in to Washington D.C. to attend the ACLU’s annual membership conference. ...

We got to hear from both clients and the people leading the charge in such diverse fields as Privacy, LGBT issues, Capitol Punishment, Affirmative Action and a whole score of other issues. ...

We also had such stand out guests as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and featured speakers like Arianna Huffington, Senator Arlen Specter, Helen Thomas and Kal Penn among others.

The Common Cause letter to Holder argues that a reasonable person would question Scalia's and Thomas' impartiality in the Citizens United case because (a) their attendance at the Koch retreat was highlighted in the invitation, (b) the Koch retreats are "highly political" and designed to garner support for a particular political course of action, (c) the retreats are secretive and proceedings are unpublished, (c) Koch was the moving force behind Citizens United, which was pending during the retreat Scalia and Thomas attended, and (d) "[r]egardless of the timeframe, we believe it is inappropriate for a Supreme Court judge to be 'featured' at or attend closed-door strategy meetings with political donors, corporate CEOs, candidates and political officials, and thereby lend the prestige of their position to the political goals of that event." The letter separately argues that Justice Thomas' wife's involvement with a conservative political group also is grounds for his disqualification from the Citizens United decision.

I believe that Scalia and Thomas are not "impartial" in any meaningful sense.  They are movement conservatives whose jurisprudence is deeply slanted to reach their preferred politicals outcomes and occasionally is totally unprincipled. But if attending a meeting of like-minded people who are actively involved in pursuing political goals disqualifies a Supreme Court Justice from hearing a case, then Ruth Bader Ginsberg should be disqualified from hearing every ACLU case that comes before the Court. (She doesn't just attend their meetings and speak to their staff and donors, she used to work at the ACLU as the head of the Women's Rights Project!)

Important appellate judges have legal ideologies. People want to hear from appellate judges whose views they agree with. Absent the appearance that the judge is receiving some kind of specific, tangible benefit from an interested party to a case, then I think that these kind of celebrity appearances are relatively harmless.

 

That Cruise Ship Breakdown and the Airport Security Mass Whinge

From a personal injury lawyer regarding potential lawsuits by passengers on that Carnival cruise ship that had an engine room and had to be towed to port:

Although the passengers on the Splendor were inconvenienced by the fire and the elderly undoubtedly suffered the most, sometimes a cruise line will step up to the plate and make a fair offer.  But if you decide to reject it, please don't call us.  Most jurors will not have much patience for vacationers complaining about eating Pop Tarts on a cruise ship, when some of the jurors cannot afford a cruise in the first place and our U.S. troops have been eating MRE meals in the middle of the desert in Iraq and Afghanistan.   

The parallels are obvious.

Supreme Court Holds That 2nd Amendment Applies to States

Unsurprising:

The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution's Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms," advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

By a narrow, 5-4 vote, the justices also signaled, however, that some limitations on the right could survive legal challenges. ...

Still, Alito noted that the declaration that the Second Amendment is fully binding on states and cities "limits (but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values."

Unsurprising, but still incoherent.  The Court declares that there is a fundamental right to keep and bear arms, but signals that government may still limit that right based on "local needs and values".  Imagine applying that standard to free speech cases: "You have a fundamental right to speak and cannot be completely prevented from speaking, but we'll decide on a case-by-case basis whether local restrictions that are less than a total ban are permissible." The only reason the Court is doing this is because it wants to slip this newly-discovered right into the legal framework without generating political opposition from the police and prison industries, which have vested interests in maintaining criminal laws forbidding some people from owning guns.

Belgian Police Raid Catholic Church HQ

Good for the Belgian police. This should have happened years ago in every archdiocese in America:

Belgian authorities on Thursday heightened pressure on the Roman Catholic Church in a sexual abuse scandal, raiding the Belgian church headquarters, the home of a cardinal and the offices of a commission established by the church to handle abuse complaints.

Mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania, Declares "State of Emergency"

There's this thing called the Bill of Rights, you might not have heard of it, Mr. Mayor:

Mayor Wendall N. Butler Jr. said Saturday afternoon he was responding to "an unnerved community reaching out, saying 'Enough is enough.'"

So he has formalized the city's state of emergency until Wednesday, when he expects the full City Council will agree to extend restrictions for 30 more days.

The starkly worded mayoral proclamation says "No person without a legitimate reason is allowed on any public street or in any other public place" between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

No more than three people can gather without obtaining a city permit.

I am unfamiliar with the loophole in the Constitution which grants municipal officials the authority to forbid people from being on the streets at certain times of the day or from gathering in groups of four or more. 

Unfortunately, I doubt the ACLU or any other civil liberties group will challenge this on its face, given the politics of public safety. Perhaps if a sympathetic plaintiff is arrested by the Chester police, then they'll decide it's safe to represent that person and knock the "proclamation" out that way.

Liberal Opposition to Kagan Might Help Her Confirmation

So, Obama nominated Kagan. Glenn Greenwald opposes her on the grounds she is too conservative, arguing with his characteristic restraint and dispassion that the record on Kagan's views is thin but she would move the court "closer to the Bush/Cheney vision of Government and the Thomas/Scalia approach to executive power and law." In other words, we know little about the substance of her views and that proves what her views are. He also says that any Democrat who approves of the pick is the "pure embodiment of mindless tribalism and authoritarianism". Paul Campos argues she is not too bright as a legal thinker and compares her to Harriet Miers. His implication is that Obama is not much smarter. I'm not sure how productive this kind of condescending criticism is, but I guess it puts eyeballs on pixels.

The interesting part to me is, as Ambinder puts it, that "all judicial battles are fought on the right's terrain." Bowers says:

If anything, such opposition [by Greenwald and Campos] would probably help Kagan's confirmation, by making her look moderate, or something.  If progressives want to stop her from being confirmed, the absolute least effective attack will be going after her for being too far to the right.

Far-right legal blogger Steven Bainbridge proves the point:

I don't know very much about Elena Kagan other than that a couple of Harvard folks for whom I have a lot of respect think highly of her. When I look at some of the lefties who are opposing her and their reasons for doing so, however, I'm tempted to conclude that she's the most acceptable--from my perspective--candidate Obama is likely to put forward for the SCOTUS. You can tell a lot about a person from who their enemies are. 

So, yeah, it's hippie-punching. Some hippies are masochists for it, because the more you get punched, the bigger a hippie leader you are. Like Kagan's career moves, it's good for raising their influence without there being a noticeable benefit for the rest of us.

I think Obama nominated Kagan because (a) he knows her well and understands her thinking, and he hates surprises, (b) she probably shares most of his constitutional law views or at least there is a strong overlap, (c) he respects her for keeping her head down and drafting behind the powerful to get to where she is, just as he's done, (d) he thinks that (c) will make her sail through confirmation, and (e) he sees her the way he sees himself: Someone adroit at managing the conflicts among difficult personalities. He figures she will have a good thirty years to form coalitions on her side, away from Roberts; she is the liberal answer to Roberts, the young bureaucratic infighter. Why would she side with the liberals if she's so conservative? Because the conservatives on the Court don't need her. Obama knows from looking into the mirror that people who have sought to be influential all their lives don't stop when the venue changes. The only way to be influential on the Court is to make the cases come out differently than they would otherwise.

Preventable Violence

Apparently, this local guy was found dead in his house; he had failed to show up for his court hearing today on an attempted murder charge related to a road rage incident. Duncan had earlier made a point about how suburbanites routinely call urban, usually black or Hispanic criminal suspects "animals" but would never apply that label to a white engineer who lives in Montgomery County.

My take is slightly different: I wish we could direct some of the massive criminal justice industry funding toward providing mandated psychological care for people who are arrested for behavior like "road rage".  I think that it's especially necessary when people pass a certain age - say, 25 or 30. While a younger person popping off might not be a sign of a major emotional or psychological problem, my instinct is that a 40-something who throws bottles out his car window at other drivers is on a seriously wrong path. I'm not an expert or anything, this is just my impression.

Part of the problem is that people acting like dicks on the road is too common for people to report it. Back in September of 2009, Mr. Yannerell nearly ran a couple of people off the road before throwing the bottle at one of them. One driver wrote down his license plate - then didn't report it. Yannerell had a license to carry a firearm issued to him by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If he had been cited in connection with the September incident, the Montgomery County police could have lifted his weapons permit. There's no guarantee that would have stopped him from carrying a gun, but maybe it would have. As it was, Yannerell probably fired and missed at one driver in January before wounding the woman in April.

Another thing we might do is profile white male conservative engineers.*

* - Just a joke; don't freak, teabagger.

Updated to add:

The kind of incident I am talking about is not just someone losing their temper, however extremely. If someone screams and raves, but doesn't do anything physical in connection with it, then generally I don't think it requires any intervention. (Obviously, if someone flies into rages all the time, I think that warrants concern. There is a line.) But if they engage in behavior like reckless driving, throwing things, whether aimed at a person or not, breaking things, brandishing weapons, or touching or physically threatening another person, then they need help and should get it whether they want it or not. This is the same as my thoughts on domestic violence generally: Action is required the first time it happens. 

Also, obviously, I am not saying the burden for preventing this kind of behavior is on the victim or witnesses. The person with the anger issue should take responsibility for getting treatment. Someone like Yannerell, who was functional enough to hold down a job and was apparently intelligent, should have seen and been frightened by the escalation in his own behavior. If you've acted out on anger, you should (a) realize you have a big, dangerous problem and (b) find a shrink who specializes in anger issues.

The Hard 50 For Scott Roeder

Colloquy at the sentencing hearing of Scott Roeder:

Roeder spoke about shooting Tiller at a church. "They were not holding Tiller accountable for his sins. Reformation Lutheran was not a true church," he said. Roeder then began to talk about members and pastors of the church. Judge Wilbert shut him down once again.

"It only takes one or two sentences to say I didn't believe it was a holy place ... The rest is just political diatribe," Wilbert said. After Roeder said he wanted to address expectant mothers, Wilbert stopped him again, saying, "I'm not going to provide you with an all-night political forum." ...

After Roeder spoke off his notes, Wilbert responded "You killed Dr. Tiller. You're not going to politically assassinate [District Attorney] Nola Foulston. I'm going to draw the line there."

"If you would follow a higher power, you would acquit me," Roeder said.

"If you think you're going to convince me with some last-minute plea, you're wasting your time," Wilbert responded. Wilbert said Roeder should focus on the Hard 50. "That's the only decision left today." ...

[Roeder:] "The blame for George Tiller's death lies more with the state of Kansas, than with me. You may sentence me to 25 or 50 years in prison but it does not serve justice in any way."

Roeder then read from a book by Paul Hill, who killed a Fla. doctor. "I agree with Paul Hill wholeheartedly." "God will avenge every drop of blood that stains Kansas grass," he continued. Roeder quoted the 10 Commandments and other Old Testament scripture.

"Give me liberty to defend the unborn or give me death," Roeder said.

Instead, the judge gave him a mandatory minimum of 50 years for the murder plus 2 consecutive 12-month sentences for assaults on witnesses to the assassination.

Several people testified on behalf of Roeder as character witnesses.  The ones named in the story are David Leach from Iowa, Regina Dinwiddie of Kansas City, Katherine Coons, and Eugene Frye. Each of these people bear watching by the police for any signs that they also are plotting terrorist acts.

As Roeder was taken from the courtroom, he shouted at the prosecutors, ""The blood of babies is on your hands, Nola Foulston ... And Ann Swegle." This is a clear call for their assassinations.

This is what you get when you allow people to use the rhetoric of "abortion is murder." 

Philadelphia Can Breathe Easier Tonight

Susan Finkelstein, the West Philly woman who offered to have sex with a guy if he gave her Phillie's World Series tickets, has been convicted of attempted prostitution. The prosecutor, who is a Yankees fan (no shit!), says it was a good use of resources. 

Grind Exceeding Fine

A incisive argument via illustration about the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad by taddy porter at bitch's place:

Let me explain with a little story about my friend T-.

T- is a working man in his late 40's, a father with three kids. He lives on the north side of Milwaukee, with wife and kiddies in a well maintained brick house in the working class neighborhood of Sherman Park.

To maintain home and hearth and feed three healthy teen agers, T- works more jobs than you can count.

He has a first shift job in a stamping plant on Milwaukee's South Side. After that, he goes to work cleaning offices in downtown Milwaukee. He runs a big floor buffing machine, looks kind of like a zamboni. He does this until 10 or 11 at night.

On weekends, he works at any number of sidelines. He has a snow plowing business. He details cars. He drives taxi. He cleans beer lines (a very lucrative craft, I might add). He mows lawns and does landscaping.

The point is, he is a solid citizen and works all the damned time.

In mid-January, there was a big snowfall in Milwaukee. To T-, that's money in the bank. Around midnight of a Friday, he was sitting in the cab of his Ford F-250, idling at the curb in front of his house, waiting for his helper to show up so he could get started plowing out his clients.

While he waited, he blew himself a big spliff.

At the psychological moment, an MPD TAC Squad cruiser rolled by. The TAC Squad are the heavies for the organs of public security in Milwaukee. They patrol the city late night to suppress threats to the public order. They observed a nimbo-cumulus cloud emerge from the passenger side of T-'s pickup and investigated.

The upshot was that T- was busted for smoking a joint.

The TAC squad lads bundled him into the back seat of the cruiser, wedged between a beefy Polish sergeant on one side and a beefy African-American sergeant on the other. For hours they drove him all over the county while they tried to persuade him to fall in with their plans as follows: they wanted him to make some crack buys for them. At the end of their shift, they would pay him $1000 for his troubles and release him without a stain on his character. It was their assumption, I guess, that any Black person knows where to buy crack. T- is Black and, so, ipso facto, just the man for the job.

T- declined to participate. First, he knew the offer of $1000 was bullshit. Second, he had no fucking idea where to buy crack. He's a working man. Third, he would not have gotten involved even if he did. These crack dealers tend to be bad hombres and its a smart fellow that steers clear of them.

None of this made the least impression on the TAC squad boys. They rode him around till sunup, denying him any contact with his family. In the morning, they took him to jail.

He did not see a magistrate until Monday morning. When he was brought before his honor, it turned out there was no charge or, at least, no charge paperwork, so he was released.

The point of this amusing anecdote is that, for working people, the requirements of the 14th amendment and other pertinent protocols are more often honored in the breach than as a matter of routine. So we don't appreciate being lectured by Mrs Greenspan and Chris Matthews and the rest of the millionaire gasbags on how the minions of the law are tied down like Gulliver by the uncallused wonder that is American justice.

Law enforcement will find a way to make its case, don't even trip. If they would go to those lengths with my friend just to turn over a few penny ante drug-dealers, imagine the schemes they can employ to convict Snuffy Smith. I mean KSM.

We got him. He's not going anywhere.

The idea is to punish him, not the Constitution.

That's some fine snark, right there.

Sen. Dodd's Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United Goes Way Too Far

I was really curious when I saw Dan Tokaji's blurb that Chris Dodd had introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision. (See here, here, here and here.) I wondered how Dodd would handle the balance between free speech and maintaining the integrity of elections. I got quite a shock:

SECTION 1. Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on (1) the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and (2) the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

SECTION 2. A State shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money with respect to State elections, including through setting limits on (1) the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, State office; and (2) the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

SECTION 3. Congress shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation..

This amendment, if adopted, would mean that Congress and the states would have unchecked power to regulate "the amount of expenditures that may be made ... in support of or in opposition to" a candidate by anyone. That language doesn't apply to just corporations, it applies to real people.

The power it grants to government is ludicrously over-broad. As written, the amendment would allow the government to completely ban all election-related speech that involved an expenditure of money, such as operating a blog or printing leaflets. In fact, the government could ban all election-related fundraising, meaning that it could prohibit you from even soliciting donations for your favorite advocacy organization.

The net effect of this amendment is not to overturn Citizens United; it's to overturn every campaign-finance decision on the books and replace it with absolute governmental authority over election-related speech. I'm appalled that Sen. Dodd would even have proposed it. No one in their right mind should support it.

Pennsylvania Appellate Court Overturns Anti-Gay Precedent in Child Custody Case

Good:

A Pennsylvania appellate court has rejected a 25-year-old legal precedent and ruled that a parent's homosexual relationship cannot be used against the parent in determining child custody. ...

It also reversed the lower-court ruling that awarded the father primary custody of their daughter, and granted the appeal of the mother, who is gay, to continue shared custody.

In doing so, the judges overruled a 1985 Superior Court decision that said a parent must prove that his or her gay relationship is not detrimental to the child.

That presumption "is based upon unsupported preconceptions and prejudices - including that the sexual orientation of a parent will have an adverse effect on the child, and that the traditional heterosexual household is superior to that of the household of a parent involved in a same sex relationship," Judge Christine Donohue wrote in the Jan. 21 opinion.

[The 1985 ruling that was overturned rejected the idea that a] "homosexual relationship could ever be the equal of the traditional family as a suitable family arrangement, and indicated that it was 'inconceivable' that a child could be exposed to a homosexual relationship 'and not suffer some emotional disturbance, perhaps severe,' " Donohue wrote.

Lower Merion School District Family That's Suing Has Litigious, Debt-Ridden History

This is a lot of inadmissible evidence with a couple of exceptions:

[The Robbins family] lived in a $986,000 house on the Main Line. [Mr. Robbins], until recently, had earned well more than $100,000 per year. Yet he and his wife were in hock to creditors, ranging from Uncle Sam to their former synagogue - and had regularly been stiffing Peco Energy for five years, breaking payment plan after payment plan.

They repeatedly appealed "unpaid electric and gas bills that by last year were closing in on $30,000" to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. It was the second largest unpaid utility bill in Peco history. They paid off half of it just last week.

In addition to the Peco debt, the PUC noted, the Robbinses had been hit with numerous civil judgments in recent years totaling more than $365,000.

They're into the IRS for $62,692. Even their current lawyer has had to sue them for payment in the past.

[I]t was the apparent failure to pay a fee - a $55 insurance payment to permit the Robbinses' son Blake to take his laptop home from Harriton High School - that might have prompted the district to activate the Web cam.

Ah. That doesn't change the legal issues surrounding (a) not notifying parents and students of the monitoring or (b) whether Harriton High officials used the picture taken for disciplinary purposes outside of the authorized removal of the laptop. But, if true, it could dispose of the accusation that the camera was turned on simply to monitor student behavior.

So, they're spendthrifts with a sense of entitlement seeking to hit a jackpot suing their son's high school, right? Maybe, maybe not. Mr. Robbins' is also suing his former employer for unpaid commissions - he was a salesman - of $5 million. It's possible that the claim is bogus and just of a piece with the rest. It's also possible that the employer really did screw him and the family's distressed state is the result of that, and it has nothing to do with the lawsuit against Lower Merion School District. The problem with the second version is that they racked up their debts well before Mr. Robbins lost his old job.

If there is no objective evidence that the school officials were using the picture for disciplinary purposes and it comes down to the family's testimony versus the vice principal's, then I think the existence of the debts could be used to impeach the Robbinses' credibility. However, the core of the case is that the monitoring program existed and was used without notification. None of these revelations affects that issue, as far as I can tell.

So What's Up in Lower Merion School District?

Jeffrey Billman at the clog:

Matsko may well be scapegoated here; I don't mean to imply that she did something shady, because I really have no idea what's going on. I mean, seriously: No school official could be cavalier or dumb enough to think they could spy on kids and no one would ever be the wiser, right? I doubt it.  But these stories aren't adding up. If the school district can come out and say that Blake Robbins is lying, why hasn't it done so? In lawsuits, people categorically deny charges all the time; it's not unusual or improper.

My take is that the school district, which is the actual defendant in the case, doesn't know what its employees at Harriton High did or did not do. So the district can't issue an unequivocal denial until it finds out the truth. But the employees in question - like Matsko - are probably lawyering up themselves and trying to keep themselves from being sued or imprisoned (since there may have been multiple felonies committed here). And the school district doesn't want to cut Matsko and friends loose too soon, because (a) that's a tacit admission of culpability that the district will ultimately be financially responsible for and (b) if they ax Matsko and it turns out she's innocent, then she can sue them.  So they wait for discovery to roll out, and see what people say when they're under oath.

My total guess is that Matsko is lying through her teeth in a last-ditch attempt to brazen it out. Her passionate performance reading a prepared statement made me think, "The lady doth protest too much."

Philly-Area School District Remotely Activating Webcams to Spy on Students at Home

This is almost too bad to be believed:

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

According to the complaint (pdf), the district has issued a laptop to all students and never informed them that the webcams could be activated remotely. The suit alleges violations of state and federal law. This is a civil suit, but wiretapping is also a crime under both state and federal law. If the allegations are true, someone's going to jail.

Legislator Wants to Abolish Precedent

A member of the Iowa legislature, Jason Schultz, has introduced a bill:

A judicial officer shall not use judicial precedent, case law, penumbras, or international law as a basis for rulings. A judicial officer shall only use the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and the Code of Iowa as the basis for any ruling issued by such judicial officer. The only source material that may be used for interpreting the Constitution of the United States by a judicial officer in this state shall be the Federalist papers and other writings of the founding fathers to describe the intent of the founding fathers, and if such source material is used, the full context of the source material must be used by the judicial officer.

This fails for both legal and common sense reasons. First of all, application of the Supremacy Clause prohibits states from interpreting the federal constitution in any way that contradicts the interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court or the applicable Circuit Court of Appeals. (The same goes for federal statutes, which Schultz's bill neglects to mention at all.) This bill implicitly makes an absolute claim of state sovereignty and denial of the authority of the U.S. government.  It amounts to a declaration of secession.

Secondly, due process under both the Iowa and U.S. constitutions requires that precedent have legal weight, at least in criminal matters. If a state supreme court rules on the interpretation of a criminal law, then people in that state must be entitled to rely on that ruling in guiding their own behavior. Schultz's bill, which is nominally about making judicial decision-making less variable, actually would have the opposite effect: Every judge who considered a statute would be required to decide what that statute meant de novo. No one could ever be truly sure was legal and illegal.

Which brings us to the common sense objection: Who makes decisions like this? Who reinvents the wheel every time an issue arises? It's idiotic to not consider what other people thought about any complex problem in the past when you approach a similar question. It's essentially mandated stupidity.

I know it's nutpicking, but look at the size of that nut. It's pretty big.

Judge in Tiller Assassination Trial Denies Manslaughter Bid

Like I predicted, the judge gave the defense the opportunity to make a legal case for a lesser charge, and they failed to make it:

The judge in the trial of a man accused of murdering an abortion doctor dealt the defense a severe setback yesterday, ruling that the jury cannot consider a lesser charge of manslaughter.

The ruling came hours after Scott Roeder took the stand in his defense and admitted killing Dr. George Tiller, saying he acted to save the lives of unborn children.

So now Roeder has confessed to the crime and there is no defense. 

Also, good for the judge for doing this:

Earlier yesterday, the judge barred former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline from testifying for the defense after listening to a preview of Kline's testimony without the jury present.

Kline investigated Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, in 2006 because he suspected Tiller was violating state laws pertaining to late-term abortion. The case was later dropped because of jurisdictional issues.

Wilbert said much of Kline's testimony would have amounted to "exactly what this court seeks to avoid . . . a referendum on abortion."

More Citizens United: U.S. Corporations Owned By Foreigners Can Now Intervene in Elections

Mark Kleiman's post reminds me of something I forgot to mention: It is illegal for foreign citizens to purchase campaign ads advocating for the election or defeat of a U.S. federal candidate. However, the Citizens United ruling doesn't distinguish between foreign and domestic corporations. Even if a future ruling did, domestic corporations can easily be owned 100% by foreign nationals. That means that Citizens United effectively opens up an avenue for foreign individuals and corporations to directly affect the outcome of individual elections.

(Via Eric Martin.)

What's So Bad About Citizens United?

Until yesterday, corporations could speak directly on issues. Corporations could also set up PACs which individual shareholders and employees could contribute to, and that PAC could advocate for or against candidates. But up until yesterday, corporations could not use their general revenues to elect or defeat a candidate. Those revenues are far, far greater in magnitude than what PACs could raise before.

This effectively gives the officers and directors of large corporations the ability to use their shareholders' money in a way they may not be aware of or even agree with in order to determine the outcome of specific elections, changing the makeup of specific Congressional committees, say. (You could argue that corporate governance would limit this practice, but we don't know for sure yet. It's a brave new world.)

Worse from the perspective of about half the population, these corporate expenditures will be made overwhelmingly in favor of one party, the GOP, because the CEO class is ideologically conservative. The conservatives on the supreme court have once again put a thumb on the scales to help their party, just as they did in the 2000 election.

I don't think a constitutional amendment to make the Free Speech clause inapplicable to for-profit corporations is either realistic or worthwhile. But an interesting question would be whether state corporate laws could limit the powers of businesses from making expenditures advocating for the election or defeat of any candidate. Since, presumably, each state could abolish their corporate laws and exclude corporations from their borders, I would think they would also have the authority to take this lesser step of limiting the things they may do. However, I don't put it past the conservatives on the Supreme Court to decide there is a "natural right" to incorporate, since they seem totally results-oriented.

Unfettered Corporate Political Spending v. No Corporate Free Speech Rights

Brendan says:

[I]n theory, the Constitution could be amended to re-establish that First Amendment protections (except for freedom of the press) do not apply to for-profit corporations.

He then says there is no way such an amendment could pass, which is true. Lots of liberals think corporations should have no Free Speech rights, but I don't. I just don't think you could create a coherent legal structure that got the outcome Brendan is looking for. (I'm not picking on Brendan, but his post is just a handy starting point for me to make this argument.)

First, notice that the call is for is no free speech rights for for-profit corporations, except the press. Nice phrase, "the press". But what that phrase refers to are some huge, for-profit corporations. We really mean things like Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Viacom and Time Warner.  Why is it better that those behemoths have the legal right to free speech, but other large corporations motivated by exactly the same profit-seeking do not?

Then there is the line-drawing problem with "the press".  What kinds of corporations do we include and which don't we? A lot of the big media companies mingle news and entertainment (and often you can't really tell the difference). Is Comcast "the press" now that it's taking a controlling stake in NBC Universal? Hell, is NBC even "the press", since the news division is such a small part of NBC?

The Public Citizen petition that Brendan links to is careful to call for no free speech rights for for-profit corporations. That's smart, because Public Citizen itself is a corporation, but a non-profit one. There are lots of non-profit corporations that advocate for political causes across the spectrum, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Rifle Association. No one, including liberals, seems to think it's a problem that those entities have the right to free speech. But where in the Constitution does it say that non-profit corporations are people? Nowhere.

To top it off, for-profit corporations often set up and control non-profits to carry out various purposes. If you amend the constitution to ban for-profit corporations from having free-speech rights but retain it for non-profits, companies will just create nonprofit subsidiaries for the purpose of speaking. 

While I think Citizens United is wrongly decided, some of the reasoning in the majority opinion is sound. The Free Speech clause doesn't just protect the right of speakers to speak, it protects the right of listeners to listen, and be informed or persuaded. That's the underpinning of what we shorthand as the marketplace of ideas. If there was a right to speak but no corresponding right to listen, the protection would be meaningless. If you want to protect the right to listen, then you should be inclined to think that more speech is better than less speech, absent a really compelling reason it's not. 

One objection to corporate free speech is that corporations are motivated by money. That objection proves a little too much. Lots of people are motivated by money and their speech reflects that motivation. In fact, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Free speech means that the people who have a stake in some matter - whether it's financial or otherwise - can tell other people about it and enable society as a whole to respond in an informed way. That your livelihood is being affected is a great reason for you to have the right to speak, not a reason to curtail that right.

Just because the text of the constitution doesn't grant rights to corporations is not a conclusive argument that those rights shouldn't be granted. Rather than being literalists and originalists, liberals usually believe that the definition of rights under the constitution should change to protect the principles embodied in the constitution as social realities change. As an example, abortion is not mentioned in the constitution, but we believe that there is a constitutional right for women to control their reproduction based on the principles of autonomy and privacy in the Bill of Rights. For better or worse, corporations are an integral part of American society. The objection is that they are too powerful already, which I agree with and which is part of the reason why I think their direct political activity should be and can be limited within the bounds of the constitution. But saying that corporations should have no free speech rights at all would mean that a huge chunk of financial resources will be put behind a firewall where it can't participate in debate in any way. Some people would say that's good; that to corral the power of large companies, their wealth should be walled off from use in public debate. But not all corporations are large corporations. Small and medium-sized companies are a large part of the economy. The owners and operators of those entities often have all of their personal fortunes tied up in the businesses. A complete ban on corporate speech would mean those people would be unable to use their resources to speak out on things that would affect them directly, even though it's not these kinds of corporations that liberals fear have too much power in society.

What I think is a perfectly valid criticism is that in large corporations, the officers and directors rather than the shareholders are effectively in control of the entity's resources. That creates a set of incentives for those officers and directors to use other people's money to speak on matters in ways that the owners might not approve or even be interested in. And large corporations do concentrate wealth into the hands of a very small number of people to the point that there is a real risk of undue influence on government. As corporations get bigger, they begin to look less like voluntary associations of people which we can reasonably say speak for all their members and more like Frankenstein's monster - a powerful, artificial construct that has none of the motivations or limitations that a natural person has.

The issue is corporate political speech, not corporate speech generally. I think that as a society we have a compelling interest in preventing large accumulations of wealth - in the corporate form or otherwise - from distorting our political system even further than it has been, completely replacing the principle of one person, one vote with one dollar, one vote. If corporations have a free speech right to create political ads, then why shouldn't they also get to make donations directly to candidates and parties? For that matter, if money is speech, and the Court has decided that more money is good for politics, then what should prevent individuals and corporations from making unlimited campaign contributions? From there, you're just one step away from selling individual elected positions to the highest bidder. I think there are really good reasons to keep our political process as close as we can to one in which individual voters really are in control of who gets elected, and to me that justifies both individual contribution limits and a complete ban on corporate political spending. But depriving corporations of all free speech rights in order to accomplish that goal would be almost as bad as what the Supreme Court did today.

Bush v. Gore Part II

The Republicans' five employees on the Supreme Court have put their thumb on the scale for the GOP just in time for the midterms.

Per Rick Hasen, in the Citizens United case, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have reached down to decide a question that wasn't even properly before the court, and overturned the ban on corporate electioneering in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce.  Corporations are now free to spend as much as they want to influence elections, including running their own ads, sending out mailings, and doing GOTV. The only limit left is they still can't donate directly to candidates - a limitation I am curious about. If corporate money is essential to free speech, why aren't corporate campaign donations? I await the case overturning that ban, too.

Voluntary Manslaughter Charge in Tiller Assassination Case

People are understandably upset that the judge in the trial of Scott Roeder, who admits killing Dr. George Tiller, will allow the defense to put on evidence supporting a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder. The punishment for voluntary manslaughter is only a mandatory minimum of 5 years, while first-degree murder means life in prison. 

I don't think it's going to work. Here's a good analysis of the hurdles such a defense would have to overcome to succeed. Roeder would have to prove that he had an honest and reasonable belief force was "necessary to defend ... a third person against such other's imminent use of unlawful force."

So, first, Roeder would have to show that he honestly believed there were reasonable grounds to think that Tiller's conduct was unlawful.  I think that's almost impossible. The only argument I can imagine is that Tiller was accused in the past of performing abortions that violated Kansas law. Roeder could conceivably claim that he honestly believed Tiller had committed unlawful violence and would do so again, but I do not see the scenario where he shows that belief was reasonable. Tiller was acquitted of the charges in the past. And Roeder can't claim to know anything about the details of future procedures Tiller would perform, which I think you'd need to show to prove Roeder reasonably believed Tiller was about to break the law.

The imminence requirement is even worse for Roeder. Imminent means the unlawful action was about to happen at the moment the defendant used force to stop it.  Roeder shot Tiller while he was handing out programs in the vestibule of his church. Even putting the best possible spin on this for Roeder, it would be the equivalent of spotting someone who you thought was a wanted murderer in the checkout line of the grocery store and, rather than call the police, shooting him in the back as he paid for his bread and milk instead. 

The judge won't decide on whether to allow the jury to consider the lesser charge until after all the evidence is presented. My prediction is that the defense won't be able to present anything that overcomes these hurdles, especially the imminence requirement, and the judge won't include voluntary manslaughter in the charge. 

In general, I think the judge allowing the defense to try to make the case is good on the level that all defendants should have the opportunity to defend themselves any way the evidence supports. But I think a conviction on voluntary manslaughter will be nearly impossible to obtain from an honest jury in the Tiller case. And if the jury is dishonest and inclined to sympathy for Roeder, it won't matter what charges are in the jury instruction, because they'd end up acquitting him anyway.

The Raghead Shepherds

The ACLU of Pennsylvania passes along an email they received:

The first question we have here at our scranton office is what is wrong with you Athiest Assholes. We recently heard on the news about the bullshit your group started at the Luzerne County Courthouse. Our economy is hurting, the spirts of our citizens are weak for many reasons, and at this time of year, many, close to all people look towards tradition as a sign of good things around the holidays. In one, threatening blow, by threatening to sue Luzerne County for helping keep hope in their citizens, you have done nothing but demoralize the area, and make yourselves look like total Assholes and Athiests. Keep you religious beliefs to yourself. Bow down to your budah or raghead or dot head, or indian gas station god, or whatever you probable domestic terrorists bow down to, and keep out of others innocent business.

This part of the closing is priceless:

Proof read and approved by a company office of over 100!

I love that a hundred of them can't spell "proofread" or "atheist".

Dozen Released From Gitmo; 198 to Go

Change:

The United States freed a dozen men from Guantanamo this week -- including one of the last captives sent there by the Bush administration -- in a mission that dropped detainees off in Yemen, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa.

The dozen included six Yemenis, four Afghans and two Somali citizens. Their departure left the prison camp census at 198 on Saturday -- the first time the detention center dropped below 200 captives since February 2002.

Defense and Justice Department officials Saturday refused to comment on the massive transfer, a portion of which was reported by The Washington Post on Friday as a potential "prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen'' at a time of gathering Republican resistance to the White House plan to move other detainees to Thomson, Ill.

So if this is correct, at least 24 more Yemenis are planned to be released. Other items of note: There are no more Somalis at Gitmo. The last prisoner to be sent there arrived March 14, 2008.

Give 'em real trials or let 'em go.

Innocent Man Freed After 35 Years

Way to go, Innocence Project of Florida:

James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.

"Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost," said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Florida Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. "Today is a day of renewal."

A new record:

Bain spent more time in prison than any of the 246 inmates previously exonerated by DNA evidence nationwide, according to the project. The longest-serving before him was James Lee Woodard of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

Again, imagine all the cases out there in which no evidence that can be tested for DNA was collected. 

You know, the state innocence projects (where they exist) and the national innocence project are all underfunded and understaffed. Why don't you forgo whatever expensive thing you were thinking about buying for Xmas and make a difference with that money instead? Contribute to the Florida Innocence here, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project here, and the national Innocence Project here.

Imagine All The Cases With No DNA Evidence

How many people in prison who are like this guy, but don't have the evidence to prove it?

A man who spent 28 years behind bars for a rape and murder he said he did not commit walked out of a federal prison in Arizona after DNA testing showed he was innocent. The conviction of the man, Donald E. Gates, 58, was based largely on the testimony of an F.B.I. forensic analyst whose work later came under fire and a hair analysis technique that has been discredited. The same judge who had presided over Mr. Gates’s trial in District of Columbia Superior Court ordered his release.

Worst of the Worst

Hurray for justice:

The U.S. government released from Guantanamo Wednesday a Kuwaiti Airways engineer whom a judge freed from eight years detention because American interrogators had wrung a false confession out of him years ago.

The case of Fouad al Rabia, a 50-year-old father of four, brought into sharp relief questions about the quality of evidence the military intended to present at his military commission trial. ...

Rabia, who holds a business degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, Fla., won his freedom after Cynamon argued that U.S. officials had mistakenly identified the obese flight engineer as a key aide to Osama bin Laden at the 2001 battle of Tora Bora, then subjected him to systematic abuse at Guantanamo until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Kollar-Kotelly, with access to secret Pentagon evidence, agreed in a 65-page ruling.

She found that Rabia had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program forbidden by the U.S. Army's field manual, that his interrogators themselves didn't believe his confession, and that the evidence backed his assertion that he was in Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission that he undertook annually.

"If there exists a basis for al Rabia's indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court.''

It only took 8 fucking years of torture and the intervention of a Kuwaiti prince to spring an innocent guy. One down, 214 to go.

Sign of the Times

Seriously? Seen on public transit in Seattle:

 

RCW 9A.44.040 is Washington's forcible rape statute, so that checks out, but otherwise this strikes me as a well-executed stunt to raise rape-consciousness, both because it's ludicrous and because in this image from FAILblog the sign appears to be a sticker that is peeling away from the wall (although I suppose real warning signs in Seattle might be stickers and someone was just trying to steal one for themselves and I can't believe I am seriously trying to figure out if this is real). Great production values.

Cop Killers

Some guy was sentenced to death yesterday for murdering a Philly cop who walked in on an armed robbery. I've got no special brief for criminals and especially anyone who shoots someone whose job it is to stop knuckleheads like him, but as I get older I have less and less stomach for capital punishment. The local media seemed very eager to see this guy on death row. It just seems bizarre to me to think that killing someone is somehow more just and is going to make the victim's family and the public feel better, and that life in prison with no possibility of parole would be a gift to the murderer.

The jury deliberated for less than an hour before deciding to impose the death penalty. I'm very big on juries' ability to do their jobs in a fair and impartial way, and try to push back against people who criticize juries' decisions. But deciding whether someone lives or dies in less time than it takes some people to eat lunch? This tells me they didn't bother to actually re-read the jury instructions and deliberate. They had, either as a group or individually, decided in advance that the sentence was death.

Of course, in a blue collar town like Philly, you can't expect the decision to come out differently when a cop is murdered. But I do expect people to take the job of juror seriously, and to do it the right way.  They owe that duty to the victim's family, the defendant and his family, and the court.  They also owe it to themselves. In this case, there was no rush. It was mid-day when they went into the room. Either way the jury came out, life or death, it was a decision they would have to live with for the rest of their lives. I do, because I have served on a death penalty jury. If I could have advised them, I would have told them to take their time. I think that they're going to regret that they didn't.

The flip side of the general pro-cop attitude in Philly is that bad cops get away with too much. This past Saturday, an off-duty cop with a history of repeatedly flying off the handle and waving his gun around charged into a fight in the street outside his house to break it up. Witnesses say he was drunk. At some point, the cop claims he was attacked and fired his gun in self-defense. He shot and killed an unarmed 21-year-old neighbor who was also trying to break up the fight. Despite that, the cop is free and, while he's under investigation, I don't expect him to be charged with anything. If a civilian had done what he did, he'd be in jail on a murder charge, no question.  It's double standard in this town, with one law for cops and another for everyone else.

Pennsylvania State Job Cuts Undermine Stimulus Effect on Infrastructure Spending and Environmental Safety

Duncan, talking about the self-defeating focus on the federal budget deficit:

I'm not talking about make work, I'm talking about real projects from basic maintenance to sewers to pothole filling to the demolishing and reclaiming of property with abandoned buildings etc... etc... The fact that the administration is signaling that it's more worried about the deficit than unemployment is incredibly frustrating.

He's also complained, rightly, in the past about the fact that stimulus funds for the states were cut at the behest of people concerned about spending too much.

There's a similar process at work here in Pennsylvania. Recently, the Rendell administration announced it was cutting an additional 319 state jobs:

[T]he Department of Environmental Protection will see the greatest reductions, losing 138 positions, or about 5 percent of its workforce ....

I was talking to a civil engineer last night who is working on several stimulus-funded infrastructure projects. He told me that people don't realize that every project requires the DEP to issue a permit before work begins. The DEP staff is already overworked; now, with the cuts, permits will be delayed even further. The net effect is that the stimulus money that Pennsylvania is getting won't be spent as quickly as it could be.

The state officials downplay it:

[DEP secretary John] Hanger said the layoffs, plus unfilled vacancies totaling an additional 120 jobs, would reduce the agency's overall staff complement from 3,011 to 2,760. He said sparing the inspection and enforcement staff was "the highest priority" but said the reductions might lengthen the permit-granting process for certain construction projects.

Making the unfilled vacancies permanent means that DEP is actually losing 258 staff, which is over 8% of the workforce.

But when it comes to development, they have their priorities:

Cuts to the Department of Environmental Protection will not affect oversight of increased natural gas exploration in the so-called Marcellus Shale reserve, the rich vein of gas that underlies most of the state, agency secretary John Hanger said.

He said the 120 salaried staffers who review applications for permits to drill for gas or oil and inspect drilling sites are covered by fees paid by the industry and aren't affected by the cuts.

The fracing that is required to extract the gas from the shale is also going to dump huge amounts of pollutants into the Susquehanna, which is already making people sick. And guess what? Under a law passed by Congress in 2004, fracing is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which means the federal EPA has no jurisdiction over the practice. That leaves the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which is now down 8% in staff, to regulate the problem.

Camera Makes Truck Driver Stop Blocking the Street

Minor victory; small mystery.

I was trying to get stuff done this afternoon when people started angrily blowing their horns in the street outside my window. This went on for several minutes. Finally, too distracted to work, I walked outside and found some truck driver inexplicably blocking the road, looking at his paperwork. Traffic was backed up for a block and people were incensed, but he could care less.

So I did what I do in this situations, I took pictures:

 

The gentleman driving the truck is shielding his face from the camera. (He then went on to give me the finger and told me to "go suck another man's dick." This wounded me.) Nevertheless, I got the company name and USDOT number in the shot, and the license plate in another, so I just said, "I'm calling your boss" and walked away.

He finally drove off. 

It turns out, the DOT website has a search tool that let you look up truck numbers. Turns out that McDaniel Trucking Enterprises is almost three years late in filing the paperwork for this truck, although it has undergone roadside inspection times in the past two years. How does the truck pass inspection if the company hasn't renewed the DOT license? And what recourse is there for me to complain to the company if the management clearly doesn't even bother to obey the law themselves?

Now I can get back to work.

Orly Taitz Refuses to Pay $20,000 Fine

Chief birther whackjob Orly Taitz was sanctioned $20,000 by a federal judge for filing repeated frivolous lawsuits against President Obama. Today was the deadline for her to pay, but:

“Absolutely not,” Taitz said Thursday afternoon when asked whether she would pay. “I have filed an appeal. It was a complete abuse of power.”

The original order says "if Taitz doesn’t pay by the deadline, the U.S. Attorney 'will be authorized to commence collection proceedings.' Taitz has appealed the sanction."

Pass the popcorn.

PA State Rep Perzel Indicted

Good news:

Rep. John M. Perzel, the former speaker of the state House, was charged today with 82 criminal counts in a sweeping scandal involving a sophisticated, multi-million software programs paid for by taxpayers but allegedly used for political campaigning. ...

Nine others with ties to the House Republican Caucus were also charged, including five former top Perzel aides and former Rep. Brett Feese of Lycoming County, who once headed the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Perzel is one of the many Republican state legislators who have repeatedly screwed over the city of Philadelphia and benefited Harrisburg, most notably via the money vacuum known as the Parking Authority.

Also, this:

The Philadelphia Republican is the most prominent political figure thus far to be charged in Attorney General Tom Corbett's long-running investigation unofficially known as Bonusgate. ...

The charges, laid out in a 188-page presentment, come 17 months after Corbett brought charges against a dozen House Democratic insiders - including former House Minority Whip Mike Veon - accusing them of misusing public funds for political purposes

Corbett is a Republican running for Governor and is going to be able to trade on these criminal cases as part of his campaign. In a statement, Perzel said:

"This investigation has lasted for nearly three years, and it's only now, on the eve of his gubernatorial campaign and in response to claims that he was unfairly pursuing only Democrats, that Attorney General Corbett has decided to bring charges against 10 Republicans, including me," said Perzel. "It smacks of political opportunism at the expense of my reputation, and I am going to fight very aggressively to prove my innocence.

Clearly, the timing is politically opportune for Corbett. Whether that means the case against Perzel is any good or not, I don't know.

Local Programming: PA Innocence Project Fundraiser Tonight

Thursday, November 12th
7:30 p.m.
Fundraiser for The Pennsylvania Innocence Project
Arcadia University in Glenside, PA will stage a performance of The Exonerated on Thursday, November 12th at 7:30 pm to benefit the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Tickets for this special benefit performance can be reserved with a minimum donation of $100 each and can be purchased using a major credit card. Seating is limited, and tickets are expected to sell out, so please purchase tickets soon!

Second-Most Senior RNC Member Resigns After Stalking Ex

Whoa:

Blake Hall, a leading figure in Idaho and national politics for 25 years, was fired Monday as a deputy prosecuting attorney in eastern Idaho and has resigned from the Republican National Committee. ...

Idaho Falls police reported that witnesses said Hall disposed of used condoms on the lawn of the woman's house. Nineteen condoms were turned over to police, collected on 10 different dates, according to a police report. Both Hall and his lawyer acknowledged the condoms belonged to him, according to a police report.

Wow. How crazy do you have to be?

Also, between March and August, Hall repeatedly followed the woman to restaurants, the movies and her home, and he ignored her repeated requests that he leave her alone, according to police and court records.

The victim testified Friday that Hall once followed her to a Walmart and took her car keys and would not return them until she agreed to "hear him out" concerning her marriage, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported.

"I was so tired of being victimized," the woman said. "It is unimaginable that a 56-year-old would be so deviant."

Hey, remember that Kentucky state official who shot his girlfriend to death in September? He was 56 years old. Good thing Hall was "just" obsessive, not violent.

Just like the attorney for that guy in Kentucky blaming the victim for her own death, some people in Idaho have some wacky ideas, too:

Hall, 56, will keep his $31,000-a-year job as the civil attorney in nearby Fremont County, according to Prosecutor Joette Lookabaugh, a Republican who hired Hall in January.

Lookabaugh said she told Hall he would keep his job "unless or until his ability to do an outstanding job for Fremont County citizens is compromised."

In a news release, Lookabaugh suggested Hall was singled out because of his notoriety.

"I understand that political figures are held to a higher standard," she said. "What is disturbing is the fact that often people who have devoted their lives to public service are not given the same benefits, or are treated more harshly, than the public at large. There seems to be a certain amount of political glee in striking down the well-known for any real or perceived foible."

Hall admits throwing used condoms on a woman's lawn. Does Prosecutor Lookabaugh really believe someone who does that should retain a position of trust?

Hall continues to accumulate pension benefits from Fremont County. Hall's law firm gets about $600,000 worth of business from the state, but that is being looked at.

Former NM Chief Justice Dies Giving a Speech to One Ls

Imagine the judge's poor wife (who was in attendance) and students who had to go through this:

Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gene Franchini died Wednesday afternoon while addressing first-year law students at the University of New Mexico. 

... Franchini was giving his annual speech on ethics and the role of a judge Wednesday evening when he collapsed.

Faculty members said Franchini apparently suffered a heart attack. Students tried to perform CPR until emergency crews arrived.

Local Programming: Meet Death Row Exoneree Harold Wilson This Afternoon

Thursday, November 5th

4:30-6:00 p.m.
Meet Death Row Exoneree Harold Wilson at Temple Law
Meet Harold Wilson, who was wrongly sentenced to death for murder and then subsequently exonerated. The event is sponsored by the American Constitution Society, Witness to Innocence, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. The program will be held at Temple University Beasley School of Law, 1719 North Broad St. (southeast corner of Broad and Montgomery Ave.), Philadelphia, PA 19122, Room K2B, from 4:30-6 p.m. Contact Chris Wickman for more information.

More Is Thy Due Than More Than All Can Pay

Some guy named Chiscolm sued Bank of America for $1.784 septillion dollars. That's $1,784,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  Or $1.784 trillion trillion. Any way you say it, he won't get it:

The gross domestic product of the entire world in 2008 was only $60 trillion, so even if Chiscolm won it might be a little hard to collect.

Also, or rather to reiterate, he's not going to win because he's nuts:

In a ruling issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called Chiscolm's claim "incomprehensible," having something to do with incomplete routing numbers and inconsistent information given to him over the phone by a "Spanish womn [sic]."  Chiscolm now has a month to come up with a better explanation of his claims, so we can all look forward to that.

Damn Spanish womn. Get you every time.

(Via via.)

Birther Suit Dismissed and Orly Taitz Threatened With Sanctions

This is nice:

[Middle District of Georgia] U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land today tossed out a complaint by an Army captain fighting deployment to Iraq by questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama.

Land also put attorney Orly Taitz, who represents Capt. Connie Rhodes and is a leader in the national “birther” movement, on notice by stating that she could face sanctions if she ever files a similar “frivolous” lawsuit in his court.

“(Rhodes) has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president of the United States,” Land states in his order. “Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.’”

Orly Taitz, JD, DDS, and "frivolous" in the same sentence. I am glad some people are sane.

Update: The judge's order (pdf) will be included in an upper-level law seminar I will teach next year called Things You Don't Want a Judge to Say About You or Your Client:

The present action is the second such action filed in this Court in which counsel pursues her “birther claim.” Her modus operandi is to use military officers as parties and have them allege that they should not be required to follow deployment orders because President Obama is not constitutionally qualified to be President. Although counsel has managed to fuel this “birther movement” with her litigation and press conferences, she does not appear to have prevailed on a single claim. In fact, Plaintiff previously filed the present action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. That Court summarily dismissed her complaint upon finding that Plaintiff “has no substantial likelihood of success on the merits.” [Cite omitted.] Counsel then re-filed the same action in this Court.

Subtle practice point here: As an attorney, you know you're in trouble when the judge writes that you have a modus operandi. Also, it's bad form to shop your case around to every District Court you think might give you a sympathetic hearing just because it's located in a red state.

Captain Rhodes entered the Army in March of 2005 and presently serves as a medical doctor.  The American taxpayers paid for her third and fourth years of medical school and financially supported her during her subsequent medical internship and residency program. In exchange for this valuable free medical education, Captain Rhodes agreed to serve two years in active service in the Army. She began that term of active service in July of 2008 and had no concerns about fulfilling her military obligation until she received orders notifying her that she would be deployed to Iraq in September of 2009.

Captain Rhodes does not seek a discharge from the Army; nor does she wish to be relieved entirely from her two year active service obligation. She has not previously made any official complaints regarding any orders or assignments that she has received, including orders that have been issued since President Obama became Commander in Chief. But she does not want to go to Iraq (or to any other destination where she may be in harm’s way, for that matter). Her “conscientious objections” to  serving under the current Commander in Chief apparently can be accommodated as long as she is permitted to remain on American soil.

Captain, you've just been called a coward by a United States District Judge. Now how do you feel?

Plaintiff’s challenge to her deployment order is frivolous. She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Instead, she uses her Complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the President is “an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.” ... She continues with bare, conclusory allegations that the President is “an alien, possibly even an unnaturalized or even an unadmitted illegal alien . . . without so much as lawful residency in the United States.” ... Then, implying that the President is either a wandering nomad or a prolific identity fraud crook, she alleges that the President “might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 social security numbers prior to assuming the office of President.” ... (emphasis added).) Acknowledging the existence of a document that shows the President was born in Hawaii, Plaintiff alleges that the document “cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent.” (... (emphasis added).) In further support of her claim, Plaintiff relies upon “the general opinion in the rest of the world” that “Barack Hussein Obama has, in essence, slipped through the guardrails to become President.” ... Moreover, as though the “general opinion in the rest of the world” were not enough, Plaintiff alleges in her Complaint that according to an “AOL poll 85% of Americans believe that Obama was not vetted, needs to be vetted and his vital records need to be produced.” ...

Cites omitted, but I'll note that some of them refer to page 148 of the complaint. That's not a brief, that's a book. I would sanction Taitz on that basis alone, which is one of many reasons I am not a judge.

Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, Plaintiff unashamedly alleges that Defendant has the burden to prove his “natural born” status. ... Thus, Plaintiff’s counsel, who champions herself as a defender of liberty and freedom, seeks to use the power of the judiciary to compel a citizen, albeit the President of the United States, to “prove his innocence” to “charges” that are based upon conjecture and speculation. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our Country was founded in order to purportedly “protect and preserve” those very principles.

In three sentences, Judge Land proves why Article III rocks. Do you think the rightwingers are going to go after him? Guess who appointed him: George W.  (This is the first time that I can recall ever wanting to post a smiley emoticon on this blog.)

On to Footnote 5:

One piece of “evidence” Plaintiff’s counsel relies upon deserves further discussion. Counsel has produced a document that she claims shows the President was born in Kenya, yet she has not authenticated that document. She has produced an affidavit from someone who allegedly obtained the document from a hospital in Mombasa, Kenya by paying “a cash ‘consideration’ to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while [he] obtained the copy” of the document. ... Counsel has not, however, produced an original certificate of authentication from the government agency that supposedly has official custody of the document. Therefore, the Court finds that the alleged document is unreliable due to counsel’s failure to properly authenticate the document.

Taitz failed to produce Obama's official Kenyan birth certificate! I can hear 60,000 wingnuts, or a million, give or take, sputtering in confusion.

One more thing: The judge went out of his way to not just dismiss the complaint, but to demonstrate that the plaintiff's allegations didn't survive any of the different legal tests that it would have to satisfy if she hoped to prevail. He didn't need to do that, but I suppose he didn't want to repeat the District Court in Texas' mistake of issuing just a summary order. After it failed one standard, he could have dismissed it on that basis alone, but he chose to show that the complaint lacked any merit, which provides the justification for the best part of the order:

Plaintiff’s counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this Court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c).

Rule 11 provides, among other things:

A sanction imposed under this rule must be limited to what suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated. The sanction may include nonmonetary directives; an order to pay a penalty into court; or, if imposed on motion and warranted for effective deterrence, an order directing payment to the movant of part or all of the reasonable attorney's fees and other expenses directly resulting from the violation.

One thing I want to know is: Is Taitz admitted to practice in the Middle District of Georgia, or did she waive in pro hac vice? If the latter, then there is also some local counsel who vouched for her who is also going to suffer for inflicting this nonsense on the court. Good.

John Yoo: A One-Man Crime Wave

Publius:

As I noted earlier, John Yoo played a starring role in the new IG report (pdf) on the Bush administration’s surveillance program (PSP).  And it wasn’t a flattering one.

Yoo’s actions were dishonest and inappropriate on so many different levels that I’m going to try to break them up into three categories:  (1) procedural abuses; (2) legal inaccuracies; and (3) factual inaccuracies.

The details are summarized pretty quickly and convincingly. John Yoo conspired with other top malefactors in the Bush Administration to violate all Americans' civil liberties and then lied to cover it up. He should be standing trial.

Yet that same John Yoo is a professor at a respected law school and is paid to write occasional columns for my once-great local newspaper.

Local Programming: American Constitution Society Supreme Court Event Noon Thursday

Thursday, July 9th
American Constitution Society Supreme Court Event
ACS’s Philadelphia Lawyer Chapter and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights present “Replacing Justice Souter: President Obama’s First Pick and The Future of the Supreme Court”, featuring William Marshall, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law; Kermit Roosevelt, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Steven Duffield, Former Policy Director and Chief Counsel, Senate Republican Conference; moderated by Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The event will be held on Thursday, July 9, 2009, 12:00 p.m - 2:00 p.m., at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads LLP, Justice Owen J. Roberts Room, 123 S. Broad Street, Avenue of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA. RSVP here or on Facebook.

Busted For Breastfeeding While Intoxicated

Not a joke:

Police responding to a domestic disturbance arrived at Stacey Anvarinia's home to find the mother breast-feeding her 6-week-old baby in front of them. And she was drunk, they said.

Officers arrested the woman, who later pleaded guilty to child neglect and faces up to five years in prison. Now her case has touched off a debate among moms about breast-feeding, alcohol — and privacy.

Since Anvarinia's arrest, blogs have been abuzz with comments questioning whether breast-feeding mothers could risk criminal charges if they drink even modest amounts. Authorities insist police were right to make the arrest, even if the mother had not been breast-feeding, out of concern for the child's welfare. ...

It's unclear how much Anavarina had to drink. Police never conducted a blood-alcohol test. Investigators believed she was drunk, and her arrest on a charge of child abuse and neglect did not require a test. ...

"This case is more than just the breast-feeding. It was the totality of the circumstances," said Grand Forks Police Lt. Rahn Farder. "It is quite unusual for a mother to be breast-feeding her child as we are conducting an investigation, whether she was intoxicated or not."

What a mess. First of all, breastfeeding your kid in front of the police is not yet a crime. Second, while I am skeptical of the healthiness of the habit, all kinds of activities that pose a risk to the kid's well-being are legal - say, smoking - and the police would never even imagine they should lock people up for them. It seems that the woman's job as a mom is somehow open to public scrutiny and disapproval, especially when she is pregnant or breastfeeding. Somehow, the more personal and private the matter for a woman, the more authority male police officers arrogate to themselves to control the woman's behavior.

Sexual Orientation Discrimination Outlawed in Delaware

The first state, coming in near the back of the pack:

Anyone who loses a job, a housing opportunity, an insurance policy, a public contract or a spot in a public facility because of sexual orientation now has legal remedy. For the first time, that kind of discrimination is no longer legal in Delaware.

Finally. What took you so long? Next: marriage and other privileges granted other people.

Via Fred Clark.

"Don't Do Anything Stupid"

From the Form 8-K - in this case, a filing required of publicly-traded companies called "Safe Harbor For Forward-Looking Statements" - dated June 23, 2009 and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Expeditors International of Washington, Inc., in response to a question asking the company to estimate future legal fees for an ongoing matter:

Without being trite, as we’ve addressed this topic before on more than one occasion, an attempt to predict the magnitude of these expenses at this juncture would be pointless as we feel the ongoing questions asking us to predict future legal spend have been. We understand everyone’s interest in the topic, it is something we are keenly interested in as well. We would hope, however, that everyone understands that if we actually knew enough to be able to predict our legal expenses, that would be an associative discussion which would follow a much more serious disclosure. At that juncture, legal fees would be of lesser concern.

When you come from a frame of reference, as we do, where $0 spent on legal expense would be the most preferred alternative, having to predict anything beyond that, by its nature, would become inherently and incredibly biased towards our own wants, desires and expectations. To us, this is somewhat akin to being asked to predict how many minutes after being force fed a dead frog we would throw-up…and the operative word is “force,” as we’d never elect to do either on our own. In both cases (the legal fees or swallowing the dead frog) we’re certain we would eventually throw up. In neither case do we know exactly how much money or how much time would pass before we did. In both cases, however, our gut check, no pun intended, is not very much and not very long! It should go without saying that given our druthers, we’d rather not spend the legal fees or eat the dead frog in the first place. Sometimes you don’t get the luxury of deciding what you have to eat. When you do, and it’s unpalatable, it should be obvious that you would eat as little as possible. What we are certain of is that if we were talking about being force fed dead frogs and not incurring excessive legal fees, people would be content accepting at face value that it would be as little as possible. Please rest assured, however, that whatever our legal costs are during the next year, while they will be more than we want, they will be the least amount that we can spend to completely and competently comply with ongoing requests or requirements of the various government and/or civil authorities overseeing these various proceedings.

Further down the document, in response to a question about cost-cutting measures:

We initiated a hiring freeze last year. There are, of course, reasonable and logical exceptions that need to be made in instances, for example, where new business comes on—trying to handle new business with inadequate resources flies in the face of one of our 2009 corporate goals—“Don’t do anything stupid”. Our hiring freeze is also a “Don’t do anything stupid” (D²AS) kind of hiring freeze.

I like the fact that they made "Don't do anything stupid" a defined term - "D²AS". That's the kind of touch a lawyer appreciates.

(Via Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog.)

First Trial of Gitmo Captive in U.S.

Good move:

The Obama administration on Tuesday transferred its first Guantánamo detainee to U.S. soil by having U.S. marshals move a Tanzanian man from Guantánamo to New York City for trial on capital terror charges.

A predawn Justice Department statement said Ahmed Ghailani, about 35, was being housed in the Metropolitan Correction Center, a medium to maximum-security lockup in downtown Manhattan that has held everyone from alleged al Qaeda arch-terrorists to financier Bernard Madoff.

Ghaliani, born in Zanzibar and captured in Afghanistan, had been at a secret Super Max-style lock-up at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba for former CIA captives called Camp 7.

He faced arraignment in federal court later in the day as an alleged co-conspirator in the Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 234 people.

Okay, do that 200 more times and then we're done. Seriously, it will be more difficult than that, but at least this is a start.

Ambinder notes:

Notice the date that Ghailani arrived at Guantanamo: 2006 -- that's after the reign of enhanced interrogation techniques had ended...after the torture that extracted (lots of bogus information and some accurate information) from his fellow detainees was put to an end. There was plenty of collateral information about Ghailani's involvement in the embassy bombings, and so the decision to grant him an Article III trial was probably one of the easier calls the administration had to make.

That is, Ghailini probably wasn't tortured, so that won't hinder the admissibility of any incriminating statements he may have made.

It's Okay If You're a Cop

Police officers probably feel they more often get treated like shit than are given breaks, but when stuff like this happens, it just galls me:

Back in September 2006 -- with no lights or siren -- [New Jersey State Trooper] Robert Higbee ran a stop sign while in pursuit of a speeding suspect in Upper Township. 

Christina and Jacqueline Becker were on their way to buy milk, and happened to be in his path.

He was acquitted of vehicular homicide, which in New Jersey requires a showing that the person driving acted recklessly:

A person acts recklessly when (he/she) consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death will result from (his/her) conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and purpose of the defendant's conduct and the circumstances known to (him/her), disregard of the risk involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the defendant's situation.

So, you're engaged in a high-speed pursuit, in this case doing 80 in a 35 mph zone, and you don't have your lights or siren on. And you end up killing two kids. In any comparable civilian circumstance, that driver would not only be going to prison, he'd be getting the max. But because this guy is a cop, he walks.