It's official. Alaska "First Dude" Todd Palin, husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, will refuse to comply with the subpoena issued last week to testify before the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee on TrooperGate.

Instead of taking the 5th, something we could respect as his constitutional right, he's claiming he can't get a fair hearing. Republican politics as usual.

A state Senate committee is scheduled to meet Friday to take statements from the 12 people they subpoenaed last week, including Todd Palin. But McCain-Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said Todd Palin would not face a "fair hearing" before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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A couple of months ago, TalkLeft asked whether the government is tracking your cell phone's movement. We know the government asks cell phone service providers to turn over location records that show the coverage area in which a subscriber's cell phone was transmitting on specified days. The question is whether the police need to show probable cause to obtain a court order for production of those records.

[A recent] ruling (.pdf) from Judge Terrence McVerry of the Western Pennsylvania U.S. District Court deals a blow to investigators who have been getting cellphone location data on in the past simply by proving to a judge that the information would be relevant to an investigation. That's the same standard used to force a telephone company to reveal the name and address of a subscriber.

Judge McVerry affirmed a well reasoned decision (.pdf) by Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan. The decision recognizes that "the ex parte nature of the proceedings, the comparatively low cost to the Government of the information requested, and the undetectable nature of a CSP’s electronic transfer of such information, render these requests particularly vulnerable to abuse." [more...]

Since this announcement in May that Dallas County had set a record with 17 exonerations of innocent prisoners due to new DNA testing, Dallas has broken its own record twice. TalkLeft reported exoneration 18 here. The next record-breaker could come tomorrow.

After nearly 26 years [in prison], the Dallas man [Johnnie Earl Lindsey] is one step closer to freedom this week after DNA test results showed that he was not the man who sexually assaulted the woman, said his attorney, Michelle Moore. ... "Hopefully he'll be released," said Ms. Moore, an assistant Dallas County public defender and a board member of the Innocence Project, a legal group that seeks to get wrongful convictions overturned.

Lindsey was convicted on the basis of a bad witness ID that probably resulted from showing the victim a suggestive photo array. [more...]

Retired Oregon Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts recounts a career filled with obstacles and achievement in her memoir, “With Grit and By Grace.” Karen McCowan reviews the book.

“I stacked up in my mind the many times a man had told me, ‘You can’t,’ ” she writes. “Just in the previous seven years: I’d been told by a male registrar that I couldn’t major in physical education; by my husband that I couldn’t teach; by a male minister that I should never have gone to college; and by a male academic adviser that I should be happy being a housewife. Twice I’d been forced to shift jobs to another school district — once to be able to teach rather than be a dean according to a superintendent’s decree. Once I’d been fired when I ran for public office, just because another male superintendent had disliked the idea.”

But Roberts, then 39, refused to be defeated.

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The CNN poll of polls is out, showing that leading national polls show Barack Obama with a 3 point lead over John McCain.

The latest poll of polls consists of four surveys: CBS/The New York Times (September 12-16), Gallup (September 15-17), Diageo/Hotline (September 14-16) and American Research Group (September 13-15). It does not have a sampling error.

The economic crisis has given Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, the opportunity to go on the offensive. Most Americans see Obama as more capable than McCain when it comes to the economy, polls indicate.

CNN reports Gov. Sarah Palin may have peaked. Not a moment too soon, in my view. And it's not just me. [More...]

Leaving the snark aside on the Zapatero Affair, it seems clear to me that John McCain either did not recognize the name Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the leader of the government of Spain, or did not understand the question presented to him (somewhat understandable given the accent of the questioner) about Zapatero. My first inclination was to give McCain the benefit of the doubt - I know he knows who Zapatero is, and I know he knows Spain is a NATO ally. To me it seems clear he was thinking of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas (he tangents into discussing the Mexican President Calderon in response to the question.) [More . . .]

The Supreme Court gets all the press, but the real action is in the lower courts. The Republican business community has made it a priority since the Reagan years to fill the federal courts with business-friendly judges. Many of those judges are hostile to employment cases, and they have come to populate the district and appellate courts. One reason to vote Obama/Biden that receives too little attention is the desperate need to balance the courts with judges who take a less biased view of employment discrimination cases.

The American Constitution Society released a study (pdf) to be published in its official journal, the Harvard Law and Policy Review, which (according to an ACS email) "shows that the federal courts are increasingly hostile to plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases." This is obvious to those of us who follow (with intense frustration) federal employment cases.[More ...]

Beth Evans discusses a problem in Wyoming that's prevalent throughout the country. States take different approaches to juvenile justice that range from harshly punitive to restorative or rehabilitative. But even within states, different counties seem to be enforcing vastly different systems of juvenile law.

A juvenile incarcerated in Natrona County is likely to be detained for a Minor In Possession (MIP)-alcohol related offense. A child in need of supervision (CHINS) in Laramie County is apt to end up at the nearby juvenile detention center. It’s not uncommon for Sweetwater County youth to be placed in a facility outside their home county, even though the County has its own juvenile detention center. And, in Campbell County, juveniles are sentenced to an adult jail that can’t insure sight and sound separation between adult and juvenile inmates.

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Bill Peterson, the former district attorney of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, and two investigators who were involved with Peterson in the trial and conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, didn't like the way they were portrayed in John Grisham's book, "The Innocent Man." Williamson and Fritz were convicted of murdering cocktail waitress Debbie Sue Carter. Twelve years later, DNA evidence exonerated them.

Peterson and the investigators sued Grisham for libel. They also sued "Barry Scheck, founder of the New York-based Innocence Project and an attorney for one of the men falsely accused in the murder." U.S. District Judge Ronald White has wisely dismissed the lawsuit. [More...]

Gov. Sarah Palin may have had an 80% approval rating among Alaska residents during her 1 1/2 years as Governor, but many who worked with her professionally in the legislature don't share their view.

Mike Bradner, a former legislator and Speaker of the House, has waived copyright to this article (pdf) this article published today explaining why Palin does not have their support.

In an editorial yesterday, the Alaska Daily News took Palin to task for failing to cooperate in TrooperGate. It begins: [More...]

Yesterday I wrote about Hillary Clinton's refusal to appear at an anti-Iran rally with Gov. Sarah Palin and the National Jewish Democratic Council's request for Palin to be disinvited.

The invitation to Palin has been withdrawn.

The NJDC responds:

Yesterday, NJDC said that Monday’s protest against Ahmadinejad was too important to be tainted by partisanship. Today, NJDC commends the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, The Israel Project, United Jewish Communities, the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs for making the right decision by withdrawing their invitation to Governor Sarah Palin. This decision shows that bi-partisan solidarity against President Ahmadinejad has won out over partisanship - even in this highly charged election year.

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Adam Nagourney wrote:

Mr. McCain’s once easy-going if irreverent campaign presence — endearing to crowds, though often the kind of undisciplined excursions that landed him in the gaffe doghouse — has been put out to pasture.

(Emphasis supplied.) Think again Ad Nags. On top of the Spain brouhaha, John McCain made another gaffe today, this time wrongly claiming Presidential power to fire the SEC Chairman: [More...]