Everybody at TalkLeft is working today and our morning open thread is full.

Here's another one.

Newspaper magnate and British Baron, Lord Conrad Black, already serving his 6 1/2 year federal prison term for fraud, lost his appeal today.

The convictions relate to millions of dollars that prosecutors said were illegally pocketed from the Hollinger International newspaper empire, since renamed Sun-Times Media. The former media baron has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and has vowed to continue to fight the convictions.

The Chicago Tribune report is here. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision is here (pdf.) It contains some interesting comments on "the ostrich instruction" which basically tells the jury if they find the defendant buried his head in the sand to avoid knowing what was going on, they can find him guilty.

Judge Richard Posner wrote the opinion. The trial judge was Amy St. Eve, the same judge that presided over the Tony Rezko trial. [More...]

Maureen Dowd:

Conservatives love playing this little game, acting as if the “elite” Democratic candidates are not in touch with people like themselves, even though the guys doing the attacking — like Rove, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity — are wealthy and cosseted. ... Everyone who ever became president was in the elite one way or another, including Andrew Jackson. ...

Rove’s mythmaking about Obama won’t fly. If he means that Obama has brains, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama is successful, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama has education and intellectual sophistication, what’s wrong with that?

The election isn't about who you'd want to have a beer with. It's about who will best govern.

The other Supreme Court decision of interest today to criminal law junkies is Giles v. California (pdf). The issue is whether a defendant forfeits his right under the Confrontation Clause "to confront a witness against him when a judge determines that a wrongful act by the defendant made the witness unavailable to testify at trial." Hearsay statements made to a police officer that incriminate a defendant typically cannot be used at the defendant's trial unless the person making the statements is available to be cross-examined. A murder victim is obviously unavailable, and the issue was whether an exception to the confrontation rule exists when the defendant has caused the unavailability of the witness.

Giles shot his ex-girlfriend. At trial he claimed he acted in self-defense. A police officer testified that the ex-girlfriend had reported three weeks earlier that Giles had accused her of having an affair and had threatened to kill her.

In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Scalia, the Court held that a defendant does not forfeit his Confrontation Clause right to bar testimonial statements made outside the courtroom (in this case, the ex-girlfriend's statement to the officer) when the person making those statements has not been cross-examined, even if she's unavailable for cross-examination only because the defendant killed her. The Court rejected the popular notion of "forfeiture by wrongdoing" unless the wrongdoing was designed to prevent the testimony from being given.

I'll be at work today, here's an open thread for you. Also check out:

• Christy at Firedoglake recaps Sen. Chris Dodd's speech last night on FISA. Glenn Greenwald does too.

• Spencer Ackerman has moved his blog to Firedoglake. Cool graphic and definitely one to put in your RSS feed.

• Peter Swire at Think Progress on laptop searches by border security.

• Collateral News on Floating Prisons.

All topics welcome and please be civil.

Bump and Update: The Court did not issue an opinion today in D.C. v. Heller. Scotus Blog says the Court announced all remaining decisions will released tomorrow at 10:00 am ET.

*****

Original Post

Awaiting the Supreme Court's Second Amendment Decision

Will today be the day the Supreme Court issues its long-awaited opinion in D.C. v. Heller, deciding the constitutionality of D.C.'s handgun ban and settling the question of whether the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms?

Several court watchers think so. Concurring Opinions believes it will be authored by Justice Anton Scalia, who has yet to write an opinion in the March sitting cases. Heller is also the only case remaining among the March sitting cases. [Hat tip Instapundit.][More...]

Via Scotus Blog: The Supreme Court decided Kennedy v. Louisiana today, holding that "the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional if the defendants' acts were not intended to cause death." The decision was 5-4.

The Court has released the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), on whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits states from imposing the death penalty for child rape, and, if not, whether Louisiana’s statute fails to narrow the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty. The ruling below, which upheld the state law, is reversed and remanded.

Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas. We will provide a link to the decision as soon as it is available.

The opinion is available here. The Court categorically says the death penalty is forbidden for crimes that do not result in death. [More..]

TSA at work:

For my friend Margaret, a savvy government lawyer and nursing mom, the decision to travel overseas wasn’t one she made lightly, but she figured she could handle the logistics. Boy was she wrong. The trip got off to a bad start, she says, when “the all male screeners at Dulles spent about 20 minutes examining and testing the [breast] pump for bomb residue and once they finally figured out its general purpose, grew very uncomfortable.”

If it has wires, it must be a bomb.

Via The Swamp at the Chicago Tribune:

A Democratic source with knowledge of the situation said Obama instructed members of his national finance committee during a conference call today to help Clinton with some of the $10 million she owes to vendors.

The former first lady, who exited the Democratic contest on June 7, ended May with $22.5 million in debt, more than half of it from personal loans to her campaign.

I wonder if he used the word "some" as a limiter and if so, why? Why not just ask them to help her with the $10 million she owes to vendors?

It seems to me she will be raising more than that amount for him during the general election campaign from her donors who maxed out to her. Why wouldn't he ask the same of his big donors?

Again, this is only about the amount she owes to third parties. Hillary is not asking anyone to reimburse her for the $10 million she loaned her campaign which she has said she views as her personal investment.

Listen to this:

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology."

Is this a rational observer commenting upon Rev. James Dobson? No, it is Rev. Dr. Dobson commenting upon Barack Obama.

Just days after Senator Barack Obama met quietly with religious leaders, including the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, another of the evangelical movement’s most prominent names, James C. Dobson, has sharply attacked Mr. Obama, accusing him of having “a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution” and twisting the meaning of both the Old and New Testaments.

This is surely not the first time that Rev. Dobson and "fruitcake" have appeared in the same sentence. [more ...]

You'd think military prosecutors would want to get it right the second time.

The Army is trying [Army Sgt. William] Kreutzer for the second time on capital murder, attempted murder and other charges stemming from an October 1995 shooting spree in which Kreutzer opened fire on a brigade of soldiers as they prepared for an early morning run. ... Kreutzer was sentenced to death at a court-martial in 1996, but he won a new trial after military appeals courts ruled in 2004 and 2005 that his first lawyers were incompetent.

Kreutzer's new lawyers have no experience defending the death phase of a trial. They've asked the court "to appoint qualified lawyers or make the case non-capital." Prosecutors responded that the lawyers are good enough. Are they inviting a repeat performance of the first appeal? [more ...]

Four years ago, the question was:

Why Is Paul Minor Being Prosecuted?

The latest installment of Raw Story's "ongoing probe of political prosecutions by Bush appointed US Attorneys" focuses on Minor's role as a large contributor to the Democratic Party, made possible by the fees he earned in the settlement of states' litigation against the tobacco industry to recover smoking-related health care costs.

Republicans, meanwhile, who had previously enjoyed generous donations from the tobacco industry, were left with little for their campaign coffers.

[more ...]