John D.R. Atchison, the federal prosecutor from Florida arrested last week when he flew to Detroit allegedly to have sex with a five year old, tried to commit suicide yesterday.

John D.R. Atchison, 53, used a sheet in an attempted hanging around 4 a.m., said Sanilac County Sheriff Virgil Strickler. Another inmate yelled out to jailers, who kept Atchison from hurting himself, Strickler said.

He was placed on a suicide watch when arrested, but it was lifted at his lawyer's request and after Atchison assured the court he wouldn't try and kill himself.

James C. Thomas of Detroit, Atchison's lawyer, had also asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia M. Morgan to lift the suicide watch on Atchison, based on what his client told him.

"We all operate on the best of intentions," Thomas said today. "At the time, I thought it was the right decision. Apparently, it was a mistake. "I feel as bad about it as anyone."

Atchison has been removed from the jail. Hopefully they will take him somewhere he can get a complete psychiatric evaluation. As I wrote last week, he clearly needs help.

Jena Six defendant Mychal Bell was not released on bail today.

The hearing was not open to the public. Yesterday, a Louisiana appeals court ordered that a hearing occur within 72 hours to determine if Bell could be released. The hearing was held today.

I'm wondering whether a probation revocation proceeding is pending that's preventing his release. According to this source, he was put on probation for a Dec. 2005 battery and it's not up until Jan. 2008. Any one of his subsequent convictions for either the July, 2006 or September, 2006 offenses could trigger a probation revocation proceeding.

I'm not familiar with the juvenile statutes in Louisiana, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's no bail on a first appearance on a probation violation, pending a probable cause hearing. Here's Bell's criminal record (same link):

• a battery Christmas Day 2005, for which he was put on probation until Jan. 18, 2008
• criminal damage to property that occurred on July 25, 2006.
• a battery Sept. 2 and criminal damage to property Sept. 3 (probably 2006)

Update: No verdict today, the jury will resume deliberations Monday.

*******

Here's how to blow a five month trial out of a judge's desire to avoid a deadlocked jury: Let the jury deliberate a week and then change the jury instructions to add new ways the jury can find the defendant guilty. Then, suggest to the jury they change their method of deliberations.

It's hard not to be shocked by what the Judge in the Phil Spector trial did today. He went from this instruction:

...in order to convict Spector of second-degree murder the jury had to find that "the defendant must have committed an act that caused the death of Lana Clarkson." It went on to specify the act was pointing a gun at her, which resulted in the gun entering her mouth while in Spector's hand.

to this one:

Fidler told the panel that to prove Spector guilty, "the people must prove that ... the defendant committed an act with a firearm that caused the death of Lana Clarkson, such as placing a gun in her mouth or forcing her to place the gun in her mouth at which time it discharged, pointing the gun at or against her head at which time it entered her mouth and discharged, pointing the gun at her to prevent her from leaving the house, causing a struggle which resulted in the gun entering her mouth and discharging.

More...

Chris Bowers writes:

[T]he current conservative governing coalition of George Bush, Bush Dogs, congressional Republicans, and anti-MoveOn, anti-Reid Feingold Senators is opposed to the will of 60% of the American people on Iraq.

This conflation of criticism of Move On's ill advised ad (which is, I suppose, what Bowers is referring to; I condemn Move On for the ad and for its efforts to support the horrible Iraq Supplemental this Spring (Bowers also supported at times) and for its silly waste of a "ratchet up the pressure"/Wait for the Godot Republicans strategy this summer) withsupport for continuation of the war is ridiculous.

And it is unfortunate that Chris chose to demand fealty to Move On in this post as he makes a point of mine of longstanding - there is no compromise on Iraq. The choices now are binary - are you for ending the Iraq War? Then support ONLY funding with timelines. Anything else is de facto support for continuation of the Iraq Debacle.

Leave it to the Bureau of Prisons to find a way to unite the religious right and the civil liberties loving left. Despite protests from religious groups, Congress, and defenders of the Constitution, the BOP has refused to overturn its policy of purging religious texts from prison libraries. Only those texts deemed "appropriate" by federal bureaucrats are available for inmates to read.

Outrage over the bureau’s decision has come from both conservatives and liberals, who say it is inappropriate to limit inmates to a religious reading list determined by the government.

If the First Amendment prohibits the government from estabishing a religion, it surely prohibits the government from establishing an approved set of religious texts.

After Florentino Floro Jr was fired from the Philippines Supreme Court, bad things started to happen to the other justices, "including serious illnesses and car accidents." Floro has a simple explanation: one of the three elves with whom he hangs out is seeking revenge.

Floro says the person to blame for the mishaps is one of the elves, "Luis," a "king of kings" who is an avenger. He told the newspaper that the elves help him predict the future, but he has never consulted them when issuing judicial decisions.

Did the elves tell him he was going to be fired?

A very silly line of argument has developed today in the Left blogs. This post by MJ Rosenberg is an example:

I agree with reader JE who wrote: "the Democrats should make them filibuster, and use the term "filibuster" whenever they describe what the Republicans have done, not idiotic characterizations like "we don't have the votes." . . . Make them filibuster. Make it a true filibuster, which stops all other business until a cloture vote occurs. . . ." . . . Why not force the GOP to stay up all night reading the Bible and The Collected Works of Ann Coulter. Let the electorate see them blocking the will off the people. Why would Dems be afraid of that.

Um, how exactly would the Senate Leader be able to do that? The point of a cloture vote is to end debate. The lack of cloture does not mean that debate will occur on the Senate floor.

More.

Good riddance!. This article is false:

The Senate rejected legislation Friday that would have ordered most U.S. troops home from Iraq in nine months, culminating a losing week for Democrats who failed to push through any anti-war proposal. The vote, 47-47, fell 13 votes short of the 60 needed to pass.

(Emphasis supplied.) The bill would NOT have ordered any troops out of Iraq. It was not binding on the President. Only funding restrictions bind the President

Senator Dodd voted against the bill for the right reasons:

This bill (Levin-Reed) will not stop this President from continuing to wage this war. While a firm deadline is necessary, it is not sufficient without it also being enforceable through the power of the purse. Given this President's loyalty to his own failed policy, it is clear to me that anything short of firm, enforceable deadline that forces his hand will only serve to perpetuate our involvement in this civil war. I will only vote to fully fund the complete redeployment of our troops out of Iraq."

(Emphasis supplied.) I repeat my question, is Chris Dodd the only person in the Senate who understands this? Oh by the way, the Democrats have lost NOTHING yet on Iraq. They will only lose if they PASS a bill that funds the war without establishing a date certain for ending funding.

Via Greenwald, Rudy says one of the dumbest things said about anything by anyone this year:

In London this week, Rudy Giuliani proposed what is probably the single most extremist policy of any major presidential candidate, certainly this year and perhaps in many years:

Rudy Giuliani talked tough on Iran yesterday, proposing to expand NATO to include Israel and warning that if Iran's leaders go ahead with their goal to be a nuclear power "we will prevent it, or we will set them back five or 10 years." . . . .

If this is something the US would insist on, there would no longer be a NATO. The US would lose everyone with such a proposal. No serious person would even say this as a pander. A standard pander on Israel, one Hillary used in fact, is calling for a unified Jerusalem under Israeli control. As Yglesias notes, even Israel knows that is a nonstarter. But as a pander, it has been a standard call for many US politicians.

And I guess that was the point, Rudy felt he had to say something even more ridiculous. And he did.

In an editorial today The New York Times writes about the Republican filibusters and recommends:

There were votes, of course, but not on the bills. They were cloture votes, which require 60 or more Senators to agree to cut off debate, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster, so Senators can vote on the actual law. In both cases, Democrats were four votes short, with six Republicans daring to defy the White House. We support the filibuster as the only way to ensure a minority in the Senate can be heard. When the cloture votes failed this week, the Democrats should have let the Republicans filibuster. Democratic leaders think that’s too risky, since Congress could look like it’s not doing anything. But it’s not doing a lot now.

(Emphasis supplied.) The highlighted passage is indicative of the profound misunderstanding of what the Democrats can do on Iraq. From the NYTimes to Move On (I would have censured them for their idiotic political strategy on Iraq), there seems to be no understanding that Congress can end the Iraq Debacle BY DOING NOTHING!!

How hard is it to understand - Democrats need only say and do one thing - NO funding of the Debacle after a date certain. No funding without a timeline. Filibusters and vetoes are powerless against the Spending Power on this. Will anyone on our side ever get it? Besides Chris Dodd?

The Senate today found time in its busy schedule to pass a resolution by Sen. John Cornyn condemning the Move-On ad regarding Gen. Petraeus.

It couldn't pass habeas reform or the Webb Amendment but could rally behind a stupid, toothless resolution?

The roll call vote is here.

And Obama can't be bothered to show up and vote against it? When he voted an hour earlier on Boxer's alternative resolution and also on Russ Feingold's amendment to begin immediate troop withdrawal?

At least Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted against the Cornyn Amendment condemning the ad. For more:

• MyDD

• Taylor Marsh

• Open Left

• Firedoglake

The Jena Six case is huge news today. Here's some links to today's articles.

• Jena Six News Page

• New York Times

• CNN Jena Six Page

• Al Sharpton wants a Congressional inquiry.

• Friends of Justice account of Mychal Bell's trial (very compelling)

• Update: Christy at Firedoglake has a thoughtful post on the Jena Six

Note: I have removed the link to the Jenna Times page because I found the coverage selectively inclusive -- meaning it omitted important details which in my view, prevents a full, unbiased and accurate understanding of the events that have transpired.