by TChris

U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel awarded damages of $13.6 million to Eric Sarsfield, who spent about a decade in prison for a rape he didn't commit.

In her three-page decision, Judge Zobel said Mr. Sarsfield's problems with alcohol and drugs before his wrongful imprisonment worsened and his "social and communal life has been shredded." She said that the phobia and panic disorders he suffers from are the direct result of his incarceration.

The award includes a $2 million settlement that Sarsfield received from Marlboro, Massachusetts. Sarsfield's lawyer fears that the rest of the award may be uncollectable.

I've had four wonderful days in Manhattan, with the TL kid and great colleagues, being treated, as usual, like royalty by Lexis.com. I haven't read a newspaper, seen a television show, listened to a radio or blogged. A huge thanks to TChris and Big Tent Democrat for all their great posts.

I'm on the way to the airport (blogging this from my laptop's WWAN) and will be back to regular blogging tonight.

In the meantime, here's one more open thread.

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

This is a disgrace:

The Navy lawyer who took the Guantánamo case of Osama bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court -- and won -- has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week he received word he had been denied a promotion to full-blown commander this summer, "about two weeks after" the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. Under the military's "up-or-out" promotion system, Swift will retire in March or April, closing a 20-year career of military service.

This disagraceful vengeance upon a Navy lawyer committed to the ideals he swore to uphold is just as much as taint on our country as the detainee bill. Why? Because it puts into grave doubt the whole idea of military tribunals, and the independence and commitment of layers appointed to defend detainees. The Navy reward for a job well done is to be busted out of the service. An outrage.

by TChris

Even as the president assures us that Democrats can't be trusted to conduct the war against terror, his administration intends to do nothing to assure that Luis Posada Carriles is prosecuted for the role he allegedly played in causing an explosion that killed all 73 people aboard a Cubana Airlines flight in 1976. Posada was arrested last year for illegal entry into the United States, and is being held in an El Paso detention center. Venezuela and Cuba are seeking his extradition, but the Bush adminstration wants to deport him to a country that will likely set him free.

His case presents a quandary for the Bush administration, at least in part because Mr. Posada is a former C.I.A. operative and United States Army officer who directed his wrath at a government that Washington has long opposed.

In Bush's world, some accused terrorists deserve to be held without trial forever, while others enjoy a favored status. The sister of a passenger on the ill-fated Cubana Airlines flight wonders why the United States is following a double standard.

"If this were a plane full of Americans, it would have been a different story."

by TChris

Shouldn't a knowledge of sign language be a job requirement for campus police officers at Gallaudet University?

Students at Gallaudet University remained barricaded inside one of the main campus buildings Friday, protesting the school's presidential selection and what students call a pattern of prejudice at the largely deaf institution.

Students said campus police on Friday morning forced their way into the Hall Memorial Building, shoving and elbowing students and pepper spraying some. The school denied use of pepper spray and said authorities needed to rush in because of a bomb threat, though there turned out to be no bomb.

Ryan Commerson, a student and leader of the protests, said the campus police apparently did not know sign language and could not communicate their concerns to students as they pushed their way in. A lack of knowledge of sign language by those charged with protecting the students has historically caused troubles at the university not far from the U.S. Capitol, but the school has previously said it took steps to address that.

by TChris

The NY Times reports that gay Republicans in Washington are "under siege and suspicion." The party that gets in bed with intolerant gay-bashing hate-spewing homophobes isn't standing behind its gay members? What a shock.

"You can see where it would be easy for some people to blame gays for something that might bring down the party in Congress," said Brian Bennett, a gay Republican political consultant. He was a longtime chief of staff to former Representative Robert K. Dornan, Republican of California, who regularly referred to gays as "Sodomites."

by TChris

The times they are a-changin'.

For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror.

A change is gonna come.

Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month, including 10 percent of Republicans, compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power.

Newsweek's new poll shows the presidential approval rating at an all-time low: 33 percent.

by TChris

Do you deserve to be hassled every time you try to board a plane, just because your name is John Williams? If you share a name with someone Homeland Security has added to its terrorist watch list, you probably dread going to an airport or encountering a customs agent or police officer.

Thousands of people [including more than 30,000 airline passengers] have been mistakenly linked to names on terrorist watch lists when they crossed the border, boarded commercial airliners or were stopped for traffic violations, a government report said Friday. ... The list also contains such generic names as Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson. When "60 Minutes" spoke with 12 people named Robert Johnson, it reported, all said that they are detained almost every time they fly.

Saddam Hussein is among the 44,000 names on the list because Homeland Security apparently is unaware that he's in custody. Bizarrely, names of some terrorists have been deliberately omitted from the list.

by TChris

Incidents like this one explain why the Bush administration's battle to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis has been lost:

Saying he was unable to stop the bloodshed, a Navy corpsman testified that Marines in his patrol seized an Iraqi civilian from his home, threw him into a hole and shot him at least 10 times after growing frustrated in their search for an insurgent. Slight and soft-spoken, Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos said Friday he saw a Marine put fingerprints from the victim onto a rifle and a shovel to implicate him as an insurgent. ...

Bacos said he asked the Marines to let Awad go, but Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda told him in crude terms that he was being weak and should stop protesting.

According to this story, some of the Marines involved are trying to negotiate plea agreements now that Bacos has rolled over on them. Others argue that Bacos invented the story to save himself. Bacos received an extraordinarily favorable deal in exchange for his cooperation in the prosecution of the Marines.

by TChris

A recent report by People For the American Way analyzes decisions written by Bush-appointed judges and concludes that "more and more opinions seek, sometimes successfully, to cut back broadly on Americans' rights under our Constitution and laws." According to PFAW Legal Director Elliot Mincberg:

"What we're seeing is unfortunately exactly what the Federalist Society and White House hoped for when they promoted one ultraconservative ideologue after another to the appeals courts."

That news provides another reason to rescue the Senate from Republican rule. After all, we have two more years of President Bush, no matter what happens in November.

The report, Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears, is available here.

by TChris

The Constitution empowers the president to veto bills that the legislature enacts. It does not authorize the president to rewrite legislation. Untroubled by constitutional or legislative limits on executive power, President Bush again used a signing statement to explain his anticipated disobedience of the proposed law that Congress sent him.

The statement repeatedly asserts that Homeland Security Appropriations Act "purports to" do certain things. It "purport[s] to require congressional committee approval for the execution of a law." It "purports to direct the conduct of security and suitability investigations." It "vests in the President authority to appoint the Administrator, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, but purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the President may select the appointee ..." The president claims that Congress can do none of these things.

Congress did not "purport" to do these things; Congress did them. If the president thought Congress passed an unconstitutional bill, he should have vetoed it. Can our strict constructionist president point to the constitutional language that permits him to ignore limits that Congress places on the executive powers that it enacts, or to deprive Congress of an oversight role in a law's implementation?

Charlie Savage at the Boston Globe explains how the president's power grab works to the detriment of FEMA, and of good government:

by TChris

Our second innocence case of the day (the first one is blogged here) involves Scott Fappiano, who was released today after serving 21 years for raping a police officer's wife. DNA tests established that he didn't do it.

Fappiano was arrested and first tried in 1984, despite blood-typing tests that failed to link him to cigarettes and stained clothing left at the crime scene. The main evidence against Fappiano was an identification by the rape victim, although he was five inches shorter than the 5-foot-10 attacker first described by the woman. The police officer, after viewing the same lineup, did not select Fappiano.

Fappiano's first jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal. This is the poster case for the argument that charges should be dismissed after a jury hangs. The government should get one chance to convict, and that's it. Another trial increases the likelihood that an innocent man will serve time.

This is also the second post of the day to praise the Innocence Project for its good work in freeing an innocent man. How sad it is that it took 21 years for justice to arrive.