by TChris

At least 110 arrests made by nine Chicago police officers won't lead to convictions, as the state's attorneys' office ordered prosecutors to drop the cases. The officers who made the arrests are no longer viewed as credible, with good reason: four of them are charged with "robbing, kidnapping and intimidating drug dealers," and the other five are under investigation.

The memo directs prosecutors to drop cases that may have been tainted by the officers' involvement, including those in which the officers made the arrest, signed a search warrant, gave information from an informant or recovered physical evidence. ... Earlier this month, prosecutors dropped at least 27 "tainted" drug and gun cases after the officers were arrested, including a case against two men who were nabbed last fall when police seized $15 million worth of cocaine, officials said.

by TChris

As TalkLeft reported here, the government had a weak case against John "Junior" Gotti, and shouldn't have been surprised when the prosecution ended in a hung jury last year. Undaunted, the government took Gotti to trial again, and got another hung jury. At that point, the judge should have told the government that enough is enough and dismissed the case, but the government instead was allowed a third chance to convict Gotti.

The government hauled out its same tired witnesses -- snitches and thugs -- and, in a trial that ended yesterday, obtained the same tired result: yet another hung jury. Rather than admitting defeat (and apologizing for wasting taxpayers' money three times), "U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia said prosecutors would tell the court soon how they will proceed in the case." How many chances does the government think it deserves?

by TChris

When an adversarial relationship exists, it's generally unethical for a lawyer to contact an individual represented by another lawyer without that lawyer's permission. It's particularly offensive when a prosecutor goes behind a defense lawyer's back to attempt a plea bargain with the defense lawyer's client. That misstep prompted the Tennessee Supreme Court to suspend temporarily the law license of District Attorney General Bill Gibson, who wrote to murder defendant Christopher Adams, seeking his commitment to plead to a lesser charge, without going through Adams' lawyer.

An interesting comment posted to the "story chat" section of the linked story suggests that the Herald-Citizen, like many newspapers, has been lax in reporting the poor job performance of the district attorneys' office:

If only the Herald-Citizen had been reporting on all the injustice instead of empowering Gibson and eating the pizza he drops by the newsroom on weekends.

by TChris

There's no doubt that affluent defendants who can afford to mount a strong death penalty defense will probably be spared a verdict of death, while those with fewer resources (particularly in states that don't fund an adequate defense for the indigent) are more likely to be executed. That's the message being spread by David Kaczynski, brother of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, and William Babbitt, brother of Manny Babbitt, "a grade-school dropout and paranoid schizophrenic, scarred by Vietnam, who was executed in California in 1999 after a defense lawyer mounted no defense at all."

Race is just as important as income in the inequitable implementation of the death penalty.

Study after study has shown that no matter what the offense, blacks and whites suspected of similar crimes are charged differently, convicted at different rates and sentenced differently.

In a 2000 report, for instance, Human Rights Watch analyzed U.S. Justice Department data and found that while blacks make up only 13 percent of the population, they are 30 percent of those arrested, 41 percent of those in local jails and 49 percent of those in prison. When the organization revisited the issue three years later, little had changed.

by TChris

Among those who believe that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is making life less safe -- most Iraqis.

About three-quarters of Iraqis believe U.S. forces are provoking more conflict than they are preventing in Iraq and should be withdrawn within a year, a survey released on Wednesday showed. ...

That poll found a strong majority of Iraqis wanted American forces to leave immediately. It asked whether people favored U.S. troops leaving immediately, staying until the government asked them to leave or saying until the violence stopped.

by TChris

It isn't surprising that Republicans would sell out the Constitution and endanger the country by supporting the president's proposal to weaken the Geneva Conventions and to try detainees without the fundamental protections of due process, but it should be shocking that Senate Democrats apparently won't use their power to stop this un-American bill.

An editorial in today's NY Times succintly explains seven key problems with the bill. Will its call to action fall on deaf Democratic ears?

There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

It's my birthday and I'm taking the day off from both my day job and blogging. Not because I have something special to do, but because I can and I want to.

I don't particularly feel like saying how old I am, I'd just note that Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Tuesday Weld, Bruce Springsteen and Bill and Hillary Clinton are older than me. But not by much.

If you have no reason to take the day off, here's some space for you to vent.

Denver may have just moved up a notch in the competiton to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Why? Because its chief competitor, Minneapolis, was just chosen to host the Republican convention.

Party and state officials announced the selection Wednesday. The convention is slated for Sept. 1-4, 2008.... Democrats also had been considering holding their convention in the Twin Cities, but the Republican announcement left Democrats with two competing cities to choose from -- New York and Denver.

Can Denver beat New York?

Amanda Across America visits Atrios in Philly.

It's over in the House. They voted today, 253-168, to pass Bush's military commission bill. It's expected to pass the Senate tomorrow.

The mostly party-line 253-168 vote in the Republican-run House came shortly after senators agreed to limit debate on their own nearly identical bill, all but assuring its passage on Thursday.

Republican leaders are hoping to work out differences and send Bush a final version before leaving town this weekend to campaign for the Nov. 7 congressional elections.

What a blow for due process and justice. Shame on all who voted for it.

I don't want Jeanine Pirro to win the election for New York Attorney General, but I'm sorry to see her personal life splashed all over the papers. This is really sordid. I also don't wish a federal investigation on anyone, especially over marital problems.

Shorter version: Pirro asked Bernie Kerik to bug her husband to find out about his mistress. This is the same husband who went to jail a few years ago for tax evasion, where Jeanine wasn't indicted because she had innocent spouse status even though she signed the return. The feds were tapping Bernie in 2005 on an unrelated matter and they caught his coversations with Jeanine. Now she's under investigation.

There are two horrible provisions in the military commissions bill. One would grant amnesty to Bush administration officials who authorized the use of torture techniques. The other would eliminate habeas for detainees.

While we've all focused a lot on the habeas provision, Sen. Dick Durbin points out in this long statement he delivered today in the Senate that the torture amnesty provision is not receiving nearly enough attention.