by TChris

After criticizing Haley Barbour for refusing to pardon Clyde Kennard, TalkLeft praised Judge Robert Helfrich for vacating Kennard's conviction. Kennard was wrongly accused of buying stolen chicken feed and sentenced to prison after he tried to enroll in an all-white university in Mississippi.

This happy ending is under attack by Richard Barrett. Sadly, Barrett is a lawyer. He's also the newspaper editor for the white supremacist organization the Nationalist Movement. He filed a petition asking Judge Helfrich to reverse his decision on the ground that Helfrich had no authority to act.

Barrett filed his petition on behalf of five "common folks" from Central Mississippi.

Barrett professes to be concerned that the correction of racial injustice might become a trend that will lead to the renaming of Forrest County, "because its namesake is Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest - founder of the Ku Klux Klan." And that would be a bad thing why?

Lloyd Bentsen, 85, Former Senator, Secretary of the Treasury and Vice Presidential candidate on the 1988 Democratic ticket with Michael Dukakis has died at his home in Texas. He had had two strokes in recent years. His most priceless moment came during his 1988 debate with Dan Quayle:

Quayle: ... I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Moderator: Senator Bentsen.

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

R.I.P., Senator Bentson

by Last Night in Little Rock

Over the weekend, the FBI searched the Congressional office of Rep. William Jefferson, and Republicans in the House are crying "foul" and "separation of powers." See House Leaders Question F.B.I. Search on NYTimes.com today.

As readers of this website and FourthAmendment.com have undoubtedly noticed, I tend to lean toward the citizen on Fourth Amendment claims. I also read the cases everyday, and I know the trends and what the courts can do and not do with particular facts. I am also a Fourth Amendment realist seeking to balance individual privacy and government need.

Senator Chris Dodd of CT has announced he is exploring a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Thoughts, anyone?

No surprise here, but General Michael Hayden was approved by the House Intelligence Committee today as CIA Director and now will go to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. Today's vote was 9-3. Voting against him were three Democrats, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden and Evan Bayh.

The ACLU responds:

And the hits, they just keep coming. The latest is Osama bin Laden's newest audio tape in which he says Zacarias Moussaoui was not a part of 9/11.

"He had no connection at all with Sept. 11," the speaker, claiming to be bin Laden, said in the tape posted on the Internet. "I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.

The al-Qaida chief said the Sept. 11 hijackers were divided into two groups, "pilots and assistants." "Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed," bin Laden said. "It knows this very well," he added. Bin Laden said Moussaoui's confession -- that he helped plan the attacks -- was "void," calling it the result of "pressures exercised against him during four and a half years" in U.S. prison.

Will Moussaoui's lawyers ask for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence showing he's innocent? Is it admissible, if authenticated? Would it have made any difference to the jury? Does anyone care any more about Moussaoui, or has he already become a footnote in 9/11 history now that he is languishing at Supermax?

Remember Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht who served as the Administration's unofficial spokesman in advancing Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court? (Background here.)

He has been admonished for his conduct by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct which issued a public admonition to him for his media comments.

Last fall Hecht estimated that he gave 120 interviews to the press about Miers' qualifications for the bench -- including information about her religious beliefs and views on abortion -- after her Oct. 3, 2005, nomination came under attack from conservative groups. [See "Texas Attorneys Support Dallas Native's High Court Nomination," Texas Lawyer, Oct. 10, 2005, page 1.]

At that time, Hecht jokingly said to Texas Lawyer that he had been acting as a "PR office for the White House" and had been filling in gaps about Miers' background to the press, countering some conservatives' skepticism about her qualifications -- statements that were referenced in the commission's admonition. [See the commission's admonition.]

Washington Post Photo

The trial of Abu Ghraib dog handler Sgt. Santos A. Cardona opened today. He is accused of letting his dog bite a detainee, which resulted in the detainee receiving stitches. The actual charges are:

....assault, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees and lying to investigators in late 2003 and early 2004. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 16 1/2 years in prison.

Opening statements were held this morning.

The BBC News reports today that a panel of experts in Britan have recommended a program that has been in effect in Switzerland for years -- heroin addiction rooms, where addicts can go to get clean needles and shoot up, with a nurse on staff to help them find a vein or provide medical or treatment advice.

Addicts can get a shower, there is a small restaurant providing nutritious food, and even a corner with comfortable armchairs and table football. But perhaps the most important thing the centre provides, apart from the clean needles, is psychiatric support.

Most doctors who treat long-term addicts agree there is always a point when an addict is ready to give up heroin, and there are staff here to watch for those signs, to counsel, and to refer patients for therapy.

I can't read German, but a lawyer who reads TalkLeft can. This just in today. The German high court has sharply limited data-mining as an invasion of citizen privacy. His translation of the news article, with his explanation in brackets:

The Federal Constitutional Court [located in Karlsruhe, their highest court] has drastically limited the possibilities and opportunities for dragnet/grid/screening searches (data-mining) and thereby rolled back limitations on people's civil liberties in the fight against Terror.

In a decision made public today, the justices stated that foreign policy tensions or a collective threat level such as after the attacks of 9/11/01 do not suffice to permit the dragnet/grid/screen searches. In that connection [i.e., post 9/11] in Nordrhein-Westfalen the data pertaining to more than five million men were reviewed/scrutinized in detail. The justices found that officials [seeking to do data-mining] must have/put forward concrete grounds to believe there will be foreseeable attacks in Germany. While electronic/data privacy advocates and politicians from the Greens, FDP and Left Party greeted the decision, the Bavarian Interior Minister Beckstein called it a black day for the War on Terror.

Original news item (Bavarian Radio):
17:00 Uhr: Karlsruhe schränkt Möglichkeiten der Rasterfahndung ein

The New York Daily News is reporting that former CIA official Robert Grenier has been disclosed in pleadings by Team Libby to be the unnamed CIA official who allegedly told Libby on June 10 that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson,worked for the C.I.A. and had a role in sending her husband to Niger to check on the uranium claim.

Unless I'm missing something, this news is two months old. The first such pleading was filed on March 17. (pdf) The latest was May 12. Both have been previously reported on.

Jason Leopold reported this on March 18.

In Friday's filing, Libby's attorneys attempted to push the blame for the leak onto other officials at the CIA and the State Department and said these officials will likely be called to testify at next year's criminal trial. In doing so, the attorneys disclosed in the 39-page document the identities of four CIA employees who possibly provided their client with information about Plame Wilson's work for the CIA.

Say hello to Stand Down, a blog by the Texas Standown Project covering death penalty issues. While Texas-centric it also links to major national stories and events.

It's great to see more of anti-death penalty blogs. I also recommend Abolish (NCADP) and Capital Defense Weekly which in addition to its own blogging, has a blogroll with many defender blogs.