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Bump and Update: Sgt. Michael Smith got a six month sentence today for abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib and using his dog to engage in lewd acts. Is anyone else outraged?

Bump and Update (3/21 7:09 pm): What should Sgt. Smith's sentence be? There was a lot of emotional testimony from his father and sister-in-law as the sentencing hearing got underway today. Prosecutors said they will wrap up tomorrow. Their witness was "not available."

Prosecutors had planned to call a civilian expert to testify that terrorist groups are recruiting and inciting violence with the help of the infamous snapshots of U.S. troops mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But the witness was not available.

Sgt. Smith testified at the sentencing, but it doesn't sound like a real acceptance of responsibility to me. He said if he had it to do over again, he'd get his instructions in writing, to cover his as*:

by TChris

Elected city officials feel pressure to respond to constant constituent complaints about neighborhood drivers who speed or try to make it through an intersection as the light is turning red. The officials sometimes designate "traffic enforcement days," where officers are diverted from their routine duties and assigned to set up speed traps or watch for red signal violations. But it doesn't make sense to divert officers from more pressing duties for long periods of time, and cities don't want to spend the money to hire more traffic cops.

Some elected officials have responded to this dilemma by substituting cameras for cops. The cameras record violations and appropriate tickets are sent to the vehicle's owner. The idea works if the camera actually captures the driver's face, and if the driver is also the car's registered owner, but without a face shot, it's difficult to prove that the owner was actually the offending driver.

Minneapolis thought it would be clever to declare vehicle owners to be the presumptive drivers, while shifting the burden to the owner to prove that he or she wasn't the person who ran the red light. As the result of an ACLU of Minnesota challenge, Minneapolis has learned that it can't dismiss so readily the presumption of innocence, even in a traffic case.

There's a knock on your door. The police are there, asking if they can come in and search. You and your wife answer the door. Your wife says yes, you say no. Can the police come in and search?

The Supreme Court said "no" today -- when both parties are present and one objects, the police cannot come in.

- A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the police cannot enter a home and seize evidence without a warrant when one occupant agreed to the search after the other occupant refused permission. By a 5-3 vote, the high court said the husband's refusal in a case from Georgia was clear, making the search unreasonable and invalid, despite his wife's approval for it.

The narrowly written ruling was a defeat for the state of Georgia and for the U.S. Justice Department, which had argued that the search of a residence should be allowed when one occupant consents, even if the other occupant objects.

Judge Alito did not participate. Roberts, Scalia and Thomas dissented. Souter, who wrote the majority opinion, criticized Roberts' dissent:

Under the dissent's view, he wrote, "The centuries of special protection for the privacy of the home are over."

by TChris

Last year, TalkLeft reported that Sen. Leahy was contemplating legislation to curb the administration's abuse of the material witness law. Leahy introduced that bill in the Senate, and Rep. Jeff Flake says he'll introduce a similar bill in the House. Momentum for reform is building as the administration's abuse of the material witness law becomes more obvious.

Recent prosecutions, lawsuits and internal investigations by the government have all focused attention on the potential misuse of the material witness law in terrorism investigations. The Justice Department, for instance, recently opened an inquiry into 21 instances of possible misuses of the law, its Office of the Inspector General said. A Justice Department spokesman would not elaborate on the inquiry, by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or name the detainees involved.

The ACLU and Students for Sensible Drug Policy are filing a federal lawsuit today against the Department of Education and Secretary Margaret Spellings. The suit challenges the constitutionality of the law that strips college financial aid from students with drug convictions. The New York Times wrote about it here.

The policy has already derailed or destroyed the academic careers of nearly 200,000 would-be students since being enacted in 2000. Drug offenders are the only class of people automatically denied aid - murderers, rapists, arsonists, burglars, etc are still eligible.

A full copy of ACLU/SSDP's complaint is on the site, for your perusal.

Most importantly, they are looking to find more plaintiffs for this class action lawsuit. More information on the case is on their site.

Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui had another good day in court today. Retired FBI Agent acknowledged during cross-examination that he had never read another agent's memo, sent to his office, saying he suspected Moussaoui was a possible terrorist with plans to hijack an airline.

Called as a government witness, Rolince, a 31-year FBI veteran who retired last October, proved to be more valuable for attorneys defending the only man charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon....defense attorney MacMahon was able to extract from Rolince more embarrassing revelations about FBI handling of terrorism intelligence before 9/11.

The defense is also asking for the judge to amend the language in its ruling on the aviation evidence. They say the wording of the Judge's order has allowed the Government to expand its theory for the death penalty from one that alleges Moussaoui's lies directly resulted in at least one death on 9/11 to one that claims his failure to tell the truth on 9/11 caused a death. As they note in their motion (pdf) filed today,

by TChris

Debra Lafave was placed on probation in Hillsborough County, Florida for having sex with a minor student. As a condition of probation, she must serve three years of home confinement. That wasn't good enough for Judge Hale Stancil, who rejected a proposed agreement to have Lafave serve essentially the same penalty in a separate prosecution in Marion County, where Lafave allegedly had sexual contact with the same boy in an SUV. The deal, Judge Stancil said, "shocks the conscience of this court."

The agreement was proposed in large part because the minor doesn't want to testify in this well-publicized case. A psychiatrist told the judge that testifying would be harmful for the child, but the judge apparently thought the need to punish Lafave more harshly outweighed any harm that might be inflicted on the child if the case proceeded to trial. Today the prosecutor in Marion County decided to dismiss the charge.

Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway, in explaining the decision to drop the charges, said: "The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not."

The Connecticut Supreme Court has denied Michael Skakel's petition to rehear its January decision affirming his conviction. His lawyer says she will take the case to the Supreme Court. Skakel, the nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was 15 years old in 1975 when Martha Moxley was murdered. The crime went unsolved for more than 20 years and suspicion had always focused on his brother Tommy. After Dominick Dunne and Mark Fuhrman re-ignited interest in the case through their books, suspicion shifted to Skakel and in 2000, he was charged with murder. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years to life.

by TChris

President Bush is confident that progress is being made in Iraq, although -- as the headline of this story suggests -- "explaining where is difficult."

No kidding:

About 100 masked gunmen stormed a jail near the Iranian border at dawn Tuesday - cutting phone wires, firing rocket-propelled grenades and killing 20 security men - in an operation that freed 18 fellow insurgents who had been captured in police raids just two days earlier.

It's time for the Tuesday Open Thread....

• Update your bookmarks, Firedoglake is at new digs and they look awesome. Also, Christy (Reddhedd) weighs in on the Moussaoui stunner.

• Seth at The Talking Dog has an interview with Dr. David Nicholl, the lead doctor signing the letter decrying the force-feeding of detainnes at Guantanamo.

• Don't forget to vote in the finals for the Koufax Awards for liberal bloggers. You can only vote once in each category. We're up for Best Single Issues blog. You can leave your vote in the comments to there or or you can e-mail your vote directly to Wampum by clicking here and hitting your send button.

The town of Covington, Kentucky is bucking the national trend and has rejected a bill that would limit sex offenders from living there.

It may seem that every time a legislators proposes to restrict sex offenders, the measures passes, but it doesn't always turn out that way. A proposal to ban registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of Covington, Ky., schools and day care centers is dead after local residents overwhelmingly spoke against it last night, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. More than 300 people packed an elementary school gym for a hearing; all but a few of the 33 speakers opposed the distance restrictions.

Critics said the proposed 2,000-foot restriction would essentially drive registered sex offenders from the city's urban core into a handful of neighborhoods, including one that boasts affordable housing and is populated by young families with children. Several cited studies from other states showing that similar restrictions have led to more sex offenders failing to register. Attorney Steven Johnson-Grove said 80 to 90 percent of sex offenses are committed against children by trusted adults, not strangers.

Banishment laws are counterproductive and short-sighted. They are not the solution. TChris has an excellent take on them here.

by TChris

After suffering a reversal of accounting firm Arthur Andersen's conviction last year, the government has again been dealt an appellate defeat in a high profile white collar criminal prosecution. The Second Circuit yesterday vacated Frank Quattrone's convictions for obstructing justice and witness tampering. The court concluded that the jury instructions failed to make clear that a directive to destroy records violates the obstructing statute only if the person giving the directive knew that the records in question were being sought by the government. The instruction on witness tampering was similarly flawed.

Although the court was careful not to agree with Quattrone's contention that his trial judge was biased, the Second Circuit ordered the case reassigned, noting diplomatically that the proceedings had "taken a toll on all involved" and that some of the judge's remarks "could be viewed as rising beyond mere impatience or annoyance."