The decision won't be out until tomorrow, but Dorothy Moxley, mother of Martha Moxley, tells the Associated Press that prosecutors called her to tell her the Connecticut Supreme Court has rejected Michel Skakel's appeal.

Skakel's trial lawyer, Mickey Sherman, who did not represent Skakel in the appeal, said it's news to him.

"Nothing will ever change my opinion that an innocent man is in jail," he said. "He's simply not guilty."

Skakel was 15 at the time Martha Moxley was murdered. Had he been charged in 1977 when the murder occurred, he would have been tried in juvenile court and if convicted, received a sentence of no more than two years. That's how juveniles were treated back then in Connecticut.

Had Skakel not been related to the Kennedys, he probably never would have been charged and I doubt he would have been convicted.

From my earlier take on the case.

Two Abu Ghraib soldiers accused of using military dogs to threaten and attack prisoners, Sgt. Santos Cardona and Sgt. Michael Smith, are set to go on trial next month. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the one-time Guantanamo commander sent by Bush to examine Abu Ghraib, has invoked his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify. Army Col. Thomas Pappas has been granted immunity in exchange for his testimony.

Digby is justifiably outraged.

I'm wondering, what's up with the Pappas immunity? Maybe he is going to rat out Miller? Or someone in the CIA? This 2004 USA Today article from 2004 recaps the details, including a sworn statement it had reviewed from Army Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib who oversaw the interrogations. Here's what he had to say about Pappas, after a ghost detainee had died while being interrogated:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has issued this statement following the confirmation hearing of Judge Sam Alito: (received by e-mail)

“I have followed the Alito hearings closely. Democrats on the Committee did their jobs by asking tough questions about important issues: civil rights, privacy, environmental protections, the danger of unchecked presidential power and others. Unfortunately, Judge Alito’s responses did little to address my serious concerns about his 15-year judicial record.

“I have not forgotten that Judge Alito was only nominated after the radical right wing of the President's party forced Harriet Miers to withdraw. The right wing insisted that Justice O'Connor be replaced with a sure vote for their extreme agenda. Four days of hearings have shown that Judge Alito is no Sandra Day O'Connor.

“Senate Democrats will meet next week to discuss the nomination.”

The DNA tests ordered by Virginia Governor Mark Warner on Roger Coleman, who was executed in 1992, have come back positive. It was Coleman's DNA that was found at the scene of the crime.

Peter Neufeld, Co-Founder of the Innocence Project, released this statement: (received by e-mail)

“Today, we commend Virginia Governor Mark Warner for his commitment to learning the truth, once and for all, in the Coleman case. Just as he was the first governor to recently order blanket testing of old non-capital cases, as soon as two men were exonerated following testing of the first batch of 30, he is the first and only governor to order posthumous testing in a capital case.

“For the sake of victims, the wrongly accused, law enforcement officials and the public at large, our criminal justice system must be based on finding the truth. DNA testing can provide certainty in many cases because it can confirm guilt, demonstrate innocence or help identify the true perpetrator. We call on governors in every other state to immediately catalog and test evidence in cases of people with claims of innocence who have been executed, so that we can have the certainty in every case that we now have in Roger Keith Coleman’s case.

Think Progress has the official list of who helped Judge Sam Alito prep for his confirmation hearings. (pdf)

Senator Lindsay Graham is not on the list.

Knights-Ridder News Service yesterday defended its reporters' analysis of Judge Alito's 311 published opinions:

"During his 15 years on the federal bench, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has worked quietly but resolutely to weave a conservative legal agenda into the fabric of the nation's laws." Assisted by Washington bureau researcher Tish Wells, Henderson and Mintz spent nearly a month reading all of Alito's 311 published opinions, which are available in a commercial database or in the archives of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, where Alito has sat for 15 years.

They concluded that, "although Alito's opinions are rarely written with obvious ideology, he's seldom sided with a criminal defendant, a foreign national facing deportation, an employee alleging discrimination or consumers suing big business."

The original article is here.

Jose Padilla was denied bail in Florida today and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

In denying bail, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Garber sided with prosecutors who said Padilla likely would flee to avoid trial and that the charges - including allegations that he attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan - made him dangerous.

Miami lawyer David Markus was there and has a recap of the hearing.

The Delaware Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of former lawyer Thomas Capano, convicted of murdering Anne Marie Fahey.

The Court determined the penalty phase was flawed because the jury was not unanimous in its finding that the murder occurred as a result of Capano's substantial planning and pre-meditation.

This was one of those high-profile cases featured prominently by the cable news networks prior to and during trial.

The Sentencing Project has completed a (pdf) new report on post-Booker federal crack sentences:

The report coincides with the one-year anniversary of the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker, in which the Court struck down the mandatory application of the federal sentencing guidelines as unconstitutional, but kept the guidelines intact by requiring that they be consulted in an advisory capacity. Examining published court decisions, the new report assesses how judges have utilized their expanded range of discretion in one of the most contentious areas of federal sentencing, crack cocaine offenses.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, crack cocaine is punished at the rate of 100:1 compared to powder cocaine sentences. Here are the report's key findings:

With all the hoopla over the dust-up between Sens. Kennedy and Specter and Mrs. Alito's tears, it's important not to overlook one of the more substantive moments at Wednesday's hearing: Judge Alito refused to say Roe v. Wade was settled law and left open the possibility of revisiting it.

When Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) peppered Alito with questions about whether the ruling is "the settled law of the land," the nominee responded: "If 'settled' means that it can't be reexamined, then that's one thing. If 'settled' means that it is a precedent that is entitled to respect . . . then it is a precedent that is protected, entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis." Stare decisis is a legal principle that, in Latin, means "to stand by that which is decided."

We were waiting for some fireworks at Judge Sam Alito's confirmation hearing. Tuesday was definitely dullsville. We wanted sparks to fly. We wanted to hear

Bell's going to ring
Hear the alarms
Better tell the fire chief
To quit playing cards

Senators Kennedy and Schumer came close. with a raucous-ey dust-up over Kennedy's request for the CAP records. Crooks and Liars has the video. Think Progress has the timeline.

Then there was Mrs. Alito's tears, seized on by the MSM as a defining moment of the day.

Please. While I'm not convinced as is Jane they were crocodile tears, engineered by Sen. Lindsay Graham, I do think they were pretty lame. Read James Wolcott who calls Ms. Alito the "new first lady of the American Theater." Then again, consider this, from Time Magazine Wednesday night:

The always-alert Creative Response Concepts, a conservative public relations firm, sent this bulletin: "Former Alito clerk Gary Rubman witnessed Mrs. Alito leaving her husband's confirmation in tears and is available for interviews, along with other former Alito clerks who know her personally and are very upset about this development."

I also think Lindsay Graham has some explaining to do about his dual role as murder board coach and hearing officer.

As to the Democratic Senators, their questioning was much improved today. Here's the transcript.

by TChris

Judge Alito’s testimony embraced an isolationist’s view of the law (discussed in this post) that is often echoed by members of the extreme right:

"I don't think it's appropriate or useful to look to foreign law in interpreting the provisions of our Constitution," Judge Alito said in response to questions from Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, in the third day of the judge's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I think the Framers would be stunned by the idea that the Bill of Rights is to be interpreted by taking a poll of the countries of the world," Judge Alito said. "The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to give Americans rights that were recognized practically nowhere else in the world at the time. The Framers did not want Americans to have the rights of people in France or the rights of people in Russia or any of the other countries on the continent of Europe at the time; they wanted them to have the rights of Americans."

No member of the Supreme Court believes that foreign law carries the force of precedent or deserves controlling weight when interpreting the Constitution. No member of the Court bases an understanding of the Bill of Rights on a “poll.” These are the impressions that extremists on the right falsely convey, and it is disturbing that Judge Alito did not disavow these fundamental misunderstandings.