It looks like Tom DeLay will not be able to regain his leadership position in the House in January. The judge in his Texas criminal case today refused to dismiss the money laundering charges against him. While the conspiracy charges were dismissed, DeLay now must stand trial, and it is unlikely the trial can be scheduled before the end of the year.

As to the dismissed charges:

by TChris

Adam Bollenbach was 16 when he stole a six-pack of beer from an open garage. Apart from being young, he’s bipolar and suffers from ADHD. His crime merited an apology, repayment for the beer, and enough supervision to assure that he obtained treatment for his mental health problems. So why is this Florida teen serving a ten year sentence?

Months earlier, Adam had been charged as an adult for theft of a bag of potato chips from his school lunchroom. This charge was dropped, but according to the law, once charged as an adult, you cannot be charged as a juvenile.

Adam went before Circuit Judge Ric Howard who admitted that he was using Adam as a teaching tool in front of other juvenile offenders. The result was a sentence of 10 years in prison.

Adam was sentenced for burglarizing a dwelling, but harsh penalties are intended for those who break into homes at night (potentially putting lives, including the burglar’s, at risk), not for unarmed kids who walk into an open garage during the day. Adam’s plight is, in part, the handiwork of the “tough on crime” crowd, who perceive no difference between kids and adults, and who have successfully lobbied compliant legislators to enact laws that punish teenagers instead of helping them. And it’s partly the fault of a judge who is willing to throw a kid away to make an example out of him. From this travesty, other kids are supposed to learn to respect the law?

Is the tide finally turning on Law and Order and its never-ending spinoffs about prosecutors and cops? I hope so. ABC will launch a new series in January called In Justice about defense lawyers in an Innocence Project fighting to free clients who have been wrongfully convicted.

Every year, hundreds of innocent men and women get convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Sloppy police work. False testimony. Biased juries. In the blink of an eye an innocent man can lose his life to the mistakes of an imperfect system. And every year the number of innocents who live without hope behind bars multiplies, while the real criminals walk free.

The leading role goes to a Barry Scheck-type character.

I'm sure Kathleen Sullivan is not amused that her failure to pass the California Bar Exam after this illustrious career is making national news:

A native of New York City, Ms. Sullivan has an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a law degree from Harvard University. She taught at both Stanford and Harvard before becoming dean of Stanford's law school in 1999. The author of a leading constitutional-law casebook, Ms. Sullivan has argued several cases before the Supreme Court. Earlier this spring, the nation's highest court ruled in favor of one of her clients, a California winegrowers' group, striking down state laws that restricted direct sales from vineyards to consumers.

The New York Post has an incredible story today alleging that Al Pirro, Jeanine's husband, was behind the recent requests by Republican higher-ups for Jeanine to drop the Senate race and run for Attorney General instead. [Via Kevin Drum]

Jeanine Pirro's own husband is working against her in her bid for the U.S. Senate, sneaking around behind her back to lobby a state Republican leader to get her to drop out of the race, sources told The Post. Gov. Pataki also was part of the extraordinary plot to get the Westchester County DA — whom he endorsed for the race before becoming convinced she wasn't up to the effort — to throw in the towel and run for attorney general, not for Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Post has learned.

Details of the request are here. TalkLeft background on Al Pirro is here. Also see TChris's Pirro Plays the Crime Card.

If you missed my post on why I'm covering Jeanine's run, it's here.

Jane's on fire today with questions for Viveca Novak about her relationship with Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin.

...what exactly was your relationship with Robert Luskin? We will do you the courtesy of presuming you were not buttering each other's toast at the St. Regis like Scooter and Judy, but where does it fall along the continuum, say, from narc/snitch to "let's load up on Manhattans and hit the handbag sale at Barney's?"

Jane has 15 detailed questions for Viveca. I'll add one more:

Why did Bob Woodward choose you and Time Magazine over his own paper and every other reporter in town for his exclusive story on why his source came clean to Fitzgerald?

A feisty defendant, an outspoken defense lawyer and a judge trying, and failing in large measure, to maintain control of the courtroom. Day one of the witness testimony in the trial of Saddam Hussein did not go exactly as planned. Some highlights:

Defense lawyers staged a short walkout when the Judge didn't allow them two minutes to attack the legitimacy of the court. Later, they were allowed to make their argument. Saddam insisted he is not afraid of execution but lost his temper several times.

After the defense lawyers left, Saddam, shaking his right hand, told the judge: "You are imposing lawyers on us. They are imposed lawyers. The court is imposed by itself. We reject that."

Saddam and Ibrahim then chanted "Long live Iraq, long live the Arab state." Ibrahim stood up and shouted: "Why don't you just execute us and get rid of all of this!"

When the judge explained that he was ruling in accordance with the law, Saddam replied: "This is a law made by America and does not reflect Iraqi sovereignty."

If you were arrested in Broward County (Fort Lauderdale area)for a misdemeanor and strip-searched, you should find out more about this class-action lawsuit. [Note: Link removed at request of Miami Herald on 7/09/08.] Miami had a policy of strip-searching almost everyone arrested which is not allowed.

State statute allows strip searches in cases that are violent in nature or involve a weapon or illegal drugs, not for most misdemeanor arrests.... a policy of searching everyone who walks in the door of the jail is illegal, Fort Lauderdale attorney Kevin Kulik said.

BSO detention Deputy Susette Bryant stated in a deposition that she strip-searched detainees when asked between 1999 and 2002. And, she said, ``every person that walked in that door was strip-searched.''

Nguyen Tuong Van, the Vietnamese-Australian hanged in Singapore on Friday had an American father from the Vietnam War period. Van met his father for the first time in 2002, just one month before his ill-fated trip to Singapore when he smuggled drugs to pay off his twin brother's accrued debts.

The twins were born in a refugee camp in Thailand while their mother, Kim, was on her way to Australia from Vietnam. Nguyen stated after his arrest that he did not know his father until a month before he was caught at Changi International Airport in December 2002.

"He came from America to look for my brother and I," he said. "My mother married in 1987 to a Vietnamese Australian. M

Nguyen Tuong Van is now the first individual of American lineage to be hung in Singapore.

Condi Rice leaves for a trip today to four European countries. The New York Times reports she is prepared to defend America's use of secret renditions. I don't think she will get off that easy. Other countries are rightfully losing patience with our President's unilateral policy of kidnapping people, whisking them off to secret detention centers outside the U.S., and subjecting them to harsh interrogation techniques that may amount to torture.

The European Union, often more antagonistic to the United States than its individual member states, has vowed to press the issue during Rice’s visit. [German Justice Commissioner Franco]Frattini said the 25-nation alliance has “an institutional and moral duty to promote and defend fundamental rights of people.”
Even America’s closest allies are demanding answers. At least eight European nations have launched inquiries into allegations that the US may be operating a “ghost gulag” with scores of detainees shunted from one detention facility to another, mainly in the Middle East and Central Asia, via transit points in Europe.

This Japanese editorial sums up the flak Condi will face very well.

Update: 5/27/2009: Since this post was written, the state of Missouri appealed the granting of the writ and got the order granting bail reversed. The 8th Circuit reinstated Dale's murder conviction and the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert. America's Most Wanted will feature Dales' case Saturday, May 30, 2009.

*****

This is the best news I've heard all day. Dale Helmig, who has spent 8 years in prison in Missouri as a result of being convicted of killing his mother, may be out of jail as early as tomorrow.

His attorneys claim the murder trial was tainted by an incomplete police investigation, an inept defense and a prosecutor looking to score political points in an election battle for Congress. That now-former prosecutor, Republican U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, has rejected any link between the campaign and trial. But a judge in September reversed the conviction after hearing arguments that a highway map jurors used during deliberations contradicted evidence they had seen in court while considered whether Helmig had time to dispose of the body.

The overturning of the conviction is largely due to the work of a law student at the Illinois State University Innocence Project which made a documentary about Dale's case.

John Amato of Crooks and Liars has a few questions over at Huffington Post for David Corn who reported on December 2 that Viveca Novak and Robert Luskin were friends, but wrote a day later that Viveca was just a source for Luskin.

I agree that Corn's article yesterday was just a Viveca puff-piece and disappointing. It also didn't solve any mysteries.

When friendship conflicts with reporting, it's not enough to state that you happen to know the person you are writing about. It's important that you also state your bias. Here are some examples from when I've been in that situation: