by TChris

Phil Spector’s defense lawyers face an uphill battle in their attempt to persuade a judge to throw out the incriminating admissions that Spector allegedly made to police officers who questioned him about the woman found dead in his home. Several sources claim to have heard Spector say that he shot the woman accidentally. The police say Spector later changed his story, claiming that the woman committed suicide.

In a recently filed defense brief, attorney Bruce Cutler claimed that Spector, 64, "was experiencing symptoms of withdrawal from his medications, which could include hallucinations, forgetfulness, serious fatigue, and/or slurring." Police refused or ignored his requests for his medication after they took him into custody at his home, Cutler said.

Cutler also argues that the police didn’t advise Spector that he had the right to remain silent, although it appears that Spector made some of the statements before he was taken into custody, when no warning was required. But even if the suppression motion succeeds, the defense will need to contend with the damaging testimony of Spector’s driver:

by TChris

George Curry writes about a panel he moderated in Texas on the topic of police misconduct. One of the panelists, Travis County Sheriff Gregory Hamilton, observed that firing abusive officers is “the only way to get rid of the problem.” Another panelist, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, acknowledged the obvious roadblock to that solution:

But that is made difficult, Valdez said, because cops subscribe to a code of silence. "Cops don't rat on other cops," she explained.

Without a video of abusive conduct (like the New Orleans incident discussed here), whether misconduct occurred often comes down to a citizen’s word against an officer’s -- or several officers, if they all stick together. Curry suggests, however, that the “problem is even deeper.”

by TChris

Zero tolerance is an excuse for zero thinking. In Washington, D.C., it also seems to be an excuse to harass drivers who haven’t broken any law.

D.C. police pulled over Debra Bolton for driving without headlights. Fair enough; she deserved the warning she received for that infraction. But the officer smelled alcohol on Bolton’s breath, so he made her do field sobriety tests. Bolton thinks she aced the tests. The officer claims he told her to recite the alphabet from D to X, while Bolton thought he said D to S. He also claimed she lost her balance during balance tests, which Bolton disputes. And the officer made the improbable claim that he saw “jittering” in her eyes when he administered the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test, a test that supposedly reveals whether a driver’s blood alcohol content exceeds .10.

The officer arrested Bolton, and the results of a breath test revealed that Bolton was telling him the truth: she’d had a glass of wine with dinner, but that was all. She tested .03, well under the legal limit of .08. Yet Bolton’s ordeal had only begun.

I'll be offline today. In case you're not, here's some space to keep a discussion going.

Fitzgerald is examining discrepancies between what Cheney, his staff (including Libby) and other White House Officals (including Karl Rove and even Ari Fleischer) told investigators and the grand jury about the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. Undoubtedly, he will also consider what Joseph Wilson has said.

Yesterday, I recapped previously reported information on the White House Iraq Group. Today I'm going back to the beginning, with background relevant to the discrepancies, dating from Cheney and Libby's involvement with CIA analysts in 2002, through the President's Africa trip in 2003 and ending with a statement by Cheney in September, 2003. The links are to the actual sources, not prior TalkLeft posts, although all have been mentioned before on TalkLeft.

The two main discrepancies that I see as still being very important are:

• Cheney and the White House deny knowing about Wilson's trip before he published his op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003. They deny asking for or receiving a report on Wilson's trip. Wilson, on the other hand, tells Meet the Press that Cheney's office did ask for and receive the report on his trip. He tells Vanity Fair and writes in his book that in March, 2003, the White House began a campaign to discredit him, a plan that culminated with the disclosure of his wife's identity and CIA employment in Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 column.

I can't think of any other way than outrageous to describe this:

An Army veteran who fled to Canada to avoid prosecution for growing marijuana to treat his chronic pain was yanked from a hospital by Canadian authorities, driven to the border with a catheter still attached, and turned over to U.S. officials, his lawyer says. He then went five days with no medical treatment and only ibuprofen for the pain, attorney Douglas Hiatt said.

Steven W. Tuck, 38, was still fitted with the urinary catheter when he shuffled into federal court for a detention hearing Wednesday, Hiatt said. "This is totally inhumane. He's been tortured for days for no reason," Hiatt said.

It gets worse: The judge ordered him released to a hospital, but instead, he got sent to another jail:

TChris wrote yesterday about developments in Senator Bill Frist's stock deal. Today, the Washington Post reports the SEC has subpoenaed his records.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records and documents as federal authorities step up a probe of his July sales of HCA Inc. stock, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued the subpoena within the past two weeks, after initial reports that Frist, the Senate's top Republican official, was under scrutiny by the agency and the Justice Department for possible violations of insider trading laws.

Raw Story reports that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is examining what role, if any, Vice President Dick Cheney had in the leaking Valerie Plame's identity or discrediting Joseph Wilson.

Does this mean Fitzgerald will ask for an extension of the grand jury? If he does, the grand jury would have another six months. He could also convene a new grand jury and transfer the case to it, in which case, the new term would be another 18 months. If he were to convene a new grand jury, that would be extremely fortunate for the White House and Republicans. Another 18 months to investigate could delay Indictments past the 2006 elections. [Edited to reflect difference between an extended grand jury and a new grand jury]

Ok, it's time for Bill Keller to pony up. Editor and Publisher reports:

Judith Miller's second appearance before the grand jury probing the Plame/CIA leak case on Wednesday lasted only a little more than an hour but it was enough to earn a judge's order releasing The New York Times reporter from the contempt-of-court citation that landed her in jail. The order was still in place until her testimony was complete.

Besides liberating Miller, it also means The New York Times can no longer cite that order as a roadblock to keep it from presenting a full accounting of related matters. "I am delighted that the contempt order has been lifted, and Judy is now completely free to go about her great reporting as a very principled and honorable reporter," said Robert Bennett, one of Miller's attorneys.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Apparently feeding off the breast milk of Tom DeLay, WSJ's John Fund was caught on MSNBC's Chris Matthews repeating DeLay's own "cherry picked" statistics of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earl's track record of prosecuting public officials, as noted by MediaMatters.org:

by Last Night in Little Rock

The press is beginning to hit us with fears of a bird flu pandemic as noted virtually everywhere: NY Times, WashPo, Chicago Tribune, and CNN.com. Each source has more than one article everyday now as the fear grows.

Moveon.org has a post calling the nation's bird flu czar unqualified for anything in public health.

by TChris

Until recently, potential jurors were summoned to court in Indiana by selecting names from voter registration lists. That selection method failed to provide a representative cross-section of the community, given the reality that so many people don't bother to vote. Among other problems, the selection process contributed to a lack of racial diversity on juries. And jury pools chosen from voter registration lists tend to skew toward older, retired jurors who have time to go to the polls.

Last month, taxpayer records, drivers' license, and state ID records were added to the lists from which potential jurors are chosen in Indiana.