by TChris

Death penalty supporters who confidently proclaim that the truely innocent are never executed should consider the case of Lena Baker. Here's what John Cole Vodicka, director of Georgia's Prison & Jail Project, says about the circumstances of her 1945 execution.

"This black woman was wrongfully prosecuted and executed because she was defending herself against a white man who repeatedly sexually abused her," Cole Vodicka said. "Lena Baker was tried without proper legal representation."

Vodicka said Baker killed a white man in March 1945, who tried to rape her. He said Baker final words were, “I did it in self-defense, or I would have killed myself..." Baker was convicted by an all white male jury in a one-day trial.

Lena Baker is the only woman to die in Georgia's electric chair. She was honored at a memorial on Saturday.

Danny Schecter of Media Channel has an op-ed at Common Dreams that contains the appeal of the newspaper Il Manifesto for the release of journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

" We ask of the men who have taken hostage our colleague, Giuliana Sgrena, that they release her, not just as an act of generosity and of mercy, but because Giuliana has always been a journalist who has struggled for peace, and an ally of the Iraqi people. Her articles for “Il Manifesto” have always expressed her opposition to the war and to the occupation of Iraq by the Americans and by the international coalition supporting them. Keeping her prisoner or harming her would further damage the cause of Iraq and of the Iraqis in the eyes of the world, fueling the arguments of those who want to impose “democracy” or “freedom” on the Arab-Moslem world through war and violence.

Joltin' Joe, it may be time for you to go. You've moved from Republican Lite to Bushite.

In recent weeks, [Joe Lieberman] has angered Democratic activists nationwide for expressing a willingness to work with President Bush to change Social Security. Critics say that is just his latest act of disloyalty to the party. He already had supported the war in Iraq and Mr. Bush's cabinet choices - and received a televised presidential smooch at the State of the Union address.

...Their disappointment with Mr. Lieberman illustrates the difficulty of trying to be a centrist in an increasingly polarized political climate. Mr. Lieberman has gone from a possible Democratic heir apparent to a presidential primary footnote in 2004 to the conspicuous odd man out in his own Senate party caucus.

The Times reports Lieberman is laughing off the criticism. He still has the support of his constitutency. If I had to make an educated guess, I say that the attacks on Lieberman are about to begin. He will see a drop in his support. He will see a challenger. He will get jolted out of his complacency -- and his notion that he can vote his own beliefs over those of his constituents and the Democratic Party. This is not about right or left. Social Security is about the core values of the Democratic party, values Joe Lieberman has abandoned.

A Utah judge with three wives, one legal, two spiritual, is suing to keep his seat on the bench.

Judge Walter Steed, who serves in the polygamous border town of Hildale, is legally married to one woman but considers himself spiritually married to two others, and he has 32 children. Steed is a member of the reclusive Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which dominates Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz.

The Utah Judicial Conduct Commission wants him off the bench. The Utah Supreme Court will now decide.

One issue is Steed's contention that the law allowing prosecutors to pursue people who consider themselves plurally married but aren't legally married is unconstitutional.....Utah's attorney general and the Washington County attorney previously declined to file criminal charges against Steed.

Utah. The state that until 2004 allowed executions by firing squad. On a related note, when Utah debated the bill to abolish firing squads last year, it was clear that the move was not prompted by humanist concerns.

Bradford Plumer, who writes his own weblog as well as one for Mother Jones, has an interesting post today on whether drugs cause crime, and in turn, whether drug enforcement strategies reduce crime. He notes that almost everyone, including the White House, has backed off the latter notion.

it seems during the later years of the Clinton Administration, the ONDCP started recognizing that and urged policymakers to interpret the drug/crime relationship "cautiously." The Bush administration, meanwhile, saw a closer connection early on—its 2002 ONDCP report touted drug treatment as an effective way of reducing crime, but has since backed off. The White House's reports, notably, no longer claim to know whether crime can be reduced by reducing drug use—a relationship that was once held sacrosanct by past administrations.

by TChris

Commemorating the "Bloody Sunday" demonstration for voting rights 40 years ago, politicians and civil rights supporters crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge again today.

Nearly 40 members of Congress, led by [Rep. John] Lewis, linked arms and sang spirituals and protest songs as they marched from Brown Chapel AME Church through downtown Selma and across the bridge, following the route that Lewis, as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and more than 500 others walked on March 7, 1965.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson worries that Congress will water down the Voting Rights Act when it comes up for reauthorization in 2007.

That act, passed in the wake of the "Bloody Sunday" march, abolished Jim Crow obstacles that kept black people from the polls, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. The act required specific states, mainly in the South, to submit their electoral processes to federal supervision.

Criticizing Bush directly, Jackson said the president told members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Jackson's son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), that he was not familiar with the act. President Bush was once governor of Texas, one of the states covered by the act. "How can you be fighting for democracy and be unclear" on what the Voting Rights Act says? Jackson asked.

by TChris

Giuliana Sgrena, wounded by American troops shortly after her release by Iraqi captors, believes she may have been targeted because the United States opposes the kind of negotiation with terrorists that secured her release.

In an interview with RAI, Italian state television, Sgrena recounted her final moments before freedom: "When they let me go, it was a difficult moment for me because they told me, `The Americans don't want you to return alive to Italy.'"

The United States says the shooting was "a horrific accident." Horrific it was. An Italian intelligence officer was killed, and one or two others were wounded.

Sgrena's editor at the daily Il Manifesto, Gabriele Polo, said Italian officials told him 300-400 rounds were fired at the car.

Accounts of the shooting are in conflict.

The U.S. military has said the car Sgrena was riding in was speeding and Americans used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and warning shots to get it to stop at the roadblock. But in an interview with Italian La 7 TV, Sgrena said, "There was no bright light, no signal." She also said the car was traveling at "regular speed."

by TChris

CBS gave conservative analyst Norman Ornstein a chance to talk about Tom DeLay. Here's his take:

"Republicans in the house are worried that this could be a huge flameout for Tom DeLay," says Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a recent critic of Tom DeLay. ... "Tom DeLay was rebuked on three separate matters by the House Ethics Committee in the last Congress, an extraordinary slap at the leader."

"But they left open pending a fourth issue, which was the Ronnie Earle case in Texas. So what did the House Republicans do? They fire the chairman of the Ethics Committee. They removed two members." And two of the replacements had contributed to DeLay’s legal defense fund. Adds Ornstein: "They want a group of people on the House Ethics Committee who are going to go to extraordinary lengths to keep Tom DeLay from going down or being embarrassed yet again, which embarrasses them all, they believe, with what’s been going on down in Texas."

CBS explores "what's been going on down in Texas" in the linked article.

by TChris

James Driskell was convicted of murdering a Winnipeg man, Perry Harder, after prosecutors convinced a jury that the victim's hair was found in Driskell's van. Hair analysis before DNA was about as sophisticated as "Shucks, sure looks to me like it's the same hair."

But DNA tests in 2002 showed the hair did not belong to Harder, and key witnesses at Driskell's trial, who were paid for their testimony, have since recanted or threatened to recant their statements, the federal government said.

The prosecution and police also withheld evidence from Driskell's lawyers.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler overturned Driskell's conviction. Cotler ordered a new trial, but Manitoba's Justice Department won't pursue one. Driskell, who has been free since 2003 while his conviction was under review, spent about 12 years in prison before his release.

by TChris

TalkLeft wrote about Darnell Williams here, here and here.

Williams was facing execution for his role in the murders of a Gary couple when former Gov. Joseph Kernan commuted his sentence to life without parole five days before he was to be put to death this past summer.

Williams' near-execution is the subject of a documentary premiering on A&E's "American Justice" March 16.

"Countdown to an Execution" chronicles the frantic attempts by Juliet Yackel, Williams' chief attorney, to save his life before the scheduled July 9, 2004, execution.

by TChris

Some defendants who were falsely accused have benefitted from advances in DNA testing in their efforts to overturn their convictions. Wilton Dedge is one of them. (TalkLeft background is collected here.)

But what of those who are falsely accused of crimes that leave no DNA evidence? St. Petersburg columnist Martin Dyckman laments the Florida legislature's indifference to the wrongly convicted.

Florida politicians are fooling only themselves if they think that the current post-conviction DNA testing law does away with wrongful imprisonment in the Sunshine State. The only circumstance more outrageous than the resistance to compensating Dedge is the Legislature's pervasive indifference to the moral certainty that there are hundreds of equally innocent people still rotting behind Florida bars.

Dyckman points to the inherent uncertainty of eyewitness identification as a primary cause of wrongful convictions, using Dedge's case as an example. Among Dyckman's proposed fixes:

by TChris

What are the family values we hear so much about? Do they encompass any values beyond conservative opposition to abortion and gay marriage? Two articles in today's New York Times broaden the debate.

The group Take Back Your Time favors legislation that would require employers to give employees paid time off to care for a sick child. Says John de Graaf, its national coordinator:

"This is completely about family values. People need time to have strong marriages, strong families and strong communities. When people don't have enough time, families can break down."

A different take on family values comes from black ministers who oppose the "Black Contract with America on Moral Values," a pledge that highlights opposition to gay marriage and abortion as top priorities. The leaders of four black Baptist conventions set aside their differences to reach a concensus on other moral issues of concern to their 15 million parishoners.

At the end of their four-day session, the ministers called for an end to the war in Iraq and withdrawal of American troops. They declared their opposition to the confirmation of Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general. They stated their opposition to making the president's tax cuts permanent, and warned that reductions in spending on children's health care programs would be "immoral."