Who can blame him? Michael McAllister walks out of prison in Virginia Wednesday after serving 18 years for an attempted rape that the detective and prosecutor in his case later said he probably didn't commit. But, under Virginia's 21 day law, requiring new evidence other than DNA to be brought within 21 days of sentencing, McAllister had no chance of making his innocence case. At the time he was sentenced, his crime was parole-eligible, and his mandatory release date is finally here.

The case spotlights a growing national debate over faulty eyewitness identifications. DNA testing has cleared numerous prisoners nationwide, and mistaken eyewitness testimony has been blamed for most of the errors. Vanessa Potkin, a staff attorney with the New York-based Innocence Project, which seeks to exonerate wrongly convicted people through DNA evidence, said McAlister's case is particularly egregious. "It's extremely rare what this prosecutor and detective did in coming forward, and the fact that you would have people ignoring this evidence or turning a blind eye is extremely troubling."

McAllister's thoughts?

The crux of Mark Geragos' defense of Scott Peterson is that the police rushed to judgment and decided early on Scott killed his wife and unborn child--ignoring leads that pointed elsewhere. Catherine Crier of Court TV scored an exclusive today of police reports and a transcript of a telephone conversation between Sharon Rocha, Laci's mother, and Scott, right after the police told Rocha about Scott and Amber Frey. This was on January 13, 2003, less than one month after Laci disappeared and months before her remains were recovered. Rocha, who up until that point, had supported Scott's innocence, screams at Scott and accuses him of murdering Laci--over and over. And over and over, Scott denies it.

That's same-old, same-old. I think the real "exclusive" is this:

Modesto Police decided to inform Scott and Laci Peterson's families of the fertilizer salesman's relationship with the massage therapist when they learned that the National Enquirer was going to break the news, according to a police report made available exclusively to Crier. Police informed the couple's parents on the same day, but separately. The report noted that up to that point, both families had "remained united in their confidence" that Scott Peterson was uninvolved in her disappearance.

"Not wanting the family to be caught without this knowledge, it was agreed that it would not impact negatively on the case and the potential prosecution of this case to inform them of this information," Detective Jon Buehler wrote in a police report dated Jan. 16, 2003. News of the affair triggered an emotional breakdown in Rocha, who sobbed in front of police and said, "Why did he have to kill her?" (my emphasis.)

"The potential prosecution of this case".... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the police confirm in this report that they had decided Scott was the killer and were building a case against him.

Geragos should have a field day with this. Of course, he's had the report all along, it's only the public who is receiving notice of it today.

The prosecution has spent the past five days in the Scott Peterson trial playing tapes of conversations between Scott Peterson and his mistress Amber Frey that Frey secretly recorded at the behest of the police. Smoking condom? Hardly. Scott denied at every turn that he had anything to do with Laci's disappearance or murder. Amber presented not a scintilla of evidence to link Scott to the crime--only evidence that he was a cheating husband and a liar. Mark Geragos told the jury in opening statements that Scott Peterson had cheated on Laci with Amber and that he had lied to Amber. So, no bombshell or suprises there.

Geragos has implied that Frey was more interested in a relationship than Peterson. She initiated many calls, he said. "In fact, everything in those tapes is consistent with someone who was just trying to keep her at emotional bay," he said during his opening statement.

Now it's Mark Geragos turn to cross-examine Amber. What to expect?

Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball really put Bush-Cheney strategist Matthew Dowd on the spot last night over an RNC web video that shows a small clip from a Matthews/Kerry exchange back in January. The RNC web video uses this Hardball clip in an attempt to show Kerry as flip flopping on Iraq.

Hardball decided the clip was pulled out of context. Matthews played the full bite of the Kerry interview in an attempt to get Dowd to correct the record. Apparently, it got really heated. Hardball has posted the segment video here as well as the full RNC rendering

Noah Shachtman at Wired News and Defense Tech reports on plans by activists to hack Republican websites during the convention:

So it's no surprise that hardened electronic activists are planning to jam up the servers of georgewbush.com, rnc.org, and related websites, once the Republican National Convention gets underway on August 29. "We want to bombard (the Republican sites) with so much traffic that nobody can get in," said CrimethInc, a member of the so-called Black Hat Hackers Bloc.

The Black Hat Hackers Bloc is hoping to cause a whole lot more trouble when the Republicans start to gather in New York. The groups will be targeting not only GOP computers, but "e-mail, faxes and phones, too," CrimethInc said, as well as unspecified "financial disruption."

Another glaring example of inept and inadequate medical care provided to America's prisoners.

A pulled tooth led to the June death of a Solano State Prison inmate, according to a coroner's report released Monday on what the inmate's family and two Bay Area lawmakers say may be an extreme example of inept medical care inside California prisons. In a bizarre chain of events that is still being probed by the prison's internal affairs officers, the extraction of inmate Anthony Shumake's wisdom tooth caused swelling in his neck that made it difficult to breath and eventually led to heart failure, a doctor with the San Joaquin County coroner's office has concluded. Shumake, who was from Richmond, died June 28 at Doctor's Hospital in Manteca.

Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley said, "You should not die from a tooth extraction...It's either negligence or incompetence."

Last week a court-ordered study of the California prison system was released which found that "several prison doctors were incompetent and that medical care was shoddy in many places. " While Gov. Arnold did not create these problems, they are now continuing on his watch. He has promised reform. We'll be following his progress.

The Bush Administration's unprecedented call-up of reservists continues. Some of those being called are almost 60 years old--the cut-off age. Jamie Trevino is 57 and suffering from skin cancer and the Army wants him. [link via Cursor.]

Steve Gilliard comes down pretty hard on Jessica Cutler, aka Washingtonienne, author of the explicit weblog with details of her life as an staff assistant to Republican Senator Mike DeWine-details which included her making as much money as she could in exchange for sex from men she met at his office--"dates" that she says were set up by his staff.

Jessica's blog (short for "Web log") was the online diary she had been posting anonymously to amuse herself and her closest girlfriends. In it, she detailed the peccadilloes of the men she said were her six current sexual partners, including a married Bush administration official who met her in hotel rooms and gave her envelopes of cash; a senator's staff member who helped hire her, then later bedded her; and another man who liked to spank and be spanked.

....Jessica was officially fired for misusing an office computer, but the men she wrote about kept their jobs. What they lost was their privacy. Jessica's blog identified them only by their initials. But amateur Internet sleuths who read the blog searched electronic databases looking for likely suspects, then posted names and photographs on the Internet. Jessica still refuses to name the men publicly.

I think Steve is missing the bigger story here. It's not Jessica at all. Why isn't the mainstream media all over the committee staffer who used his connections with the senator--and even worse, the senator's office staff--to arrange paid-for trysts with a young staffer? He, and the others detailed in Jessica's diary, should be the ones wearing the scarlet "A."

Here's Jessica:

You will also be able to view Jessica this fall in Playboy. At least she got a nice book deal out of the mess. After that, who knows? Outside the beltway, she's not a story. So, while she may never work in Washington-town again, there's always Montana. Or L.A. Or, Nevada... she might want to hook up with Heidi Fleiss, who has big plans to start a legal brothel in a building that is a replica of the White House. Fox's Rita Cosby got the story:

Could this story get any weirder? The Israeli poet that Sen. Jim McGreevey put on his payroll as a security advisor, and over whom he resigned claiming a homosexual relationship, is denying he is gay and that there ever was such a relationship.

Golan Cipel says he is straight and that he threatened to sue the Governor for repeated unwanted sexual advances.

"It doesn't bother me that it is said I am gay, but I really am not. I'm straight. On the other hand, to accuse me of being an extortionist? Someone here has lost his mind," Cipel was quoted as telling Yediot.

Cipel said his lawyers contacted McGreevey's attorneys and informed them that he planned to sue the governor. Negotiations on a settlement began, Cipel said. "They made a few proposals, but before we answered them, he decided suddenly to resign," Cipel said, adding the governor was convinced they were about to file the lawsuit. "He preferred to admit he was homosexual rather than stand opposite accusations of sexually harassing a subordinate. If you ask me, McGreevey resigned because he knew that the facts surrounding the harassment against me would come to light and he knew I could prove it," Cipel said.

Cipel says he's staying in the U.S. to see the case through.

The New York Times today has a lengthy article on the FBI's recent visits to those they think may be political troublemakers at the Republican Convention. The story first surfaced in the Rocky Mountain News at the time of the Democratic Convention. We wrote about it here.

The FBI says they are just calling on those they think may be involved in criminal acts, not those who just might want to express dissent. Several of those who received the lawmen's visits disagree. From today's NY Times article:

"The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''

Who's behind this new intrusion? According to the New York Times, which has obtained documents, it's the Department of Justice:

Time Magazine provides a guide with highlights of the protest activity that will occur in New York during the Republican Convention. Here are a few of the more intriguing ones:

GREENE DRAGON The week before the convention, this street-theater group will re-create Paul Revere's Ride, pedaling down Lexington Avenue on bicycles outfitted with cardboard horse heads, shouting, "The Republicans are coming!"

AXIS OF EVE Demanding an end to "political cover-up," about 100 women draped in American flags and wearing anti-Republican "protest panties" will perform a "mass flash" on Sept. 1

Time also mentions that New York police and firefighters may go on strike during the convention. I'm not buying it. Mayor Bloomberg will never let it happen. Any more than the Boston mayor let it happen there. Nor would Bush.

Every day we learn of more bloggers heading to New York for the convention. Jesse and Ezra of Pandagon, Markos of Daily Kos; NYU Journalism Prof. Jay Rosen of Pressthink; Matt Yglesias and Zoe are going. Mad Kane, Anna of Annatopia (who will be blogging for Majority Report of Air America Radio), Matt Stoller. You can follow blogger related events at the RNC Tank Blog.

Having covered the Democratic Convention as a credentialed blogger, it occurred to me, why stop there? So, TalkLeft applied for a press pass to cover the Kobe Bryant trial in Eagle. I received this e-mail today:

Good Afternoon Jeralyn, Your application has been approved and is good to go. Credentials are available for pick up on the Justice Center grounds beginning at 7:15 a.m. each morning on days when proceedings are scheduled. You must present a photo identification to receive your credential. Credentials are valid for the duration of the proceedings in this case.

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. TalkLeft has followed every development in the Kobe Bryant case since the date his arrest was announced. I'm a frequent commentator on the case on TV, and often quoted on it in national newspapers. But still, this is not a credential that's attached to any of the networks or newspapers -- it's in my name for TalkLeft. I think it's very cool.

It may not make bloggers journalists, but it does confirm we're media.