Our feel-good story of the day, and a great example of why mandatory minimum sentences and mandatory sentencing guidelines should be abolished.

A 100-year-old man who killed his wife by slitting her throat avoided a prison sentence yesterday because a judge said he had acted out of love....Yesterday he broke down and cried in the dock as the judge, Mr Justice Leveson, described how the Heginbothams had enjoyed 67 years of "joyous" marriage before he had been driven to cut her throat. The judge sentenced him to a 12-month community rehabilitation after Heginbotham pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

....Prosecutor Hilary Banks said the couple had had 67 years of happy marriage together and raised six children but Ida had become dependent on her husband after she had been injured in several falls. Her condition deteriorated and she needed specialist care and was moved between a number of care homes. Throughout this time her husband had visited her daily.....Police arrested Heginbotham that day at his home, where he was found to have attempted suicide. When arrested by officers on suspicion of murder, he said: "My poor Ida." He later told interviewing officers he thought he must have gone berserk.

Passing the sentence, Mr Justice Leveson said: "The killing of your wife, to whom you had been married joyously for some 67 years, followed by your attempt to take your own life, was an act of desperation carried out in an effort to end her suffering while you were under intolerable pressure. "It was in truth an act of love and I have no doubt you suffered a medical disorder at the time and the responsibility you bear is substantially reduced." He added: "It was, as you will well know, a terrible thing to do but I accept entirely the circumstances in which you did it and your feelings of guilt and remorse have been truly overwhelming."

Even the detective in the case recognized the wisdom in having all available options open to the sentencing judge:

DNCC Honorary Veterans Chair Sen. Max Cleland just sent out this news about the press facilities for the Democratic Convention in Boston:

Recently we raised the roof on a 100,000 square foot outdoor Press Pavilion that will house more than 2,000 print reporters who will be covering the Convention. By July 26, the FleetCenter will have been converted into the perfect venue for our 2004 Democratic National Convention.... The Press Pavilion, being built on the site of the old Boston Garden, will be the largest multi-story, temporary building ever constructed in the United States. Similar structures are being used at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. For the foundation of the Press Pavilion, 1,000 yards of concrete have been poured, over 2,000 yards of fill placed, and 50,000 square feet of 1 ½"-thick "hot top" paved. The roof, weighing in at 180,000 lbs., took six cranes to lift into place.

Also, sixty tons of structural steel and dozens of rigging stanchions were installed in the roof of the FleetCenter. Additionally, more than 4,000 seats have been removed to make way for the podium and press stands. Forty-four skyboxes are being turned into media suites, and an additional 20 skyboxes behind the stage are being converted into offices. Electricians have already started laying the more than 4,000 miles of cable that will be installed to facilitate communications and electronic voting. Construction on the stage will begin soon, along with the conversion of locker rooms (normally used by the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins) into offices for staff and waiting rooms where speakers will prepare before going on stage.

17 days to go, we are very excited. We've raised $600 so far towards our expected expenses of $2,000 - $3,000.00---if you can help us out, our Paypal page is here . If you'd like to donate anonymously, use Amazon. Both are secure. Many, many thanks.

In a 511-page report released today, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee says intelligence supporting the decision to go to war in Iraq was false or overstated:

...the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that the CIA's prewar estimates of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were overstated and unsupported by intelligence. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters that intelligence used to support the invasion of Iraq was based on assessments that were "unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence."

Before the war, the U.S. intelligence community told the president as well as the Congress and the public that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and if left unchecked would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade," Roberts said. "Today we know these assessments were wrong."

by TChris

Does your ability to serve your country in a nonpartisan fashion depend upon whether you voted for the President? In this administration, the answer appears to be "yes."

In a report released yesterday, a scientific advocacy group cited more instances of what it called the Bush administration's manipulation of science to fit its policy goals, including the questioning of nominees to scientific advisory panels about whether they had voted for President Bush.

The report is available here.

by TChris

Efforts to find payroll records that could confirm whether President Bush actually reported for his Air National Guard service in Alabama have been futile, and now it appears that the records may never be produced, as the Pentagon claims they were "inadvertently destroyed."

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

by TChris

Criminal defense lawyers know that their clients are often unpopular, but that doesn’t matter: the point is to assure that the government treats them fairly and that their rights are protected. Even if the client is Saddam Hussein, who at this point hasn’t met his legal team.

[Muhammad] Rashdan, captain of the defense team, positioned himself as Mr. Hussein's main counsel last December when he formed a committee to represent the former dictator two days after he was found in a spider hole near Tikrit. He said Mr. Hussein's wife, Sajida, who herself has gone underground, gave him power of attorney. The lawyers are now petitioning the tribunal to meet with Mr. Hussein, but they have not heard back yet.

Hussein’s defense team intends to argue that he’s immune from prosecution in Iraq because he was acting as the head of state at the time his actions were taken. It will also contend that the special tribunal established by the occupation authority has no authority to act because there was no legal basis for the invasion of Iraq. But first Hussein has to agree to be represented by them, and then they face “a more bureaucratic problem."

The Iraqi lawyers' union is lobbying to bar foreign lawyers from appearing before the special tribunal. Mr. Rashdan said he was trying to work out a compromise in which his group teams up with local lawyers. The trial is not expected to start for several months.

by TChris

A former associate of Ahmad Chalabi, Muhammad al-Zubaidi, confirms a fact that has been obvious for some time: the Iraqi defectors who served as Chalabi’s “intelligence agents” were coached to lie before meeting with U.S. intelligence agents and journalists.

The defectors spoke of a nation pocketed with mobile weapons laboratories, a new secret weapons site beneath a Baghdad hospital, a meeting between a member of Mr. Hussein's government and Osama bin Laden - accounts that ultimately became potent elements in Mr. Bush's case for war.

"They intentionally exaggerated all the information so they would drag the United States into war," Mr. Zubaidi said. "We all know the defectors had a little information on which they built big stories."

Zubaidi wonders why the C.I.A. fell for the lies: "I don't want to criticize U.S. agencies, but it's strange that the U.S. with all its powerful agencies, the C.I.A., could not manage to know the truth from the lies in these people." A Senate Intelligence Committee report released today is asking the same questions.

Our second premium ad space is available --on the left side of TL, under the logo. The space is limited to one ad, so act quick. If you take it for a month, you will save bucks and it will stay up through the Democratic Convention, where we'll be blogging live with our new press credentials and undoubtedly have more visitors to the site.

by TChris

Mixed verdicts have been returned in the corporate fraud case against Adelphia executives, but the company's founder, John Rigas, has been found guilty of "conspiring to loot hundreds of millions of dollars" from the company. His son, Timothy Rigas, was also convicted of conspiracy and fraud, while the jury has not yet been able to reach a verdict on most of the charges against another son, Michael Rigas. A fourth defendant, Michael Mulcahey, was acquitted on all counts.

Update (TL) : Congratulations to Mark Mahoney, NACDL member and former President of New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on his determined and brilliant defense of Michael Mulcahey, the only defendant acquitted in the Adelphia case.

Mulcahey and his tearful wife, Cathy, hugged. And one defense lawyer after another came by to congratulate Mark Mahoney, the Buffalo attorney who drew widespread raves for his closing argument in Mulcahey's defense.

This is the smartest move the accuser in the Kobe Bryant case has made to date: She's added Atlanta libel guru Lin Wood to her legal team. Lin Wood is the lawyer for John and Patsy Ramsey and Richard Jewell, among others. He will be a forceful advocate for her privacy rights. In addition to trying to keep the media from publishing the mistakenly released sealed transcripts of the rape-shield hearing, he'll likely begin scrutinizing all media comments for potential libel lawsuits.

As a legal analyst, the hiring won't silence us or change our commentary, we'll just be on high alert (as opposed to our current state of "cautious") as to how we phrase it from now on. As we told the Los Angeles Times the other day:

....Merritt said that too often the public thinks defense lawyers are attacking an accuser's character when instead the issue is their credibility. In rape cases that hinge on consent, she said, witnesses' credibility is crucial...."The defense attorney has an obligation to bring out any facts to the jury that support his or her client's defense," she said. "The defense lawyer is not needlessly attacking the victim of a rape. They're going after that person because her story doesn't ring true."

Ampersand politely disagrees with us. We understand her position. But credibility is fair game.

The Supreme Court ruled on June 28 that Guantanamo detainees can challenge the legality of their detentions. The Pentagon touted its compliance with the ruling by setting up a system of one-sided hearings. The hearings will be presided over by 3 military officials --and the detainees can't consult with or be represented by counsel.

The U.S. government should allow detainees access to lawyers and to their families and permit detainees to begin to challenge their detention in the federal court system," said Alexandra Arriaga, director of government relations for Amnesty International USA. "They've held people for over two years now. They should know at this point who they suspect of a crime, charge them, and try them in a fair court of justice in an open process. And the others should be released," Arriaga said.

Rachel Meeropol, a human rights lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, called the new procedures inadequate and illegal, and said they fall far short of satisfying the Supreme Court's ruling. "The fact is they're coming up with these procedures on the fly," said Meeropol, whose group has filed cases in federal court seeking the release of several Guantanamo prisoners.

Arriaga said that while the government should be doing everything possible in light of the court ruling to facilitate judicial review of the lawfulness of the detentions, it instead appears to be trying to narrow the scope of the review. Arriaga noted that the new process remains entirely within the U.S. military, and that all sorts of evidence will be admissible, including from anonymous witnesses and statements that may have been coerced.

Amnesty issued this press release yesterday.

Another four years of Bush and Ashcroft, and this will be America, not Jakaarta.

Seven more convicted drug traffickers on death row are facing imminent execution after President Megawati Soekarnoputri turned down their requests for clemency on Thursday. Last month, she also refused to grant clemency for four other convicted drug traffickers on death row...

Megawati admitted she took no pleasure in rejecting the appeals for clemency, but it was her obligation to protect the nation's youth from illicit drugs. "I have to stress here that it is my obligation to protect our children and youth from the threat of drug abuse and trafficking," she said. Megawati asked for understanding from foreign countries over the decision, as most of those convicted were foreigners.

Sorry, President Megawati, you will get no pass here with your lame excuse. May the guilt you feel from your complicity in these traffickers' executions be with you forever.

John Kerry supports the death penalty only for terrorists, and has said he supports a moratorium on the death penalty (pdf) at the federal level due to the number of persons on death row who have been found to be factually innocent of their crimes. In his own words:

“I support a moratorium on the death penalty, because I believe that there are serious systemic flaws in the death penalty system, which have resulted in the conviction of people who are innocent.”