Walter in Denver reminds us that the 3rd Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash is this Friday, May 28, at the Denver Press Club. The festivities begin around 7 pm. Address: 1330 Glenarm, Denver.

Various items will be available in a silent auction format, with proceeds benefitting The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

If you have anything you'd like to donate, contact Walter. He says you'll get some nice publicity for your trouble. Kudos to Zombyboy for the graphics and Darren Copeland for the lead on the Denver Press Club.

We will be there, although, we don't think we'll get drunk and start flinging subpoenas on the stage as Jeff Goldstein of the uber-right blog Protein Wisdom, predicts. On the other hand, you never know.

We just hope we finally get to meet Vodka Pundit in person It's been two years since we met via cyberspace, offering to buy him and his bride Melissa a drink on their next trip to Denver from Colorado Springs, and we're still waiting. Vodkapundit, like Instapundit, was an early and gracious linker to and supporter of TalkLeft -- despite the fact that our politics match only on occasion--when the Libertarian in them and the liberal in us strike the same chord.

If you're anywhere around Denver this Friday, please stop by. We can tell you from having attended a prior RMBB that the attendees definitely are a varied bunch of characters... and that a most excellent time is had by all.

by TChris

Another Louisiana judge is in trouble -- this one for being drunk in the courtroom.

A prosecutor's dream judge, District Judge Monty L. Doggett issued arrest warrants when he was too drunk to read them. Deputies once had to carry the drunken judge out of his courtroom.

Judge Doggett's attitude toward his problem didn't help his efforts to retain his robe.

Doggett claimed that since he was re-elected after his alcoholism was made public, his constituents were aware of his problem and did not care.

It wouldn't be surprising if his constituents didn't notice his bad judging, given the other disastrous Louisiana judges that TalkLeft has featured: here and here and here.

by TChris

David Wayne Boyce is asking the Virginia Supreme Court to rule that DNA tests prove he wasn't present when Timothy Askew was killed in May 1990.

"I am wrongly incarcerated for 14 years for a crime I did not commit," Boyce wrote in the 37-page petition. "Please end this horrible living nightmare of gross injustice and set me free."

Boyce had been sharing a motel room with Askew, but Askew rented a second room on the night of his death. Askew was killed in that room. Recent DNA tests on crime scene evidence, including hair, blood, and seminal fluid, found no DNA from Boyce, although they indicated the presence of DNA from someone other than Askew.

As is customary, the prosecution refuses to admit the possibility that it prosecuted an innocent man. It deems the DNA evidence "inconclusive." Maybe, but no physical evidence ever linked Boyce to the crime, and the prosecution based its case on an alleged confession given to a jailhouse informant -- evidence that is notoriously unreliable. Even if the court doesn't accept Boyce's plea to be set free, it should give him a new trial. His jury didn't hear all the evidence that, thanks to advances in DNA testing, now casts a dark shadow of doubt on Boyce's guilt.

by TChris

It's true, as the NY Times editorializes, that the FBI and Justice Department "ought to hang their heads in shame over the mistaken arrest and jailing" of Brandon Mayfield. This isn't the first time that the FBI has followed -- in David Cole's words -- an "arrest first, ask questions later" policy.

Mayfield is fortunate that the Spanish National Police took a more professional approach than the FBI, which confidently announced that a fingerprint found on a bag of detonators tied to train bombings in Madrid was a "100 percent match" with Mayfield's prints. When Spanish investigators met with the FBI to question that conclusion, the FBI came away from the meeting believing that the Spanish police "felt satisfied" with the FBI's analysis. More likely, the FBI -- an agency that doesn't respond well to criticism -- felt satisfied that the Spanish police shouldn't be questioning their conclusions. In any event, the Spanish investigators didn't give up after being brushed off by the FBI; they continued their work and matched the prints with a more likely suspect.

Props to the Spanish police for their professionalism. They kept an innocent man from getting into a whole lot of trouble. The FBI and Justice Department should hang their heads not only for botching the fingerprint analysis, but for advising a judge that they had cause to arrest Mayfield because of a contact between Mayfield and a man on a terrorism watch list that, according to Mayfield, never occurred, and because Mayfield advertised in a Muslim "yellow pages" and attended a mosque (not as incriminating as taking out an ad in the Terrorist Gazette or attending a terrorist picnic, but apparently proof of guilt to the Justice Department).

by TChris

The U.S. and its partner-in-occupation, Great Britain, seem to be having a bit of a spat.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush's chief ally in Iraq, said today that forces of the U.S.-led coalition there will need the "consent" of the new Iraqi government to conduct some military operations after political power is transferred on June 30.

Blair told a news conference in London that "if there's a political decision as to whether you go into a place like Fallujah in a particular way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government and the final political control remains with the Iraqi government. That's what the transfer of sovereignty means.

The Bush adminsitration isn't inclined to ask anyone's "consent" to do as it pleases with the U.S. military.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, asked later about Blair's comment, phrased the issue differently, saying that "we would take into account whatever" Iraqi officials say "at a political and military level."

Powell added: "Now, ultimately, however, if it comes down to the United States armed forces protecting themselves or in some way accomplishing their mission in a way that might not be in total consonance with what the Iraqi interim government might want to do at a particular moment in time, U.S. forces remain under U.S. command and will do what is necessary to protect themselves."

In other words, as long as a military action can be characterized as necessary to "accomplish a mission," sovereignty won't stand in the way. Although Powell earlier said that the U.S. military will leave Iraq upon request of the interim government, his assurance was promptly contradicted by Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp, who told Congress that only an elected government could kick the U.S. military out of the country.

Four soldiers received reprimands today for abusing Iraqi prisoners--they forced the Iraqis to jump into the Tigris River. The four were based at Fort Carson, Colorado.

Fort Carson soldiers are also under investigation in two prisoner deaths:

Budzyna also said that members of another Fort Carson unit, the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, are being questioned about the deaths of two Iraqi prisoners: Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57, who was captured by the regiment in October, and Abdul Jaleel, 46.

The military has said Mowhoush died during interrogation Nov. 26 from asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression. The CIA said one of its agents may have been involved and referred the case to the Justice Department. Jaleel died Jan. 9 at a post near Al Asad, Iraq, of blunt force injuries and asphyxia, the Army said last week. The facility was the base camp of the 3rd Armored Cavalry.

Law Prof Eric Muller of Is That Legal? has given the subject of Justice Department lawyers providing advice on acceptable and non-acceptable interrogation techniques a lot of thought. He says the questions we should be asking are these:

In which executive departments have attorneys been called upon to review the legality under American and international law of interrogation methods such as "water boarding" (in which people are dipped into water to make them fear they're about to be drowned) and multi-year confinement of people in total isolation? (On the strategy of permanent solitary confinement, see the Declaration of Lowell Jacoby (.pdf), Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, on which the administration has relied in court.)
* What conclusions did these attorneys reach on the legality of these methods?
* How were disputes among attorneys or departments about the legality of these methods resolved? By whom?

Kobe Bryant's lawyers have requested permission to call two expert witnesses at Thursday's hearing to show the police conducted a shoddy and incomplete examination of evidence in Kobe's hotel room that would have shown his innocence.

[Attorney Hal] Haddon said the men “closed their eyes” to potential physical evidence at the site of the alleged crime that might have confirmed Bryant’s innocence. “The failure to conduct the most ’regular’ police procedure — investigation of a crime scene and collection of physical evidence — suggests both a bias against Mr. Bryant and a willful or reckless unwillingness to consider the possibility that Mr. Bryant committed no crime and that the accuser was lying about the sexual encounter for ulterior motives,” Haddon wrote.

....Defense attorneys say crime scene investigators should have taken more photos, collected the chair that was the site of the alleged assault, examined carpet near the chair and collected material in waste baskets.

We'll be talking about the case today during the second half hour of MSNBC's Abrams Report ( the show begins at 6PM ET).

Ralph Nader is calling for the impeachment of President Bush over Iraq. Nader says Bush is a "messianic militarist."

Mr. Bush's actions "rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors," Mr. Nader said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan. He said Mr. Bush had exceeded his authority in the face of widespread opposition at home and abroad. "The founding fathers did not want the declaration of war put in the hands of one man," he said, contending that United States foreign policy goals are being hindered because the president tends to "talk like an out-of-control West Texas sheriff."

While we're thinking of young people, Eric over at Hamster found these numbers at Drum Major Institute.

• Cost of annual tuition at Yale University, President George W. Bush's alma mater and university attended by his daughter Barbara: $37,000

• Average annual income for a full-time American worker: $32,500

• Number of associate's degrees awarded to American college students every year: 600,0008

• Number of U.S. information technology (IT), back office, customer service and sales jobs expected to move " offshore" by 2005: 600,000

by TChris

Scott Peterson's lawyer, Mark Geragos, filed a motion yesterday accusing the prosecution of withholding key evidence: the statement of a former peace officer who says he saw two men pull Laci Peterson into a van. Scott is charged with Laci's murder.

In the motion, Geragos alleges that the prosecution has known about the unidentified witness since December 2002 but didn't interview him until just last week -- just days before the start of the trial. Opening statements are scheduled for a week from today. "The witness confirmed his sighting of a woman he identified as Laci and her two abductors,'' according to the defense motion. "However, the Modesto Police Department chose to ignore this former peace officer's report presumably because 'it was not going in the right direction.' This ... clearly establishes that the prosecution's conduct was undertaken in bad faith."

Another witness, Diane Jackson, saw a van acros the street from Laci's house on the morning she disappeared.

by TChris

President Bush said little last night that was new, but what he said wasn't enough to satisfy those who believe that a handover of sovereignty should actually involve ... well ... a handover of sovereignty.

The president of the Iraqi Governing Council said today that a proposed U.S.-British blueprint for a post-occupation Iraq falls short of expectation, and several key U.N. Security Council members said the proposal presented to the United Nations does not make clear whether the new government will have full authority over Iraq's security, and when foreign troops would leave. They said that raises the question of whether there will be a true handover of power on June 30.

A sovereign nation would be entitled to tell the U.S. to take its soldiers and go home, but Bush offered no plan for withdrawing troops. He's letting the Iraqis decide whether we should demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, but he gave no suggestion that he intends to allow Iraqis meaningful control of their country after June 30.

The U.N. resolution that the U.S. proposed doesn't achieve true sovereignty any time soon.

The resolution sets no date for the troops to leave, although it calls for a review after 12 months, or earlier at the request of the elected government. France, Germany, China, Chile and Russia would like to have an earlier reassessment, or to simply leave the force's mandate to the new Iraqi government to decide.