by TChris

This seems like a sound approach to traffic enforcement that may have a practical application in the U.S.

The Lagos transport chief said 608 Nigerian motorists were tested for insanity after they were caught driving against the flow of traffic on city streets, local media reported on Wednesday.

"One person was found to be insane, while 20 people were found to have very low intelligent quota, which connotes they were not fit to drive cars along Lagos roads," Banire was quoted as saying in Wednesday's Punch newspaper.

The other 587 just didn't care.

by TChris

The jury hearing charges against Jayson Williams -- the NBA player turned analyst who shot his driver with a shotgun -- found Williams not guilty of aggravated manslaughter and could not reach a verdict on the charge of reckless manslaughter. Williams was convicted of four lesser charges that related to tampering with evidence and trying to conceal his role in the shooting. An excellent result for Williams and his lawyer, Billy Martin, given the facts of this difficult case.

Sentencing has not yet been scheduled. TalkLeft background on the case is here and here and here.

by TChris

It is hard to imagine that anyone would be offended by Nightline's decision to broadcast the names of U.S. soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq. Nonetheless, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest owners of television stations in the country with 62 stations reaching nearly a quarter of all U.S. TV viewers, considers this respectful tribute to the fallen a "veiled political effort to undermine the war." Sinclair apparently considers it unpatriotic to show Americans the consequences of their President's decisions.

Sinclair's vice president of corporate relations claims the broadcast represents biased journalism. Was it "biased journalism" when Sinclair stations showed the President landing on an aircraft carrier to declare (prematurely, as it happens) an end to major hostilities in Iraq while standing under a banner reading Mission Accomplished? Are the dead less newsworthy than the President's propoganda?

Sinclair's decision has little to do with journalism and a lot to do with politics. Sinclair's top executives have donated to Bush's (but not to Kerry's) campaign. Sinclair has given more than $65,000 to GOP candidates in 2004 alone. Could that explain why they want to keep their viewers from seeing the soldiers who died under the President's command?

John McCain calls Sinclair's action "deeply offensive" and "unpatriotic." It is, but just as offensive is the administration's continuing support for the consolidation of media ownership. The more stations Sinclair owns, the fewer people see news coverage that might disturb the President. That might be good for the administration, but it's a disaster for a democracy that depends on informed voters.

by TChris

Another embarrassment for the Bush administration:

The head of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, Paul Bremer, warned six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the Bush administration seemed to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism and appeared to "stagger along" on the issue.

Bush can't very well accuse Bremer of seeking publicity to promote a book, or of developing a sour grapes attitude after losing a job. What new spin move will the White House show us to deflect Bremer's criticism?

by TChris

Dress codes have their place, but dress codes imposed by a public employer shouldn't be allowed to interfere with religious freedom. Former New York police officer Jasjit Singh Jaggi, a Sikh who had been assigned to traffic enforcement, prevailed in the first round of his claim that the NYPD violated his civil rights by prohibiting him from wearing a beard or turban.

The Department argued that wearing a turban compromised public safety but couldn't muster enough evidence to convince an administrative judge that turbans are dangerous. The judge recommended to the state human rights commission that Jaggi be reinstated to his position.

by TChris

Improperly suggestive questioning of young children can easily lead to false accusations of sexual abuse. (A state-of-the-art reference on the subject of interviewing children is Investigative Interviews of Children by Debra Poole and Michael Lamb.) John Stoll, a victim of false accusations of sexual abuse prompted by improper questioning of children, will soon be freed after twenty years of confinement.

Four of Stoll's accusers, now adults, testified in January they were manipulated by investigators who dogged them for hours until they fabricated the stories. A fifth witness testified that he has no memories from that part of his childhood.

Stoll was represented by lawyers from the California Innocence Project. They deserve to be congratulated for their excellent work.

Another man who may have been victimized by false accusations -- Gerald "Tooky" Amirault, who ran a daycare center near Boston with his sister and mother, all of whom were convicted of child molestation -- was released on parole today after spending 18 years in prison.

by TChris

Although George Orwell warned about government surveillance of the innocent and the loss of privacy in his landmark novel 1984, governments continue their diligent efforts to transform fiction into reality. If you drive through Manalapan, Florida (an exclusive Palm Beach community), be aware that Big Brother is watching you.

Cameras will snap pictures of drivers [as they pass the town's "waterfront mansions"], their cars and their license plates and a computer will run the tag against a criminal database. If anything suspicious is found, a dispatcher is alerted and can call for police.

Assuming that a "criminal database" is simply a list of people who were once accused or convicted of crimes, it doesn't seem "suspicious" that people on the list might travel through Manalapan. Courts consistently hold that the police can't stop or detain drivers simply because they have criminal records.

Another Florida surveillance system proved to be a waste of money.

Tampa police used ... face-recognition technology during the 2001 Super Bowl and in the nearby entertainment district of Ybor City. That system is designed to recognize the facial characteristics of potential terrorists and criminals by matching people on the street with a database of 30,000 mug shots. But Tampa police scrapped the Ybor City program in August, citing its failure over two years to recognize anyone wanted by authorities.

The Manalapan system is likely to equally wasteful, but any system that tracks the movement of innocent people is a frightening proposition.

by TChris

Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who lost his job by insisting that his desire to display the Ten Commandments on public property was more imporant than the Constitution, lost his latest bid to get the job back. Seven retired judges, serving in lieu of the Alabama Supreme Court over which Moore once presided, rejected his appeal from an ethics panel's order removing him from office.

Moore argued that federal courts have "no right to interfere in states' acknowledgments of God," a position that reads the Supremacy Clause out of the Constitution. Federal courts have not only the right but the duty to enforce constitutional protections when confronted by state officials who prefer to ignore them.

Unfortunately, we haven't heard the last of Moore.

Moore is behind a bill before Congress that would prohibit federal judges from hearing cases involving acknowledgments of God. The measure was expected to be heard by the House Judicial Committee later this year.

by TChris

Did Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick violate military rules by abusing Iraqi prisoners of war, or is he a scapegoat who merely followed orders? Frederick's journal entries indicate that he complained to the acting battalion commander about conditions at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, including confinement of prisoners in damp and unventillated three-by-three foot cells. He says the commander responded: "I don't care if he has to sleep standing up."

The claim that "I was following orders" doesn't justify humiliating and degrading prisoners, or inflicting the kind of abuse reported here. Nor can the abuse of prisoners be written off as harmless "pranks" as some family members of the accused soldiers have suggested. But responsibility doesn't rest solely with soldiers like Frederick if his superiors knew what was happening and did nothing to prevent it, or if they required him to be abusive. Frederick's civilian lawyer, Gary Myers, said Frederick didn't intend to humiliate any prisoners until higher-ranking officers told him what to do.

Frederick's journal entries may be self-serving -- he didn't start the journal until military investigators questioned him in January -- but, if true, the entries support his claim that his requests for guidance were met with indifference.

He wrote that he questioned the inmates' treatment and asked for standard operating procedures when his unit relieved the 72nd Military Police Company at the prison last fall. His requests were ignored until Jan. 19, five days after his first visit from investigators, when he found the Geneva Convention rules for handling prisoners of war on the Internet, Frederick wrote.

by TChris

Even adults sometimes respond to police interrogations by confessing to crimes they didn't commit. When the police interrogate a child, without a parent or lawyer present, the risk of a false confession is alarming.

Georgia attorney Gerald Word says the police questioned his twelve year old client for four hours, outside the presence of his parents and without a lawyer, before the twelve year old allegedly admitted his involvement in strangling an eight year old neighbor.

Word said it was only after lengthy questioning Tuesday that the boy made a statement that led investigators to believe he killed Amy Yates. The boy, whose name is not being released by authorities, was then charged with murder.

The boy claims he was "repeatedly called a liar" during the interrogation, and was not read his rights before being questioned, Word said. He never admitted to harming the girl, he said.

Few adults are capable of withstanding coercive interrogation techniques, and they often have trouble grasping the meaning of a Miranda warning. It is absurd to think that a twelve year old would understand his constitutional right to remain silent or his right to counsel, and it is equally absurd to think that a twelve year old's decision to participate in a police interview is truly voluntary. When the police interrogate a young child without a parent's permission, any resulting statements should be presumed to be unreliable.

Word thinks the Georgia legislature should enact a law that requires the police to obtain a parent's permission before interrogating a child. He's right, and other states should do the same.

by TChris

The latest book to shed light on the dark innards of the Bush administration is (take a deep breath) The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity by Joseph Wilson. The wife in question is Valerie Plame, famously outed to Bob Novak as a CIA agent by persons as yet unknown in the Bush administration.

So who gave Novak the goods? Wilson points to Dick Cheney's office as a sensible place to start the investigation.

In the book, he named four administration aides, including Libby, who might have leaked the information. But he did not accuse any of them of doing so. Wilson said he has based his allegations on information supplied to him from multiple sources inside and outside the Bush administration.

Wilson connects Cheney to the events involving his wife through a meeting he said occurred in March 2003. He charged that Cheney's staff — with at least the "implicit" involvement of the vice president — met and decided to investigate his background. The investigation, he said, uncovered his wife's role at the CIA.

Plame's cover was blown after Wilson publicly accused the administration of lying about intelligence findings in order to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq. Wilson says his wife's identity was revealed to intimidate other potential critics.

Update (TL): Buzzflash interviews Joe Wilson here.

by TChris

Small towns and rural areas with prisons look larger in the census because the inmates count as local residents. A report by the Urban institute concludes that this practice affects outcomes "in matters as diverse as political representation to state and federal funding."

Twenty-plus years of aggressive prison construction have left states with bloated budgets, but prisons provide welcome jobs in the small towns and counties that host them.

"There is a growing trend in rural areas to pursue prisons and jails as a tool for economic development," said Joe Weedon, legislative director for American Correctional Association.

Building more prisons is not a healthy solution to the economic hardships suffered in rural America. Nobody should be sent to prison so that someone else will have a job.