A narcotics officer in New York City pleaded guilty today in federal court to stealing more than $100k from a drug dealer. He is the 8th officer to be implicated in the scandal. He faces up to five years in prison.

So many of our clients tell us the cops took more money than they reported on the evidence form. Usually, it's too hard to prove and the client has no recourse. Who's going to believe a drug dealer over a cop?

But sometimes, the cops get undone over something else and it comes to light. That happened to one of our clients in a Ft. Lauderdale drug case some years back...by the end of the case, a Customs agent and three members of the Hallendale police department went to jail for several years, and our client, who they had tricked into buying (not selling) drugs, taking $200k from him, got freed from jail....after serving a year in the county jail while awaiting trial.

Cops are like everyone else. There are good ones and bad ones. And sometimes, just like other people, good cops do bad things. It's why we never understand why juries seem so ready to believe the word of a police officer over other witnesses.

From the Miami Herald, 10/29/97 (available on Lexis.com):

Where we last left off with Lea Fastow, wife of former Enron CEO Andrew Fastow, her plea agreement for a five month sentence had fallen apart when the Judge refused to go along. She withdrew her guilty plea and trial was set to begin June 2.

But, where there's a will, there's a way. The Government has now dismissed the felony charges against her and obtained a Superseding Indictment charging Lea with a misdemeanor tax count, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail.

Say hello to Memeorandum, which tracks the most popular news topics covered by bloggers, and links to the blogger's posts about them. Liberal bloggers are well-represented on the site.

Memeorandum presents a distinctly readable and relevant hourly synopsis of the latest online news and opinion, combining weblog commentary with traditional news reports.

by TChris

The jury deciding the fate of former NBA player and analyst Jayson Williams advised the court that it has agreed on six of eight charges, but cannot reach a unanimous verdict on the rest. The jury may be finding it difficult to decide on the two most serious charges -- aggravated and reckless manslaughter -- after agreeing that Williams committed less serious crimes as he tried to cover up his role in the shooting of driver Costas "Gus" Christofi.

Judge Edward Coleman instructed the jurors to continue their effort to reach a verdict on all counts. The jurors will enter their third day of deliberations tomorrow. TalkLeft background on the case is here and here.

by TChris

TalkLeft has reported on the sad state of affairs at the California Youth Authority, including the practice of caging children and ignoring their mental health problems. Yesterday was a statewide day of protest concerning juvenile justice in California. Protestors in Watsonville, Santa Cruz, and other parts of the state held a candlelight vigil to call attention to the deplorable conditions for offenders detained in California Youth Authority jails.

In central California, protestors focused on another aspect of youth corrections: the disproportionate tendency to incarcerate Latino children.

In recent years, the state has incarcerated a remarkable percentage of Lindsay's young people, a fact that is little known outside the town's Latino migrant-family community, said vigil organizer Victor Cervantes.

The protest focused attention on the state's warped priorities.

In Central Valley communities it's perceived California is choosing to spend to build prisons and to lock up Latino youth instead of spending any money on much-needed social programs and job creation to assist families of immigrants.

Those attending a candlelight vigil in Lindsay agreed that California should stop using the prison industry as a job creation program, and should focus instead on root causes of crime, including poverty, discrimination, and a lack of resources for the mentally ill.

by TChris

Your tax dollars at work:

Sen. Evan Bayh said Wednesday the Army needs to buy more Indiana-made Humvees to better protect soldiers in Iraq.

A cynic might say that Sen. Bayh is more interested in helping his home state's economy than in protecting troops -- hence the desire to buy "Indiana-made" vehicles rather than other forms of armored transportation.

There are better ways to protect our soldiers. One option is to accede to the desires of the Iraqi citizenry, 60 percent of whom "want the US and its allies to leave immediately, even if it means the security situation will deteriorate." Another option is to stop killing innocent Iraqi civilians, which can only result in ill-will and increased violence against U.S. soldiers.

US troops ... are seen by most Iraqis as "uncaring, dangerous and lacking in respect for the country's people, religion and traditions."

"One specific Iraqi complaint against US troops is the widespread perception – whether correct or incorrect – that they have been indiscriminate in their use of force when civilians are nearby," said Gallup's director of international polling, Richard Burkholder.

by TChris

War, deficits, public education, national security, and environmental destruction are among the issues that should give politicians a full plate, leaving little time to fret about the inconsequential. And so, naturally enough, some Republicans found time to criticize Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) for omitting the phrase "under God" when he led the Pledge of Allegiance in the House yesterday.

McDermott's people say the omission was inadvertent, that McDermott was merely reciting the pledge in the form that he learned as a child. In an interview last month, however, McDermott suggested that his omission of "under God" when he recites the pledge is a matter of principle.

"I personally don't think it adds anything to the Pledge of Allegiance, and I personally don't say, 'under God,'" McDermott is quoted as saying. "I consider it an infringement that I don't like. I don't like infringements of church and state. And so I don't know that I'm rigid, but I try to be consistent."

Good for McDermott, but he should have the courage to stand behind his belief, even if it affords Republicans an opportunity to avoid more pressing issues while taking shots at him.

by TChris

There never seems to be a shortage of stories about judicial corruption or incompetence in Louisiana (recent TalkLeft posts on the subject are here, here, and here). Here's another:

U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan on Wednesday ordered former [Louisiana] District Judge Ronald Bodenheimer to serve three years and 10 months in prison and pay $50,000 for taking bribes from a bail bondsman, scheming to plant drugs on an FBI informant and plotting to fix a child custody case.

Prosecutors agreed to recommend a 3-1/2 year prison term in exchange for the judge's cooperation in its investigation of courthouse corruption, but Judge Berrigan busted the deal by adding four months to the recommended sentence.

Berrigan ... said Bodenheimer's cooperation wasn't enough and increased his sentence to reflect the seriousness of trying to get someone falsely arrested. She gave Bodenheimer a chance to withdraw his guilty plea, but he turned it down.

by TChris

A car bombing on Thursday in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, took the lives of eight U.S. soldiers and wounded four others. Other attacks in eastern Baghdad and in Ba'qubah, north of Baghdad, claimed the lives of two more U.S. soldiers.

by TChris

A New York Times editorial urges the State of Delaware to adopt a proposed law that would end the State's inflexible policy of denying occupational licenses to people who have been convicted of a felony. The proposed law would require a "substantial relationship" between the crime and the occupation, so that somebody convicted of (for instance) a felony trespass on government property during a demonstration would not, twenty years later, be denied a license as a landscape architect.

The proposed law only makes sense. People who have been punished, who have paid their debt to society, should be given a chance to reform. Society only benefits by allowing ex-offenders to become productive. As the Times argues, ending these "senselessly punitive bans" makes it easier for reformed offenders to stay on a path that keeps them out of prison.

Peter Coors has been a candidate for just a few weeks, but he's already in hot water with minority groups for comments made by one of his spokespersons:

DENVER (AP) - Minority groups called on Republican Senate candidate Peter Coors to apologize Wednesday after a spokeswoman said it would be worse to be compared to Sen. John Kerry than to a convicted killer. The dispute arose last week when an appeals court upheld the conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klansman in the murder of a black man. The New York Times mistakenly used a photo of Coors with a story about the ruling. Asked about the error, Coors campaign spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said: "It could have been worse. Pete could have been identified as John Kerry."

The Rev. James Peters, spokesman for the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, said the remark was insensitive. "If Peter Coors or Ms. Watson thinks it is funny or lighthearted to compare Sen. Kerry to a convicted KKK murderer, then they are either willfully ignorant of the emotion African-Americans feel about such matters, or they are terribly out of touch and they should be ashamed," Peters said.

A new New York Times/CBS poll shows support for Bush and the war dropping significantly in recent months:

Support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past several months, and Americans are increasingly critical of the way President Bush is handling the conflict, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. After initially expressing robust backing for the war, the public is now evenly divided over whether the United States military should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq or pull out as soon as possible, the poll showed.

Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 37 percent last month and 31 percent in December.b

...just short of a year after Mr. Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last May 1 and proclaimed the end to major combat operations under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," his approval rating has slid from the high levels it reached during the war. It now stands at 46 percent, the lowest level of his presidency in The Times/CBS News Poll, down from 71 percent last March and a high of 89 percent just after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001....Mr. Bush's approval rating for his handling of Iraq was 41 percent, down from 49 percent last month and 59 percent in December.

The poll shows that Bush and Kerry remain in a statistical dead heat.