by TChris

Roy Black, representing Rush Limbaugh with regard to allegations that Limbaugh illegally obtained prescription pain medication, made a statement yesterday comparing Limbaugh to Palm Beach County Judge Robert Schwartz:

"After admitting an eight-year addiction, Judge Schwartz entered treatment voluntarily and was praised by the community, not investigated and never prosecuted by the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office. This was sensitive and appropriate for someone facing such a difficult personal challenge. All we're asking is that Rush Limbaugh be treated the same."

Moral of the story: it's good to be a judge.

Second moral: Whether an addicted drug user is a liberal, a loud-mouth conservative, a judge, a plumber, rich or poor, treatment -- not prosecution -- is the best solution to the problem.

by TChris

In his radio address today, President Bush declared that Iraq's interim constitution shows the "excellent progress" that Iraq is making toward democracy. The consitution was to be signed yesterday, but new objections raised by five members of Iraq's governing council caused the signing ceremony to be cancelled, a glitch the president neglected to mention during his radio address.

by TChris

Legendary rock artist David Crosby was arrested yesterday for possessing marijuana and a .45 caliber handgun. Crosby had checked out of a Times Square hotel but reportedly left behind a piece of luggage. A hotel employee searching the luggage for identification found the gun and the pot. Police arrested Crosby when he returned to the hotel to claim the luggage.

The founding member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash has been in trouble before for drug and weapons violations, and served some prison time before a conviction in Texas was overturned. This is Crosby's mugshot from the Texas arrest.

We're doing our part....

Order Here

by TChris

The grand jury investigating the source behind Robert Novak's story exposing Valerie Plame as a CIA officer issued subpoenas to the White House in January. The investigation arises out of concerns that Bush administration officials revealed Plame's identity in an attempt to discredit her husband's criticism of the administration's Iraq policy. Plame is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. More background information can be found at TalkLeft posts here and here.

The subpoenas seek a number of White House documents:

• Records of Air Force One telephone calls from July 7 to 12, about a week before Novak's revelation. The President was visiting several African nations that week. The White House has not made public the identities of those on the plane with Bush.

• A transcript (missing from a White House website collecting press briefing transcripts) of an informal press briefing on July 12 by former press secretary Ari Fleischer, during which Fleischer discussed Wilson and his report that, contrary to White House assertions, Iraq did not try to buy uranium "yellow cake" in Niger.

• A list of attendees at a White House reception (closed to the press) on July 16 for Gerald Ford's 90th birthday. Again, the White House has declined to make that list public.

• Records created by the White House Iraq Group, "a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein."

• Records about White House staff contacts with Novak and a number of other journalists.

The subpoenas demanded the production of documents before the grand jury in January and February. However, the current press secretary, Scott McClellan, said today that the White House was "still in the process of complying fully."

by TChris

Opposition to the Bush campaign's use of 9/11 footage in advertising to promote the President's reelection is becoming more organized. The ads began broadcasting yesterday.

A group representing 120 families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks called on President George W. Bush's re-election campaign to withdraw political advertising using images of the attack's aftermath.

The group, Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, held a press conference to denounce the use of 9/11 victims for political purposes. In addition,

Mary Fetchet, co-founder of the victims' advocacy group Voices of September 11, said in an interview yesterday that she also is concerned about politicians using the World Trade Center site as a backdrop during the August 2004 Republican National Convention in New York.

by TChris

A federal jury found Martha Stewart guilty on all counts.

Martha Stewart was convicted Friday of obstructing justice and lying to the government about a superbly timed stock sale, a devastating verdict that probably means prison for the woman who epitomizes meticulous homemaking and gracious living.

Under the federal sentencing guidelines, it will be an uphill battle for Stewart to avoid incarceration. She was not taken into custody pending sentencing, but must report to a federal probation office next week to be interviewed for a presentence report. The report will provide the court with information about Martha Stewart's life, and with a recommendation as to the appropriate sentencing guideline to apply to her case. Judges have discretion to impose a sentence within a fairly narrow guideline range, but have very little discretion to depart from the guideline.

Stewart's co-defendant, Peter Bacanovic, was convicted on all but one count.

Stewart is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17.

by TChris

Three 12-year-old girls falsely accused Eric Nordmark of attacking them in a park. False accusations are always tragic, but they compounded the problems Nordmark already faced. Nordmark was homeless at the time the accusations were made.

Nordmark spent eight months in jail awaiting trial. Had Nordmark been a wealthy man, he could have posted bail. Lacking resources, Nordmark -- despite the presumption of innocence -- sat behind bars until his accusers, during his trial, admitted that they made up the story to explain why they were late returning home from school.

The girls will serve less time than Nordmark did. All were charged in juvenile court with conspiracy, and one was also charged with perjury. Two girls were given 45 days in detention and one was given a month. They each received credit for 25 days already spent in custody. They will each be on probation for nine years, and they must perform community service and pay restitution.

To his credit, Nordmark doesn't blame the girls for his incarceration. He isn't complaining that they won't serve as much time behind bars as he did. "Kids are kids," he says. "Kids do bonehead things."

Nordmark is unhappy with the police for simply accepting a story without conducting a thorough investigation. His concern is legitimate. It is also legitimate to question why a system of justice that presumes people innocent and that promises equal treatment under the law nonetheless favors those who can afford to pay bail while incarcerating the destitute until their cases come to trial.

by TChris

A federal perjury charge must be supported by the testimony of two witnesses, or of one witness whose story is supported by an independent document. But what does "independent" mean?

Richard M. Strassberg, the lawyer for Martha Stewart's stockbroker and co-defendant, Peter E. Bacanovic, argued in response to a question from the jury that an "independent" document must be a document created by someone other than the testifying witness. That would seem a sensible interpretation. If the function of a second witness is to provide independent corroboration of the testimony of the first witness, it would stand to reason that a document which substitutes for the second witness should come from a second, "independent" source.

Unfortunately for Bacanovic, that isn't the way Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum reads the law.

Judge Cedarbaum's ruling said effectively that the requirement was fulfilled by the testimony of an employee of Ms. Stewart's, Ann E. Armstrong, and phone logs kept by Ms. Armstrong.

The judge said that there were two reasons why the two pieces of evidence in question were independent and legitimate: Ms. Armstrong did not rely on the phone log for her testimony, and the phone logs were legitimate documents because they had been kept "in the normal course of business."

The judge gave that answer to the jury this morning. The jury continues its deliberations today on the charges against Baconovic and Stewart.

by TChris

Solicitor General Ted Olson, speaking for the Bush administration, has filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking the Court to uphold the administration's right to detain indefinitely any foreigner that it captures and holds on foreign soil. Granting those individuals access to our courts, Olson says, "not only would be very damaging to the military's ability to win the war, but [would] no doubt be highly comforting to the enemies of the United States."

Showing the "enemies" of the United States that the United States treats every person fairly (even those the administration regards as "enemy captives") might promote respect for our government, but it is difficult to understand how that "comforts" terrorists or interferes with the military's ability to wage war. While Olson argues that giving detainees access to courts "almost certainly would lead to the filing of scores if not hundreds of follow-up actions by the relatives of other aliens held at Guantanamo," that is true only because the United States has chosen to detain hundreds of individuals at Guantanamo and other overseas military bases. Is it the administration's goal to detain even more people to further an argument that granting them access to the courts would be unduly burdensome?

The notion that the executive branch of government is entitled to detain someone forever, with no judicial review to determine whether the detention is supported by reasoning or evidence, is repugnant to the values that define our nation.

The Court will hear argument in the case next month.

by TChris

Our one and only Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was admitted to intensive care last night for a severe case of gallstone pancreatitis. The condition is extremely painful, but probably not life threatening.

Let's hope the man doesn't become addicted to pain medication as a result of this unfortunate event.

For those who choose to comment, please don't go over the top.

by TChris

Happy Anniversary, California. It's been ten years since you enacted one of the nation's toughest "three strikes" laws. Are you comforted to know that your state is so much safer now than it was ten years ago?

With 57 percent of the third strikes being nonviolent offenses, typically drug violations or burglary, the law largely hasn't necessarily targeted the most dangerous criminals. Third strikes are 10 times more likely to be for a drug offense than for second-degree murder. In fact, third-strikers sent to prison on a drug offense outnumber the combined total whose offense was assault, rape and second-degree murder, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a research and public policy group that has been critical of the law.

The institute's 10-year analysis of the law also found African Americans and Latinos were far more likely to be imprisoned than white offenders for the same third-strike crimes.

One quarter of California prisoners are serving life terms under the three-strikes law, at a cost so far of about $8.1 billion. More than half that amount was spent to warehouse offenders whose third strike was not a violent crime.

So the law is expensive, it wastes prison resources on people who don't deserve life sentences, and it seems to be implemented in a racially discriminatory manner. California, is that what you intended?

"We're filling our prisons with people who don't belong there,'' said Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, whose reform attempts have been routinely rebuffed. "You can get less time for second-degree murder than for stealing a six-pack of beer. It's not what the public had in mind.''