Just two weeks prior to jury selection in his murder trial, actor Robert Blake has lost his lawyer. The Judge allowed his lawyer to quit the case today after a hearing at which she found there were "irreconcilable differences" between the two. The trial is postponed indefinitely.

This is the third lawyer to leave the case. Not a good sign.

Hesiod at Counterspin reports that President Bush will be interviewed Sunday on Meet the Press by Tim Russert. Check out Hesiod's sample questions he wants Russert to ask-- and send an email to Russert at MTP@NBC.com demanding he ask tough questions.

Richard Sale, an intelligence correspondent for UPI, is reporting that Federal law enforcement officials say there is "hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct" by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office relating to the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice
Department official said. According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were the two Cheney employees.

"We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law
enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned. Hannah and Libby did not return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time," as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law enforcement official said.

The Pentagon has pulled the plug on LifeLog, its "stunningly ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence." Defense Tech has the details.

Run by Darpa, the Defense Department's research arm, LifeLog aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone calls made, the TV shows watched, the magazines read, the plane tickets bought, the e-mail sent and received. Out of this seemingly endless ocean of information, computer scientists would plot distinctive routes in the data, mapping relationships, memories, events and experiences.

LifeLog's backers said the all-encompassing diary could have turned into a near-perfect digital memory, giving its users computerized assistants with an almost flawless recall of what they had done in the past. But civil libertarians immediately pounced on the project when it debuted last spring, arguing that LifeLog could become the ultimate tool for profiling potential enemies of the state.

Maximillian Potter, writing in Denver's excellent monthly magazine, 5280 details the first Air Force Academy prosecution resulting from the rape scandal, and says the families of both the accused and the alleged victim think it's more about politics than justice.

The cadet on trial is 20 year old Douglas Meester. His preliminary hearing is set for March, and trial is set for May. He is the first cadet to face a court-martial for cadet-on-cadet rape. Possible penalty: Life in prison.

A chilling article, read the whole thing.

Eric Boehlert writes in Salon of Bush's lost year in 1972 when he dropped out of the National Guard and "later lied about it." Boehlert asks, "With the media finally paying attention, will he now come clean?"

In 1972, George W. Bush simply walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas Air National Guard. He skipped required weekend drill sessions for many months, probably for more than a year, and did not take a mandatory annual physical exam, which resulted in his being grounded. Nonetheless, Bush, the son of a well-connected Texas congressman, received an honorable discharge.

If an Air National guardsman today vanished for a year, military attorneys say that guardsman would be transferred to active duty or, more likely, kicked out of the service, probably with a less-than-honorable discharge. They suggest the penalty would be especially swift if the absent-without-leave guardsman were a fully trained pilot, as Bush was.

It seems like the story is finally going to get some legs. Of course, bloggers like Skippy have been on top of it for more than a year. David Neiwert of Orcinus and Daily Howler, too.

The Government's star witness in the Martha Stewart trial, Douglas Faneuil, finished his direct testimony and faced cross-examination today.

Faneuil originally supported Stewart and Bacanovic's version, but struck a deal with the government in June 2002 to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and cooperate with prosecutors. Asked Wednesday to explain why he changed his story, Faneuil said: "There came a point in time where I just couldn't continue to lie. I felt that the coverup was part of my daily existence, and I just couldn't take it anymore."

As cross-examination began, Faneuil admitted he has used cocaine, marijuana and the party drugs Ecstasy and ketamine, sometimes called Special K. But he described the cocaine and ketamine uses as extremely limited, and said he had never been under the influence of any drugs during the workday at Merrill Lynch.

He also acknowledged that Bacanovic never "explicitly" directed him to lie.

Apparently, Faneuil smoked dope after signing his cooperation agreement with the Government. His agreement has a clause that says he can't break any laws. But the jury won't get to hear about it:

A routine clause in Faneuil's 2002 cooperation agreement requires him not to break the law. Stewart's attorney, Robert Morvillo, claims Faneuil broke that clause when he smoked marijuana on an April 2003 trip to Jamaica, and said the government should have "torn up" its agreement with Faneuil. But the judge did not allow defense lawyers to ask Faneuil about the trip, saying such a line of questioning amounted to "an attack on the motive of the government in presenting this case."

Faneuil faces more cross examination tomorrow.

Rolling Stone has released its list of the top 500 albums ever. We found the link over at Sideshow, and we agree with Avedon that Let it Bleed is better than Exile on Main Street. We're also amazed that we have about 40 of the top 50 on LPs in our basement.

Preisdential hopeful John Edwards will give the Top 10 List on the Late Show with David Letterman tonight --CBS.

Bump and Update: U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks stopped the execution by granting a 60 day stay. [Ed. changed from our earlier erroneous report that the Governor had granted the stay. See comments for those who spotted our error.]

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Original Post

The next Texecution is set for Thursday. Louis Panetti, 45, has been in and out of mental hospitals 14 times. He represented himself at trial--in a cowboy outfit. He tried to subpoena Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy and Anne Bancroft as witnesses. Governor Rick Perry can still stop the execution:

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the verdict and sentence in 1997, ruling that whether Mr. Panetti was competent to represent himself was not the issue. "The appropriate question is whether he is competent to choose the endeavor," said the court, which ruled that he was.

It found that "a mere mental disease or defect, though it may constitute a form of insanity known to and recognized by medical science, does not excuse one for committing a crime." The court found evidence that Mr. Panetti knew that what he was doing was wrong.

At a news conference in Austin on Tuesday, representatives of the Texas Defender Service, a private nonprofit law firm representing indigent capital defendants, called on Mr. Perry for a 30-day reprieve to allow a review of the case.

"Allowing a schizophrenic in a cowboy costume to represent himself in a death penalty case gives new meaning to the term `frontier justice,' "said Jim Marcus, executive director of the defender service. "Given the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' history of tolerance for defense lawyers who sleep or use drugs and alcohol throughout death penalty trials, however, its laissez-faire approach is hardly surprising," he said.

Panetti did have standby counsel during the trial. His view:

Scott Monroe, who was named standby counsel with no authority to aid the defense unless asked, said: "It was very obvious from his mannerisms and the way he conducted himself that he was mentally ill. There was never a question about that. That was very well documented, but still he was allowed to defend himself in that case, and basically I sat around and watched him do it."

Update: Take action here.

A Colorado sheriff's officer has been suspended for using an inmate for target practice with his taser gun.

A Chaffee County sheriff's officer was suspended Tuesday and could be fired for allegedly using an inmate for Taser practice at a training session. Detentions officer Scott Glenn was placed on administrative leave after an investigation by Sheriff Tim Walker, the same day the sheriff learned of the allegation from The Denver Post.

"It was extremely poor judgment," Walker said. "There's no way a detention officer should ever use an inmate in that capacity."

Thomas Montoya, a prisoner serving an 18-month sentence from a probation violation relating to a 1999 domestic-violence-related assault, said he was shocked with a Taser during a sheriff's training class on Oct. 17, 2003. "Imagine 50,000 volts traveling through your body. Would it hurt?" said Montoya, who suffered no injury but said he was left with a burn mark.

We say fire the bum.

A new racial profiling study is out. Houston Police have the worst record in all of Texas:

Black motorists stopped by the Houston Police Department are 3.5 times more likely to be searched than Anglos, the worst disparity reported by any major Texas city, according to the first statewide compilation of statistics since law enforcement agencies have been required to report racial data on traffic stops. An analysis of the data from 2002 also found that Latino drivers stopped by HPD officers are 2.4 times more likely than Anglos to be searched.

The study of statistics from 413 law enforcement agencies released Tuesday was commissioned by the Texas State Conference of NAACP branches, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.

More report details are here. The full report is here. (pdf)