Martin Bashir's documentary about Michael Jackson aired in February, 2003. The current charges pertain to Jackson's relationship with a 12 year old cancer survivor--which was well documented in the movie--and also was the subject of intense media criticism afterwards. [All articles available on Lexis.com]

People Magazine, 2/24/03:

So why did Jackson agree to let British journalist Martin Bashir trail him around for eight months? "I think Michael just kind of trusted him," says a Jackson-camp insider. Now Jackson, 44, is fighting back. In an effort to counter Bashir and his Granada TV production company, he sold FOX TV hours of his own footage with Bashir and his sleepover pal Gavin Arvizo, a 12-year-old cancer survivor, for $ 5 million. He will help craft it into a two-hour special to air Feb. 20. He also has filed complaints with two British media watchdog groups charging that Bashir breached codes of conduct by showing footage of his three children--Prince Michael I, 6, Paris Michael, 4, and 11-month-old Prince Michael II--and by interviewing Arvizo without the consent of the boy's parents. In addition, a source close to Jackson says, "legal action against [Bashir and Granada] has not been ruled out."

Of course, neither has legal action against Jackson. His blithe talk of hosting juveniles in his bedroom revived discussion of the 1993 case and prompted the Smoking Gun Web site to post court documents from that time....In a letter calling upon Santa Barbara D.A. Tom Sneddon to investigate the pop star's more recent contact with minors, A. Sidney Johnson III, president of Prevent Child Abuse America, the nation's largest such organization, wrote, "Michael Jackson has raised enough red flags for us to be concerned about protecting the welfare of children he comes in contact with, including his own." Sneddon put out word that his office's criminal investigation of Jackson is "open but inactive," just as it was at the time Jackson settled the '93 civil case .... Sneddon also encouraged anyone who felt victimized to come forward.

Meanwhile, Arvizo's divorced parents used the British tabloids to air their differences, both personal and philosophical. "Michael has pet names for all of my children, and Gavin even calls him Daddy," said mom Janet Ventura-Arvizo, 34, who was once so poor that she temporarily lived in a horse stable with her children. "He is the father they never had." She said Gavin and siblings Star, 11, and Davelin, 16, "are hoping to spend a lot more time with him in the future." Dad David, 37, countered that Janet, a former waitress, "sees prestige for herself from the connection." He said that while Jackson "has been very generous to the kids, [he] should not be sharing a room with them."

Signaling a welcome break from the rigid policies of former California Governor Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger has granted parole to an inmate convicted of murder--heeding the recommendation of the parole board. Gray Davis was almost unilaterally intransigent in his refusal to consider parole for convicted killers.

The governor's actions may be the first steps in crafting his policy on crime and punishment. During the campaign, he said virtually nothing about the criminal justice system, disclosing only that he supported the death penalty.

A spokesperson for Schwarzenegger gave a general outline of the governor's approach to parole cases. "Gov. Schwarzenegger intends to let the Board of Prison Terms do its job,'' said Vincent Sollitto. "Only when he has a strong conviction that a clear error has been made does he intend to review the granting or denial of parole.''

Gray Davis unjustly converted almost every sentence of life with parole into life without parole--disregarding the Parole Board's recommendations.

Last year the Parole Board, hardly a conservative group, granted parole to 140 inmates. Davis vetoed all but two. "When a judge issues a sentence that includes the words "with possibility of parole," it reflects our society's belief that a small number of criminals can be rehabilitated, as well as our constitutional right to a fair and impartial hearing."

The FBI is returning to tactics used during the days of J. Edgar Hoover. According to an FBI memo sent to local law enforcement agencies last month, the F.B.I. is investigating anti-war protest movements and protesters:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.

The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used "training camps" to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site.

Is this supposed to reassure us?

F.B.I. officials said in interviews that the intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and "extremist elements" plotting violence, not at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding protesters.

It doesn't.

Music producer Phil Spector pleaded not guilty to a murder charge yesterday. His case has not garnered the attention that Michael Jackson's has, but it promises to be an interesting one. Spector is accused of shooting a woman to death at his home. He says the woman shot herself. After a nine month investigation, the Sheriff's department decided it was a murder.

His media-savvy celebrity attorney, Robert Shapiro, who defended O.J. Simpson against a charge of murdering his ex-wife and her lover, said Spector was innocent and said he was gathering a forensic team to prove it.

``We have assembled a team of scientific experts, which is among the most respected and prestigious in the world,'' he said in a statement. ``Based on this team's findings of this horrible human event, any jury will conclude that Phil Spector is not guilty. We will prevail.''

It's interesting that so many of the current crop of high profile criminal cases are in California--Scott Peterson, Robert Blake, Michael Jackson, Phil Spector. Forensics are likely to play a major role in the Peterson, Blake and Spector cases, which significantly ups the costs. Given the state's budget woes, we wonder how it will be able to pay for so many expensive prosecutions in one year.

Talk about non-compassionate conservatism, Bryan Baptiste, the Mayor of Kauai gets our vote today. Kauai is the only Hawaiian county without a homeless shelter. Nonetheless, the Mayor put into action last week a plan to get rid of the island's homeless, many whom are working poor, by evicting them from campsites and throwing them in jail. The Mayor said the homeless weren't motivated enough and he wanted them to have to make important life decisions.

Contact information for Mayor Baptiste ® is here.

The Senate has now joined the House in passing the new anti-terror bill we've discussed here and here. In addition to expanding the use of non-judicially approved national security letters (which are like subpoenas) to businesses such as car dealerships, casinos and pawnbrokers, the bill also :

• requires Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to prepare a report as soon as possible on what intelligence agencies have learned from their experiences in Iraq. An internal review has been under way. Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have been conducting their own inquiries on prewar intelligence.

• creates a new intelligence office in the Treasury Department to improve coordination with intelligence agencies on fighting terrorist financing.

• creates pilot programs to examine whether analysts from one agency should have access to raw data from another and to improve information sharing with state and local governments.

• authorizes agencies to continue research on computerized terrorism surveillance projects formerly operated by the Defense Department. Those projects were widely criticized on civil liberties grounds, prompting Congress to remove them from the Pentagon. A report accompanying the bill said that research on the programs can proceed even though Congress has prevented the programs from being implemented. But it said any experiments can be conducted only on government foreign intelligence databases. It also required an examination of the programs' legal and civil liberty implications.

The House bill is H.R. 2417, and you can read it here by typing in its number. The research programs authorized by the bill are expected to cost $40 billion.

The defense in the Kobe Bryant case denies leaking information about the accuser to a retired judge as previously reported.

This troubles us: The prosecution is seeking to have all future pleadings in the case that refer to evidence in the case filed under seal. This is wrong, and there is a much fairer way to accomplish the goal. Each side should file two versions of any pleading containing information that shoud not be made public--one of which is the entire pleading, filed under seal, and the other is a redacted version for the public, with just the sensitive material deleted and so noted. This was done in the Oklahoma bombing trials and it worked well.

To seal all evidentiary pleadings in their entirety is contrary to the public's right to know and the First Amendment. We hope the media lawyers get right on opposing it.

In other Kobe case news, the new issue of the Globe will not only be running the accuser's picture again, but making an explosive allegation that she had sex with a certain prosecution witness who is critical to the prosecution's case not long before the incident with Kobe.

All Kobe pleadings are available at the court's website here. Read them while you still can.

New York lawyer Lynne Stewart pleaded "not guilty" Friday to the new terrorism charge brought against her by the Justice Department. Elaine Cassel discusses the case in "Vengeance, Thy Name is Ashcroft":

At this point, it seems that the allegations are an absurd interpretation of the law: an attorney repeats something a client said to the press and that is defined as aiding and abetting terrorism? At this point, I can’t see that this charge is any "better" than the one Judge Koeltl dismissed.

That’s not the point, right now, as I see it. Rather, what is significant is that with the trial date less than two months away, Ashcroft came up with this to (1) get back at Stewart and her attorney, Michael Tigar, for their win on the prior terrorist charges and (2) try to insure that this time, the charges will stick. This time, the Judge won’t be so bold as to strike the charges, Ashcroft must be hoping.

....I wish we did not have a religious zealot, a wolf in wolf’s clothing, who holds himself out as a "Christian," as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States. I wish we had someone who believed in justice, and in justice tempered with mercy.

Public Defender Dude has a thoughtful post on lawyers representing high-profile defendants. He astutely describes the lawyer's job and explains why it is not a matter of victim-bashing:

Talk radio is saying that Geragos may try to "trash" the victim in the Michael Jackson case, and trash his family. Well, I have some news for you. When trying to cast reasonable doubt on a case, you are required to look at the motives and biases of the witnesses against you. Everytime you go to the police you put your credibility at issue. I don't know the facts of the Michael Jackson case well, but I have heard rumors that when Michael Jackson cut off funding for the family, they went to a lawyer to see how they could get back on the gravy train. This may be true, it may not be true. However, exploring this possibility is not a matter of "trashing the victim." It is a legitemate investigation into the background of someone who's statements could put you in prison for the rest of your life.

Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged picked up on this letter to the editor in Friday's Washington Post:

In the recent marathon debate on judicial nominations, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch earnestly expressed the view that the Democrats' filibuster against several of President Bush's nominations was unprecedented and even unconstitutional. This led me to dig up some old Congressional Records from April 1980, when Senate Republicans mounted a filibuster against President Carter's nominee for general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board -- a man who had served as a career attorney at the board for 27 years.

The senator leading the filibuster said it was his "unfortunate duty to challenge the nomination" because, although he "personally liked" the nominee, he was "too pro-labor" and other qualified nominees would be "acceptable to business." After five days of floor debate, the filibuster was broken on the second cloture vote, and the nominee was confirmed for a four-year term.

The reason I remember this episode so well is that the nominee was William A. Lubbers, my father, and the senator leading the filibuster was Orrin G. Hatch.

JEFFREY S. LUBBERS

With the bill expanding Patriot Act rights moving full speed through Congress this week, people sound surpised--as if they thought things were going to get better. We think they will get worse. The Victory Act has yet to be introduced, but that doesn't mean it's dead:

“Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003” or the VICTORY Act”.

Certain provisions in the draft bill expand the scope of money laundering offenses, increase the government’s ability to seize and forfeit assets, and increase the use of administrative subpoenas. Among the objectionable provisions are those that:

• Change the requirement that in order to obtain a conviction for money laundering and forfeiture the government must prove that the defendant conducted a transaction with the proceeds of a specified unlawful activity.

• Create an offense for someone to transport more than $10,000 in interstate commerce without having to prove that the money came from a particular crime and that the defendant actually knew the money was illegal proceeds.

• Authorize the Attorney General to freeze bank accounts for investigation and without proof that may be subject to forfeiture.

• Authorize the pretrial restraint of substitute assets.

• Diminish the due process protections presently afforded under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, Pub. L No 106-185, 114 Stat. 202, 106th Cong.
  (2000).

• Extend the Attorney General’s ability to use administrative subpoenas to any investigation with respect to terrorism or the apprehension of a fugitive, that is, anyone accused or convicted of committing any federal or state felony.

Kimberly at Brief Intelligence recommends Orson Welle's The Trial (1963), from the novel By Franz Kafka:

Josef K. awakens one morning to find that he has been arrested by officers who refuse to disclose the charges. His nervous protests estrange his friends and neighbors who proceed to distance themselves while his every action seems to further indict him. Josef's attempts to discover his alleged crime pull him into a perplexing world full of secrets and lies. As the horror and brutality of this nightmare world becomes apparent to Josef, he attempts to fight back with argument, avoidance, disobedience and pleading - all to no avail. Orson Welles' vision of Kafka's world is faithfully disorienting, absurd and suspicious. From the vast, overwhelming courtroom to the wasteland of books and papers in the advocate's office, Josef K. is spectacularly dwarfed by the power and madness surrounding him. Accented by a revolutionary "pinscreen" prologue and remarkable performances by Anthony Perkins and Orson Welles, "The Trial" is a brilliant adaptation of Kafka's masterpiece.

Kimberly calls it "a stunning and chilling achievement" and that "today’s poisonous political climate and the dawn of the Patriot Act give it an especially jarring relevance."

We're still thinking about Mystic River, which we saw two weeks ago. We might want to see it again. Sean Penn was that good and the story was a mystery until the end.

As for reading, now that we've finished two novels, Namesake and the DaVinci Code, we're ready to break into The Brass Wall by NY Times reporter David Kocieniewski.

It's written with the tone and pace of a legal thriller, but at its heart, is an expose--showing how the Guliani Administration allowed the NYPD's good ol' boys to risk the life of an undercover agent and undermine the investigation of two mob-related homicides that remain unsolved. It examines the way New York City handled dangerous police corruption cases during the time the Mollen Commission was supposed to be reforming the NYPD--and when the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo cases raised concerns that the department's failure to police itself was endangering the public.