Front page article in the Denver Post on the fraud potential of electronic voting machines.

"What we know is that the machines can't be trusted. It's an unlocked bank vault ..., a disaster waiting to happen," said David Dill, a Stanford University computer science professor who has prompted more than 110 fellow scientists to sign a petition calling for more accountability in voting technology.

The District Attorneys of three of Denver's largest metropolitan areas will pool resources to assist the smaller Eagle County DA's office in its prosecution of Kobe Bryant. The DA's of Denver, Jefferson and Boulder County will be contributing.

Ingrid Bakke, a Boulder County deputy district attorney and head of Boulder's sexual-assault and domestic-violence unit, will join Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert and his deputy, Gregory Crittenden, in prosecuting the NBA star.

Hurlbert has also enlisted help from district attorneys in Jefferson County, Denver and the state attorney general's office, said Denver DA Bill Ritter.

We have agreed - our office, the Jeffco office and the attorney general - to spread out the pre-trial work among our offices," Ritter said Tuesday. "We'll assist Eagle County DA's office in researching legal issues that surface during the course of this case and help write legal briefs in response to defense motions or in support of prosecution motions."

As we reported yesterday, Eagle County commissioners have awarded another $105,000. to the proseuctor's budget to help with prosecution costs.

How can they say Kobe Bryant isn't be treated differently than anyone else?

Steve Perry of BushWars brings you the Bush Administration's Top 40 Lies about war and Terrorism.

Civil Liberties watchdog Elaine Cassel continues her relentless pursuit of John Ashcroft.

If you're not familiar with Twin Cities Babelogue which hosts both of the the above blogs, you're really missing something.

Another one of the costs of ignoring systemic abuse and abusers:

Aldermen OK $1.5 million Roscetti settlement

The Chicago City Council agreed Tuesday to pay $1.5 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by the one of four men cleared by DNA evidence in the 1986 murder-rape of a medical student.

This a a very famous wrongful conviction case called the "Roscetti case" after the victim who was raped, kicked and beaten to death.

The convictions were overturned based on coerced confessions, and ultimately, DNA evidence that cleared the four. In October, 2002, they were pardoned by then Governor Ryan. Subsequently, based on a telepone tip, police were led to two other men. DNA showed they were responsible for the crime. Faced with the DNA tests, the two pleaded guilty.

The lawsuits aren't over:

"In addition to suing the city, the four exonerated men have lawsuits pending against police, prosecutors, a crime lab worker and others involved in convicting them. "

For more on the four men, go here.

Joanne Mariner explains the new Prison Rape law, providing some excellent commentary along the way. As to the law,

Notwithstanding its ambitious title - an improvement over its previous, dismayingly modest title of Prison Rape Reduction Act - the new law will not put an end to rape in prison. The main focus of the legislation is on studying prison rape, collecting statistics relating to the problem, and developing national standards for the prevention and punishment of prison rape. Its enforcement mechanisms are relatively weak. (Indeed, the fact that the bill passed Congress unanimously should be proof enough that it lacks vigorous enforcement mechanisms, a failing that the text of the bill confirms.)

Looking on the bright side,

The new law does, however, signal a unprecedented official willingness to acknowledge the tragic consequences of prison rape. By creating a Justice Department review panel to address the problem, as well as a national commission to establish standards, the law will force corrections authorities to begin to take rape seriously as a problem. That alone will be a huge step forward.

We've heard of prosecutors overreaching to get defense lawyers, but this is just ridiculous. If it wasn't in a major newspaper, we wouldn't believe it.

A prosecutor is threatening to have a defense attorney arrested for possessing file copies of the alleged pornographic photos he received in discovery from the state. These are copies of the photos of a young girl the state is charging were illegally possessed by the defendant.

A local attorney who is assisting a child pornography suspect in his legal defense says a prosecutor threatened him with arrest for possessing photos entered into evidence in the case.

Attorney Jonathan MacArthur said the threat was made by Clark County prosecutor Becky Goettsch, even though District Judge Lee Gates previously authorized MacArthur to possess alleged child pornography photos in order to assist his client's defense.

MacArthur said when Goettsch didn't like Gates' ruling, she then took it up with another district judge. That judge, Michelle Leavitt, threatened to hold MacArthur in contempt.

...Fellow defense attorneys labeled Goettsch's threat of arrest as outrageous. "It's infantile, it's wrong and it's petty," said Lawrence Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "There should be some common sense here," Goldman said. "It's either prosecutorial mania, an obsession with child pornography, or it's an opportunity for a prosecutor to be a jerk."

Las Vegas defense attorney JoNell Thomas, speaking on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, called Goettsch's threat "insane." "The tactic of threatening to have criminal defense attorneys arrested for doing their job is outrageous," she said.

Via Ebay, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is offering a week's lodging at a villa in Southern France.

Help support NORML's efforts to reform marijuana laws by spending time relaxing in the south of France with your closest friends. This exciting auction offers you the opportunity to get away from it all for a week in the rustic wine growing village of Armissan, just seven kilometers from Narbonne and the beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean Sea.

The jury in the trial of the white Inglewood, CA police officer who slammed a black teen's head onto the hood of a car hood and punched him with his fist has ended in a hung jury. His partner was acquitted of filing a false police report over the incident.

The videotape looked pretty clear to us.

The video is of four to five cops surrounding a teenager on the ground who does not appear to be resisting. One officer picks him up and slams really slams his head into the hood of the car. Another cop punches him in the head. The video was taken by tourists.

The kid was limp when the cop pulled him up and slammed him against the car and then punched him. He also had already been handcuffed.

Here's what started the incident according to an article at the time in the LA Times (available now on Lexis :

"The encounter occurred last Saturday evening when Jackson and his father, Coby Chavis, were at an Inglewood gas station and two sheriff's deputies stopped to investigate Chavis' expired vehicle registration tags. Jackson was leaving the station's market, holding a bag of potato chips, when he saw the deputies talking to his father. Jackson tried to get into his father's car, ignoring deputies' commands to wait while they questioned Chavis, according to the officers and deputies."

All this over a teen eating a bag of potato chips who doesn't want to sit in a cop car because he hasn't done anything wrong. The cops, by the way, are suing the police department for racial discrimination saying they were treated more harshly than a black officer who had used excess force.

Update: The DA has decided to retry the officer.

One of our favorite fiction authors, Walter Mosley, writes in the Independent today that Ignorance is not Bliss. His theme:

The Race Riots of the 1960s Civil Rights Struggle Were Motivated by the Same Alienation That Fueled the September 11 Attacks

Definitely a good read.

It may be only July, but The Smoking Gun has already awarded the Legal Document of the Year Award...to Eric Vanatta, the deputy public defender in Fort Collins,Colorado who wrote it. It's great, go read it. Thanks to Kerim at Keywords for the link.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich amended the death penalty reform bill passed by the Illinois legislature by vetoing one provision--one that lowered the standards for proving perjury against individual police officers.

As a result of his partial veto, the whole bill will return to the legislature in the fall. The bill is expected to be repassed then, with or without the police perjury provision.

With regard to the perjury provision, one lawyer just wrote us:

Personally, I would like to know what standard of proof was called for in the bill. I wonder if this was a legitimate concern by the Governor, or if he was just looking for excuses or playing to police lobbyist. It seems to me that any police officer that would give false testimony during such an important trial ought not be a police officer.

But, we praise the Governor for his signing another bill two weeks ago that mandates videotaping of interrogations. And for his refusal to lift the moratorium on Illinois executions despite the reform bills.

It's not just members of Congress that want the classified portion of the 9/11 report made available to the public. The Saudi Government does too. They issued a formal request to Bush to declassify the report. Bush has refused the request.

In an interview this morning on "Good Morning America," [Sen. Bob] Graham said he believed the section of the report was being withheld "for political reasons — a key political reason being not to disturb the relationship between the United States and some foreign countries."

The Saudis have made it clear that they intend to fight back against any assertion that they were involved in the attacks. Some Saudi officials have said the organization behind them, Al Qaeda, is as hostile to Saudi Arabia's rulers as it is to the United States, or nearly so.

After the Congressional report was released last week, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, called the accusation that his country had helped pay the terrorists "outrageous" and added, "The idea that the Saudi government funded, organized or even knew about Sept. 11 is malicious and blatantly false."

Bush's reasons: Ongoing investigations and national security. His answer to everything these days.