John Kogut, 39, John Restivo, 44, and Dennis Halstead, 48 walked out of prison today for the first time in 17 years. Recent advanced DNA testing failed to link them to the crime--the murder of a teenage roller rink worker.

The men were released on bail as the prosecution has not yet decided whether to retry the men. Restivo was represented by Barry Scheck, who" hailed the decision to vacate the convictions."

''Once again, DNA testing has exposed the tragic fact that innocent people are accused, tried and convicted on a regular basis in the American criminal justice system,'' Scheck said.

According to Scheck, there have been more than 130 post-conviction exonerations nationwide based on DNA evidence. Scheck is founder of the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York City.

Why were the three convicted in the first place?

Kogut confessed to the crime after a lengthy interrogation and implicated Restivo and Halstead, but he later recanted. Two hairs found in Restivo's van were similar to those of the victim.

It is generally conceded today that microscopic comparison of hair samples is a ''junk science'' when used to identify the person from whom a hair came. It can show similiarities but it cannot identify the source of the hair. It's snake oil.

The advanced DNA testing showed that the semen on the victim did not match any of the three convicted young men.
Junk Science and false confessions--two prominent causes of wrongful convictions.

A growing number of American Muslims are accusing banks, credit card companies and money-wiring services of discriminating against them.

The allegations cover a host of financial services, from terminated bank accounts and credit cards, to major money wiring businesses refusing to transfer their money within or outside the country.

"We have definitely seen a growing number of calls from concerned people calling to ask what's going on," said Dalia Hasha, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They are shocked because they're making good salaries, paying fees, abiding by the rules, but they are being prevented from conducting their daily lives."

President Bush has nominated Christopher A. Wray to be Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice and Jack Landman Goldsmith III to be Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, at the Department of Justice. The position was formerly held by Jay S. Bybee.

Here is an organizational chart for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.

Source for nomination information: Federal Yellow Book which also has biographies and pictures of both new nominees.

Let's not forget the Judges--here is a list of all of President Bush's judicial picks.

[hat tip to Neal Sonnett, Esq. Miami]

No blue wall of silence here. Mark Aguirre is the former police captain on trial for official oppression in last year's debacle in Houston which 278 people were arrested for trespassing at a KMart. The charges were later dropped.

Assistant Police Chief Charles McClelland Jr. testified yesterday that the raid was supposed to target illegal street racers, and had he known that Aguirre planned to change it to targeting trespassers, he would have disavowed the plan.
bq. McClelland told the jury in state District Judge Carol G. Davies' court he signed off on a plan Aug. 1 that specifically dictated "those believed to be spectators should be directed toward the exit of the parking lot."

If Aguirre had notified McClelland of the change in the plan, McClelland said, he would have called off the operation. "I fully expected spectators to be released if they hadn't done anything or weren't wanted (on warrants)," McClelland said.

....Defense attorney Terry Yates argued that a supervisor at the scene can change a plan. McClelland said the plan could only be changed for an extreme situation or "to protect someone's life."

[thanks to Ed at Votelaw for the link]

Here's another example of our morally bankrupt sentencing system:

A lawyer, Paul Siminovsky, is arrested for allegedly bringing bribes to a New York Judge. Both are on wiretaps, along with several others. The Judge is indicted but the Government needs someone to testify against the Judge to cement its case. Lawyer Siminovshky cooperates with the Government, agreeing to testify against the Judge, and avoids indictment on a felony charge and jail time.

Lawyers for some of the indicted parties, including the Judge and other lawyers, say discovery they received from the Government shows that lawyer Siminovshky was the driving force in the bribery scandal.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes responds, "Someone's got to help," and he added, "Without Siminovsky, we have nothing."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is our favorite mayor in the country, bar none. He is honorable beyond reproach. Prior to becoming mayor, he was one of the most esteemed criminal defense lawyers in the country. He has defended some very high profile clients--some connected, some not.

Oscar has been maligned in a new book called "Positively Fifth Street"--about a high profile Las Vegas murder trial. In the book, the author says that Oscar attended a meeting at a coffee shop during which the assassination of Texas federal judge John Wood was plotted. Wood was later assassinated.

Tuesday, Farrar, Straus and Giroux formally issued an apology to Oscar for the offensive statement in the book.

The company also agreed to publish a full-page advertisement with the apology in The New York Times Book Review on July 6, and remove the offending passage in any future printings of the book.

James McManus, the book's author, wrote that Goodman, a former mob attorney, was part of a cabal that hired a hit man for $50,000 to kill Texas U.S. District Court judge John Wood ''or so the lore has it.''

Goodman learned about the claims early last month, and said Tuesday that once he got his hands on the book, ''I began to seethe. I stewed and stewed.'' Anthony Michael Glassman, who represented Goodman in the case, said Wood's death had been investigated, and there was never a link to Goodman, who represented Texas drug kingpin Jimmy Chagra. Wood presided over Chagra's trial until he was shot to death.

We don't know if Oscar got any money or not, but we hope he did. We look forward to his second term as Mayor, after which we think he will become Governor Goodman. He's the best.

Anti-war and anti-Bush activist and actress Janeane Garofolo was set to star in ABC's upcoming new show, "Slice 'O Life." Not any more. The show has been dropped from ABC's fall lineup. Was it political? She thinks so.

New York Senator Charles Schumer is pushing Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Spector for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Schumer's suggested list of five candidates includes Specter and Michael Mukasey, a Ronald Reagan appointee now serving as chief judge of the federal court in Manhattan. He also recommends judges Anne Williams, Edward Prado and Stanley Marcus, all current federal appeals court judges nominated by Republican presidents.

Schumer's effort to block the nominations of lawyer Miguel Estrada and Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owens has angered Republicans, who have suggested redrafting Senate rules to prevent filibusters of judicial nominees.

Here is the full text of Schumer's letter to President Bush. [links via How Appealing]

Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department have reversed the discriminatory ban of a Gay Pride Event for Justice Department employees.

However, while Human Rights Campaign is praising the decision, it notes that the Department still refuses to endorse the event as it has in the past. Thus, the group says, Ashcroft still is not living up to his promises.

There will be a Race to Execution Symposium October 23-25 at DePaul University Law School in Chicgo. It is free and open to the public but advance registration is advised.

In the last 25 years, the number of people on Death Row in the United States has risen sevenfold. More than half of those individuals are minorities. Racial disparities among inmates on Death Row raise serious questions about the fairness of the American system of capital punishment.

The Race to Execution Symposium at DePaul University College of Law will examine the role that race plays in the administration of the death penalty. This symposium will bring together an influential and diverse group of lawyers, educators, public officials and authors to explore-both pragmatically and academically-the impact of race on the American system of capital punishment and how it ought to be addressed.

The speaker roster is top notch. If you are a member of the media or a professional in the criminal justice system, we hightly recommend the program.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has written a letter to the Senate Judciary Committee opposing the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

June 11, 2003--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Appeals 'crucial only for Monday-morning quarterbacks'

Comments lead criminal defense bar to oppose nomination of Alabama AG to federal bench

Washington D.C.—The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has voiced its opposition to the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and ranking Democratic member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), NACDL President Lawrence Goldman expressed concern that Pryor's stated views on the capital punishment system "bear directly on [his] ability to impartially consider direct and collateral appeals in death penalty cases."

For instance, according to the letter, Pryor, in response to the Judiciary Committee's follow-up questions after his testimony on the Innocence Protection Act, stated that appeals "are crucial only for Monday-morning quarterbacks who try to second-guess things and create issues that are probably not real in the first place."

The letter also cites Pryor's obliviousness to problems with Alabama's death penalty system, where more than one-fifth of defendants lack counsel for collateral review, and his disrespectful remarks directed at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The full text of the letter can be found here under News & Issues very shortly. People for the American Way has an extensive report on Pryor here. Pryor's confirmation hearing is set for Wednesday.

A man hanged in Britain in 1950 has had his conviction quashed. Three London judges ruled the conviction "unsafe" becasue the prosecution had withheld a statement from one of their witnesses that an accomplice who had been tried and acquitted later confessed to committing the murder for which George Kelly was hanged.

The conviction had been obtained solely on circumstantial evidence with no forensic support. Do you really think this hasn't happened here?