The Judge in the trial of John Lee Malvo, the younger defendant in the "sniper case," has been scouting out alternative venues for the trial.

Roush and her staff traveled to Virginia Beach on Tuesday and are planning to visit adjacent Chesapeake soon, sources familiar with the trips said. Both cities have relatively new courthouses and may be considered far enough away from Washington and Richmond to have avoided the voluminous media attention paid to the sniper cases.

Mark J. Petrovich, one of Malvo's attorneys, welcomed the news that Roush was looking at other locations. "We're sure that in either of those two places, we'll be able to find well-intentioned, well-reasoned, intelligent jurors to hear the case," he said.

We think it's a no-brainer that the trial has to be moved.

The 16th Texas exceution of 2003 took place today. Another 9 are scheduled before August 20. Here is the list from the Texas Department of Corrections.

The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled this week that police cannot force drivers who have been involved in accidents to take blood tests.

The court overturned the conviction of a repeat drunk driver who got in an accident in which two people were killed. He was arrested by the Marion County Sheriff's Department which has a policy that directs deputies to take a blood sample from drivers involved in serious crashes, "by force, if necessary."

The court ruled such a policy is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The requirements of the Fourth Amendment cannot be lowered based upon the heinousness of the particular crime," Judge Michael Barnes wrote for the court. The ruling said that legally obtaining blood is a "relatively simple matter" that would require officers to ask drivers to voluntarily give blood or obtain a warrant from a judge.

For daily updates on Fourth Amendment cases, don't miss John Wesley Hall's FourthAmendment.com

It's going to be a long, hot summer.

In Shreveport, LA, police pumped 8 bullets into the back of young black man they thought was holding a gun. He was holding a cell phone.

The cops chased the man for five miles because he was weaving in and out of traffic and they thought he might be drunk. When he pulled over and got out of the car, he had a shiny object in his hand. The cops say they thought he was adopting a "shooter's stance" and began firing. The cops have been exonerated by the local authorities. The prosecutor said the cops acted in self defense and this was a case of "justifiable homicide."

The community is angry.

.... many Shreveport residents were outraged, especially members of its black community. "That man was shot down like a dog," said one resident.

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]