A nice profile on Senator Robert Byrd and his emergence as the Senate's Most Forceful Voice Against War
But even before he applied for the job last year, Bratton knew the department would never fully recapture its stature, its morale or its effectiveness until the subject of Rampart was finally closed. And he knew that to be closed, it must finally be fully opened.There's lots more, go read the whole thing. Then go over and read two more LA Weekly articles:In October, before taking the oath as chief, Bratton called for a new internal LAPD probe into the whole disaster. But a few months on the job convinced him that another inside report would never remove the stain of scandal. Last month, he told the Police Commission that he wants an outside, independent probe.
This is what police reformers had been seeking, and City Hall had been resisting, for years. Why the change now? The first answer is the most obvious one --Bratton is an outsider. No matter how disturbing the revelations that may come out of any new probe, they will not directly tarnish this chief from New York with the Boston accent.
This is something that could never be said of career LAPD officer Bernard Parks, who was in charge of Internal Affairs and later Operations when much of the misconduct occurred, even though he fervently insisted as chief that it was his leadership and discipline that brought the conspiracy to light.
The new guy in town — Bill Bratton — has a good idea. He wants to know just how deep Rampart-style sins go in L.A. Here are two cases that might be worth another look by the chief. CELESTE FREMON records the final moments of the life of 19-year-old Flavio Aragon, who bled to death in 1994 in the presence of police officers. CHARLES RAPPLEYE examines the death of Erik Vega, who was shot in 1996 after officers dropped him off near rival gang territory.
Barry Sheck and Peter Neufeld call for an end to the DNA debacle and for the creation of an independent committee to review questionable cases.
Neufeld and Scheck, based in New York City, are cofounders and directors of the Innocence Project, a national nonprofit legal clinic devoted to freeing the innocent.
The case of Gideon v. Wainwright is about the right to a court-appointed attorney. Its importance is only underscored by developments today in the cases of American born detainees Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla. Robert C. Boruchowitz, director of The Defender Association and a Soros Justice Senior Fellow of the Open Society Institute, explains the connection .
From our earlier post:
We will be in Washington with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for the 40th Anniversary of Gideon commemoration and to do some lobbying with some Republican members of Congress on the Innocence Protection Act on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will be blogging evenings and early mornings from D.C.
If you're in Washington, come to the Gideon Symposium. It is free and open to the public. You can access the brochure here. Details:
March 18, 2003, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
Georgetown University Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
Gary Hart will begin raising funds for a possible Presidential run.
His spokesman says the money "will be used to pay expenses while he considers a run for the White House," but "is not necessarily a step toward throwing his hat in the ring."
Hart will use the money for travel as he continues to speak around the country. He will decide whether to run within the next month to six weeks.
We hope to have the information on how to donate as soon as its available. Hart's website is GaryHartNews.com
"For Josiah Sutton, the Houston man released from prison last week after DNA tests concluded he could not have been the rapist prosecutors said he was, there would be no more football heroics, no prom or graduation, no shot at a gridiron scholarship. But thanks to the momentum to reopen old criminal cases, generated by a burgeoning scandal in the Houston Police Department crime lab, there may be a future."
Josiah's story is one we are hearing far too often.Sutton was arrested Oct. 30, 1998, five days after a woman had been taken at gunpoint from her southwest Houston apartment, raped by two attackers and dumped in a field in Fort Bend County.At 17, here are some of the things he witnessed and had to learn to be prepared to defend himself against, according to his mother, Carol Batie:Sutton, who was 16 at the time, was walking down the street with a friend when the woman, driving past in her car, identified them as her assailants. She would later testify that she recognized them by their hats, which looked like the ones worn by the men who raped her.
Once charged with kidnapping and rape, Sutton and his friend submitted saliva and blood for comparison to material recovered from the attack. DNA tests conducted by the now-discredited HPD lab ruled out Sutton's friend as one of the rapists but included him.
At his trial, an HPD analyst testified that DNA from the rape was an exact match for Sutton, who turned 17 in jail while awaiting trial. But new tests of the samples have found the DNA of two unidentified men, neither of whom could be Sutton.
In the early months of his incarceration, Sutton faced a difficult adjustment to the Clemens Unit in Brazoria.Sutton served 4 1/2 years before being released last week. He had been captain of his high school football team and on his way to earning a football scholarship for college when he was arrested. He had attracted the interest of college scouts in his sophomore year. What's ahead for him now?"This was a (teenager) physically defending himself against men," Batie said. "He witnessed another inmate getting his throat slashed. He saw the guy lying on the ground kicking, dying before his eyes.
"He saw another prisoner die after he was thrown over a railing. These are not things my child should have been watching."
Sutton, who already has a GED, wants to go to school. He would like to revive an old talent that earned the family extra cash when he was a teen, cutting hair, and may one day open his own barbershop. After he walked out of the jail, Sutton declared, "I am looking for success, period."The Houston Chronicle has full and excellent coverage the Houston crime lab scandal, including today, an article about a prosecutor's shaken faith in the system, and another on the increased use and precision of DNA testing .
Lena Baker claimed that she was being held against her will by a drunken white man and acted in self-defense when she wrested his gun away and shot him.There will be a memorial service for Baker on May 11 at the Mount Vernon Baptist Church. Baker's grave is behind the church and she once sang in its choir.....Now relatives of the only woman executed in Georgia's electric chair are returning to Cuthbert to honor Baker and try to clear her name with the state Board of Pardons and.
"The family doesn't need to go down in history with a bad name," said Roosevelt Curry, 59, the grandson of Baker's brother.
...After she was sentenced, her attorney filed an appeal, but it was dropped after he withdrew from the case. She was executed in March 1945.
John Cole Vodika, director of the Prison and Jail Project, an inmate advocacy program, said the family has a strong case for getting her exonerated.
"She should never have been tried for murder," he said. "It was an obvious injustice. That's what the system did with African Americans who dared resist white men's authority.
"She was a victim of racism, white man's domination over African American women," he said. "In an effort to cover up what really happened, the county moved to treat it as capital murder. It sure appears they wanted to get rid of her quickly and to limit or eliminate anything happening that would further embarrass the family of the deceased."
Baker, who had a sixth-grade education, proclaimed her innocence to the very end. "What I done, I did in self-defense," she said in her final statement. "I have nothing against anyone.... I am ready to meet my God."
The use of torture carries deep dangers for American society. Its use corrodes democratic values and governance. The administration's failure to instill confidence that it is not using torture augments the perception of American hypocrisy abroad: How can this country urge democratization in the Arab world if it simultaneously uses abusive Arab security services to manhandle its prisoners? Torturing enemy combatants also threatens American troops abroad by eroding the international norms of treatment for captured enemy soldiers. It would be naive to expect that intelligence interrogations overseas will comport with the rules that govern law enforcement here at home. But the United States has signed international treaties forbidding torture, and forswearing such brutality is as fundamental a commitment of civilized government as exists. It is incumbent on the administration to clarify that the war on terrorism is not inducing barbarism of its own.Update: Atrios weighs in as well.
We are not living in the world of '24' or a James Bond movie. There is never going to be a situation in which the noble CIA agent knows that the red digits on the timer of the nuclear bomb are counting backwards and he has 90 minutes to determine the location and disarm the thing before Los Angeles blows up. However, if there is such a situation no law enforcement agency or court in the country will prosecute Kiefer Sutherland for saving us all by whatever means necessary, and he would have my full blessing to pull out the thumb screws and go to work. What we're talking about is torturing innocent people based on what they maybe possibly might be able to tell us. Innocent people? Yes. Last time I checked people were innocent until proven guilty, and frankly our intelligence agencies haven't exactly proven their ability to perform their stated job description, let alone assume the role of judge and jury too.
"In testimony before Congress this month, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said law enforcement officials have been tracking "hundreds and hundreds of suspected terrorists" in the United States in recent months. In some cases, the focus of the government's attention has become clear -- from the conviction of shoe bomber Richard Reid in Boston last year to the arrests and pending trials of alleged cell leaders in cities from Buffalo, N.Y., to Portland, Ore."
"But who are the others? Is the country really infiltrated by legions of terrorists? If so, why isn't the government arresting more of them?"
"Interviews with law enforcement officials, federal prosecutors, defense lawyers and civil liberties groups reveal the breadth of the government's efforts."
It was a good night for Colorado Democrats as well. 800 turned out for the Colorado Democrats' Jefferson/Jackson Day Dinner, held at the downtown Marriot. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) was the keynote speaker and delivered a memorable speech. Gary Hart also spoke and gave a great "critique" of the President's Iraq plans. Gov. Howard Dean was there as well.
Bump and Update: Here's the Denver Post report on the dinner and speeches.Dean didn't have a monopoly on the anti-war message. Hart also spoke, and, as he has done for months, left open the question of whether he will again seek his party's nomination....Hart...warned that the cost of a war would not only be in dollars. "If our soldiers have to fight Saddam's Republican Guard in the streets of Baghdad, thousands of American soldiers could be killed," Hart said. "And the president has a constitutional responsibility to tell the American people that."
As he has in the past, Hart described going to war as "kicking a hornet's nest" and said the U.S. is ill-prepared to guard against the terrorism a war might spawn.
Although Hart's anti-war stance could steal some limelight from Dean if he were to enter the race, the two men were exceedingly friendly Saturday night. But Hart made it clear that Dean should not count on an easy time in Denver.
"Before you start lining up delegates and slates (for the Democratic National Convention), you may want to wait a few weeks or months to see what happens."
Unless the Supreme Court or President Bush acts, Mr. Jones, 53, will be executed at 7 o'clock on Tuesday morning. His lawyer, Timothy Floyd, said the chemicals to which Mr. Jones was exposed in Iraq changed his personality, unbalanced his mind and played a significant role in the crimes he was convicted of committing.Our earlier coverage of Mr. Jones' case is here. The Washington Post reported on Mr. Jones' and his clemency petition in February, and included this summary:
Jones grew up in Chicago and spent 22 years in the military before retiring in 1993 as a master sergeant in the Airborne Rangers. His honors included a meritorious service medal, a Southwest Asia service medal with three bronze service stars, a Kuwait liberation medal, badges for marksmanship and parachuting, and a good-conduct medal, according to his plea for clemency.Jones' lawyer also notes that he lacks an enzyme that would have helped his body metabolize the nerve gas.But, the petition says, Jones was a changed man after returning from the Gulf in May 1991.
"It solves the mystery that was at the heart of the trial: how and why someone with the background and character of Louis Jones could have committed such a horrible crime," the petition says.
Dr. Robert W. Haley, an epidemiologist and expert on Gulf War diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said in the clemency petition that Jones suffers from brain damage, not a psychological illness.
Jones and his unit were exposed to chemical fallout following U.S. bombing raids on Iraqi weapons storage sites, the petition said. He suffered from "irritability and hostility, and numerous neurological symptoms," Haley wrote.
If you'd like to express your opinion to the President, or learn more about Mr. Jones, go here.
Edwards spoke in support of the Iraq war and all hell broke loose. The entire convention hall resonated in boos, the crowd chanting "no war! No war!" It was an amazing sight, and Edwards seemed a bit taken aback. Jerome thought it looked like '68. Edwards recovered with a line about Ashcroft, but the damage was done. The 20 or so brave souls waving Edwards signs were suddenly radioactive.Update: Dean spoke in Denver Saturday night, here's the report.After a string of California officials, including the radioactive Davis, and our wonderful Boxer and Pelosi (both of them my heroes), it was Dean's turn.
By now, the whole program was running about an hour late. It was noon, and restless delegates milled around wondering about lunch. It seemed like a bad start by Dean. But suddenly, easily over half the delegates (and there were roughly 1,200) started waving Dean signs. And from the first note he didn't disappoint.
He started by blasting Bush's invasion, and the crowd was instantly hooked. It was electrifying. The whole convention center hushed, hanging on his every words (only Rep. Maxine Waters had a similar effect). Dean raised the rhetoric gradually, drawing louder applause each time. People were loving it. He uttered Wellstone's line: "I'm here to represent the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party". People went wild. His speech was repeatedly interrupted by chants of "we want Dean!".
But the most amazing part was the finale, with a fiery Dean pounding the podium:
I want my country back!
I don't want to listen to fundamentalist preachers anymore!
When Dean uttered this last line, the whole place went nuts. Utter pandemonium. It was literally one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen.
On Al Sharpton:
Sharpton was the last speaker for the day, and like Dean, he rocked the house. I'm fully convinced that Sharpton is a positive for the Democrats -- proving wrong initial fears he would divide the party.
Indeed Sharpton is the king of the one-liners.
On the costs of occupying Iraq: "We already occupy 50 states, and we haven't come up with the cost of that".
On affirmative action: The best example of a set-aside program is Bush. How can I say that? The Supreme Court set aside a whole election to make him president."
On religious wingnuts: "It's time for the Christian Right to meet the right Christians."
But most interesting of all? Sharpton never once said "vote for me" or "I'm running for president". He's in the race to move the debate left, and he's doing a beautiful job of it.
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