Another lengthy, insightful article by investigative journalist Jim Dywer on the Central Park Jogger case in Sunday's New York Times: New Light on Jogger's Rape Calls Evidence Into Question.

The new evidence, of course, refers to new DNA testing excluding the five convicted youths, the confession by Reyes and a new review of the taped confessions.

One interesting facet of this article is that it goes throught the confessions and actions of each of the youths individually, for example, whose parents were there, whose weren't, and whether the parents were there for part or all of the interrogations. It also reviews the youths' lawyers attempts to have evidence of low IQ's introduced at trial.

Towards the end:

"Over the last decade, DNA testing has cleared 27 people nationwide who were convicted of crimes based on some form of confession, according to records kept by the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School. In another category, Prof. Steven Drizzen at Northwestern University School of Law, and Prof. Richard Leo, at the University of California at Irvine have identified 130 people who falsely confessed but were cleared before trial."

"Many people close to the case feel that the legal verdict is bound to be overturned in the coming days. If Mr. Reyes's statements and the recent DNA tests do not exonerate the original five defendants, they qualify as "newly discovered evidence" for which verdicts may be vacated under the New York State penal code."

We wonder how much clout former DA Linda Fairstein, widely reported to want the job for DA when Morgantheu retires, still has. If it's a lot, it's unlikely there will be a lot of fault directed at her for (what we believe is) mishandling the investigation. See our prior posts on this here.

"French human rights groups yesterday condemned the decision on Wednesday by Germany and France to hand over to the US evidence for the trial of alleged al-Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, arguing that it could be used to support his execution."

"Mr Moussaoui's French lawyer, Francois Roux, also rejected the two governments' official argument that the evidence provided to the US would not be used to help condemn Mr Moussaoui to death. "France has just reintroduced the death penalty by proxy," he told a news conference in Montpellier, southern France. "This time it won't be the guillotine but the electric chair."

Here are some of the top stories in Asia. You can read them at the South China Morning Post, but since a premium subscription is necessary, we will highlight for you:

The Aids epidemic sweeping through China will drag 20 million people into absolute poverty and cost the country 770 billion yuan (HK$726 billion) by 2010, mainland experts have warned. "Unless China faces and tackles the problem seriously, the disease will resuly in an economic and medical disaster."

Thousands of patients are missing from Hong Kong's public hospital wards. Nine have been found dead. The Government assumes most simply walked away and didn't say anything.

A woman barbecued her arm and had to have it amputated. She brought a portable barbecue into her bedroom for heat, and fell asleep with her arm draped over it. Authorites suspected she was drunk or drugged, since she claimed not to feel anything until she woke up in the morning. She denied it.

Relationship problems? The latest sign of social turmoil in China is the increase in the number of people who use rat poison to kill their loved ones or business partners. Sociologists attribute the increase to "the abscence of strong social values, rendering people more likely to act on selfish desires." Lacing food with rat poison to resolve personal conflicts "reflects a serious social problem related to a society in transition."

There has been a lot of coverage of the Kenya hotel attacks. Also, there is a lot of attention paid to an alleged regional terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiah. Planned attacks by the group, "forced the closure of the Canadian, Australian and European Union embassies in the Philippines. "

On CNN television, the news much of the day included a feature about America. It was a story about Angola prison in Lousiana, where it is cowboy and rodeo day. 10,000 people came out to view the festivities. The inmates here are mostly doing time for murder. The tradition has been ongoing for 38 years and not once has an inmate tried to escape on Rodeo day.

From Working for Change ActForChange : Act Now

"Send an email to President Bush and ask him to renounce and take all action necessary to terminate the new Defense Department "Total Information Awareness" program that would provide government officials with the ability to snoop into all aspects of our private lives without a search warrant or proof of criminal wrongdoing."

The site sends the e-mail for you and through the ACLU, explains the danger the plan poses to civil liberties.

Ted Rall on the TIA (Total Information Awareness Program - TOTALLY IDIOTIC AMERICANS:

"Since most of the data the TIA analyzes relates to loyal American citizens, Total Information Awareness creates the potential for abuse of governmental power on an unprecedented scale. Because it won't track the most likely future terrorists--people who live in, for example, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia--it's a waste of money that furthers the illusion that our government is protecting us. Since Sept. 11, George W. Bush has asked us to trade our precious freedoms for a little security. The TIA forces Americans to sacrifice privacy for nothing. "

TalkLeft is blogging from Shanghai today. It is Saturday morning here, while it is dinnertime Friday in Colorado.

We were going to take a respite from blogging until our return on Tuesday, but watching the Asian edition of CNN on television provides an interesting perspective on world events and China itself is so fascinating that we have decided to report from here.

This is our second visit to this incredibly modern and technologically advanced city. We'll be back this afternoon, hopefully with some fresh insights. Our newsfeed will resume Saturday, U.S. time.

From the crimes in the news department:

Dominatrix Pleads Not Guilty in Client's Death

"A dominatrix pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges she chopped up a client after he died of an apparent heart attack during a bondage session, and then dumped the body parts in a trash bin, court officials in Massachusetts said."

The ACLU is organizing against Ashcroft. Check out today's Nat Hentoff piece in the Village Voice, The New American Freedom Fighters.

We last gave thanks on July 4th to those we've learned from and those who have encouraged and praised us. We're doing it again for Thanksgiving. We hope that if these blogs are not already on your daily reading list, they will be soon.

Some of our favorite bloggers have made especially nice comments about TalkLeft in their blogs the last few weeks. We'd like to thank them, and share some of their comments with you. These are blogs whose opinions we value highly.

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul :

"I hope you already know that when legal issues are in the news (and, lately, that would be every day, wouldn't it?), the one site you must visit is the indispensable Talk Left . But if you haven't read Jeralyn's analysis of the case, you should."

Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review:

"If Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft knows so much about crime and criminal law, how come she’s not a ten-most-wanted criminal mastermind by now? Or is she? Just kidding. I’ve learned more about the law from Merritt, online and off, than I have from any other resource I’ve met, or encountered rather, online or off."

Daily Kos "Update: TalkLeft, the ultimate authority for all matters regarding crime policy, has her own extended analysis...." Kos is our arbiter of truth on all matters political--and he designed TalkLeft.

Jeff Cooper of Cooped Up: "I am deeply flattered to be included in the company of sites mentioned in the post. TalkLeft does a superb job of discussing criminal law issues from a left-liberal perspective."

Eric Alterman, who has praised us often, allowed us to help create the Altercation links list, and best of all, guest-blog for him while he was on vacation.

A very special thanks to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit who mentions us far more often than we deserve.

Atrios, Cursor, The Hamster, Ruminate This, CalPundit and, of course, Skippy who mention and link to us more times than we can print here.

Buzzflash and Tapped for their permanent links to us.

Long Story, Short Pier , who just found us today and wrote:

"...a new favorite: Jeralyn Merritt’s TalkLeft, an excellent argosy of "crime-related political and injustice news," whether it’s riffing on what it was that Law & Order guy said, or contemplating the appalling microcosm found within Tabitha Pollack’s terribly contingent release."

And to those with differing points of view:

Vodkapundit, to whom we still owe a drink (if he would ever drive the 60 miles north to Denver) for being one of the first blogs to give us a link, and for having such panache in his own posts;

Jay Caruso of Daily Rant who said initially, "Check out her blog. I don't agree with much of what she says, but her blog is informative and contains links to very valuable resources, especially in the area of the law" and then a few days ago: "Another reason to read Talkleft. You may not agree with Jeralyn Merritt. She proudly proclaims to be a progressive (ie liberal) Democrat. But she's fair."

Tom of Just One Minute, who rarely agrees with us but reads, analyzes and contributes nonetheless;

Finally, and most important of all, thanks to all of you who read TalkLeft--you make it all worthwhile.

Have a great holiday. We'll be back in a few days.

Instapundit (Law Professor Glenn Reynolds) has a new column up on FoxNews.com, Conservative Court Could Be Dems' Best Friend , co-written with Brannon Denning.

They posit that "Democrats might want to consider that a "conservative" U.S. Supreme Court with a renewed interest in limiting the power of Congress might be their new best friend." Two examples they cite are the Lopez decision, requiring an interstate commerce connection before allowing a federal sentence enhancement for using or carrying a gun during a drug crime or crime of violence, which requirement has since been extended to other crimes in federal court, and limits placed by the Court on congressional power through its holding that "Congress cannot commandeer state legislatures or state executive officials to pass or implement Congress’s mandates. If Congress wishes the states to do something, they must make it a matter of federal law (which prevails over conflicting state laws.)"

We agree with the Professor on the federalism issue, but we don't agree that democrats should believe that a conservative judiciary is supportive of their ideals. Taking them one at a time, first off, like Prof. Reynolds, we are definitely against the recent move by Congress towards mass federalization of crimes traditionally left to the states to decide how to prosecute. Here's why, from the Legislative Priority page of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers:

NACDL urges Congress to reject its tendency to federalize crime and repeal legislation that is contrary to our system of federalism and sound crime control policy.

Increasingly, crime bills grant federal prosecutors greater and greater authority by creating more federal crimes out of historically state and local crimes. For example, domestic violence, carjacking and failure to pay child support, the subjects of recent federal measures, are traditionally the prerogative of state and local governments; federal jurisdiction is unwarranted, unwise and contrary to the Constitution. Regarding these and other federalized crimes, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist observed that "one senses from the context in which they were enacted that the question of whether the states were doing an adequate job in this particular area was never seriously asked."

Before enacting federal criminal legislation, Congress should consider whether a federal interest is implicated and whether the state or local remedy is shown to be inadequate to address that interest. The impact on federal law enforcement and court resources should also be assessed.

A blue ribbon task force sponsored by the American Bar Association concluded "that inappropriately federalized crime causes serious problems to the administration of justice in this country. It generally undermines the state-federal fabric and disrupts the important constitutional balance of federal and state systems." American Bar Association Task Force on Federalization of Criminal Law (1998) (task force included former Attorney General Edwin Meese and several other present and former prosecutors and law enforcement officials).

Likewise, in the collaborative article, Justice That Makes Sense (1998), the then-leaders of the nation's three largest criminal justice groups — NACDL President Gerald B. Lefcourt, National District Attorneys Association President William L. Murphy, and ABA Criminal Justice Section Chair Ronald Goldstock — agreed: "Criminal and social problems are increasingly being addressed by the Congress with what many have come to regard as a purely political response — calls to federalize more criminal activity and to lengthen already unwieldy prison terms. . . . There can be little doubt that increased federal prosecutive authority has adversely affected the Department of Justice's ability to fulfill its role of enforcing traditional federal offenses."

But we cannot support a right-wing, conservative judiciary. They are more of a menace than a positive force. Anyone concerned with criminal justice issues cannot realistically view a conservative court in a postive light, even though, in addition to the issues set out by Glenn, we appreciate conservative judges' support of privacy rights, opposition to laws providing increased punishment for hate crimes, and views on matters pertaining to asset forfeiture.

Looking at the big picture, a conservative court will not issue an opinion requiring: the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses; a moratorium on the death penalty; abolition of the death penalty; the elimination of racial disparities in sentencing; fair procedures (as exist in many states) regarding discovery, guilty plea colloquy, jury selection, and judicial disqualification; grand jury reform; adequate funding for indigent defense; restoration of full habeas corpus rights that were taken away by the "The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996"; meaningful checks and balances and oversight of law enforcement powers through increased scrutiny of requests for even more powers and resources; fair treatment of juveniles as juveniles, not adults; fair treatment of immigrants and restoration of discretionary relief from deportation.

Conservative judges only support some constitutional rights for some people. By and large they do not support constitutional rights for the citizen accused or convicted of crime. Thus, while Prof. Reynolds is correct that we should appreciate a conservative judiciary for the positive effect it will have on issues involving intrusions into privacy and federalism, we think any such benefit is far outweighed by the detrimental effect it will have on our principles of justice and on what until now has been the best and fairest criminal justice system in the world.

Our advice to the Democrats, therefore, is different from that of Professor Reynolds and Mr. Benning. Instead of capitulate and embrace, and hold the conservative jurists to their promise of more great rulings restricting Congress and the federal courts, we advise the democrats to filibuster, early, loud and often. The only way to prevent these right wing jurists from imposing their narrow and unjust views on the rest of us is to keep them from attaining the bench in the first place. Take note of political action alerts, write your elected officials and tell them to oppose the nomination, and remember, grass roots efforts can be successful. A Senator can only serve his or her constitutents if he knows their position on issues. By writing to them, you become heard, and your opinion counts. We neither need nor want more Scalia's, Kennedy's or Clarence Thomas'. Do you?

Sniper suspects John Muhammad and 17 year-old John Lee Malvo have been cleared in three Baton Rouge murders . DNA evidence has excluded them.

This is one of the problems with presuming a person is guilty of a crime based solely on allegations that he has committed other similar acts in the past. Much of the public has already decided, based upon media reports and leaks by cops and/or prosecutors or high government officials that the two suspects likely committed every unsolved murder in the South in the past year. How do you unring the bell to assure the suspects a fair trial?

There hasn't been a single leak we are aware of attributable to defense counsel in the case. Read our prior coverage (click on the Crimes in the News archived section on the right) and let us know if you find any.

The Racine Journal Times reports that the ACLU is demanding the City of Racine drop charges against 445 people who attended a rave-style Halloween fundraiser for a local theatre group, arguing the citations "violated the partygoers' First Amendment rights to dance and hear music."

If the city does not drop the charges, the ACLU says the city risks " a costly legal battle over the tickets."

We reported on the raid shortly after it happened. Here's the gist of the case, according to a prepared police statement:

"Based on information from the U.S. Customs Service, undercover officers went through the Haunted Theater (Uptown Theater) at 1430 Washington Ave. After the very brief tour, officers were directed to the basement of Tradewinds Village, 1518 Washington Ave., for the party. There they bought Ecstasy and Ketamine." Although only three arrests were made, police issued citations to 445 attendees with a penalty of $968 each for being "patrons of a disorderly house."

Thanks to Pete Karas, CIC of Cims.Com for bringing the update to our attention.