One day after being named the new Chief of the LAPD, Bill Bratton warned officers to get with his program and outlined his template for change.

The template "will be the federal consent decree that the city signed last year after the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that the LAPD had for years been engaging in a "pattern or practice" of civil rights violations."

"If you don't embrace [the decree], if you aren't prepared to embrace it, put your retirement papers in, because you won't be part of my command staff driving change in this department."

Bratton said "the consent decree should dictate the technology used by the department, showing the public that it is getting a professional force, not officers who practice brutality or racism."

"In blunt comments about the current state of police work in Los Angeles, he eviscerated whole sections of the LAPD, dubbing the crime-tracking computer system "a joke" and criticizing the department's "shotgun approach" to training."

"He said that he had never failed at a job and that he wouldn't fail now. "This department needs to clearly understand there's a new sheriff in town," he said."

The New York Times reports explosive new evidence in the Central Park Jogger case today. Investigators are nearing completion into their inquiry of Mattias Reyes' recent confession to the crime and statement that he acted alone, which if true, would clear the five youths who confessed and served time for the jogger's rape.

Journalist Jim Dwyer reports that Reyes has now told investigators that he committed another rape two nights earlier in the same area of the park, again acting alone. They have confirmed the key details of his account. But the defendants in the jogger's case were never told there was another rape, despite the woman having been taken to the hospital after being beaten and raped.

Investigators say that the first rape was investigated by the sex crimes unit of the Police Department while the jogger's rape was referred to the homicide division of Manhattan North because it was believed the jogger would die. Apparently, the information on the first rape was never turned over those investigating the jogger's rape.

"On the afternoon of April 17, 1989, a Monday, a woman in her 20's went to do tai chi exercises in an area of Central Park called Fish Fort, off 106th Street. A young man strolled up and began chatting with her. Something in his manner made the woman uncomfortable, she later told detectives, so she moved to leave. Then the man pounced. He beat her face and head, pulled off her clothes and assaulted her sexually until another man, hearing the woman's screams, arrived on the scene. The attacker fled. The woman's injuries were so severe that she was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital and spent at least two nights there, officials said."

"Those two rapes, on April 17 and April 19, were the second and third of the year in the Central Park precinct. The investigation into the April 17 attack was handled by the sex crimes unit of the Police Department. Detectives from another unit, Manhattan North Homicide, oversaw the investigation into the attack on the jogger, because her condition was so grave that officials originally expected that she would not survive....For reasons that are not clear, investigators say, there is no sign that the information about the April 17 rape was turned over to the detectives handling the attack on the jogger."

Lawyers at the trial of one of the defendants had argued that the "real attacker was still unknown and would be out committing more rapes and possibly even murder." But they had never been told of the first rape which surely would have strengthened their defense.

"After the two assaults in Central Park, Mr. Reyes continued to rape women on the Upper East Side, and killed one in an apartment on East 97th Street before he was arrested in August 1989 leaving a building on East 92nd Street after another rape attempt." Reyes was convicted of these last crimes, but he was not charged with either the jogger's rape or the one that occurred two nights earlier.

The current investigation has confirmed no physical evidence links any of the five youths who were convicted of raping the jogger with the crime. A hearing on their motion to vacate their convictions is scheduled for October 21.

(Thanks to The Minute Man for sending us this article, he's going to write about it Monday.)

ABC News reports on higher ups leaving the Justice Department, including Assoicate Attorney General Jay Stephens, third in command, who has resigned after nine months to take a job in the public sector.

The New York Times reports on the mixed reaction in Portland to the arrest of three people there on terrorism charges.

"Some people scoffed at the accusation today by Attorney General John Ashcroft that the group is a "suspected terrorist cell within our borders." Instead, they say these suspects are followers of a militant brand of Islam, but have never conspired to help Al Qaeda."

"Mr. Ford went to Pakistan, but he went there for humanitarian reasons," said James Britt, a lawyer who is Mr. Ford's brother. He stood outside the small bungalow where Mr. Ford lived with his wife, son and mother, while the police searched the area."

"Mr. Britt said his brother had a master's degree in Chinese studies, is married to a Chinese woman, and was a convert to Islam who felt it a duty to render aid to other Muslims. "This is religious persecution," Mr. Britt said. "

Others in the Muslim community in Portland pointed out that the Government has made terrorist allegations about one of their own before it has later retracted:

"Other Muslims here said much the same thing, noting that the case against a Portland cleric arrested last month, Sheik Mohammed Abdirrahman Kariye, has not held up. The government originally said Mr. Kariye was caught trying to leave the country with traces of TNT on his bags. But they said other tests were inconclusive. Mr. Kariye, a popular religious leader at the Islamic Center of Portland, is being held without bond on charges of Social Security fraud."

The investigation into the suspects activities began about a year ago when a sheriff noticed men with turbans shooting rifles into a gravel pit and called the F.B.I.

"All three suspects are African-American, and Mr. Britt said the arrests showed a bias by federal officials against blacks who convert to Islam"

The Feds respond they were "just doing good police work."

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday reversed a lower court ruling that had placed medical marijuana initiative back on the ballot.

The appeals court ruled "Congress had the right to block District of Columbia residents from voting on whether to legalize marijuana for medical use [because] the Constitution gives Congress exclusive power to define the district's legislative authority."

The Court also ruled that "a congressional act barring D.C. residents from putting the legalization of marijuana on the ballot does not violate their First Amendment right to free speech."

Here's a succinct history of the ballot controversy, and as we pointed out on August 21, it was Congressman Bob Barr who caused it all:

In November 1998, an initiative in the District of Columbia tried to approve medical marijuana. " For almost a year no one knew whether the referendum had passed, because Rep. Bob Barr (R., Ga.) impounded the $ 1.65 it would have cost to tally the vote. Finally, last September, the courts overruled Barr. Seven out of ten D.C. voters had decided in favor of legalization. Refusing defeat, Barr pushed a bill through Congress that blocked the spending needed to enact the new law. As fallback, Barr has also proposed a joint resolution of Congress to simply overturn by fiat the will of the people expressed freely and fairly at the ballot box. " (Harper's Magazine December 1, 1999, available on Lexis.)

The Marijuana Policy Project sued the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics charging the law Barr pushed through Congress was unconsitutional. The D.C. Court agreed. But today, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.

Here's a wrap-up of Fridaymorning's testimony in the Ira Einhorn Murder trial:

"On Thursday, James Jafolla, who lived below Einhorn and Maddux during his years as a graduate student, testified about an encounter with Maddux in which she was crying in front of their building. He asked her if she needed help and she said no, then taped an open note under the doorbell to the apartment she and Einhorn shared and left.

''It said: 'To the woman that's coming to visit Ira, I want you to know that he's throwing me out of the apartment so he can spend the night with you,''' Jafolla testified.

Defense attorney William Cannon has been trying to establish that Einhorn and Maddux were involved in an ''open relationship'' by mutual agreement, but prosecution witnesses have said that it was generally one-sided.

Also testifying on Thursday was Cindy Grady, who met Einhorn through their common interest in the paranormal and said he once asked her to help him dispose of a trunk he said contained ''top-secret Russian documents on psychic warfare.''

''He said that the KGB was after him and it was very dangerous for him and for everyone,'' she said. She refused and soon after severed ties with Einhorn, saying their meetings to discuss parapsychology were nothing more than opportunities for Einhorn to talk about himself.

At their final meeting in Einhorn's apartment, sometime after Maddux's disappearance, Grady testified that she smelled a ''putrid'' odor that made her cut the visit short.

Here's an update on the Nevada marijuana referendum on the ballot this November--if it passes, Nevada will be the first state in the country to legalize marijuana. Businesses seem mostly thrilled--it will be great for tourism.

Democrats are also happy because they believe the measure will draw liberal voters to the polls.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state's largest newspaper, endorsed the measure as a means to "bring compassion and common sense to drug laws." The Republican Governor Kenny Guinn has not taken a position. The Sheriff's organization initially supported the measure but now opposes it.

"Pro-marijuana activists acknowledge that they targeted Nevada because it is a small state with a libertarian bent where voters amended the constitution through votes in 1998 and 2000 to legalize medical marijuana."

For once, the money is on the side of the (former) underdog: "The group promoting the constitutional change, Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement, or NRLE, is flush with money -- it has almost $500,000 on hand -- and has run TV ads since September 12. " Opposing groups got a late start and have no money, not even for mailers.

"The petition effort that placed the initiative on the ballot garnered more than 109,000 signatures or nearly double the required number. A September 26 poll by the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas showed a majority of voters supporting the measure, with 55 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed."

Our view: Nevada rocks...It's time to end the laws criminalizing possession and use of personal amounts of pot. We hope the youth in Nevada register to vote because this is a great opportunity for them to demonstrate their voting power and that every vote counts.

American-born John Walker Lindh was sentenced to 20 years as expected today. The AP reported the sentencing hearing was filled with drama despite the agreement of the parties on the length of the sentence. Lindh made a long statement, breaking down several times. He apologized, renounced Bin Laden and criticized the September 11 attacks. Here is the text of Lindh's statement to the Court.

The New York Times reports Lindh told the Judge "that he had gone to Afghanistan out of religious fervor to fight anti-Taliban forces there, not his countrymen, and that he had never taken up arms against American forces. "I did not go to fight against America, and I never did," he said."

According to CNN's coverage of the hearing,

"Walker Lindh denied having any role in Spann's death and the judge said he would not have accepted the plea bargain if there were any proof of such a role."

"Walker Lindh told U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III that he "made a mistake by joining the Taliban" and "had I realized then what I know now about the Taliban I would never have joined them."

Like all federal prisoners, Lindh will do 85% of his sentence, or a little less than 17 years.

The Associated Press reports that "prosecutors who won a murder conviction against Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel are upset about a planned movie they say gives undue credit to Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective who wrote a book about the case. "

Prosecutor John Benedict says of Furhman's role: "This is a guy who was trying to jump on a train that already left the station."

Fuhrman has been widely credited by himself and writer Dominck Dunne with uncovering a report by Skakel family investigators in which both Tommy and Michael Skakel provided different versions of what they were doing the night Martha Moxley was killed than those they gave to police as teenagers. As adults, both told the family nvestigators they had been masturbating outside in or under a tree on the Moxley property. Tommy's revised version was that he and Martha were mutually masturbating on the ground under the tree. Jurors in Michael Skakel's trial never heard about Tommy's statememt, although he was the chief suspect in the murder for almost 20 years. Ultimately, he was given immunity to testify before the grand jury, and did not testify at trial.

Prosecutor Benedict denies Furman uncovered the book proposal and says the authorities already had it. "Every piece of information he had we had months in advance of the book coming out," Benedict said. "He's trying to take credit for things he simply did not do."

The movie airs November 15 on the USA network. Law and Order star Christopher Meloni" plays Fuhrman.

Eric Alterman's new column in the Nation is out. In it, he faults the media for its negative treatment of Al Gore and says,

"Personally, I never really liked Gore, and he's not my choice for 2004. But he sure galvanized Tom Daschle and other Democrats to face up to a frightening juggernaut for war they would have preferred to duck for the sake of re-election. Naderites take note. It was not "smart" in the Washington sense. It was not strategic. But damn it, it was brave. The victim of a stolen presidency demonstrated why democracy matters. The more media chicken hawks sink their tiny beaks into his ass, the more--just this once--I admire his courage."

Richard Reid made it through his change of plea hearing today, despite his request to strike the allegation that he attended an Al Qaeda training camp from his Indictment. The Judge refused his request but said he would reconsider at sentencing.

Reid was not remorseful. He admitted that he intended to blow up American Airlines flight 63 on Dec. 22, 2001 and the passengers on it, including himself. At one point during the hearing, Reid said, "I'm a follower of Osama bin Laden. I'm an enemy of your country and I don't care."

Reid pleaded to 8 of the 9 charges against him. One had been dismissed by the Court in June. They included, "attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction; attempted homicide; placing an explosive device on an aircraft; attempted murder; two counts of interference with flight crew and attendants; attempted destruction of an aircraft, and using a destructive device during a crime of violence."

The Government said it will seek a sentence of 60 years to life in prison.

Here is the full text of Los Angeles police Chief-designate William Bratton's statement on his selection to lead the LAPD out of its current scandal-ridden and morale-troubled state.

The LA Times today reports on his speech, his acceptance in the community there and the buoyant spirits all around.

Update: This article by Alan Feuer in the New York Times capture's Mr. Bratton's spirit and personality pretty well.