In a Washington Post editorial today Can't Have It Both Ways , the paper takes the Bush Administration to task for asserting that its judicial nominess should be confirmed irresepective of ideology while at the same time critizing Judge William Sessions of Vermont for his opinion this week declaring the death penalty unconstitutional.

"It seems that the Bush administration believes judging is an apolitical task only as long as judges do the right thing by administration lights. When the department disagrees with an opinion, it reserves the right to blast a judge in overtly political terms. "

".... certainly the view advanced by Judge Sessions, an appointee of President Clinton, is within the bounds of respectable interpretation. "

How did the Administration react to the opnion?

"....Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, stated: "Today's decision underscores the importance of confirming President Bush's nominees to the federal bench -- well-qualified men and women who will apply the laws that Congress has passed in accordance with Supreme Court precedent. . . . Congress passed the Federal Death Penalty Act to save lives, and the Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly said the death penalty does not violate the Constitution. Judge Sessions's decision to the contrary is under review."

What's good for the goose....

Former U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins (Northern District of Texas) has written a terrific and very funny op-ed piece in the Texas Lawyer called Year of the Rats in which he takes U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to task for trying to make spies out of all of us.

"We will have white-collar, blue-collar and no-collar spies. Spies in all shapes, sizes and colors. Everyone will be eligible to eavesdrop -- postal workers, truck drivers, plumbers, utility company employees and lawyers. Well, maybe not lawyers. I spy. You spy. We all spy on each other."

"At least, that was the master plan behind the administration's Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS) program, as originally hatched by the U.S. Department of Justice. Leave it to killjoys on the right (Republican Dick Armey) and the left (the American Civil Liberties Union), however, to recoil from the prospect of the friendly plumber surreptitiously checking out our bookshelves and video libraries for suspicious material...."

"Bombarded by howls of protest from all quarters, Congress balked at Ashcroft's attempt to deputize one-half of the citizenry and place the other half on "double-secret probation." Although Congress has, for the past year, swallowed the administration's every line (and line item) that invoked the war on terrorism, Congress choked on TIPS. "

There's a lot more, go read the whole thing.

We watched the ABC News Prime Time special report tonight on the Central Park Jogger. We are very troubled by retired lead officer' Bert Arroyo's statements which we think are clearly belied by the record. There is no evidence to support the theory that more than one person raped the jogger. Yet Arroyo clings to this theory and says that the five boys raped the jogger and left her for dead before Matias comes along and finds her, and then rapes her again.

Arroyo says the boys were not questioned without their families. He points to the parents signatures on their statements. But the boys were taken to the scene of the crime by police before making their videotaped statements. Arroyo sees nothing wrong with this. We're supposed to believe that while the police and the boys were alone in the car (no family or lawyers) driving to and from the scene of the crime, and while at the scene, there was silence? We think it probable (as did the false confession experts on the show) that while at the scene of the crime the police fed details of the crime to the youths who were then brought back to the stationhouse to have their statements videotaped in the presence of their families.

The family members say they had been at the stationhouse for hours trying to speak with them and kept waiting. While they were kept waiting, unbeknownst to them, the police were already questioning the boys and engaging in coercive, manipulative and lying tactics (which courts allow) to get them to confess. And contrary to Arroyo's statements on the show, the boys were led to believe if they confessed they would get to go home.

If anyone on the show lacked credibility to us, it was Arroyo, not the five youths, not their families and not Matias.

The only evidence to support a rape charge against these five boys was their statements. Only only one person's semen was recovered and DNA has proven it was that of Matias who has now confessed. Forensic Expert Michael Baden stated on the show there were either no vaginal tears or one slight one, and the injuries and physical evidence were far more consistent with there being one rapist as opposed to many. The five youths had no blood on their clothing. No other phyiscal evidence linked them to the crime. The one hair found on the sweatshirt of one of the boy's was identified at his trial as belonging to the victim. Yet later DNA testing has shown this to be false. All gave different statements about who did what to whom-- none of their stories matched.

But that's our opinion. For an opinion of one who studied the trial evidence closely, and came to the conclusion that Prosecutor Linda Fairstein (barely mentioned, if at all, in the ABC News special) and the police tricked and manipulated false confessions from the youths, and improperly kept friends and family members from contact with one of them, we are reprinting the 1993 dissenting opinion of Judge J. Titone in the appeal of one of the youths, Yusef Salaam. The majority of the appeals court upheld Yusef's conviction and did not find his confession false. But the majority doesn't go into the facts much, saying its unnecessary because everyone knows them so well, and Judge Titone does. We think reading it brings out much more than the ABC show about what really happened at the police station.

Many other blogs have had discussions on the recent developments in the Central Park Jogger case. Here are a few we've noticed:

Burst of Light
Body and Soul
Sideshow
Uppity Negro
Mark Klieman

And taking the position of skeptic (as to the innocence of the five convicted youths who say their confessions were false and coerced) is Tom over at JustOneMinute.

Al Gore is sounding pretty good to us today, as he accuses Bush of eroding our freedom:

"Gore's Thursday comments came at a fund-raising breakfast for Delaware attorney general candidate Carl Schnee. "

"Gore said "highly questionable" decisions are being made in the criminal justice system under Attorney General John Ashcroft. "

"What's going on nationally, with the attack on civil liberties, with American citizens in some cases just disappearing without right to counsel, without access to a lawyer, I think that is disgraceful," he said. "

"I think we need to stand up for our principles in this country and stand up for what this nation represents, even as we face the terrible dangers that we have to confront in the world today," he added. "

Gore also decried any efforts to portray Democratic critics of the administration's homeland security plans and possible war with Iraq as unpatriotic or unconcerned about national security."

Keep it up, Al. We might get back behind you. And if you add your support for a moratorium on the death penalty, you'll have us and a lot of others, for sure.

Here is a news account of the judicial confirmation hearing today of Miguel Estrada.

For an account from a lawyer's point of view, check out How Appealing where Howard Bashman has been meticulously chronicling the hearing all day.

Actually, we think we prefer Estrada to O'Connell. We say "think" because there's scarce information on either of their views on criminal law issues. For now, we are content to be on the sidelines on Estrada and O'Connell as individual appointees, although we are definitely of the opinion that the President does not have a right to flood the judiciary with such far right-wing ideologists, particularly if there is any indication that they will become judicial activists--deciding cases based upon their conservative views rather than the law. And the Republicans, Hatch in particular, are being so disingenous about the confirmation process--see our post earlier today or last night quoting Law Professor Jeff Cooper on this.

In 1997 there was a movie about the Irish Travellers called "The Travellers."

"Modern-day Celtic gypsies/con artists run scams, fall in love and get in big-time trouble. Lots of charm, although the seams are showing. With Bill Paxton, Mark Wahlberg, James Gammon, Julianna Margulies, Luke Askew. Written by Jim McGlynn. Directed by Jack Green." (From Yahoo's movie page.)

You can read a review of the movie here.

Word just reached us that Lisl Auman has lost her appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals of her felony murder conviction and life sentence. Here is the opinion. We haven't read the decision yet, but will certainly have some comments later. Lisl was in police custody at the time of the crime and yet she serves a lifetime prison term. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed an Amicus (friend of court) brief on her behalf.

In the meantime, here is our prior coverage of the case from our sister site Crimelynx.

Also look for journalist Hunter Thompson who has been a big supporter of Lisl to have some excoriating comments about the decision. And check out Lisl's website as well.

Don't miss Ethan Nadelman's The Hospice Raid and the War on Drugs in Alternet. We almost did, but Hamster was on top of it.

Nadelman asks a good question:

"Is the Santa Cruz raid, and more generally the war on drugs, a preview of what lies ahead in the war on terrorism? Is the future one in which increasingly empowered and emboldened federal police agencies intimidate, arrest and even terrorize not just those who pose true threats to security but also those who challenge little more than the moralistic convictions and political prejudices of power holders in the nation's capital? "

By the way, Hamster and Cursor are the two sites we check every day to see what news we've missed. And we always find something.

The New York Times today has an update on the feud between Attorney General Jim Ryan and Governor George Ryan over Governor Ryan's planned clemency hearings in Illinois and on the twin lawsuits filed by AG Jim Ryan. Ryan doesn't think that 15 minutes per inmate is enough time for a clemency hearing. His real concern is that Gov. Ryan will grant clemency to all the inmates currently on death row in Illinois.

We reported on the feud at length here last week.

We want to highlight Rob Warden's comments in today's Times article:

"But Rob Warden, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, said the short hearings should suffice, because the main argument for clemency is that the capital punishment system is flawed and unfair. Since Illinois re-established the death penalty in 1977, 12 people have been executed and 13 have been exonerated; a governor's commission in April said 85 major reforms were essential to make the system just.

"All of these people, 100 percent of them, were convicted and sentenced to death under a system that is generally acknowledged to be grossly dysfunctional," Mr. Warden said. "We know there are some innocent people remaining under death sentence in Illinois; we're just not sure which ones they are. The intelligent thing to do is let's just stop using this broken system."

AG Jim Ryan is far behind his democratic challenger in the race to succeed George Ryan as Governor.

"Confusion over the two Ryans, who are not related and have never been close, along with other internal dysfunctions, leave the Republican Party in danger of losing a governorship it has occupied for 26 years."

"Polls show Jim Ryan trailing the Democratic nominee, Representative Rod R. Blagojevich of Chicago, by at least 11 points, but suggest that lead is cut in half once voters are told candidate Ryan is not incumbent Ryan. The governor's term was tarnished by revelations that contracts and driver's licenses were traded for campaign contributions under his watch as secretary of state. "

"To clarify that the Republican Ryans are not one person, Jim Ryan's campaign has asked newspapers to use first initials in headlines and employ a logo where the candidate's first name is much larger than his last."

Alliance for Justice will show First Monday, its film on civil liberties violations since September 11 on October 7 in Washington. Here's the information we received from them today.

"Please join the Alliance for Justice for the National Premiere and Congressional Screening of our 2002 FIRST MONDAY documentary film, OF RIGHTS & WRONGS: THE THREAT TO AMERICA'S FREEDOMS. The 25-minute film explores new challenges to civil liberties in a post-9/11 America with the stories of individuals who have been adversely affected by new laws and policies.

Introduced by Susan Sarandon and featuring the music of Bruce Springsteen with author and historian Howard Zinn, constitutional law professor David Cole, and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and professor of history Roger Wilkins on FIRST MONDAY:

Monday, October 7, 2002
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 106
First and C Streets, NE
Washington, DC

Reception: 6:00 pm; Screening 6:45 pm. Please call 202-822-6070 to RSVP by Thursday, October 3 or email to jfreed@afj.org

Honored Guests:

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich
New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney
California Congressman Robert Matsui
Gregory Nojeim - Associate Director, ACLU, Washington National Office
Professor David Cole - Georgetown University Law Center

The Central Park Jogger case is receiving lots of attention today as ABC prepares to air an interview with the man who recently confessed to the crime and said he acted alone on Prime Time Live tonight.

Here is a thorough article on the case by ABC News which includes detailed portions of the interviews from tonight's show.