Law Professor Jeff Cooper over at Cooped Up says that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is being more than a tad disingenuous in his statement to Congress earlier this week on judicial nominations.

Prof. Cooper says:

"Sen. Hatch decries the consideration of ideology in the Senate Judiciary Committee's evaluation of judicial nominations. In his statement, Sen. Hatch asserts that during the Clinton administration he never voted against a judicial nominee because of the nominee's ideology. This statement, while perhaps technically true, scores major points for gall. The reason Sen. Hatch never voted against nominees based on ideology is that, as then-chair of the Judiciary Committee, he refused to schedule confirmation hearings for an enormous number of Clinton's nominees. Rather than voting based on ideology, in other words, he manipulated the Senate's rules to kill nominations without votes, based apparently on ideology (Sen. Hatch could not seriously contend that all, or even many, of the nominations for which he refused to hold hearings involved nominees who were "unqualified" based on their credentials and judicious character). Far from being thoughtful commentary, Sen. Hatch's statement reveals him once again to be a hypocrite of the first order. "

Chisun Lee has been writing great articles in the Village Voice about civil liberties violations since September 11. This week he has a poignant article about Mohammed Azmath who was seized on an Amtrak train in Texas on September 12 and detained since then while authorities investigated him for terrorist ties. The investigation ultimately found he had nothing to do with terrorism, but that he had engaged in credit card fraud.

Azimuth pleaded guilty to the credit card fraud and was sentenced to time served, twelve months. Azimuth and his lawyers spoke out at his sentencing. Here is some of what they had to say:

"Azmath's lead counsel, Anthony Ricco, told the judge last week that his client "was housed under the most severe conditions I have ever witnessed. In initial interviews with me, he was shackled, he had [on] manacles, and those interviews were videotaped."

"Ricco told reporters later that Azmath had been abused in such bizarre ways as being taken to the outdoor exercise area on rainy days and locked outside in the cold for hours. In a May letter to Islamic advocate Adem Carroll, Azmath wrote, "They just give once a week a legal call. I didn't make any . . . call to my family in eight months."

"....At the hearing, when he was essentially freed pending deportation by the INS, Azmath spoke publicly for the first time about his detention. Standing, he addressed the court for several minutes, sometimes speaking faster than his limited English would easily allow. "I am singled out on train as a suspect of terrorism," he said. "

"In the three months he did not have a lawyer, he said, a prosecutor named Eric Bruce interrogated him cruelly. "He said to me many times, 'We're going to make your life miserable, your family's life miserable. You're not here for immigration [violations]. You're here for terrorism. You're going to get the death sentence. You're never going to see your wife again.' "

The government lawyer present objected to Azmath's claims, calling them "highly incredible and unlikely." But the Justice Department has told the Voice in the past that investigators are permitted to threaten and even lie in their questioning. Such tactics are not uncommon in more mundane police probes. "

"Legon told the Voice that Azmath's family in India had been "rounded up on several occasions" and questioned by police there, as a result of the U.S. government's investigation. International media have reported that the family faces deportation from India, and Judge Scheindlin cited the crisis as one reason Azmath should be released now....she said, "The sooner he can get home, the more chance he has to save his family."

Chisun Lee wisely concludes his article with this:

"Unlike Azmath, the more recent terrorist suspects in Buffalo and Detroit have received due process, with court hearings and attorneys from the start. Their lawyers have vigorously demanded that prosecutors back up their hype with hard evidence, and courts seem to be proceeding with caution as well. Azmath's case of empty circumstances shows these lawyers and judges are doing the right thing."

Update: Don't miss Skippy the Bush Kangaroo's analysis on Azmath and other arrestees held in secret detention.

To add to Ibidem's discussion (found via Instapundit) on writings about the Irish Travellers, there is some serious research out there, but first, some recent events:

According to the London Times, Irish Times and Express Newspapers (August 1 - 4, 2002) there has been an ongoing battle between the publicans (pub owners) in Ireland and the Irish Travellers. In July, the publicans threatened to ban the Travellers from pubs across the country, in violation of Irish equality laws. The Travellers protested strongly. The threat was ultimately lifted. But from the news coverage in these newspapers, it appears there is strong prejudice against the Travellers in Ireland. Thomas McCann, Equality Officer of the Irish Travellers' Movement, charged in the August 2 Expess News that publicans had traditionally discriminated against travellers as part of "a history of racism in Irish society".

A leader of the largest pub owners union called the Travellers "terrorists" in the same August 2 edition of Express and said he would go to jail rather than honor the equality law which in his view amounted to "state-supported terrorism."

In the July 7 Sunday Tribune it is reported that:

"In 2001, there were 1,747 enquiries under the Equal Status Act 2000, 435 of which were in relation to the rights of travellers to take cases, representing the greatest majority of enquiries. Some 350 of these related to access to a pub or nightclub.

1. In McDonagh v The Castle Inn the publican admitted to operating a quota system whereby no more than five travellers were served at the one time. This quota did not exist for settled people.

2. In Bernard, Richard and Thomas Joyce v Liz Delaney's Pub, the publican admitted that a "judgement call" is usually made at the door to admit someone or not. If they are not happy about a person's "form" or "attitude", they say they use the "regulars only" excuse to refuse entry. At the hearing, the claimants produced a person who wasn't a member of the traveller community who claimed he had never before been in the pub, yet had no difficulty gaining access to the pub shortly after the claimants had been refused for the third time. The Equality Officer found on the basis of this that the publican did not enforce a "regulars only" policy but used this as an excuse for refusing access to those whom they didn't want on the premises. "

So how many travellers are there in Ireland and what do they do? Martin Collins, Assistant Director of the Pavee Point Travellers' Centre said in the August 1, 2002 Irish Times:

"There are 30,000 Irish Travellers living in Ireland. Travellers live in a range of accommodation including housing, group housing, halting sites and on the side of the road. They work in a variety of jobs, although most have to hide their Traveller identity to get a job or, indeed, keep it. "

"Some Travellers are self-employed, some work in the building trade, some work in the service industry, some study at 3rd level institutions while others are married and looking after their families. "

"Travellers are different from settled people because Travellers have a different ancestry, a different history, different traditions and customs, a different language and a different way of looking at the world."

As to accounts of the Travellers in America, we found one very sad item in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, December 31, 2000:

"Jan. 2 - Five young cousins are killed in an accident on Interstate 30. Authorities later determine that the victims, all 14 and younger, are children of the Irish Travellers, a nomadic ethnic group that speaks its own dialect and specializes in home improvement and business repair work. "

[all sources are available on lexis-nexis.]

As a followup to the post above about Irish Travellers in the news, if you are looking for serious research on the Irish Travellers, we found these:

The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, June 1, 2002, contains a book review of Irish Travellers: Racism and the Politics of Culture by Jane Helleiner, 274 pp., bibliogr. London, Toronto: Univ. Toronto Press, 2000.

"Helleiner approaches the subject of Irish Travellers from the angle of political economy, paying due respect to the changing historical context through the twentieth century. She confronts and challenges the tired, pervasive assertions, repeated by roving journalists such as Fonseca, that a people with a semi-nomadic past, if not present, and with non-literate traditions, have neither history nor a sense of it...."

"....In some instances, the Travellers have been valued as ancient carriers of Celtic traditions. The dominant society saw them as survivals of the authentic Irish. But the value of Travellers as indigenous is ambiguous; and sometimes viewed as mere dropouts, Travellers faced plans for enforced assimilation, regardless of their own wishes. The Travellers have adopted different strategies to retain some self-determination. Helleiner has scrupulously examined a range of historical archives and local records and traced the shifting interactions between Travellers and the dominant society, detailing how Travellers select local non-Traveller values in specific contexts."

"Travellers, Gypsies, or Roma are not and cannot exist as hermetically sealed minorities. They engage on a daily basis with different members of the non-Gypsy populations. As an anthropologist, Helleiner has engaged in longterm fieldwork. This included co-residence and/or participant observation with Travellers. She attended public meetings and other arenas for interaction between Traveller and non-Traveller, She spent months with numbers of individuals and family clusters, thus gaining some trust. She spoke and understood the Travellers' language(s) and shifting vocabularies. "

"Helleiner provides examples of how some non-Traveller cursory texts provided Irish governmental justification for assimilation policies, still powerful today. Travellers have hitherto been labelled as part of a dysfunctional and dying subculture of poverty, but, against this, Helleiner's scrupulous examination of archival sources, combined with her own ethnography, demonstrates considerable continuities in Traveller practices. There are wonderful accounts of work patterns, many of which are overlooked or undervalued by the dominant society. The Travellers' ever-ingenious role in recycling brings yet new surprises."

"This outstanding anthropological monograph instructs us in similarities and differences among Travellers and groups known as Gypsies or Roma beyond regional and national borders. It supersedes all previous work on Irish Travellers and should be a standard text in the field."

Another serious work on the Irish Travellers is Ethnicity and history: the Irish traveller in Irish writing, by Mary Burke of Queen's University Belfast.

[all sources are available on lexis-nexis.]

Moussaoui's lawyers have come out swinging at yesterday's filing by the Government stating that Moussaoui is linked to one of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11.

"Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui challenged the government Wednesday to prove that their client, indicted as a terrorist, is linked to a Sept. 11 suicide hijacker through a phone number on the attacker's business card."

"The lawyers, assisting Moussaoui while he represents himself, called the link disclosed by prosecutors Tuesday a "thin reed" and added: "If there is more to this, let's see it." The link was a telephone number on a business card recovered at the Shanksville, Pa. crash site of United Airlines Flight 93..."

We reported a while ago on the new Drug Enforcement Administration Museum exibit in D.C. Instapundit today leads us to a powerful, scathing opinion piece on the exhibit by Radley Balko on the Fox News Website called Drugs and Terrorism.

Radley says "the Drug Enforcement Administration has again engaged in a propaganda campaign aimed at likening drug-using Americans to the most notorious financiers of terrorism...It's ... hypocritical. Because it is the actions of the U.S. government in its tedious drug war -- not drug users -- that has supported international terrorists, rained domestic terror down on U.S. citizens and created the black market that proves to be so lucrative for shady international villains."

Go read the whole thing.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers today issued a statement on yesterday's federal court decision in Vermont ruling the federal death penalty unconstitutional.

NACDL President Larry Goldman called upon President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft to implement a national moratorium on the death penalty. In addition to the number of innocents on death row and issues surrounding the mentally ill and juvenile offenders, he said "We should also consider the international climate...As the only NATO member continuing to employ the death penalty, we are jeopardizing the cooperation we seek in the war on terror."

The bipartisan Innocence Protection Act has picked up another four co-sponors in Congress:

Joel Hefley (R-CO)
Jane Harman (D-CA)
Scott McInnis (R-CO)
Xavier Becerra (D-CA)

There are now 246 co-sponsors of the bill.

Yesterday, the Justice Project's Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform delivered more than 135,000 petitions to all 100 U.S. Senators urging them to enact laws protecting the innocent from wrongful conviction and execution.

The petitioners ask their senators to ensure that every person accused of a capital crime has competent, experienced counsel and that those convicted of a crime have access to DNA testing of evidence. Both of these safeguards are provisions of the pending bill.

The legislation was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 12-7 vote in July. The counterpart House bill is now cosponsored by 246 members of Congress, including 64 Republicans - more than half the membership of the House. Representatives William Delahunt (D-Massachusetts) and Ray LaHood (R-Illinois) are the lead House sponsors of the bill.

In addition to the petitions, the Justice Project reports that 18,392 faxes were sent to Senators over the last two years by supporters of the Innocence Protection Act, bringing the overall number of petitions to 154,302. For a breakdown of the numbers, as well as a full listing of the bills' cosponsors by state, the legislation overview, and endorsements from prosecutors, victims groups, and other organizations, go here.

These petitions demonstrate that the American public wants their elected representatives to act to correct our nation's flawed capital punishment system.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the bill's leading Senate sponsor, said: "The death penalty system is broken, and reforming it should be a priority for this Congress and for the administration. Waiting another year to finish this work might not seem like a long time for those of us in Congress, but for an innocent person on death row, it can be a lifetime."

If you want to add your voice, here's how.

ABC News has a special report on false confessions.

Also, Prime Time Thursday will highlight the Central Park Jogger case with an interview with Matias Reyes saying he was alone that night. We will weigh in on this again after watching Matias.

From the ABC article:

"Just as DNA evidence has raised questions about traditional crime-fighting tools such as fingerprinting and eyewitness testimony, a slew of recent cases have shed light on the frequency of false confessions. "

"Of the 110 exonerations due to post-conviction DNA evidence in recent years, 27 included confessions as evidence, according to the non-profit legal clinic Innocence Project. "That number is really shocking," said Richard Ofshe, a leading expert on false confessions and University of California at Berkeley professor. Systemwide, no one knows how often phony confessions occur. "

"In my wildest fears I do not imagine the number can be 20 percent. On the other hand, if that's the result to come out of the Innocence Project, that's really scary," Ofshe said. Indeed, dubious confessions have surfaced in several recent exonerations, reopened cases and police abuse lawsuits."

"The infamous Central Park Jogger case, thought long solved, will go to court again in October even though five teens who confessed already served their sentences. Now, a convicted rapist-murderer says he committed the brutal 1989 rape and beating of a New York City woman. In an interview to air on ABCNEWS' Primetime on Thursday, the man, Matias Reyes, says no one else was involved: "I was alone that night."

"Falsely admitting to a crime may seem unfathomable to those who have never stepped inside a police interrogation room. Experts say the young, old, mentally or emotionally disabled, and people with substance abuse problems are particularly vulnerable to coercion."

"Asking a jury to judge the credibility of a confession without seeing the interrogation is like a medical examiner conducting an autopsy without a body," [Professor Saul] Kassin said.

"Taping interrogations can also protect police from false accusations of abuse and coercion, Ryan said. "Courts have already ruled police can lie, as long as I am not using any force on the suspect it's OK," he said. "

For more on false confessions and other forms of injustice, visit TalkLeft's Injustices page.

Who is responsible for blowing the search warrant for Zacarias Moussaoui's computer? According to the congressional committee hearing evidence on intelligence gathering, it was the lawyers for the FBI .

"The frantic efforts of Minnesota FBI agents to search the computer and belongings of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 were thwarted by lawyers at FBI headquarters who misunderstood the law on foreign intelligence surveillance warrants, a congressional committee was told yesterday."

"Had the agents succeeded in obtaining a special intelligence warrant in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, they would have found materials that could have led them to al Qaeda members -- including hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi -- who had gathered for a key meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), a member of the panel, said yesterday."

The lawyers worked for the F.B.I.'s National Security Law Center. The Congressional committee report says that they "advised FBI counterterrorism officials that agents did not have enough evidence to seek an FISA warrant. One of the lawyers said that Moussaoui would have to be linked to a "recognized" foreign power, which the committee staff's report called "a misunderstanding of FISA."

What does this all point to? "A serious deficiency in the FBI's knowledge and understanding of the radical fundamentalist network in the United States."

Aileen Wuornos, 44, one of the nation's first known female serial killers, was convicted of fatally shooting six middle-aged men along Florida highways in 1989 and 1990. Her story has been portrayed in two movies, three books and an opera. She is now on death row in Florida, scheduled to be executed on October 9.

At the time of the killings, Wuornos was working as a highway prostitute. She said all of the men violentlyattacked her. She was only tried once for the murder of one of the men. Her lawyer had her plead guilty to the other five. Here are details of her case which some believe indicate she acted in self-defense and didn't receive either a fair trial or effective assistance of counsel. Her supporters also say sexism, anti-lesbian and anti-prostitute prejudice were used to condemn her to death.

Wuernos wants to die. In April she received permission from the Court to drop her appeals and fire her lawyers.

But she has a civil suit pending against her prison guards. And the Court appointed a lawyer, Raag Singhal, to represent her. Raag Singaal is chair of the Prisons Committee for the National Associatoin of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Raag says in papers filed recently in the U.S. Supreme Court that he has grave concerns about Wournos' competency.

In the civil lawsuit, "Wuornos accuses prison guards of trying to harass her 'to death' and drive her to suicide. In her 25-page handwritten court filing, Wuornos also accuses prison staff of tainting her food, spitting on it and serving her potatoes cooked in dirt."

Singhal tells the Court, "The specific claims she raises ... if untrue appear to be evidence of delusional behavior." He also says, "Wuornos acted strangely, laughed and cried unexpectedly and obsessed on unimportant points during the hours he met with her over the summer."

Singhal is seeking to have Wuornos examined by court-appointed psychologists.

Governor Bush's position: He "... 'absolutely' believed Wuornos was competent when he signed her death warrant Sept. 5."

We are not comfortable with Governor Bush as the final arbiter on the matter. We hope the Supreme Court orders her examined. The state of Florida should not engage in either state-assisted suicide or the killing of a mentally ill woman. Why are we still sinking to these levels?

From today's Washington Post: INS Officers Charged in Immigrant's Death --another case of police brutality.

"In an early morning raid in March 2001, federal agents burst into a house northwest of Houston, arrested 20 illegal immigrants and beat one of them, Serafin Olvera-Carrera, to the point of paralysis. Olvera was never able to speak again, and he died of his injuries 11 months later."

"Today, three of the agents, all from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, were charged with violating the civil rights of Olvera, a father of five who had been in the country a decade legally before allowing his immigration status to lapse just before the raid."

"The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Houston, charges one of the INS officers, Carlos Reyna, with giving Olvera a beating that apparently caused a traumatic injury to his spinal cord. Another officer, Richard Gonzales, was charged with dousing him with pepper spray. Both of those agents as well as a third, Louis Gomez, were charged with denying him medical care. All the agents were based in the San Antonio INS office. If convicted, the agents face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000."