The Washington Post has an editorial today opposing the retrial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. It labels the verdict an "extraordinary rebuke" to the Government:

With moral thunder in December 2008, the aggressive prosecutor declared that the state's chief executive was nabbed "in the middle of what we can only describe as a public corruption crime spree." Mr. Fitzgerald added, "The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave." Yet on Tuesday, 20 months later, a federal jury was unmoved. In an extraordinary rebuke, Mr. Blagojevich was convicted on only one of 24 counts against him.

It ends:

Mr. Fitzgerald is entitled under the law to drag the ex-governor back into court. He has the resources to do so and the motivation: The Blagojevich brand of politics is repugnant, beyond any doubt. It perverts democracy and puts moneyed interests over the common good. But the prosecutor took his shot and lost. He should stand down before crossing another fine line -- the one that separates prosecution from persecution.

[More...]

Open Thread.

Delicious new Fox News controversy:

Confronted with the Port Authority's verdict, Father Mark Arey, of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, said it's the first he's heard that. "Negotiations did break off last year. We were expecting to hear from their lawyers -- we never did. We're still expecting to hear from them," he told Fox News. "We're disappointed. ... 130 Liberty Street was promised to us."

[. . . ] The Port Authority and the church announced a deal in July 2008 under which the Port Authority would grant land and up to $20 million to help rebuild the church -- in addition, the authority was willing to pay up to $40 million to construct a bomb-proof platform underneath. Within a year, the deal fell through and talks ended -- apparently for good, according to the Port Authority.

[. . .] The Port Authority has previously claimed the church was making additional demands -- like wanting the $20 million up front and wanting to review plans for the surrounding area. They say the church can still proceed on its own if it wishes. [. . .] "The church continues to have the right to rebuild at their original site, and we will pay fair market value for the underground space beneath that building," a spokesperson with the Port Authority told Fox News.

See? They let them build a mosque but not a Christian church! Sharia Law! The Terrorists Win! Except for the fact that the Cordoba Center is not asking for any money from anyone and wants to build on the site they own. And that the Christian Church can do exactly the same thing. More . .

I'm on a short break from court, but I just saw that a Peruvian court of appeals has ordered Lori Berenson back to prison. I'll check the details later but my initial reaction is how awful and wrong-headed.

Open thread.

Farhad Manjoo:

After watching several of these hashtags from start to finish and talking to a few researchers who've studied trends on Twitter, I've got some potential answers to these questions. Black people—specifically, young black people—do seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network—they follow one another more readily, they retweet each other more often, and more of their posts are @-replies—posts directed at other users. It's this behavior, intentional or not, that gives black people—and in particular, black teenagers—the means to dominate the conversation on Twitter.

[More...}

Harold Meyerson writes:

Not to be difficult, mind you, but what is it that the Democrats see themselves running on in the next 75 days -- or, for that matter, the next two years? Health-care reform? Since many of its benefits don't kick in until 2014, it exists in the minds of millions of Americans chiefly as a nebulous threat.

Jacob Hacker writes:

Sen. Tom Harkin put the point well when he described the health bill as a "starter home." What Harkin neglected to mention is that the home isn't built yet, and the construction zone is in the path of a hurricane -- the fast-approaching storm of runaway health costs and hard-core conservative opposition. In the face of these challenges, reformers have three great priorities: implementing the law, protecting and defending it from the already-mounting attacks, and renovating and improving Harkin's "starter home" to make it a sustainable structure. The next health-care battle will require organization, narrative, and strategy at least as much as the last did. And this time, reformers will need to call plainly for a greater government role -- armed, if they take their three big tests seriously, with concrete examples of government getting things right.

Atrios comments:

In an attempt to score political points, James Taranto asks "Is Harry Reid Un-American" because Reid issued a statement in which he stated that the yet to be built Cordoba Center ("Ground Zero Mosque" to Republicans) should be moved to another site. Taranto mocks Greg Sargent's coverage of the spectacle (I've criticized Greg myself, but because of his fixation on pols' reactions to the Cordoba Center "issue.")

Underpinning this discussion is the notion that the United States has always been a tolerant country, welcoming to all. This myth is exemplified by the Statue of Liberty, with Emma Lazarus' famous words - "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The reality of the American attitude to "The Other" has of course been quite different. From the Original Sin of slavery to the periodic bouts of nativism, xenophobia, bigotry and overt hatred ("No Irish Allowed," Jim Crow, AZ SB 1070),the American attitude towards the Other has been largely intolerant. But the United States is in no way unique in this (see, e.g., European history and present, Islamist extremism, and basically, the history of man.) [ More...]

From 2003: It is better than 5, 10, 20, or 100 guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be put to death. This principle is embodied in the presumption of innocence. In 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision in the case Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. traced the presumption of innocence, past England, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and, at least according to Greenleaf, to Deuteronomy. [also, Alexander Volokh wrote a law review article on the issue, available free here.]

The Coffin case stands for the proposition that at the request of a defendant, a court must not only instruct on the prosecution's burden of proof--that a defendant cannot be convicted unless the government has proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt--but also must instruct on the presumption of innocence--by informing the jury that a defendant is presumed innocent. The Court stated,

The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.

The opinion goes on to trace the history of the presumption of innocence:[More...]

Update: More on the jury split:

In some cases it was 7-5. In others it was 6-6. On some counts, there was just one holdout. [Foreman] Matsumoto said they cast their votes on secret ballots.

Juror Erik Sarnello said many jurors were overwhelmed and confused by the Government's case and presentation.

“I think honestly it confused some people, just the way they presented it,” he said. “We followed a timeline because [prosecutors] didn’t really follow a timeline at all. They jumped around from ‘this year, that year.’ ”

It wasn't a case of just one holdout juror:[More...]

[Video no longer available]

A very defiant Rod Blagojevich addresses reporters in a statement after the verdict. It's really worth watching.

The false statement charge to the FBI was made during a voluntary interview he gave to agents in 2005. Rod says the FBI wouldn't let him have a stenographer present during the interview. It wasn't taped. He says he want's the people of Illinois to know he didn't lie to the FBI. He thanks the jurors for their hard work. And he castigates the feds for persecuting him. He vows to appeal the false statement conviction. In a nutshell: [More...]

After all the hooplah, the Government convicted former Illiniois Governor Rod Blagojevich of just one count, making a false statement to the FBI in 2005 (now known as the "Martha Stewart" offense." It carries a maximum of five years in prison.

The jury did not agree on the RICO counts or the wire fraud, extortion, bribery, or related conspiracy and attempt counts. [More...]

This is not a win for the Government. It's a loss. What did this trial cost the taxpayers? Rod undoubtedly will go to prison on the false statement charge, isn't that enough of a pound of flesh?

With court approval, Rod's legal fees were paid with his campaign fund at reduced appointed counsel rates. The fund is now empty. If Rod uses court-appointed counsel for the next trial, it will come out of CJA funds. (Robert paid his own legal fees.)