As TalkLeft noted earlier this year, Robert Lee Stinson's Wisconsin homicide conviction was vacated, and Stinson was awarded a new trial, after new DNA testing cast considerable doubt upon his guilt. Stinson's 1985 conviction was based largely on the (now discredited) pseudo-science of bite mark identification.

Yesterday, prosecutors conceded that they could not prove Stinson's guilt and dismissed the charges. Despite spending nearly two dozen of his years behind bars, Stinson said he's learned to put the bitterness of his wrongful conviction behind him.

Stinson is the twelfth Wisconsin inmate set free by the remarkably effective Wisconsin Innocence Project.

Three Democratic candidates are campaigning to replace Robert Morgenthau, who is retiring as Manhattan's district attorney upon completion of his current term.

Leslie Crocker Snyder, Richard Aborn and Cyrus Vance Jr. All are campaigning on preventing crime and providing alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders. But at a Crain’s breakfast forum in midtown, Messrs. Aborn and Vance contrasted their unwavering opposition to capital punishment to the change in Ms. Snyder’s view since she lost to Mr. Morgenthau in 2005.

Snyder ("a retired judge who once offered to personally administer a lethal injection to a convict") cites her investigation of the reasons for Jeffrey Deskovic's wrongful conviction as the cause of her change of heart about the death penalty. The more cynically minded might think that political calculation accounts for Snyder's conversion. Interestingly, Deskovic is among those who questions Snyder's explanation. [more ...]

Huffington Post is expanding to several cities to focus on local news. Denver is one of the cities. The Washington Post reports that Ethan Axelrod, the 22 year old son of Obama advisor David Axlerod, will be running the Denver edition. David Axlerod was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune before beoming a political advisor.

The younger Axelrod started yesterday as editor of the Huffington Post's new local edition in Denver, the third of a dozen planned sites that have already launched in New York and Chicago and will next target Los Angeles. He applied for the job, was interviewed by Arianna Huffington along with other candidates, and was tapped after submitting a mockup of the Denver home page. The site goes live in September.

Welcome to Denver, Ethan. I think it's great we'll be getting a new quality news site, especially now that we're down to one local paper.

Very ugly reports are coming out about the treatment of detainees in Iran after the election.

Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards, in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others said they had their fingernails ripped off, or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls.

....More bruised corpses have been returned to families in recent days, and some hospital officials told human rights workers they have seen evidence that well over 100 protesters have been killed since the elections.

The article contains links to the sites where you can read the personal stories. The Times says some of the sites have been reliable in the past.

The Gates arrest and its aftermath proves that the discussion of race and its impact on life in the United States continues to stir emotion. The discussion is nonetheless important. It's too easy for members of one racial or ethnic group to ignore or remain ignorant of the perceptions commonly held by members of other races and ethnicities.

Too rarely does the discussion include the nation's indigenous peoples. Brenda Golden provides this brief account of the injustices Native Americans have endured from the days of conquest to the present. She reminds us that the native leaders who resisted conquest or mistreatment "were branded an enemy and thrown in prison if not killed in battle."

Many of these leaders were imprisoned for long periods of time; Geronimo died a prisoner of the US at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on February 17, 1909.

This reminder is particularly timely given that Leonard Peltier's "first full parole hearing in 15 years" was held today. The results should be known in about three weeks. [more ... including a new addendum to the original post]

Scott Roeder, accused of murdering Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, has entered pleas of not guilty following a preliminary hearing today.

The New York Times has more details of the witness testimony at the hearing.

Only one Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. It was Sen. Lindsay Graham. The final vote was 13 to 6.

Judge Sotomayor will undoubtedly be confirmed when the full Senate votes.

Heeding Pat Buchanan's advice, the Republican Party is just saying No to Latinos, be they Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina nominee for the Supreme Court, or La Raza:

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, has been holding its annual conference over the past few days in Chicago. Speakers have included Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, Rep. Luis Guitierrez (D-IL), and others.

Republicans are conspicuously absent from the line-up. Greg Sargent spoke with NCLR spokesperson Marie Watteau, who said that it wasn’t for lack of trying. In fact, the group invited RNC chairman Michael Steele, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, but they all “declined the invitations through the RNC.”

Excellent.

Speaking for me only

Via Rolling Stone: Phil Spector ended up at Cocaran, in its Substance Abuse and Treatment Facility. Charles Manson is at the prison in Cocaran.

Apparently the proximity generated a creative spark: According to the New York Post’s Page Six, Manson reached out to the “Wall of Sound” producer seeking a behind-bars musical meet-up.

“A guard brought Philip a note from Manson, who said he wanted him to come over to his [lockup]. He said he considers Philip the greatest producer who ever lived,” Spector’s wife Rachelle — a colorful personality who often bickered with the judge during Phil’s murder trials — told Page Six. “It was creepy. Philip didn’t respond.” [More...]

The DEA searched the Las Vegas medical office and home of Michael Jackson physician Dr. Conrad Murray today.

"We are looking for documents" related to the death of Michael Jackson, said Michael Flanagan, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Las Vegas.

Last week they searched his office and storage locker in Houston: [More...]

via John Cole, this is funny. YouTube clip is dead - try here.

The 911 caller who reported two men possibly breaking into the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. did not describe their race, acknowledged they might just be having a hard time with the door and said she saw two suitcases on the porch. . . . The officer who arrested Gates, Sgt. James Crowley, said in his police report that he talked to Whalen soon after he arrived at Gates' home. "She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch," Crowley, who's white, wrote in his report.

Whalen's attorney, Wendy Murphy, said her client never mentioned the men's race to Crowley and is upset by news reports she believes have unfairly depicted her as a racist.

Perhaps someone can ask Officer Crowley about that.

Speaking for me only