by TChris

The federal sentencing guidelines suggest that former Gov. John Rowland should receive 15 to 21 months in prison for "trading political access for more than $100,000 in chartered trips to Las Vegas, Vermont vacations and repairs to his lakeside cottage." But the guidelines after Booker are merely advisory, and Rowland's lawyers are taking advantage of that change to ask that Rowland be spared incarceration.

In a sentencing memorandum filed Thursday morning in New Haven federal court, Rowland's attorney, William F. Dow III, portrayed the three-term Republican, as a devoted public servant who made mistakes in delegating authority to people in his administration who have since been indicted on corruption charges.

Rowland is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow.

As we reported here yesterday, the only witness against Bernard Ebbers who directly implicated him in the WorldCom fraud was the company's former CFO, Scott Sullivan, who was testifying in exchange for a reduced sentence in his own case.

After the verdict, some jurors said they had difficulty with Scott Sullivan's testimony and did not entirely believe it. They said they searched for evidence to corroborate Sullivan's contentions that Ebbers knew about, endorsed and at times directed Sullivan to engage in the fraudulent accounting practices that led to the massive $11 billion loss.

"The most difficult thing was to find the evidence that supported the conviction without relying on Scott Sullivan," Aran Nulty, an elementary school teacher and juror No. 10, told the paper. "The testimony of Mr. Sullivan was not enough by itself. A lot of us struggled with his testimony. His testimony did not have enough credibility for us to come to a conviction based on what he said."

What exactly was that corroborating evidence? I don't see it. The case was Scott Sullivan. Sullivan was on the stand for five days, relentlessly attacking Ebbers. Ebbers testified, doing well on direct examination and not so well on cross-examination. But he didn't say anything that corroborated Sullivan. And Sullivan was the mastermind of the false accounting scheme.

Jackson Trial Update
Wednesday March 16

Via the AP:

"MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS: The lead investigator in the Michael Jackson child molestation case testified that the accuser "choked up" when first interviewed about the alleged crimes and that the boy said there were five to seven incidents but could only describe two of them in detail."

"Prosecutors also showed the jury numerous adult magazines and some videos and books seized at Neverland but law enforcement witnesses offered no evidence that the accuser saw the items, some dated months after the family left Neverland. The witnesses said the items were legal and commercially available."

Law enforcement agents will continue their testimony tomorrow about items seized from Neverland during the execution of search warrants.

by TChris

It all came down to this:

"They couldn't put the gun in his hand," jury foreman Thomas Nicholson told reporters outside court.

And this:

The police "convicted Mr. Blake on the night of the murder, and then they conducted an incompetent investigation," defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach said.

And so a jury that took seriously its oath to follow the law found reason to doubt that Robert Blake killed his wife, acquitting him of murder and of soliciting murder after nine days of deliberation. Kudos to the defense team for exposing the gaps in the prosecution's evidence.

I'll be doing an online chat about the Scott Peterson death sentence today for the Washington Post at 3:00 p.m. ET, one hour from now. You can submit your questions now and follow along here.

by TChris

Scott Peterson has been sentenced to death.

Judge Alfred A. Delucchi denied a defense request for a new trial before upholding the jury's recommendation that he be sentenced to death, calling the slayings of Laci and her fetus "cruel, uncaring, heartless and callous."

TalkLeft's coverage of the case is collected here.

by TChris

Honolulu is apparently such a crime-free city that undercover police officers have time to get lap dances. Mary Ann Keawe was arrested for prostitution (defined as an exchange of money for sexual contact, even through clothing) 20 days after she performed a lap dance on an undercover cop.

The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the delay resulted in an illegal arrest, because the police had ample time to obtain an arrest warrant. The ruling doesn't help Keawe, because the court held that her remedy wasn't dismissal of the charge, but suppression of any evidence obtained as a result of the arrest. Since the evidence (the officer's account of what he saw and felt during the dance) was gathered before the arrest, there was nothing to suppress.

"I find that disturbing, that there is no remedy (for the illegal arrest)," said Earle Partington, who filed a brief on the case with the Supreme Court on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Even more disturbing is the waste of resources that Honolulu devoted to the arrest and prosecution of lap dancers. Keawe's attorney estimates that at least 200 similar prosecutions have been on hold, awaiting the decision in Keawe's case.

by TChris

Seven defendants are asking the public to come to their trial in Brooklyn next week. Here's their side of the story:

In November of 2003, police arrived at a house party of community folks, mostly people of color, who are organizers and educators against the prison-industrial complex. Without provocation, police beat and seriously injured several of us, then arrested eight people of color. The arrestees have had criminal charges heaped on them. Seven are going to trial next week.

The "Brooklyn 7" believe that community support will help assure a fair trial. March 21 is the start date of the 2-week trial. It should be interesting.

You would think Ken Lay's lawyers would be shaking in their Texas boots after yesterday's conviction of Worldcom's Bernard Ebbers. Not so. Lay may have been more hands-off and less involved in the financial aspects of Enron than Ebbers was at WorldCom. His lawyer, Mike Ramsey, says another big difference will be the cooperating co-conspirators: Andrew Fastow is not Scott Sullivan.

"At Enron we had a trusted employee who was stealing and hiding his theft from the people above him," Ramsey said of ex-CFO Andrew Fastow. "But Sullivan at WorldCom appears to be just a cheat, and not a cheat and a thief."

As many credibility problems that Sullivan had, I think Fastow may have even more. He kept denying his and Ken Lay's involvement until the very end--when his wife was either going to have to go to trial or take a deal. The Government said no deal for Lea Fastow unless Andrew pleaded guilty and took a ten year hit. That' not only purchasing Fastow's testimony, it's practically extorting it. How credible is a man going to be whose testimony was obtained by threatening the mother of their two young children with a long prison sentence....or a five month sentence, to be served after he goes in so the children don't spend any time without at least one parent?

Brian Nichols' has a new lawyer, Chris Adams, and he's an outstanding capital defense lawyer. Chris is the Director of the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender.

Chris has been the Capital Resource Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL). During that time, he spent his time at the Southern Center for Human Rights, trying cases. Here's one of his big wins. Here's another. He regularly participates in death penalty training for defense lawyers like this one, (which lawyers refer to as death camp.)

Who becomes a death penalty defender? While each defender has his or her own reasons, here is Chris' background.

The verdict is in on Bernie Ebbers in the WorldCom trial. Guilty on all counts.

If you haven't been following the case, the New York Times has a good audio slide account.

Thanks to Political Teen who put up this video of our Ebbers comments today on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast.

Background and trial developments here, here and here.

Courtwatch commentator Andrew Cohen, writing about the accuser's cross-examination Monday by Thomas Mesereau:

"If prosecutors were hoping that Michael Jackson's accuser would come to the witness stand Monday and cement into place their case, they surely are disappointed, and perhaps even mortified, by the young man's courtroom demeanor and testimony. The alleged molestation victim did not talk or act like one in court. And on Monday, during the heart of the prosecution's case, no part of his story was immune from serious and substantial questions about its accuracy or reliability."