After hearing three days of testimony in a Florida courtroom, the Judge ruled against the muslim woman who claimed a religious right to wear her veil in her drivier's license photo .

... Circuit Judge Janet C. Thorpe ruled that the state has a compelling interest in protecting the public, and that having photo identification was essential to that interest. Thorpe also said Sultaana Freeman's right to free exercise of religion would not be infringed by having to show her face on her license.

The Judge in the Scott Peterson case refused to issue a gag order in the case. He also refused to unseal the autopsy reports.

After her Indictment was disclosed today, Martha Stewart posted a letter on her website, that included the following:

To My Friends and Loyal Supporters,

After more than a year, the government has decided to bring charges against me for matters that are personal and entirely unrelated to the business of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. I want you to know that I am innocent -
and that I will fight to clear my name.

I simply returned a call from my stockbroker. Based in large part on prior discussions with my broker about price, I authorized a sale of my remaining shares in a biotech company called ImClone. I later denied any wrongdoing in public statements and in voluntary interviews with prosecutors. The government's attempt to criminalize these actions makes no sense to me.

I am confident I will be exonerated of these baseless charges, but a trial unfortunately won't take place for months. I want to thank you for your extraordinary support during the past year - I appreciate it more than you will ever know.

For more information, please visit the special website I have established for you at www.marthatalks.com. I will do my best to post current information about the case, and you will be able to contact me there at martha@marthatalks.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

The New York Times Thursday has an article on prosecutors stalking celebrities. You can read the full text of the Indictment here. And don't miss her lawyer's statement in response to the charges.

Martha Stewart has been indicted. She appeared in court, was released on her own recognizance and pleaded not guilty.

The 41-page indictment unsealed on Wednesday charges Stewart with securities fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and making false statements to prosecutors and the FBI. The charges stem " from her alleged involvement in the ImClone insider-trading scandal.....

Stewart, 61, accompanied by her lawyer, entered the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of Manhattan just after 3 p.m. and took notes throughout the 10-minute proceeding. She wore a tan, light-weight wool pantsuit and large diamond stud earrings.

"How do you plead to the indictment?" Cedarbaum asked. Stewart, who appeared strained, answered crisply and emphatically, "not guilty."

We think this case is political. We're angry about it. In fact, even though we haven't been much of a Martha Stewart fan before, we reformed last night by buying our first copy of Martha Stewart Living at the grocery store. This investigation has caused her a fortune--it's been a guy thing and a power play since day 1. As her lawyer posited today in a written statement asserting her innocence,

"Is it for publicity purposes because Martha Stewart is a celebrity? Is it because she is a woman who has successfully competed in a man's business world by virtue of her talent, hard work and demanding standards?"

We believe the answer is a resounding "yes." Fight, Martha, fight.

If you're for Martha, and want to express yourself, here's how, according to this article from Reuters:

John Small, who founded the Save Martha Web site, wrote: "What Martha Stewart did is the corporate equivalent of jaywalking, but they are treating her like she's guilty of genocide!"

Love Martha? Think she's been mistreated? Head to www.savemartha.com to tell the Internet world. Want to spread the message further? Spend a few bucks on a "Save Martha" mug, T-shirt, apron or chef's hat.

Shareholders ...were asked to weigh in on Tuesday as they made their way to Martha Stewart Living's annual meeting in midtown Manhattan. Outside the building, dozens of photographers, reporters, producers and cameramen swarmed about, shouting questions or snapping pictures.

"Is Stewart guilty?" [a shareholder named] Sawka was asked by someone in a crowd of reporters. "I'm no Gypsy, but I still say 'Go Martha!"' responded Sawka, who had taken a bus from Connecticut to attend her first shareholder meeting.

Martha's lawyer, Robert Morvillo, says she will fight all the way and go to trial. We're glad to hear it. Fight, Martha, Fight. [that's what our tee-shirt would say.]

P.S. For a serious account of the Stewart news today, here is the morning AP story. We think the Government would be wise to forego the insider trading charge and limit the indictment to obstruction of justice. It's less technical and we think there will be less public resentment.

We're also troubled by the witness against her --her former stockbroker who is singing for his supper--you can't trust testimony when it's purchased with promises of freedom or leniency. We'll be looking to see who else, if anyone, provides evidence Martha sold the ImClone stock because she knew it was going to tank. Sam Waksal sure didn't.

Martha Stewart's attempts to get higher-ups at the Justice Department to intervene with the U.S. Attorneys' Office in New York has failed. Justice Department officials refused to meet with her representatives.

Experts say it is likely the local federal proseuctors made Stewart a final plea offer, and that she wanted to go above them. They speculate the offer could involve jail time.

The terms of the proposed settlement have not been made public. But the government has been veering away from insider trading charges to the lesser offence of obstructing an investigation, according to people familiar with negotiations.

That would still have serious consequences: federal sentencing guidelines mean that Ms Stewart could face prison time. A criminal plea would also prevent her from serving as an officer of her publicly-held company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

The case could be settled this week. The prosecutors might yet elect to refer the case to the SEC for civil charges. We hope so. We can't imagine any benefit to the public of Ms. Stewart going to jail. Good luck, Martha.

Update: Several readers posted comments to this post, they got lost in the server move. Sorry about that. If you feel like, post some more.

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The feds will try accused bomber Eric Rudolph first in Alabama, then in Atlanta.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the legal maneuver of trying the single case in Alabama before three others in Georgia will ''provide the best opportunity to bring justice to all of the victims of the bombings and to each community that experienced these attacks.''

....Rudolph faces six charges of using an explosive against a facility in interstate commerce and could face the death penalty. Besides the Olympic and Birmingham bombings, he is accused of 1997 bombings in Atlanta outside a gay nightclub and an office building that housed an abortion clinic. In all, two people were killed and about 150 injured in the four attacks.

Rudolph's former sister-in-law described some of his beliefs on Good Morning America this morning.

Former sister-in-law Deborah Rudolph, who helped develop a profile for investigators, told ABC's ''Good Morning America'' that Rudolph believed that whites should further their race and opposed abortion because it was killing, in his view, too many white babies. And he had particularly harsh feelings about Jews, she said.

'I think he hated the Jews more than probably any other race,'' she said. ''He felt that, you know, they've been run out of every country they've ever been in. They've destroyed every country they've ever been in. They have too much control in our country. ''

You can read the Alabama Indictment against him here.

Eric Rudolph was arrested in North Carolina. He is suspected of being responsible for the bomb placed at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996 that killed one person and injured another 100 people. He is also a suspect in the 1998 bombing of the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham, Alabama that killed a police officer and maimed a nurse.

So where will he be tried first, Alabama or Georgia? The decision is going to be up to Attorney General Ashcroft. But Alabama officials are lobbying mightily to have him tried first in Alabama.

"My view is that the Atlanta case depends on the Birmingham evidence. There was nothing to link him to the Atlanta bombing before Birmingham," said former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones.

Jones, who was the top federal prosecutor in north Alabama at the height of the manhunt, said the Janet Reno Justice Department agreed years ago to try Rudolph in Birmingham first because officials felt the evidence here was stronger.

With a new regime in charge at the Justice Department, any prior agreements have been scrapped. Ashcroft has asked prosecutors in Atlanta and Birmingham to submit memos to him to assist him in making the final decision.

We're not sure it makes that much of a difference. The Government will go with the case that has the strongest direct evidence linking Rudolph to the crimes. This isn't like the sniper case where Ashcroft shopped for the forum most likely to impose the death penalty. Since Rudolph will be tried in federal court, the laws and the sentencing guidelines are the same. It would be a black eye for the Government to try him in a jurisdiction and lose. So look for Ascroft to pick the stronger case to try first from an evidentiary standpoint--regardless of which district has the greater emotional investment in a conviction.

The Washington Post has more on the upcoming decision here.

The Justice Department can -- and likely will -- seek the death penalty for Rudolph, regardless of where he is tried.....A Justice Department official said that Ashcroft will base his decision on where to try Rudolph first on the strength of the evidence in all the cases. "Where do we have the strongest evidence?" he said.

The Post also examines whether Rudolph was a "Christian Terrorist."

The question is not just whether Rudolph is a terrorist, or whether he considers himself a Christian. It is whether he planted bombs at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub to advance a religious ideology -- and how numerous, organized and violent others who share that ideology may be.

1996 Olympic Bomb Suspect Eric Rudolph, last seen in 1998, has been arrested in the mountains of North Carolina. Rudolph appeared to be a homeless person rummaging through a trash bin at the time he was caught.

Rudolph had eluded a massive manhunt, much of it in the North Carolina mountains, for five years and was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. The FBI had offered a $1 million reward for his capture.

....Authorities spent years searching the rural mountains and caves of western North Carolina for any trace of Rudolph. They ran across some camping sites believed to be his and found cartons of oatmeal and raisins, jars of peanuts and vitamins, and cans of tuna they said were the same brands Rudolph ate.

Rudolph, a Florida native who moved to North Carolina in 1981, is believed to adhere to Christian Identity, a white supremacist religion that is anti-gay, anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner. Some of the four bombs Rudolph was charged with planting included messages from the shadowy "Army of God."

....Pockets of western North Carolina have had a reputation as a haven for right-wing extremists. Some there mocked the government's inability to find Rudolph with bloodhounds, infrared-equipped helicopters and space-age motion detectors and some said they would hide him if asked.

When we first heard that Laci Peterson's parents went to the Peterson house this afternoon to pick up her belongings, we assumed the D.A. and defense had finally agreed on the terms of such an entry and property removal.

It turns out that's not what happened. Laci's parents broke into the house (the locks had been changed, the burglar alarm went off and police had to come to the house,) walked over all the house and removed what they wanted.

That was foolish of them. And wrong. The police have speculated Laci was killed in the house. The house is a crime scene. No evidence obtained from the house from today on will have any integrity.

We don't know if Laci had a will. If not, she died "intestate" and without living children, everything she owned at the time of her death legally becomes Scott's property. Her parents had no right to any of the property.

In other words, the Rochas well may have jeopardized the case against Scott Peterson. No matter how these parents are hurting, they are not allowed to take the law into their own hands. What they did today was an act of vigilantiism. The District Attorney's office should make this clear to them and the Court should enter orders preventing them from accessing the house again until the case is over.

As Atrios says, "It's both the man's home and a crime scene, on both counts the family has really f**ked up here."

John Muhammad, the older of the two suspects charged in the Virginia sniper cases, lost his bid to have the judge dismiss the death penalty charge against him in the Manassas, Virginia case.

Muhammad had argued that he wasn't the shooter and under Virginia law, he wasn't eligible for the death penalty. The Judge said it's too soon to know what the evidence is in the case and that throwing the count out at this point would be premature.

This is curious:

Shapiro said defense lawyers already have a good idea of the evidence in the Meyers shooting, and there is no evidence that Muhammad pulled the trigger or that he participated in the killing to the degree that it would warrant a death sentence.

''With all due respect, he doesn't know what all the evidence is,'' [DA}Conway said.

Why not? Doesn't Virginia have discovery rules that require the DA to turn over investigative reports to the defense well before trial? How can Muhammad prepare for trial without notice of the evidence against him? Trial by ambush is not due process.

More leaks in the Laci Peterson murder case, this time of one page of the autopsy report stating that plastic tape was found around the neck of the Petersons' unborn child.

The DA is now moving to unseal the entire report. We agree with the request, it's better to have the whole report out in the open.

Most experts are speculating that this information is helpful to the defense, because it tends to suggest that the baby was killed separately from the mother. While some people are able to envision Scott Peterson killing his wife, no one reasonably thinks he would intentionally murder the son as well.

We caution that it's too early to draw any conclusions because none of us have enough information. It could be the tape was debris in the water that found its way to the baby's neck--there is no information that the tape was found as a noose around its neck. The tears in the shoulder could be stab wounds--or they could be cuts resulting from encounters with rocks or other sharp objects in the water.

At TalkLeft and in real life, we always side with the presumption of innocence. We have yet to hear of any physical evidence linking Scott Peterson to a deliberate, premeditated killing of his wife and child. Peterson insists he didn't do it. A cad, a cheater, yes. A murderer? We're not buying that.

The case keeps growing in the media with no sign of abating. We'll be debating the newest developments on the O'Reilly Factor tonight, Fox News Channel, 8pm and 11 pm, EST.

Update: ABC News is reporting that they have seen the entire autopsy report and the coroner's photos and the baby's umbilical cord was not attached to the baby's body. "According to the autopsy, the skin of the child was not decomposed at all, though the right side of his body was mutilated, and the placenta and umbilical cord were not found with the body." Up until today, all other news reports we've seen since the bodies were recovered state the opposite: that the umbilical cord was attached to the baby. Several news outlets today reported the autopsy report shows the baby was attached to a 1/2-centimeter section of his umbilical cord. (See also, here.) It's just one more reason not to judge a case based on media reports.

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