The Judge in the sniper case has entered an order declaring that any law enforcement agents who leak information about the sniper case will be subject to prosecution for contempt of court.

Defense lawyers have complained for months about the leaks, some of which have been published in the Washington Post. Friday, the lawyers for John Muhammed obtained subpoenas for five investigators in Prince Williams County and four Washington Post reporters, concerning this April 6 Post article that summarized police reports of suspect John Lee Malvo's statements.

The Judge stopped short of ordering an investigation into the leaks.

A press conference is underway in Modesto, CA where law enforcement announces that DNA tests confirm the unidentified female who washed ashore earlier this week is in fact Laci Peterson, who has been missing since Christmas Eve. Laci was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time. The fetus that washed ashore within a day of Laci is the biological child of her and Scott Peterson. The probability is "in the billions."

Scott Peterson has been arrested. He was arrested between 11 and 12 noon, before they got the final DNA results. Law enforcement determined he had to be arrested at that time. He was arrested while driving a vehicle. Sounds to us like they thought he might flee--perhaps through a wiretap and cell phone records, but the police aren't talking about that.

He will be charged Monday or Tuesday in Stanislaus County, CA with capital murder. The special circumstances are a double homicide. No decision has been made as to seeking the death penalty, although it is an option.

Cause of death has not been determined. Laci spoke with her mother at 8:30 am from her home Christmas Eve morning. That was the last contact with her and there have been no sightings of her alive since. Since Scott Peterson is being charged in the county where she lived as opposed to the county where her body was found, it is likely police believe that Laci was killed in or near their home.

We'll be talking about Scott's possible defenses on Fox News Sunday at 2:35, E.T.

A federal judge today denied bail for Katrina Leung, accused of passing FBI secrets to the Chinese Government. The Judge determined that Leung posed a risk of flight, based upon her extensive foreign assets.

The defense argued that the FBI set Leung up, purposefully providing her with information to pass on to the Chinese. Two FBI agents have admitted long term affairs with Leung, who has been a respectable Los Angeles businesswoman and Republican Activist.

One of the two FBI agents romantically involved with Leung, James J. Smith, was supposed to be her "handler." Smith has been charged with "gross negligence in handling documents related to the national defense." He was released on $250,000. bail.

Leung is charged with "unauthorized copying of national defense information with the intent to injure the United States or benefit a foreign nation." Over the course of the past twenty years, the FBI paid Leung $1.7 million in fees and expenses. She took 71 overseas trips, mostly funded by the FBI.

The judge was not overly impressed with the Government's case.

The judge said the documents she is accused of passing to the Chinese government appear to be "innocuous" and "viewed alone the offense itself does not provide a substantial reason to flee." He said that the maximum sentence that Leung could draw on the current charges is 10 years in prison.

Leung offered to post $3 million in real estate to secure her bond. The Judge refused to accept her proposal, saying that sufficient details about her assets had not yet been revealed.

Leung's husband and other relatives appeared in court and volunteered to post their own property for her bond. Leung has a young son and substantial ties to the community. She knew about the investigation into her affairs since December and did not flee.

We think she should have gotten bail. The judge's comment "The court cannot conclude that the defendant does not pose a danger to the national security" is a far cry from the standard of "clear and convincing evidence" that the Government must produce to establish that a defendant is a danger to the community.

The federal bail statute provides with respect to the Government's burden at a detention hearing:

18 USC Section 3142(f)(2)(B): The facts the judicial officer uses to support a finding pursuant to subsection (e) that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community shall be supported by clear and convincing evidence.

We don't see the difference between FBI agent Smith and Leung. If Smith, her "handler" is bailable, she should be too.

The autopsies have been completed on the bodies of a woman and baby boy that washed up on the California shore yesterday, but the coroner could not identify the bodies. They were badly decomposed and the woman's body is said to be skeletal. Thus, it is not known if the remains are of Laci Peterson and her child.

Police say yesterday's news reports that the woman was in maternity clothing are wrong. They have only recovered a "standard woman's bra."

Many news reports yesterday stated the baby was still attached to an umbilical cord. No word today on whether that is correct.

The bodies washed up two miles from the Berkeley Marina where Scott Peterson, Laci's husband, says he went fishing on Christmas Eve day. His lawyer today said that his client is "very concerned and broken up at the prospect that [the body] may be his wife."

Update: The police are saying they are going to consult with an expert on the decomposition of bodies in water. Here's a site where you can learn about it for yourselves.

John Muhammed, the elder suspect in the D.C. sniper attacks, served in the first Gulf War. His lawyer told the Judge Friday he may have been the victim of a nerve gas or chemical attack.

In Muhammad's case, attorney Jonathan Shapiro said after a court hearing Friday that the defense has specific information that indicates possible exposure to chemical or nerve agents, but he declined to elaborate. "It's not wild conjecture," Shapiro said.

Shapiro mentioned the chemical exposure during the half-hour hearing in which he successfully argued for the appointment of a mitigation expert, who will look for evidence that might aid Muhammad if he is convicted.

Shapiro mentioned Muhammad's service as a Gulf War veteran and "possible exposure to nerve agents and chemical weapons while he was there. There's a whole lot about this man we need to investigate thoroughly."

Shapiro said after the hearing that Muhammad served as an Army engineer during the 1991 war. "

More on Justice in Tulia: See, Justice in a Small Town in today's Texas Lawyer:

It took a dozen lawyers and more than $1 million in donated fees, but last week a cadre of Texas, New York and Washington, D.C., defense lawyers may have extracted a bit of justice for 38 defendants in Tulia, Texas, who the lawyers say were wrongly convicted in a sweeping drug bust four years ago. Last week the prosecution and the defense agreed to stipulate that the police officer involved in the arrests was not credible.

Why did the lawyers volunteer? Here's the story as to one of them, Jeff Blackburn, a sole practitioner from Amarillo, Texas. By January of this year, Jeff had spent more than 2,000 hours and about $39,000 of his own money on the case.

We have followed the investigation into the death of JonBenet Ramsey since her murder on December 26, 1996. We've provided continuous legal analysis on the case for the cable tv news networks and maintained our own webpages on the case-- JonBenet Ramsey: The Media Unlynch Mob Page and Cases in the News. We have taken the position that the police rushed to judgment in the case and that there is no evidence the Ramseys were involved in JonBenet's death. And that the Boulder police botched the crime scene and were blinded by their belief the Ramseys were guilty, resulting in their failure to look at other possible suspects, which in turn has allowed the real killer to remain free among us, possibly to kill again.

The politics involved in the case have been enormous. It thus gives us great pleasure to report on a 93 page decision by a federal judge in Atlanta this week dismissing a defamation suit against the Ramseys, in which she ruled there was no evidence to suggest the Ramseys killed their daughter and abundant evidence JonBenet was killed by an intruder.

The Judge also sharply criticised the media campaign engaged in by the police and FBI to blame the Ramseys.

Finally, the Judge censured former Boulder Detective Steven Thomas, author of a book theorizing that Patsy Ramsey killed JonBenet and Darnay Hoffman who represented the plaintiff in the case before her. She also praised the efforts of retired homicide detective Lou Smit.

The investigation into the murder of JonBenet Ramsey may be the epitome of "The Politics of Crime." For this reason, we are writing three more detailed posts about the case tonight, immediately following this one.

Our congratulations to the Ramseys and their dedicated attorney, Atlanta libel expert Lin Wood. This has been a long time coming. No one has been as vilified in the court of public opinion as John and Patsy Ramsey. They lost a daughter to a cruel and brutal murderer. They did not deserve to be tried and convicted in the absence of charges and evidence by the media, police and the public.

As we so often say, trials should be conducted in courtrooms, not living rooms.

An Atlanta federal judge has dismissed a civil lawuit against the parents of JonBenet Ramsey. In the 93 page opinion, the Judge "criticized police and the FBI for what she said was a media campaign aimed at making the family look guilty."

U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes in Atlanta said in the ruling this week there was no evidence showing the parents killed JonBenet and abundant evidence that an intruder killed the child.

You can read the 93 page opinion here. The Ramseys were represented in the case by Atlanta attorney and libel expert Lin Wood:

"I just find it, from A to Z, a total, unequivocal victory for John and Patsy Ramsey," Wood said. "The court has done what I've urged the public to do from day one. Look at the evidence. ... If you look at the evidence, you will reach the same conclusion Judge Carnes reached. This is a family that has been horribly and wrongfully accused of the murder of their child." Wood said that since Boulder County District Attorney Mary W. Keenan took office, she has rejuvenated the investigation into JonBenét's murder. Characterizing Keenan's investigation as "very active," Wood said investigators "are doing things in that case that have never been done before," including testing foreign, male DNA that was found in JonBenét's underwear.

The Plaintiff, Chris Wolf, who had sued the Ramseys for defamation, was represented by New York Lawyer Darnay Hoffman, who has been on a crusade to charge and convict the Ramseys for years, at one point even threatening to move to Boulder and run for District Attorney.

In her 93 page opinion, Atlanta federal Judge Julie Carnes found abundant largely uncontested evidence that an intruder killed JonBenet Ramsey, including:

• At least seven windows and a door in the Ramsey home were found open or unlocked after JonBenét disappeared. The alarm was off and windows were accessible from the ground level, including three that opened into the basement.

• Evidence suggested that an intruder climbed through a basement window and walked through the room where JonBenét was found.

• JonBenét's body was bound with complicated rope slipknots and a garrote that the order described as "sophisticated bondage devices" by someone "with an expertise in bondage." No evidence suggests the Ramseys knew how to tie such knots.

• Black duct tape found on JonBenét's mouth was never found in the Ramsey home, although evidence suggested "it came from a roll of tape that had been used before."

• Nothing in the Ramsey home matched dark animal hairs found on the duct tape and JonBenét's hands.

In dismissing a defamation suit against the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, Atlanta Federal Judge Julie Carnes praised the efforts and experience of investigator Lou Smit while expressing sharp criticism for the work and experience of Boulder police detective Steve Thomas.

Carnes reserved special criticism for Thomas, the former Boulder detective upon whose theories the Wolf complaint was based. "Whereas Detective Smit's summary testimony concerning the investigation is based on evidence, Detective Thomas' theories appear to lack substantial evidentiary support," she wrote. "Indeed, while Detective Smit is an experienced and respected homicide detective, Detective Thomas had no investigative experience concerning homicide cases prior to this case. In short, the plaintiff's evidence that the [Ramseys] killed their daughter and covered up their crime is based on little more than the fact that defendants were present in the house during the murder," Carnes wrote.

Thomas wrote a book claiming the Ramseys were guilty, was sued for libel and settled the case for an undisclosed sum. Lou Smit, hired as a special investigator in the case, resigned because the police investigation was so biased against the Ramseys.

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It's been a while since we've talked about the "Sniper" case. It's in the news because of leaks about juvenile suspect's John Lee Malvo's supposed confession. The defense has filed a motion to suppress Malvo's statements arguing his rights were violated.

Someone with access to the tapes of Malvo's statements read portions of a summary of the tapes to the New York Times. In an article yesterday, the Timees says the tapes show possible flaws in the statements. Police are worried. They should be. But that doesn't justify leaking the statements to the public in an obvious attempt to prejudice the jury pool.

An investigator involved in the case said today that the sniper task force did not object to the leak because there was a strong likelihood that the statements would will be suppressed anyway. "This way at least the public will know what he said," the investigator said.

In our opinion, this is egregious police misconduct and we hope the Court holds a hearing and imposes some heavy sanctions on the party responsible for the leak. Aside from the general impropriety of leaking a suspect's statements, the Court imposed a gag order on the police back in December that prevents them from "disclosing the existence or contents of any confessions, any discussion about the reputation or criminal history of the suspects or of any prospective witnesses, and any opinions regarding evidence in the case." We wrote at length about the need to gag the police in the case here. In addition to the potential violation of Malvo's rights, there are other problems with the statements:

But the summary of the statements does not provide explicit indication of a confession. Instead, it suggests vague answers to questions that some defense lawyers for Mr. Malvo have speculated were designed to frustrate the task force or to protect Mr. Muhammad.

You can access all of our sniper case coverage here.

We are disappointed today in a San Francisco Judge's dismissal of conspiracy charges against five police commanders in the city's "Fajitagate" scandal.

For background to the case, you can view all our prior coverage of the case here.

The Judge dismissed the charges because she didn't find evidence of an agreement to obstruct the investigation of the fight. The existence of an agreement to violate the law is the core element of a conspiracy charge. She asked, "Where's the nod? Where's the wink?"

DA Terrence Hallinan is rightfully disappointed. Here's what the Indictment alleged in the conspiracy charge: