So we have a child soldier, one who, in a civilized society, would be sent for help and deprogramming, but the our military first tortures him and now sets a trial date of October 8.
Politic much?
Category: Justice
House Caves on Bush Wiretap Coverup
Damn.
Give to Regina Thomas and Blue America PAC vs Retroactive Immunity.
This is a betrayal of the whole country.
Beat on the Senate now, and let’s see what Obama does. He says the right things, and it stops.
First Gitmo Habeas Suit Filed
It’s been filed by Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco who is demanding that the US government show cause as to why he is detained.
According to the article, before he was detained and tortured by us as a potential terrorist, he was detained and tortured by the Taliban as a US spy in Afghanistan.
I think that we will be discovering that we tortured a bunch of innocent people, and now Bush and His Evil Minions™ are afraid that if we let them go, they will be angry at us…well, duh.
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s House Raided
I was wondering when this shoe would drop.
My take is that she likely did something wrong, though whether it rises to the level of a major crime, I don’t know, because she has a long history of nepotism and favors for friends and relatives, see here and here, and she has done this repeatedly.
It should be an interesting few months.
Grand Jury Looking Into US Attorney Purge
Even if the purge did not break the law, it appears that there are some juicy perjury charges out there.
It ain’t the crime, it’s the cover-up.
Hopefully, abu Gonzalez goes to jail over this.
Mexico Revamps Justice System
Mexico has completely revamped its justice system, the high points are:
- The presumption of innocence (I guess they must have continued the Code Napoléon from their brief time as a French posession).
- Public trials.
- Allowing lawyers to argue orally before judges (it was all written briefs before).
- Improvements to the public defender system.
- Gives state and local police departments the power to investigate their own corruption, which had previously been an exclusively federal purview.
All in all, it looks like major improvements, though considering the starting point, this is not difficult.
I agree with the civil libertarians who are concerned about the 80 days detention without charge though.
Bear Stearns Hedge Fund Managers Face Imminent Arrest
I am so totally not surprised by this development. This sort of lying and deception is endemic in Wall Street.
No FOIA on White House Email Coverup
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has ruled that the White House email system is not subject to the Freedom Of Information Act, and so ruled against CREW.
There is still another suit alleging that the WH is not taking reasonable steps to preserve electronic records.
Guantánamo Defense Attorneys to Challenge Tribunals in Federal Court
As a result of the Supreme Court decision.
At the very least, this should move the trials past the election season. Bush and His Evil Minions™ clearly timed the arraignments to give the maximum electoral effect for the trials.
It’s now likely that we won’t see any verdicts until the Avignon President is out of office now.
This is a good thing
U.S. Pot Getting More Potent
I dinna smoke it no more, too many pee tests, but it’s laughable when the Office of National Drug Control Policy claims that this means that the increase in potency makes it more dangerous. Of course, people who actually study THC say that there is no additional danger involved, and that the most dangerous thing about pot is the smoking, which like all smoking is bad for you.
It’s up from last year’s 8.75% THC to 9.6%.
Also (H/T Talkleft) we have studies indicating that THC may have anticancer properties and may repair damaged brain cells and help with anxiety and depression.
More potency is good news, except for the whole “binging on ice cream sammiches” thing.
Arbitration as a Racket
Businessweek has as damning article on the arbitration industry:
But internal NAF documents and interviews with people familiar with the firm reveal a different reality. Behind closed doors, NAF sells itself to lenders as an effective tool for collecting debts. The point of these pitches is to persuade the companies to use the firm to resolve clashes over delinquent accounts. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) are among the large institutions that do so. A September, 2007, NAF PowerPoint presentation aimed at creditors and labeled “confidential” promises “marked increase in recovery rates over existing collection methods.” At times, NAF does this kind of marketing with the aid of law firms representing the very creditors it’s trying to sign up as clients.
The laws that allow for this need to be changed.
The arbitration system is corrupt to the core.
Supreme Court Upholds Rule of Law on Close 5-4 Vote.
The Supreme Court, with a 5-4 vote, along the anticipated lines, ruled that Guantanamo detainees have a right to contest their detention in court.
I don’t know whether to be elated at the decision, or scared that it was so close.
Supreme Court Reaffirms Patent Exhaustion
The case is LG Electronics vs Quanta, where LG licensed the technology to Intel, who made the chips used, but wanted to charge buyers of the chips an additional royalty.
Basically, patent exhaustion says that if someone licenses a patent from you, and they sell stuff made with that patent to someone else, the recipient can use that stuff without any more restrictions. It’s a 100 year old precident, but the patent court decided to ignore it.
You can find a very good primer on why this happened here.
The district court ruled for Quanta, but the patent court ruled for LG on appeal, and the Supreme Court completely reversed the patent court, which is becoming a regular thing.
The special patent court is out of control and needs to be abolished.
Taser Loses 1st Product-Liability Suit
No doubt the verdict will be amended on repeal, but the fact that the jury dismissed their bullsh^% claims of “excited delirium” is a good start.
Using a Taser is less lethal than a gun, but it should still be treated as deadly force, and Taser International’s attempts to flog a non-existent medical condition to avoid liability is revolting.
30 Years for Driving While Black
William Thornton IV, a black man, skidded through a stop sign on a rainy night, and struck an SUV, killing its two occupants. He remained at the scene, and there were no drugs or alcohol in him. He had no criminal record.
Despite this, Judge Ric Howard sentenced him to 30 years in jail, after he followed his public defender’s advice, and pled guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the court.
Thankfully, a high powered law firm noticed, but had he been white, would he have served any time at all.
New Gitmo Revalation: Pentagon Directed Destruction of Evidence
The operation manual that the Pentagon gave interrogators directed them to, “destroy their written notes in case of being summoned to testify regarding alleged ill-treatment of detainees”, seehere, here, and here.
In an affidavit signed by [Omar Khadr Defense Attorney] Kuebler, the manual is quoted as saying, “The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify, keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal issues.”
This flies in the face of every tenet of modern law and jurisprudence.
Ignoring the fact that Khadr was a 15 year old child at the time of the event, and should therefore be treated for trauma as a child soldier, the idea that the operations manual calls for destruction of evidence on the theory that it might prove inconvenient is outrageous.
The person who wrote this manual should be jailed, not just fired.
Abu Gonzalez Finally Gets a Job
Someone is finally willing to hire Alberto Gonzalez, U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips, who has hired him to assist on a patent case.
Reagan appointee.
California Same-Sex Weddings Start at 5 p.m. June 16
If you are invited, send me pictures of the blessed event, and I’ll post them.
Tony Rezko Convicted
Little or no mention of Obama in the proceedings, so my guess is that this development will have very little significance.
Prosecutors Back off Siegelman and Scrushy Sentence Appeal
After Siegelman and Scrushy were convicted in what increasingly appears to be a politically motivated trial, prosecutors appealed the original sentences of around 7 years (already unprecedentedly harsh), asking for 30 and 25 years respectively.
They have now now withdrawn their appeals of the sentences.
Obviously, the coverage scared off the prosecutors, because it has become increasingly obvious that this trial would give one of Stalin’s show trials a run for its money.