Category: Justice

More on the Wecht Political Show Trial

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Well, it appears that things are getting weirder in the aftermath of the Cyril Wecht trial.

First, the judge has placed a gag order on the jury until after the retrial, which was described by Wecht’s lawyer, and I agree, as extremely unusual.

Among other things, I would assume that the Lawyers would not want to talk to the Jurors to get some insights for the retrial.

In any case, some of the jurors talked, and it’s clear that the majority though that they should acquit.

I will note that from what I’ve read Schwab appears to be a complete political hack, and a disgrace to the bench. Harper’s Scott Horton has more details.

Also, this interview with a dismissed (for health reasons) juror speaks volumes.

American Hero: Lieutenant Commander Matthew Diaz

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Lt. Cdr. Diaz is the man who got the list of the Gitmo detainees out when Bush and His Evil Minions™ were illegally concealing this information from the International Red Cross (It’s called “disappearing”).

The National Press Club just gave him the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.

He spent 6 months in the brig, and now the Pentagon is trying to take his law license.

Read the article from the always compelling Scott Horton.

Ashcroft Did Not Sign off on Yoo “No 4th Amendment” Memo

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This is an very interesting development. It appears to me that this renders the legal authority of Yoo memorandum to a level akin to graffiti on a bathroom wall:

Neither the attorney general at the time, John D. Ashcroft, nor his deputy, Larry D. Thompson, were aware of the 81-page memo when it was written and sent to the Pentagon in March 2003, according to several former senior department officials. The Pentagon was told in December 2003 to disregard the legal advice in the memo after Justice Department lawyers raised objections.

The sequence of events is now that someone demanded this memo, got a copy, and sent it out for implementation without any sort of legal review. This memo said that “military operations combating terrorism inside the United States are not limited by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures”.

For anyone who wishes to assert that DoJ opinions indemnify law breakers (Mukasey), it becomes increasingly clear that the political appointees of the DoJ created a clown show, and that John Ashcroft was one of those showing the greatest integrity.*

*He doesn’t have much, he just had the most integrity. Still, that is something I never expected to write.

Apparent Hung Jury in Wecht Political Show Trial

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This is good news for the defense.

To refresh your memory, this trial is about “celebrity pathologist Cyrl Wecht” allegedly using public resources of his medical examiner’s office for his private practice, and 24 of the counts are over $3.06.

Basically, it appears that he may have used a publicly paid secretary to run his business and make some faxes, and the US Attorney in Pittsburgh literally made a federal case out of this.

Note that he is a prominent Democrat, and that Republican Dick Thornburg, former Attorney General has called it a political witch hunt.

Judge Restricts RIAA’s Right to Sue

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But only a little bit.

Basically, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said that placing copyrighted material in a shared drive does not constitute publication. They would have to show that illegal copying took place.

This is a good thing, as Declan McCulagh demonstates:

As I wrote last fall, there are some dangers if the RIAA’s “making available” theory is widely adopted by courts. If my mother accidentally shares her computer’s entire hard drive with the world by clicking the wrong button in an OS X setup menu, is that “making available?” Should she be held liable for $222,000 in damages, and lose her house, for accidentally making two CDs of music available to the world?

If I don’t upgrade to a newer version of my operating system even though I know there’s a security glitch that opens my hard drive to the Internet, does that mean I’m “making available” my music collection? Do Internet service providers “make available” access to Kazaa? Do search engines “make available” links to infringing files?

That being said, the Judge gave an alternate route to the RIAA, specifically that they could refile charging an “offer to distribute”.

This means that people with files being shared on Bit Torrent could be liable under this, but search engines, and the examples above would not be.

Debbie Stabenow’s Husband in Prostitution Sting

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She’s the Governor of Michigan, and the details are here.

Obviously there are political ramifications, but I want to talk about what I see as the real issue:

Troy police Lt. Gerard Scherlinck said Troy’s undercover officers focus their efforts on breaking up prostitution rings about four times a year, depending upon manpower. During the stings they arrest only the prostitutes.

“(Detectives) stop people coming and going and interview them. If they have a cooperative witness, they will use that person to testify against the ring rather than arrest them. That’s what happened in this case,” Scherlinck said.

If the case goes to trial, Athans would be called as a witness to testify and positively identify the woman, he said.

Let me get this, the rich pig who who makes the illegal buy gets off scott free, but the woman, generally poor, possibly with a substance abuse problem, sometimes a single parent, gets prosecuted?

I believe that prostitution should be legal and tightly regulated. But, if it is illegal, going after the people at the bottom of the pyramid, frequently people who are doing this because they lack other alternatives, is evil.

Torture Tapes Destruction May Prevent Fair Trials

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While I’m sure that Bush and His Evil Minions™ think that fair trials, much like military service, are for losers, it comes as no surprise that the torture and subsequent destruction of the torture tapes is making holding something resembling a fair trial difficult.

We can’t have kangaroo courts if we expect anything but a further souring of our already toxic relations with the rest of the world, but after an orgy of law breaking and ass covering by people working in our name, it looks like kangaroo courts is all we got.

Morons.

Siegelman Released by Appellate Court, Will Appear Before Congress

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The Appeals court has ordered former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman released from prison pending his appeal. They overturned the ruling of his judge at trial, Mark E. Fuller, who is also a political foe of the former governor.

He’s been in custody for some time, one of the reasons that Judge Fuller has dragged his feet on releasing the transcript, without which you can’t even start filing an appeal.

Also, the House Judiciary Committee is requesting his testimony.

Common Sense Consumer Protection in Arkansas

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Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is saying that two recent State Supreme Court decisions mean that payday lenders can be prosecuted under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

No offense to any reader of mine from Arkansas, and a quick look at the statistics reveals that number over the past 8 months to be 27, but this is the one of the last places that I would expect this.

I do understand that Arkansas is less corrupt than Louisiana, more populist than Texas, and less backward than Mississippi, but I find this to be a very surprising development.

While Arkansas does have a a bit of a tradition of populism, I think that this more important than simply short term politics.

There is an increasingly strong view, society wide, that deregulation of financial markets, from the very small (Payday Lenders), to the very large (Wall Street) have failed.

People realize that in the real world, there are situational and informational asymmetries that require that the government take action to prevent predators from preying on the weak.

Took them long enough.

Prosecutors Threatened by LA US Attorney Over Public Corruption Unit shutdown

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Note that they were investigating Republican Jerry Lewis (no relation) at the time that the office was closed, which my guess is a lot of the reason for this.

LA Times has the scoop:

But in interviews with The Times, several members of the disbanded unit challenged that explanation, saying the move was intended to punish lawyers for a perceived failure to produce and for bad-mouthing their boss, U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien.

The lawyers described a meeting last week in which an angry O’Brien derided attorneys in the office for working too few hours, filing too few cases and for speaking ill of him to subordinates.

They said O’Brien also threatened to tarnish their reputations if they challenged the official explanation for the unit’s dismantling in conversations with reporters. Members of the unit contacted by The Times either spoke on the condition that they not be named or declined to comment. Several said they wanted to talk about the situation but feared reprisals if they did so.

Critics of the move said they were concerned that it would severely limit the office’s ability to file long-term, complex corruption cases involving elected officials and other high-profile figures.

Judge in Gitmo Kangaroo Court Allows Defense to Call Witnesses

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While this is quite magnanimous of Navy Capt. Keith Allred to all lawyers for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver, this still gives no credibility to military commissions.

It appears that the prosecutors have no concept as to the rule of law, arguing that, “the driver could have conspired in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks without knowing about the suicide plot”.

Under the rules that they have would like to see adopted, this would place the truck drivers supplying food to the guards at Abu Ghraib under jeopardy for torture.

I agree with Captain Allred’s assessment, that “The issue of whether the accused was ‘merely a driver,’ or knew the unlawful purpose and was actively engaged in the unlawful work of al Qaeda seems to be very much at issue”, though I think that excluding subsequent treatment at CIA run and Military run Gulags from the purview of questions, when their answers may have been coerced is a bad decision.

Judge Losing Patience with White House Stonewalling on Emails

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A Judge John M. Facciola has given the White House until tomorrow to show why they should not be required to copy the contents of all computer hard drives in order to ensure that no more emails are lost.

Judge Facciola rejected as “draconian” a proposal by the Archive that would have forced the White House to quarantine every computer workstation it had. Instead, Facciola proposed the White House make a “forensic copy” of all preservable data on every computer that could have been used by an employee between 2003 and 2005, the period in question.

Observing that even that step is “not without its costs,” Facciola gave the White House until close of business Friday to argue why it should not be required to make such copies.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the White House “fully intends to comply” with the order, which is currently being reviewed.

The semantic difference between “fully intends to comply”, and “intends to fully comply” is noted.

Well, That Was Quick

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So I’m doing a a google on ERISA and healthcare, and there was a sponsored ad, a link to this:

Quote:

Bear Stearns Stock

Date Started: March 17, 2008

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is investigating possible ERISA violations by the Bear Stearns Companies Inc. relating to the Employees Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”).

The investigation comes after JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced it is purchasing Bear Sterns for $2 per share, 90 percent less than the 85-year-old firm’s market value last week. The investigation is looking into whether fiduciaries of the Company’s ESOP knew or should have known that Bear Stearns concealed its exposure to risky collateralized debt obligations, sub-prime mortgages and other poor-quality securities. If fiduciaries did not exhibit due diligence in protecting the ESOP participant’s investments in Company stock and were aware of the extremely high-risk investments the company made, plan fiduciaries could be found in violation of ERISA laws.

Concerning possible ERISA violations, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro is looking at whether or not Bear Stearns continued to offer and hold company stock in the ESOP when it was no longer prudent to do so, and if the company failed to take action to sell Bear Stearns stock or otherwise protect the plan’s assets in light of the company’s risky business strategies and deteriorating financial condition.

In a company press release on March 16, 2008, the company announced that JPMorgan would acquire Bear Stearns and stocks could be transferred from Bear Stearns to JPMorgan based on the closing numbers from March 15, 2008. Bear Stearns stock tumbled from $30.00 per share on March 14 to $4.81 at closing on Monday, March 17, 2008.

If you have information concerning this investigation you can sign up to join the investigation, or contact Hagens Berman at 206/623-7292 or via e-mail at info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Well, that was quick.

Speaking of Political Prosecutions…

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Well, for those of you who were wondering if the corruption case against, “Celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht” was politically motivated, the fact 24 of the counts filed against Wecht involve the sum of $3.06.

Nope….Not missing a decimal point. Three dollars and six cents. Not three hundred dollars, not three millions, three dollars.

Nope, nothing political here.

He had some people working for both his private practice, and for the county, and this is a Federal case, because he is a Democrat.

The crux of their case:

Wilson noted the work of Eileen Young, who was Wecht’s top administrative aide in the coroner’s office. Despite being paid a county salary, Wilson said Young spent the bulk of her time in the county office as “office manager” for Wecht’s private practice.

Wilson said the evidence showed that, for 2004 alone, the correspondence Young mailed or faxed brought $790,000 in revenues to Wecht’s private practice.

So, Wilson might have made some faxes or phone calls on county time, and they are literally trying to make a federal case out of this.

This is the sort of thing where the local DA gets him removed, and he gets a fine, if it’s true.

I’m still trying to get my head around the whole concept of “celebrity pathologist” thing though.

I really don’t want to know what a “celebrity proctologist” is.

Bush Political Show Trial Overturned

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I’m not normally on the side of overpaid chief executives, but Joe Nacchio is the exception.*

Nacchio was convicted of insider trading, but this has ju
st been overturned by the appellate court, and remanded back to the lower court, with a the old judge being removed from the case.

This is noteworthy, because much of the financial problems resulted from Qwest refusing to execute surveillance against the American public when requested to do so in February 2001, a full 7 months before the attacks on the Pentagon and WTC.

Basically, the judge excluded a number of arguments improperly, and he got seriously reamed out by the appellate court.

I believe that the prosecution was intended as a warning shot to other Telco executives by Bush and His Evil Minions™, “You do whatever we tell you, and f%$# the law, or you sleep with the Fishes.

It was 2-1 decision, with one ultraconservative Bush II appointee, Jerome Holmes, siding with a Bush I appointee who dropped 3 grand at a strip club one night, and may have patronized an “adult dating service”. He also parks in handicapped parking, and threatens people who complains.

We really are going to have to “debushify” our government when this is all over.

*Full disclosure, Qwest is my long distance carrier. I dumped AT&T and signed on with them about a year ago, specifically on the illegal surveillance issue.