Criminal defense attorneys have long objected to “experts” produced at trials by the Justice Department who often seem to closely follow trial theories rather than scientific or forensic data. I have handled cases where experts used by the Justice Department gave almost laughable testimony filled with errors in national security cases but courts continue to admit their testimony. This week, one such expert, FBI Special Agent Steven Kimball, fell apart on the stand when confronted with clearly conclusions over basic and easily ascertainable facts.
Tsarnaev’s defence attorney Miriam Conrad for example noted that the FBI identified a picture sent on the twitter account of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a picture of Mecca. This led to this exchange:
Conrad: “You said the picture [that forms the background of the second account] was a picture of Mecca.”
Kimbell: “Yes, to the best of my knowledge.”
Conrad: “Did you bother to look at a picture of Mecca?”
Kimbell: “No.”
Conrad: “Would it surprise you to learn that it is a picture of Grozny?”
Unfortunately, he might not be surprised at all given the loose standards imposed on such expert testimony.
Kimball was also forced to admit that highly incriminating tweets isolated by the Justice Department were actually quotes from pop songs, including a tweet referring to “I shall die young.” Kimball said that he was unaware that these were quotes from songs. Kimball admitted that he did not even click on some links in tweets cited by the government as incriminating. One of the links would have taken the reader to a song with the line “I shall die young.”
Kimball was also confronted by the fact that the FBI had isolated lines that were actually jokes form Comedy Central and various comedians. One could of course forgive an FBI agent for having a limited knowledge of humor sites. However, Kimball also misidentified a quote as having been made by the al Qaida-affiliated cleric Anwar al-Awlaki when it was really a quote from the Qu’ran.
Among the other examples was the highly incriminating use of the term “mad cooked” in tweets that was raised by Kimball. Kimball admitted on cross examination that he was entirely ignorant of the fact that this slang means “high” after he tried to guess that it might mean “Crazy.”
In the end, it was the testimony that seemed cooked. It was a great cross examination by Conrad, but it is unfortunately not unique.
The exaggeration of such evidence reflects the real issue at trial — death. The defense has already admitted that Tsarnaev carried out the attack. The issue is only the penalty and whether a single juror can be convinced that Tsarnaev was under the influence of his older, more radical brother. The misrepresentation of this evidence was intended to portray Tsarnaev as a dedicated terrorist and extremist like his brother. Instead, it seriously undermined the credibility of the prosecution before the jury in what was an extremely strong case for the death penalty.
Source: Guardian
Whatever gets you through the night…
Go dream of bombing Mecca.
Despite Johnson’s racist remarks, his heart was in the right place. Of course that’s what the article spells out, but THAT would be inconvenient to mention.
Whatever gets you through the night.
“Perhaps the simple explanation, which Johnson likely understood better than most, was that there is no magic formula through which people can emancipate themselves from prejudice, no finish line that when crossed, awards a person’s soul with a shining medal of purity in matters of race. All we can offer is a commitment to justice in word and deed, that must be honored but from which we will all occasionally fall short. Maybe when Johnson said “it is not just Negroes but all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry,” he really meant all of us, including himself.”
So Wade can support LBJ racism, just not Churchill racism.
Got it.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism
“The Civil Rights Act made it possible for Johnson to smash Jim Crow. The Voting Rights Act made the U.S. government accountable to its black citizens and a true democracy for the first time. Johnson lifted racist immigration restrictions designed to preserve a white majority – and by extension white supremacy. He forced FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, then more concerned with “communists” and civil rights activists, to turn his attention to crushing the Ku Klux Klan. Though the Fair Housing Act never fulfilled its promise to end residential segregation, it was another part of a massive effort to live up to the ideals America’s founders only halfheartedly believed in – a record surpassed only by Abraham Lincoln.
Nor should Johnson’s racism overshadow what he did to push America toward the unfulfilled promise of its founding. When Republicans say they’re the Party of Lincoln, they don’t mean they’re the party of deporting black people to West Africa, or the party of opposing black suffrage, or the party of allowing states the authority to bar freedmen from migrating there, all options Lincoln considered. They mean they’re the party that crushed the slave empire of the Confederacy and helped free black Americans from bondage.”
Glutton for punishment:
<blockquote“In conservative quarters, Johnson’s racism – and the racist show he would put on for Southern segregationists – is presented as proof of the Democratic conspiracy to somehow trap black voters with, to use Mitt Romney’s terminology, “gifts” handed out through the social safety net. But if government assistance were all it took to earn the permanent loyalty of generations of voters then old white people on Medicare would be staunch Democrats.
So at best, that assessment is short sighted and at worst, it subscribes to the idea that blacks are predisposed to government dependency. That doesn’t just predate Johnson, it predates emancipation. As Eric Foner recounts in Reconstruction, the Civil War wasn’t yet over, but some Union generals believed blacks, having existed as a coerced labor class in America for more than a century, would nevertheless need to be taught to work “for a living rather than relying upon the government for support.”“
Pogo, What really left a mark on the lame commenter is it’s from MSNBC. Ouch!! It amazes me that ideologues think only the other guys are mean, nasty, racists, etc.
Gee, and only a minute ago you were deriding Nick for pointing this out.
Post the full piece, Pogo.
Afraid of nuance?
That’s what I love about Democratic racists. Thurgood Marshall on the bench, the Civil Rights Voting Act, and the War on Poverty.
From MSNBC:
Idiocy.
Feynman, is that you? Or is it Keebler. LOL. SOS whoever you are.
There is plenty of evidence on LBJ being racist. It should be no revelation to anyone w/ an education. But, most here were publicly educated. LBJ was a horrible human being. He berated his wife, paraded his whores in front of her. He frequently used “nigger” and had derision for black people. But, he saw they could be a loyal voting block and so pushed through civil rights legislation. There are few, if any, noble politicians. I taught history and taught the nasty stuff as well. Public school teachers pass by the nasty stuff about Dems. I taught the nasty stuff about Rep and Dems. They are both dirty.
Our world class historian needs to expand his view of who saved the world. He might include FDR and Stalin for starters.
Those blinders of his need big adjustments.
Wadewilliams – FDR was committing war crimes prior to the Germans declaring war on the United States. Hilter only did it (Pearl Harbor was a surprise to the Germans) because his generals advised him we were already at war with the US and this would make it official. Stalin went into a depression of several days when the Germans invaded Russia. He had already decimated his officer corps.
Both men were racists, just for the record.
Yeah, right, Nick. Our ‘nuanced’ historian. No doubt he ran into LBJ one day on the beach and they shared their views on race.
Stick to videos in the dark.
More like had his butt kicked….
Paul,
What in the world does the “war on women” have to do with anything on this thread? I haven’t mentioned the “war on women”. Did you just wake up from a nap, still groggy?
Inga – do you even read what you write? Or are in in cut and paste mode. I have followed your comments for a long time. Remember the sock puppet wars? I was outing your sock puppets left and right. So, when I say you are doing something, you are. An ad hominem attack on me doesn’t make it go away.
Paul, what are you blathering about? You are making absolutely no sense. Not one person, including myself mentioned the war on women on this thread. Are you having a TIA?
Inga – where would we be without your ad hominems? Are you sure you went to Marquette? The Jebes don’t teach ad hominems and I would hope their nursing program would teach the signs of a TIA. Clearly, you do not know or have forgotten.
Paul, I’d get to a doc if I were you, you are continuing to sound odd. You’re on ‘ignore’ because there is no purpose in responding to you when you are in some altered state.
Inga – stop practicing medicine without a licence. And again with the ad hominem. Remember what Thumper Rabbit’s father said: If you don’t have any nice to say, don’t say anything at all.