District judge Ken Anderson of Williamson County, Texas is now formally under investigation for his alleged role in a gross injustice as a prosecutor. It is an all-too-rare case where a former prosecutor is actually called to account for an injustice. In this case, an innocent man, Michael Morton (shown here), now 58, was wrongly convicted in 1987 for the murder of his wife. Prosecutors failed to turn over key evidence showing that his son clearly stated that it was not his father. Instead, they took a tragic murder of a mother and magnified it by incarcerating the grieving father. Anderson was later selected as “Prosecutor of the Year.” We previously discussed the case.
Category: Lawyering
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I don’t usually hold with simplified solutions to certain problems we all face but one comes to mind based on an article I read just now. A reasonable person should vote against any, I mean ANY, politician who has done, or is willing to do anything positive towards continuing the practice of privatizing the prison system on any level of government. From a standpoint of our Constitution I believe that the concept violates it, in spirit, if not in fact. From a fiscal point of view I believe that there is no cost effectiveness in privatizing a prison system. From an ethical position I believe that punishment by our criminal justice system is a government function and can not be given to private contractors without abuses coming. Finally, from a humane standpoint I believe that running a prison on a for-profit basis will never live up to the standards of humane treatment even the worst of prisoners deserve. The institution of a private prison system is a call for corruption just as in the case of the two Pennsylvania Judges convicted of wrongly accepting bribes to sentence minors to a private prison run for minors. This was the infamous “Kids for Cash” case which resulted in prison for these venal, loathsome jurists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal I believe that cases and corruption such as this are the inevitable result of prison privatization and I believe that we are going to see more and more of it today.
The article which appears in today’s Huffington Post is titled: “Lake Erie Correctional Institution, Ohio Private Prison, Faces Concerns About “Unacceptable” Conditions”. The issues discussed in this brief article highlight all that I think is wrong about maintaining a privatized prison system and about the abuses that spring naturally from the concept. The article even touches on why the initial cost benefit put forth by private companies and by the politicians they convince to back their idea, is unreal and actually leads to greater expense on borne by the government and its citizens. Continue reading “Privatized Prisons a Bad Idea Gets Worse”
Vladimir Putin has worked hard to maintain his carefully constructed image of a macho authoritarian figure, including sending away the members of Pussy Riot for speaking out against him and his alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. However, he continues to distinguish himself among budding dictators. For example, anyone can prosecute whistle-blowing lawyers. China continually does it. Iran does it. However, Russia is prosecuting a whistle-blowing lawyer after he died. Now that is a tough guy.
Continue reading “Dead Men Don’t Blow Whistles: Russians Prosecute Dead Lawyer”
Who said law was boring? In the trial of shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem in Tampa, an attorney has alleged that he was set up by the opposing law firm in a DUI arrest in the midst of the high-profile trial. The story has everything: an obnoxious defendant, a castrated pig, an attractive young female legal assistant, a missing briefcase filled with trial papers, and a double set-up plot. It is a DUI version of Anatomy of a Murder except the James Stewart never finishes the trial because he is found in a car inebriated with Lee Remick.
Continue reading “Anatomy of a DUI: Witness Takes Fifth In Bizarre Trial Of “Bubba the Love Sponge””
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
One of the main concerns we Americans should have is about the state of our criminal justice system. How a society deals with the issue of criminality is one of the ways that we all can judge its freedom from oppression. This country has been selling our “democracy” to the world for 8 decades now as an example of how a modern nation should operate. Continue reading “Carmen Ortiz: Prosecution for Political Ego?”
Minnesota attorney Thomas P. Lowe, 58, has been suspended indefinitely after he was found not only to have had an affair with a client in a divorce case but then charged her for time they spent having sex.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
While I’m not a lawyer, I do write for this legal blog by the invitation of its creator Jonathan Turley. I first arrived on the scene here many years ago because since the age of ten I have had been interested in the nature of the broad spectrum of civil rights issues faced by this country. My interest became an obsession at the age of ten. My parents, who were quite liberal, allowed me to stay up way past my bedtime to watch Ed Murrow bravely attack Sen. Joseph McCarthy for his Communist Witch Hunt, by documenting the anti-constitutional excesses he used to destroy people’s lives and careers. Months later they kept me home from school to watch the Army/McCarthy Hearings which directly led to McCarthy’s downfall. On our twelve inch, black and white TV I watched this famous scene:
“On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army–McCarthy hearings, McCarthy accused Fred Fisher, one of the junior attorneys at Welch’s law firm, of associating while in law school with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a group which J. Edgar Hoover sought to have the U.S. Attorney General designate as a Communist front organization. Welch had privately discussed the matter with Fisher and the two agreed Fisher should withdraw from the hearings. Welch dismissed Fisher’s association with the NLG as a youthful indiscretion and attacked McCarthy for naming the young man before a nationwide television audience without prior warning or previous agreement to do so:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.”
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
“Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, and Welch cut him off:
“Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in Heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further.”
The gallery erupted in applause.”
The drama of this distinguished lawyer chastising one of the most powerful men in the United States and silencing his cruelty was one of the defining moments of my life. It spurred a lifelong interest in the Constitution, the Law and the rights of the American People. Today, among other ills, I believe that our American Criminal Justice System is broken. Let me explain why I believe that. Continue reading “America’s Broken Criminal Justice System”
I am still in Salt Lake City, but we have had a great number of inquiries on yesterday’s hearing in the Sister Wives case. The two motions for summary judgment were argued with the state presenting its case through lead counsel Jerry Jenson and my presenting the case for the Brown family. Judge Clark Waddoups was obviously well-versed in the record and asked probing and fair questions to both sides. He has now taken the case under review for a final decision on the merits. I prefer not repeat or comment on statements in court from either myself or the judge. A few articles from the hearing are linked below.
Continue reading “Sister Wives Case Now Set For Final Ruling”
Carmen Ortiz, the US Attorney in Massachusetts, appears to be feeling some of the heat of the global anger over her prosecution of Aaron Swartz — an unrelenting prosecution that many (including the family) blame for his suicide. Ortiz is attempting to portray this abusive and unnecessary prosecution as prosecutors merely enforcing the law in compliance with their oath. They were, according to Ortiz, something akin to a legal version of Inspector Javert — committed to the enforcement of the federal law without discretion or judgment. Ortiz, who had remained silent, appears to have accepted that the case is presenting a serious problem for her and begins with a statement of sympathy that was entirely absent in the treatment of Swartz by her office and Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann who has been linked to another suicide of a defendant.
Municipal court judge Lee Johnson in Ennis, Texas, is the latest public official to rush to Facebook like a teenager on a tear. Johnson breathlessly reported that a “certain unnamed (very) recent Heisman Trophy winner” had been ticketed in his jurisdiction — an obvious reference to Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman winner Johnny Manziel. Johnson then wrote “I meant to say ‘allegedly’ speeding, my bad.” It was striking that Johnson thought the problem was not saying allegedly as opposed to his turning into some form of judicial paparazzi.
We have another large settlement involving the Chicago Police Department this year. The Chicago police will pay $22.5 million to compensate a mentally-ill California woman who was released by police into a high-crime area where she was kidnapped and raped before she fell from the seventh floor of a public housing apartment building. Christina Eilman, 27, survived and will be given the largest settlement in Chicago’s history (the prior record was $18 million).
We previously discussed how the Justice Department hounded Aaron Swartz in a prosecution that sought 35 years in prison for his effort to make academic papers available to the public — even though MIT did not ask for such charges and later released the papers free of charge to the public. United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and the Obama Administration were long criticized for the prosecution but remained committed to destroying Swartz — a move that clearly delighted copyright hawks that have tremendous influence over the Administration as discussed earlier. Given the high-profile nature of the case and the months of criticism, it is clear that Main Justice in Washington had to be monitoring the case. Now it appears that Swartz’s line prosecutor, Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann was connected to a prior suicide of a defendant in a similar case. In 2008, Jonathan James killed himself while being pursued by Heymann in a criminal hacker case. Heymann then moved on to Swartz who also killed himself — complaining of the abusive treatment by the Justice Department. It is worth noting that the Justice Department could not come up with a single charge for anyone associated with the torture program, including the attorneys who facilitated the program. However, it wanted 35 years for a man accused of illegally gaining access to a university site and downloading academic papers to make available to the public for free. Those documents later released for free to the public but the Obama Administration still felt jail time was essential in the interests of justice.
Continue reading “Prosecutor of Aaron Swartz Linked To Another Suicide Of Defendant”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I guess it should not come as a surprise to me anymore. However, it still upsets me to see a military defense contractor trying to deflect blame for the damages its negligence caused to members of our military while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. In a news item that I didn’t notice until a few days after it broke, Huffington Post reported that the defense contractor, KBR, was found negligent and responsible for the poisoning of a dozen soldiers in Iraq in 2003. Over 800 members of both regular and reserve units were stationed at an Iraqi water treatment plant to secure it and they were exposed regularly to a dangerous carcinogen called Sodium Dichromate. The impact on the soldiers and Guardsmen’s negligent exposure to that “extreme carcinogen” was both devastating and deadly.
“Sodium dichromate is an orange-yellowish substance containing hexavalent chromium, an anti-corrosion chemical. To Lt. Col. James Gentry of the Indiana National Guard, who was stationed at the Qarmat Ali water treatment center in Iraq just after the 2003 U.S. invasion, it was “just different-colored sand.” In their first few months at the base, soldiers were told by KBR contractors running the facility the substance was no worse than a mild irritant. Gentry was one of approximately 830 service members, including active-duty soldiers and members of the National Guard and reserve units from Indiana, South Carolina, West Virginia and Oregon, assigned to secure the water treatment plant, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Sodium dichromate is not a mild irritant. It is an extreme carcinogen. In November 2009, at age 52, Gentry died of cancer. The VA affirmed two months later that his death was service-related. In November, a jury found KBR, the military’s largest contractor, guilty of negligence in the poisoning of a dozen soldiers, and ordered the company to pay $85 million in damages. Jurors found KBR knew both of the presence and toxicity of the chemical. Other lawsuits against KBR are pending.” Huffington Post Continue reading “KBR, Iraq and the Cost to Vets and the US”
There is a deeply troubling case out of New Hampshire where attorney Lisa Biron has been convicted on all eight counts of transportation of a minor with intent to commit criminal sexual activity, sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography. The jury took less than two hours to convict in a case with strong evidence and highly disturbing facts. Biron has been identified as an attorney with an anti-Gay Christian group.
As reported in the media, we resumed hearings this week in the the World Bank case (Chang v. United States) with testimony from the top lawyer at the Metropolitan Police Department, Terry Ryan, as well as other officers.