Rush to Judgement

By Capt. Fogg

Zeus has led us on to know, the Helmsman lays it down as law that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again, and we resist, but ripeness comes as well. From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench there comes a violent love.

-Aeschylus: Agamemnon- 

We hear on the TV that most arrests in Ferguson Missouri are of  African Americans but we don't ask if the percentage given relates to the percentage of African Americans living there.  I don't know the answer, but I'll bet few people bothered to ask themselves because it complicates things and we're looking for "proof" of something we know a priori. Most of us would be very disappointed at anything in the way of opinion or conjecture or documented proof that things aren't the way we thought and perhaps not the way we hoped.  We want that cop to be guilty and his whole department complicit. It's plausible after all and that's enough for most of us.  Thank god for the law and the courts or we'd become what we think we oppose.

It's well documented by many scientific studies that people will believe a simple, plausible story with few selected supporting facts, or even fallacies for that matter, before they will take the trouble to sort through all the verifiable facts and analyze how they relate to our chosen opinion. Occam's razor cuts both ways and after all, our brains have evolved as machines for jumping to conclusions, not as calculators or statistical tabulators.  Hell, I suspect most people simply latch on to the opinions of the mobs they belong to, or aspire to belong to.  Far more witches have been burned than have been burned by witches.

I think there's great wisdom that comes with self doubt -- the ability to ask oneself  "what if everything I believe is wrong or absurd, or not worth consideration." What if the case is far more complex and the certainties for less clear? If we're lucky we have one of those epiphanic moments when it becomes obvious that we were wrong and we learn from it. We find out someone we were sure was guilty is innocent or vice versa. We find out we're not who we thought we were, that something we believed without question is demonstrably false, that someone or something we had confidence in didn't merit it. We find we've misjudged someone and we're forced, to go out and rage in the storm like Lear.  We suffer into truth and the truth is that if justice is to be served, we wait for the evidence and we look at all of it without prejudice. It's not easy.

The simple plausible truth behind the acquittal of O.J. Simpson was that he was the victim of racism. He's black, the LAPD has a history of  brutality against minorities,  one of the investigators was once heard using the N word and so when his defense attorney told the jury they had to send a message to "the Man"  all the endlessly damning evidence was forgotten.

When Trayvon Martin was killed, so many of us, so well aware of  racism in small town police departments instantly assumed that a "child" was murdered by some racist intent upon hunting innocent black children and were appalled by the jury's decision, because after all it was impossible that the innocent child jumped out of hiding in the dark at a "creepy guy" 4 inches shorter than him. Teenaged boys never do impulsive things, do they?  Impossible because we don't want to consider anything but black and white both in a real and metaphorical sense. We wanted to tie it to our mistrust of guns and laws that had no part in the trial and so we did rightly or wrongly, guilty or innocent -- case closed, minds closed.

When we heard some "child" was shot in Missouri. We saw the inevitable graduation picture wearing a mortarboard hat.  It was just so obviously a racially motivated murder to consider otherwise and of course if we want to pause and wait for more than confused and conflicting eye-witness reports we display endless anecdotes about racism in Ferguson.  So just as we as good liberals shouted "rush to judgement" at the lengthy Simpson trial, we turned about and rushed to judgement even before any investigation in those other two affairs.  Who wants to suffer? Who wants to be seen as a racist?

For those of course, of a different political persuasion, quite the opposite is true and Timothy McVeigh is a hero but Dr. King is not.  But enough about Fox News.  Enough too about questioning the need for the National Guard to stem the violence -- it's necessary because we think the situation is obvious and we are sure that nothing will be done if we don't demonstrate and exhibit our credentials as racism fighters before we really know what happened.  We don't.  We've just assumed and just decided what's obvious.  We get angry because we assume a cop assumed and because we assumed that cops always assume and we make sure that everyone knows every thing that might be construed as evidence  of racism so that we don't pause to reflect that sometimes we're wrong when lives hinge on our being right.

No, it's absolutely certain that someone reading this will call me a racist or apologist for racism because I'm attempting to temper your crowd-sourced certainty.  If you do, you're not a liberal nor a defender of human rights or of justice but a prejudiced partisan a long way from wisdom.

A life for a life

By Capt. Fogg

summa awilum in mar awilim uhtappid insu uhappadu

-Code of Hammurabi-

If a man has destroyed the sight of another man's son, they shall poke out his eye.

It's no secret that I think the execution of criminals is not a power that should be given a government. Reenacting a murder, repeating the act of violence whether quietly with a needle or loudly with a squad of rifles serves no purpose other than to dignify anger, hatred and blood lust.

The State of Missouri killed serial killer and white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin yesterday, in a little room and in front of witnesses. It took the mechanism of institutional homicide over 30 years to exhaust all appeals and procedures and last minute delays before strapping him to a table and running phenobarbital into his veins. 

Franklin has been convicted of 8 racially motivated murders and has confessed to a dozen more. He is thought to have committed over 20 in Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin and Ohio. He has confessed to shooting publisher Larry Flynt, paralyzing him permanently and to wounding civil rights leader Vernon Jordan.  Using a 'deer rifle' he killed two young cousins Dante Brown and Darrell Lane in Cincinnati because they were African American and fully 18 years later was given a life sentence for it, but of course that was moot since he had already been given a death sentence for the similar sniper shooting of Gerald Gordon outside a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977. He fired 5 shots into a group of Jewish worshipers, killing Gordon and wounding two others.  God gave him this mission, he said.

So I'm not in mourning for Franklin.  Given the chance to stop his 'divine' calling to kill Blacks and Jews, I would not have hesitated to use lethal force, nor chastised anyone else for doing so,  but of course his mission was long over when they killed him.  Larry Flynt will never walk again nor will those  killed be restored to life. The lives diminished by grief  will not likely be restored to happiness. 

"I hate him for destroying my life, for taking away something precious to me, a life that I brought into this world,"

 said  Abbie Evans Clark, Dante Brown's mother. I hate him too and it wasn't my son he killed. She will likely always hate him.

 "It's devastating. It's a void. You never get over it."

 I'm sure she's right. She feels no forgiveness, she says, and although she knows it won't bring the two boys back,

 "It lets you know that justice will be done for the senseless murders of two innocent boys."

Justice.  One has to ask: what is justice if it's not the undoing of wrong? What is justice if it changes nothing, restores nothing?  

If a man dieth -- doth he revive?

-Job 14:14- 

What is justice if it's inspired by hate and why then is it called justice if hate itself is not justice?  Children are not fungible, not property that can be replaced, like money that can be repaid, like debits and credits on a balance sheet. The death of a murderer does not repay a mother for the loss of her son nor can his life be restored to him. Even El could not restore Job's murdered family to him but only a substitute. Those he once loved are gone forever.


Lex Talionis is what we often call reciprocal punishment. In it's favor, we can say that it determines the limits of punishment -- only one eye for one eye. We talk about repayment, but some crimes cannot be payed back  nor is the victim's sight restored when someone else's is taken away.  Indeed can we talk about justice at all when we admit we want someone dead or worse that God wants someone dead and we need to fulfill his divine will?

I'm glad Joseph Paul Franklin is dead.  I hate him down to the bottom of my soul, but I do not love my hatred. I do not ennoble it. I do not justify it or try to reconcile it with my reverence for life. I feel no better and am no better now that he's dead. I don't think we are safer. I don't think we are any closer to fulfilling that longing for harmony in all things we've likely had since our beginning. I don't think we reach it in our various faiths -- neither in the laws of Missouri or the law codes of Ur-Nammu or Hammurabi or edicts of Telepinu or the Hebrew Halacha.

Some things cannot be made right nor losses recovered and when we act out of hate, when we justify hatred,  perhaps only hate itself is served or preserved.

Halliburton charged with criminal acts

But of course it's Halliburton, which is apparently above the law so, no real penalties will incur.

Under the plea agreement, which requires court approval, Houston-based Halliburton will also face three years' probation, pay the maximum fine of $200,000 and continue to cooperate in the Justice Department's criminal investigation of the April 2010 explosion and fire on the drilling platform, which killed 11 rig workers off Louisiana.

The Justice Department said it would not pursue further criminal charges against Halliburton or its subsidiaries. [...]

Halliburton's energy-services subsidiary designed and built the well for BP. In early May, the company began an internal investigation to determine whether the number of "centralizers" — metal collars that help keep the well pipe centered — played a role in the blowout. Halliburton recommends installing 21, but BP chose to use just six.

Their computer models said it was okay. But no one can find them. They've disappeared. Nor do we know who created said models. The creators remain unidentified. But Justice says Halliburton offered "significant and valuable cooperation during the course of its investigation" so all is forgiven. They pay the maximum fine of $200,000 and get three years probation, whatever that means, and we'll call it even. Because you know, a 200K fine is really going to sting a corporation that saw total revenue of $28.5 billion in 2012[pdf].

What a country. Too big to fail means too big to jail.

A license to kill

I expected this verdict but nonetheless it still rankled when I woke up to find George Zimmerman was acquitted. And no, despite the old saw, Zimmerman was not found innocent. Neither was he exonerated of the crime. The fact that he killed an unarmed teenager with a gun was never in dispute. He was acquitted on the charge of murder. There's a difference.

Neither can it be said that the court delivered justice for Trayvon. That would have required a guilty verdict, which just wasn't going to happen under Florida laws. Our legal system is imperfect. The guilty often go free while the innocent are sometimes convicted. And yes, the outcomes are often based on class status and race. It's not been unnoticed that a black woman in the same state, under the same laws, was given a 20 year sentence for merely shooting a gun into the air.

This is what happens when a "jury of peers" are the judges and the judge merely conducts the proceedings. It also happens when a single justice decides a case. It's a myth they don't bring their own prejudices into the courtroom. But it's useful to remember at such times, when the anger at injustice boils the blood, that judges and juries are constrained by laws written by politicians. The system is imperfect because is it an invention of humans who are also imperfect beings.

Much will be said today and in the days to follow about this case. Many will try to make sense of the outcome where none can be made. In the end all we can do is accept that sometimes the system really sucks and do our best to write better laws that deliver justice more perfectly. Probably an impossible task when politicians have the final say.

As for the instant case, the best summation I've seen is this: "The real danger of this acquittal is not riots in the streets. It's more George Zimmermans." A subject Charlie Pierce covered so eloquently already that there's nothing left to say.

Moral Mondays

It started with 5 or 6 people getting arrested at the North Carolina statehouse a few weeks ago. Every Monday since it's grown until yesterday, about 150 were deliberately arrested by NC statehouse security and over a thousand demonstrators were massed outside to protest the real life tyranny of Republicans ramrodding their insane agenda through the legislature.

The craziest stuff makes the national news but it's bigger than just trying to establish a state religion. They've decimated the public school system, they're destroying the social safety net, criminalizing poverty, dismantling environmental safeguards and trying to sell off the public assets to their cronies just to start. And that's just at the state level. What's happening in the counties shouldn't even be legal.

Republicans claim the polling is on their side, but I wouldn't bet on it. The crowds outside the statehouse are diverse. It's not just poor people. Well off professionals and older people are marching in to be arrested. This week even the mayor of Carrsboro was carted off to jail. Even the national media has begun to notice. I have to believe the more the GOPers overreach, the more inspired the people of conscience who have long sat silent on the sidelines will be inspired to fight back. The damage being done is great, but it will be undone.

Leaks and the limits of the First Amendment

Walter Pincus gets to the heart of what's wrong with the media freakout about DoJ's leak investigations. Do read it all, it's short but here's the main point. The media may "just be doing their job" but the leaker is in breach of their contract. The leaker is breaking the law to give them the information. So why is it so damn scandalous for the DoJ to seek to enforce the law? That is their job.

As Pincus points out:

Applying labels such as co-conspirator provides a probable cause for the judge to grant the warrant, as in the Rosen case. If Rosen offered money or some other reward, it might be a different case. I believe the First Amendment covers the right to publish information, but it does not grant blanket immunity for how that information is gathered.

Rosen actively encouraged his source to break the law. He brazenly waltzed in and out of the State Department wth barely an attempt to cover his tracks. I used more sophisticated subterfuge to hide my underage cigarette smoking from my parents. And I'm not moved by the wailing about leak investigations “intimidating a growing number of government sources.” The DoJ's job is not to make it easy for lazy journalists to get a scoop. Furthermore, exposing active undercover counterterrorism operations being conducted in the interests of national security is not whistleblowing. It just isn't.

The White House Correspondents’ Association board was late to the defense of the reporters. When they say, “Reporters should never be threatened with prosecution for the simple act of doing their jobs,” it should raise the question, what the hell is their job? Traditionally it was to watchdog government misconduct, not to expose our intelligence assets who are risking their lives to provide inside information on foreign plots against our country.

The principle of freedom of the press on which our country was founded was designed to protect criticism of corrupt politicians. Our founders designed it protect the press from retribution when it exposes government misconduct. It's not a blanket exemption for exploiting insider connections to expose rightful government process conducted for our protection simply to win a news cycle.

As Pincus notes there's a big difference between nothing being more sacred to the profession of journalism and the notion that “nothing is more sacred than our profession.” At some point we have to ask, is journalism even a profession anymore, or is it just another Big Business conducted for no loftier goal than corporate profit.

News Corp can't find DoJ notice on Rosen subpoena

Well how interesting. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation says they don't know nothing 'bout any subpoena:

News Corporation said on Sunday that it had no record of being notified by the Justice Department nearly three years ago of a subpoena for the telephone records of a reporter at its Fox News cable channel.

The company’s chief legal counsel at the time also said that he had never seen material from the government related to the subpoena.

The Justice Department says they notified News Corporation on Aug. 27, 2010, that it had seized Rosen phone records by fax, email, and certified letter, as it the custom in all legal matters.

You may remember that this is the same News Corporation that claimed for months on end it didn't know nothing 'bout phone hacking and police bribery until the proof finally caught up with them. But hell, they pretty much got away with lying about that without any major punishment, so why wouldn't Murdoch's US enterprise lie about this now?

Not making any accusations until the facts are all in, but thinking the circumstantial evidence and history is on the DoJ's side. Surely DoJ will have copies of the notifications. Lawyers never throw anything away.

Jutxaposition

A truth:

And a validation:

Because nothing diffuses racial tension like gun-toting racial separatists patrolling an already on-edge community

They're here to help:

Neo-Nazis are currently conducting heavily armed patrols in and around Sanford, Florida and are "prepared" for violence in the case of a race riot. The patrols are to protect "white citizens in the area who are concerned for their safety" in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting last month, says Commander Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement. "We are not advocating any type of violence or attacks on anybody, but we are prepared for it," he says. "We are not the type of white people who are going to be walked all over." [...]

Schoep, whose neo-Nazi group is based in Detroit, tells Riptide the patrols are a response to white residents' fears of a race riot.

What could go wrong?

Related:

#fail twitter.com/daveweigel/sta…

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) April 6, 2012

Difficult not to notice the media, right wing zealots and other crazed Zimmerman apologists are working overtime to make this all about the racsim, I guess so no one thinks about the guns. As if killing Trayvon simply for walking down a sidewalk is okay if Zimmerman really isn't a racist.

This story can still be summed up in a one sentence. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager, would still be alive if George Zimmerman, an armed vigilante, had stayed in his car as the dispatcher had advised.

No matter what color they are, justice demands Trayvon's family receive a better explanation for their son's death than an uncorroborated story told by his killer.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Fourth Amendment is dead and gone

Of course it's been on life support for all too many years already, but the Fourth Amendment took its last gasping breath before being throttled by this latest SCOTUS decision on strip searching:

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Any offense. No matter how minor.

You know when I read the classic dystopian novels of my youth, I always hoped Brave New World would be the vision that correctly predicted the future. Sadly, it appears Orwell won.


[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

George Zimmerman statement shot down by technology

Well, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but this seems like rather clear evidence that George Zimmerman lied to the police.

Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion. . . ” you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it’s not Zimmerman,” Owen says, stressing that he cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon’s, because he didn’t have a sample of the teen’s voice to compare.

It's difficult not to think that George Zimmerman, being the son of the former judge, simply assumed he could say anything and get away with it. Breaking the code of silence, but it's not that big a secret that the legal system takes care of its own and Zimmerman skated on charges related to violent behavior before this, more than once. Indeed, if this case hadn't caught the media attention that engendered such a huge public outcry, he probably would have gotten away with it again.

Related, wingnut blogger Tom Maguire is an imbecile, or else he's being wilfully obtuse. Voice recognition technology has been around for a very long time. As far as I know, it's acceptable expert testimony in any courtroom. Also, too, the audio on that 911 call is heartbreaking.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

George Zimmerman's Dad speaks

George Zimmerman's father gave his first interview since this story exploded into the media. Booman has already eviscerated his defense of his son, but I'm not inclined to be too harsh on the guy myself. It's only human nature to defend your own and in situations like this, everybody hurts:

Robert Zimmerman, a former magistrate judge and Vietnam War veteran, said he has never had to deal with anything of this magnitude.

"Unimaginable," he said. "Tough was being in Vietnam and other things. This is way beyond anything I can imagine."

The same could be said, I'm sure, for Trayvon's family. They released a few photos taken 9 days before Trayvon was killed. That's all they have left of their son.

Sadly, no matters what happens in the end, there will be no winners. Only tragic loss on all sides.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Zimmerman standing on shaky ground - Updated

If this is the police video of George Zimmerman on the night of Trayvon Martin's death, his story and the police statements, just fell apart. I don't see any blood on the guy at all and it's possible you couldn't see grass stains on the dark jacket, but it doesn't even look rumbled. I'd also think if he had to shoot Trayvon while he was lying on the ground, he would have been sprayed with blood himself. That surely would have shown up on the lighter part of the jacket and his shirt. But watch for yourself.



No apparent injury to the back of his head either. If you can't see the embed, here's the direct link to the police tape video.

I would assume, if ABC could get this footage, then the new special prosecutor investigating Trayvon's case must have it too. Wonder if that's why she floated the idea she might be able to bypass a Grand Jury to bring charges?

Update: More evidence that refutes Zimmerman's statement.

The funeral director who prepared Trayvon Martin’s body for burial told HLN’s Nancy Grace Wednesday that he did not see any cuts or bruises on the teen’s hands that would have been indicative of a struggle with George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed the Florida teen.

Yes. I know. Nancy Grace? But just because she's crazy doesn't mean it's not true. I suppose the autopsy photos would prove that one way or the other if it comes to trial.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Justified?

By Capt. Fogg

A lot of people are very angry about the shooting of Treyvon Martin last month in the old North Florida town of Sanford. I'm one of them.

Florida, as you may know has been a model of old South attitudes toward black people, but was the incident racially motivated as is being loudly asserted or is there racism involved in interpreting what happened?

As you might suspect from his name, Martin was black. He was only 17 years old and when he was accosted one night, dressed as many 17 year old males are, in a hoodie and sneakers and baggy pants; the kind of costume that produces unease and possibly is designed to produce unease, after dark, when worn by someone strolling through your neighborhood.

Young Martin was shot by a "neighborhood watch" volunteer - one of those people who lurk about neighborhoods at night looking for people who don't 'belong' there, but although such groups are often encouraged by local police and like any citizen who qualifies, is allowed to bear arms for the sole purpose of protecting themselves, these volunteers are not and are not allowed to be policemen. Indeed the concealed weapons license course stresses that fact repeatedly.

If you've ever lived in a community that has rules, you've probably chuckled about "Condo Commandos" who delight in the feeling of power they get from reporting you for having your garage door open for more than 5 minutes or failing to take in your garbage can by the required time. I would imagine that such folks would delight even more in taking on the role of protector while walking a beat at night. Does that describe George Zimmerman? Not having all the facts and being unlikely ever to have all of them, I can only speculate.

Mr. Zimmerman, 28 years of age, is being accused by the family of Treyvon Martin of a hate crime and a racially motivated killing. Of course I can't know what was on Zimmerman's mind, but I do read that he is of Hispanic origin and comes from a racially diverse family. There may be many reasons having nothing to do with race for Zimmerman to have accosted the young man and shot him. And of course it's inevitable that Florida gun laws will be blamed for this sad event by those who haven't read them and I despair when thinking about any lesson we should be learning here.

The laws governing concealed weapons here in Florida are rather clear about the right to defend your life when a person has reasonable fear of a lethal attack and it's rather clear about one's right to defend against someone trying to forceably remove you from a place you have a right to be, such as your house or your car. I'm no lawyer, yet I can speculate that a public sidewalk is one of those places one has a right to be. The law is equally clear about your right to use a weapon being severely undermined in a situation where the attack was provoked or 'escalated' by you. In other words, should I draw a weapon and shoot someone I picked an avoidable fight with, or made it worse by remaining when I should have walked away, I won't get away so easily with a self-defense plea as Zimmerman inexplicably seems to have done. The law is also clear about using a weapon to gain advantage in a dispute or as a threat. Simply showing it or even mentioning that you have one is a serious offense in many cases. "Get off my block kid, I've got a gun" is one of those cases.

The rights of a neighborhood watch volunteer extend as far as observing and using a telephone to call the police. They do not include provoking a fight, attempting to chase someone out of a neighborhood, shoving, pushing or physically engaging anyone. From the testimony of Martin's girlfriend who had been talking with him on the phone when Zimmerman 'went after' him and allegedly pushed him to the ground, that may be just what happened and if so, Zimmerman had long since transgressed and his right to use lethal force against an unarmed person had long since departed, at least in my non-lawyer opinion -- yet Zimmerman has not been charged.

Somehow, in the city of Sanford, this possibly unjustifiable use of force seems to have been ignored. I suspect that if there's racism lurking in this case, we'll find it in uniform or carrying a briefcase. Attempts to get around the apparent lapse by law enforcement people by framing the incident as a civil rights violation or a hate crime are not likely to be successful and any chance for justice drowned in the storm of predictable and formulaic accusations.

Legalized murder

I posted about this last night at DetNews but that was before his final chance at clemency was exhausted. Last night at 11:08pm, Troy Davis was legally murdered by the state of Georgia. Even after 22 years of litigation, the evidence strongly suggests Troy Davis was most likely innocent. Which also means the real perp, literally, just got away with murder.

But even if Troy Davis was guilty, what purpose does killing him serve in the interests of justice? Indeed, last night a guilty man was similarly executed in Texas and in Alabama another human being is slated to be killed by our own government. The questions stands for all of them. How does having the state commit the same crime serve civil society? The answer is, of course, it doesn't. The death penalty is a barbaric form of revenge that has no place in the civilized world.

I'm reminded today of a death penalty case I worked on for years in my time at the law firm. We won that case. Our client walked off of death row. That felt good even though our guy did commit a crime. But there were mitigating circumstances. He had the IQ of a child. He was basically tricked into participating. So yes, he deserved to be punished but he did not deserve to die for it.

But even those whose crimes may be so heinous, and guilt firmly established without doubt, who may well "deserve" to die, does not give us the right to choose the hour of their death. Death dealt at the hands of the government is still murder. How can we as a civilized society condone answering a crime with the same exact crime?

And beyond that, our system is not infallible. When we justify murdering the clearly guilty in the name of justice, we open the door for the innocent to be wrongly executed. In the end, Troy Davis could be any one of us and as he said in his final statement, "There are so many more Troy Davis'." That's not just the rhetoric of a condemned man, the list of wrongly convicted death row inmates in the United States is long. That alone should tell us that this sort of savage retribution is long overdue to be abolished entirely.

Kids for Cash judge sent to jail

It's so rare to see justice served and especially sweet to see it dished out to this creepy judge who so unequivocally deserved the punishment.

SCRANTON, Pa. — A longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state’s high court to toss thousands of convictions.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as “kids for cash.”

As you'll probably recall, those thousands of convictions were all children, wrongfully sent into hellhole, juvenile detention centers. I only wish they had also ordered him to give every cent he had to the kids as some small compensation for the injustice he perpetrated against them -- out of pure greed.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Give me more, give me more

Attorney Todd Allen is my new hero. Seriously. I want to see more of this kind of lawyering. Bank of America attempted to wrongfully foreclose on a property they never even held a mortgage on and then blew off paying the court-ordered legal fees to the homeowners. So he turned around and "seized the bank's assets."

"They've ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated, " attorney Todd Allen told CBS.

Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the Nyergers' attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

"As a foreclosure defense attorney this is sweet justice" says Allen.

Been a long time since I've seen such genuine justice in our current convoluted business of law. And very rare to see an attorney willing to pursue it so vigorously against the big bankster crime syndicate. Think I'll send him a thank you note. (todd@swfloridalaw.com. )

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Wisconsin union busters foiled

This is also kind of old news but to the extent I've been on the grid, I didn't see much buzz about it. The courts tromped on Gov. Walker's union busting bill:

Ruling that Republicans in the State Senate had violated the state's open meetings law, a judge in Wisconsin dealt a blow to them and to Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday by granting a permanent injunction that voided a law curbing collective bargaining rights for many state and local employees.

Of course, this is just the District Court and the State Supreme court may well overturn this ruling, considering it's overrun with conservatives most likely beholden in some secret way to the Kochs. Still, good to see the GOPers too clever by half machinations struck down, even if it's only temporary.

Payback's a bitch Mr. Ailes

Having seen the rich and powerful escape justice so many times, I don't want to get too excited until this actually happens, but how satisfying would it be to see the bad Roger Ailes go down?

Here’s what I learned recently: Someone I spoke with claimed that Ailes was scheduled to speak at their event in March, but canceled. It appears that Roger’s people, ostensibly using a clause in his contract, said he “cannot appear for legal reasons.”

I asked “What, precisely, does that mean?”

The response: “Roger Ailes will be indicted — probably this week, maybe even Monday.”

This stems from his demanding that Judith Regan, fomerly of HarperCollins, lie about her affair with Bernie Kerik in order to protect Aile's pal Rudy Giuliani. Rumor has it, Ms. Regan has the call on tape. As they say, developing...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Huge loss for the justice system

I've known Nancy Gertner since well before she was appointed as a local judge in Massachusetts. She was a brilliant defense lawyer and I rejoiced when she was raised to the federal bench. Now I'm sad to see Judge Gertner is retiring.

This is not a small deal. Actually, it’s a profoundly big one. Gertner is many things to many people. She is an unapologetic liberal. She is an unrepentant advocate. She is a civil libertarian of the highest order.

But she’s also something else, something greater than the sum of these various parts. She is a voraciously fair judge who uses her love of the law and the benefit of her sizable intellect to give refuge and recourse to those who need it. An entire region will miss that.

Despite her liberal leanings she's a fair and impartial jurist.

“The job of a judge is to individualize — to apply formal, cold law to individual human beings,’’ Gertner said as she rocked in her quiet chambers. “That’s not pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant.’’ [...]

That philosophy involves a cordial courtroom, decisions rendered in plain English rather than legalese, and criminal sentences accompanied by elaborate written explanations that are widely hailed by other judges.

I'd always hoped that someday she would make it to SCOTUS. We couldn't have hoped for a better final arbiter of the law of the land.