Eideard

Michael Morton in the middle

State District Judge Louis Sturns of Tarrant County will lead a court of inquiry into complaints of prosecutorial misconduct against former Williamson County prosecutor Ken Anderson, who won a murder conviction in 1987 against a defendant who spent 25 years in prison before he was exonerated by DNA evidence.

Michael Morton was convicted of fatally beating his wife in their Austin home in 1986. Attorneys say the wrongful conviction would not have happened if Anderson, who is now a Williamson County state district judge, had not deliberately withheld evidence that indicated Morton’s innocence.

“This is a historic moment for Texas justice,” said John Raley, the Houston lawyer who has worked pro bono on Morton’s case for seven years. “We are confident that Judge Sturns will handle this important case with the seriousness and probity demonstrated by Judge [Sid] Harle and [Texas Supreme Court Chief] Justice [Wallace] Jefferson…”

Last week, Harle recommended that Jefferson appoint such a court after he decided that there was probable cause to believe that Anderson should face charges of contempt of court, tampering with evidence and tampering with government records…

Morton contended during his 1987 trial that his wife’s killer must have entered their home after he left for work about 5:30 a.m. Anderson told the jury that Morton, who had no criminal history, beat his wife to death in a perverted rage because she denied him sex. Meanwhile, Morton’s lawyers say, Anderson was concealing evidence that pointed to the very scenario Morton described.

Morton was sentenced to life in prison but continued to maintain his innocence. Starting in 2005, he pleaded with the court to test DNA on a collection of evidence, including a bandanna found near his home shortly after the murder.

Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley fought the request for DNA testing, based on advice from Anderson. In 2010, though, a Texas court ordered the testing. The results showed Christine Morton’s blood on the bandanna mixed with the DNA of Mark A. Norwood, a felon who lived near the Mortons at the time.

A Williamson County grand jury indicted Norwood this month. Norwood’s DNA has also been identified on a pubic hair found at the scene of the similar murder in 1988 in Austin…

The Innocence Project probably could spend all their time in Texas and Illinois – and that would cover 99% of those convicted illegally of violent crimes. Do we have any states left where the justice system considers protecting the innocent as important as getting a high conviction rate?

Wegelin & Co, corporate headquarters, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Wegelin & Co., the 270-year-old Swiss bank facing criminal charges in a U.S. crackdown on firms suspected of aiding tax evasion, failed to appear at a court hearing as prosecutors called the bank a “fugitive.”

Prosecutors said after the hearing…in Manhattan federal court that three Wegelin client managers charged in the case also failed to appear and were considered fugitives.

When no defendants or defense attorneys showed up in court, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff asked prosecutors for a proposal on how to proceed. Prosecutors said they will confer with the Justice Department and advise Rakoff on their proposals. “Unlike an individual, arresting a company is somewhat difficult,” Rakoff said…

Wegelin is the first overseas bank to be indicted by the U.S. for aiding tax fraud, federal prosecutors in New York said this month. The three Wegelin client managers at the Zurich branch, Michael Berlinka, Urs Frei and Roger Keller, were also indicted.

The managers serviced “undeclared accounts” for U.S. taxpayers, meaning the income derived from them wasn’t reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, according to the superseding indictment filed this month.

Nothing new about international bankers considering themselves above the law. Especially when an historic function of their services is aiding their clients in defrauding the tax departments of one or another government.

For the first time in modern history we have a Department of Justice that actively seeks to repatriate the funds hidden abroad – instead of just relying on the crooks for fundraising.

A Virginia appeals court declared Thomas Haynesworth an innocent man Tuesday, clearing his name and acknowledging that he spent 27 years behind bars for rapes he did not commit.

It is the first time the state has issued a “writ of actual innocence” in a rape case without the certainty of DNA evidence. Haynesworth, 46, was supported by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II and two state prosecutors — all of whom concluded that he was mistakenly identified by a rape victim as he walked to a Richmond market for sweet potatoes and bread one February afternoon in 1984.

“It’s a blessing,’’ Haynesworth said as he stood with his attorneys and Cuccinelli. “There are a lot of people behind the scenes who believed in me. Twenty-seven years, I never gave up. I kept pushing. I ain’t give up hope.

“I am very happy. Me and my family can finally put this behind us, and I can go on with my life. And I can finally vote.”

The case shows how far Virginia has come in allowing convicts to argue their innocence. Historically, prisoners were barred from introducing new evidence more than three weeks after sentencing, and in the 1990s, then-Attorney General Mary Sue Terry famously said, “Evidence of innocence is irrelevant.” But when DNA testing resulted in hundreds of exonerations nationwide, it prompted Virginia lawmakers to open the door for courts to reconsider guilt based first on genetic evidence and later on other evidence, such as recanted testimony, fingerprints or ballistics.

Although Haynesworth was released on parole in March, he has not been fully free. Now, his photo has been taken off the state’s sex offender registry. He is allowed to use the Internet. Finally, he can take a woman on a date without first introducing her to a parole officer.

Our system of justice is once again found whole by exception rather than the rule.

Racism is still a given in the all-American equation.

An off-duty Chicago police officer dressed up as a clown for a South Side fundraiser shot and killed a teen who held him at gunpoint tonight after the event, authorities said.

The officer…was in his clown outfit for a fundraiser for a day-care business. The event, attended by a group of 50 children, was near West 87th Street and South Damen Avenue.

At 10:10 p.m. after the event ended, the officer went to his car and a teen approached him, asking him for money, authorities said. When the officer said he had no money, the teen pulled a gun on him, authorities said.

During a struggle with the teen, the officer grabbed hold of the gun, opened fire and killed him.

The officer sustained minor injuries, according to a release from police News Affairs.

Don’t carry a gun unless you’re prepared to use it. Don’t pull a gun on someone unless you’re capable of using it. Don’t get close enough to let someone take your gun away – and use it on you.

In this case – I’d say instant justice was meted out.

“The branch manager was visibly shaken.”

Months after Bank of America wrongly foreclosed on a house Warren and Maureen Nyerges had already paid for, they were still fighting to get reimbursed for the court battle.

So on Friday, their attorney showed up at a branch office in Naples with a moving truck and sheriff’s deputies who had a judge’s permission to seize the furniture if necessary. An hour later, the bank had written a check for $5,772.88.

“The branch manager was visibly shaken,” attorney Todd Allen said Monday, recalling the visit to the bank last week. “At that point I was willing to take the desk and the chair he was sitting in.”

After the moving company and sheriff’s deputies get their share, the Nyerges should receive the rest of the money this week, ending a bizarre saga that started when they paid Bank of America $165,000 cash for a 2,700-square-foot foreclosed home in Naples in 2009.

About four months later, a process server knocked on their door and handed Warren Nyerges a notice of foreclosure…

“It was mind boggling,” said Nyerges, a 46-year-old retired police officer. “To try to unscrew the screw up, it’s not as easy as it sounds.”…

In September 2010, a Collier county judge ordered Bank of America to pay the couple’s $2,534 attorney fees. But by last week, the bank hadn’t paid up, so Allen got a judge’s permission to seize assets…

This isn’t the first time that Bank of America has tried to foreclose on a property that was owned by a person without a mortgage…

And Nyerges said he’s still upset with Bank of America.

“They couldn’t even spell our name right in the apology,” he said.

Does the attitude of the monster mega-bank sound all too familiar?

Fewer than half of American eighth graders knew the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the most recent national civics examination, and only one in 10 demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, according to test results just released

At the same time, three-quarters of high school seniors who took the test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were unable to demonstrate skills like identifying the effect of United States foreign policy on other nations or naming a power granted to Congress by the Constitution…

“The results confirm an alarming and continuing trend that civics in America is in decline,” said Charles N. Quigley, executive director of the Center for Civic Education, a nonprofit group in California. “During the past decade or so, educational policy and practice appear to have focused more and more upon developing the worker at the expense of developing the citizen.”

One bright spot was that Hispanic students, who make up a growing proportion of the country’s population and student body, narrowed the gap between their scores and those of non-Hispanic white students. On average, Hispanic eighth-graders scored 137 and non-Hispanic whites 160. That 23-point gap was down from 29 points in 2006. Among high school seniors, the gap narrowed to 19 points from 24 points.

The achievement gap between blacks and whites in civics, about 25 points at the fourth- and eighth-grade levels and 29 points among high school seniors, did not change significantly.

The results showed that a smaller proportion of fourth and eighth graders demonstrated proficiency in civics than in any other subject the federal government has tested since 2005, except history, American students’ worst subject.

“We face difficult challenges at home and abroad,” Justice O’Connor said in a statement. “Meanwhile, divisive rhetoric and a culture of sound bites threaten to drown out rational dialogue and debate. We cannot afford to continue to neglect the preparation of future generations for active and informed citizenship.”

Of course, Justice O’Connor assumes that our political parties actually would welcome an informed citizenship. I can’t imagine why.

Jack Straw, the Blackburn MP and former Home Secretary, is having to learn how to drive again because he has forgotten after being chauffeured everywhere during Labour’s 13 years in power.

Mr Straw is completing a “driving refresher course” as well as received tips from a senior Labour colleague on how to cope with motorway driving. Since 1997, the former minister is understood to have only driven short distances on quiet minor roads a handful of times.

A friend of Mr Straw told a Sunday newspaper: “Jack was pretty much driven everywhere for 13 years. He did a spot of driving on minor roads to run the odd errand but not much else…

Mr Straw, as Justice Secretary, announced in 2009 that the maximum penalty for reckless driving would be more than doubled from two years in jail to five.

The legal change led to a rise in the number of drivers choosing to take refresher lessons, and the increase was particularly prevalent among elderly motorists.

Mr Straw, who stood down from Labour’s front bench last year, was unavailable for comment.

He probably forgot what it’s like to be honest man with reasonable opinions based on something other than political expediency and opportunism.

Crystal Dillman and her fiance Luís Ramírez

Three former Pennsylvania police officers went on trial this week on charges of obstructing justice in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant in 2008, a prosecution that Hispanics have come to view as a national test case for treatment of Latinos.

The federal case against the former officers, Matthew Nestor, Jason Hayes and William Moyer, began with the killing of Luís Ramírez, 25, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was beaten and kicked to death in July 2008 by a group of young white men in the central Pennsylvania town of Shenandoah.

The case became a cause célèbre for Latinos who argued that the two main defendants, Brandon Piekarsky, a member of a high school football team, and his friend Derrick Donchak, got off with light sentences in a state trial in 2009. They were acquitted of the most serious charges and convicted of simple assault, a misdemeanor.

After mounting criticism from state officials, federal prosecutors pressed civil rights charges against the two men, and in October, they were convicted of a hate crime. The men, who are 19 and 20, face a maximum of life in prison when they are sentenced on Jan. 24.

In federal court on Thursday in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., prosecutors argued that the police officers, who are charged with conspiracy, making false statements and obstruction of justice, misrepresented facts during their investigation because they had personal connections to the families of the accused. Mr. Nestor, the chief of police at the time, had vacationed with Mr. Piekarsky’s mother, according to the indictment. Mr. Hayes, a patrolman, was dating her, and the son of Mr. Moyer, a lieutenant, played on the same football team as those accused in the beating. All have since left the police department…

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which circulated a petition in 2009 calling for the Justice Department to bring federal charges in the case, welcomed the trial.

“This trial sends a strong message that hate crimes and those who attempt to cover them up, including law enforcement officers, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Gladys Limón, a staff lawyer for the fund.

RTFA for brief details. Wander back through Google-time and you’ll find more coverage – and damned little done by the local PD.

“Protect and Serve” does not ask the question “which neighborhood and whose friends” get protected and served?

Life inside an ideological cave

The young lovers didn’t stand a chance.

In a desolate field on the edge of their village in northern Afghanistan, hundreds of men, stones in hand, closed in to carry out the mullah’s death sentence, handed down after the pair eloped against the wishes of their families.

“It was an act of great cruelty,” said Mutasem Khan, an uncle of Abdul Qayuum, the 28-year-old man who was stoned to death this month in Kunduz province along with the village woman he had wooed, identified only as 19-year-old Siddiqa…

Even as hard-line village mullahs loosely aligned with the Taliban seek a return to the harshest forms of physical punishment permitted under Sharia, or Islamic law, the Taliban leadership has been trying to rally public support by painting itself as a defender of civilian lives.

In a highly unusual move, the Taliban this month even offered to create and participate in a joint commission with the Western military, the United Nations and the Afghan government to investigate the deaths and injuries of noncombatants. That offer came soon after the insurgents issued a “code of conduct” that discouraged the killings of civilians…

For countries contributing troops to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization force, such a settlement could set the stage for an exit from what has become an increasingly unpopular war. But the West says, echoed by the government of President Hamid Karzai, that negotiations can take place only with insurgents who promise to renounce violence and respect Afghanistan’s Constitution and legal system, which call at least in theory for due process under the law.

At the village level, however, matters of crime and punishment almost always encompass family honor and deeply held tribal traditions.

Summary justice, governing everything from land disputes to adultery, was a feature of daily life long before the Taliban rose to power in the 1990s and will probably remain part of the landscape regardless of how long the Western military presence lasts.

Someone remind me: Which group of Stone Age ideologues is on “our” side?

Why are we there? And who invited us to stay forever?

The United States has intervened and filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Oracle Corporation and Oracle America Inc. The government alleges that Oracle defrauded the United States on a General Services Administration (GSA) software contract that was in effect from 1998 to 2006 and involved hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

Under the contract, GSA used Oracle’s disclosures about its commercial sales practices to negotiate the minimum discounts for government agencies who bought Oracle software. The contract required Oracle to update GSA when commercial discounts improved and extend the same improved discounts to government customers. The suit contends that Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices, ultimately leading to government customers receiving deals far inferior to those Oracle gave commercial customers.

“We take seriously allegations that a government contractor has dealt dishonestly with the United States,” said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. “When contractors misrepresent their business practices to the government, taxpayers suffer.”

The suit was originally filed on by Paul Frascella, Senior Director of Contract Services at Oracle. The False Claims Act allows private citizens with knowledge of fraud to file whistleblower suits on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery. If the United States intervenes in the action and proves that a defendant has knowingly submitted false claims, it is entitled to recover three times the damage that resulted and a penalty of $5,500 to $11,000 per claim.

Woo-Hoo! I’ve been hearing extra grumbles from corporate lackeys about Obama instituting better rewards for whistleblowers.

Which can make up for a lot of unemployment.