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?

After threatening web companies for more than a decade, Michael Doyle and his patent-holding company Eolas Technologies…may be finished.

An eight-member federal jury in East Texas deliberated Thursday for just a few hours before concluding that all of Eolas’ asserted claims of ownership to technology allowing access to the interactive web were invalid. That means the three upcoming trials that were scheduled to rule on infringement and damages, for Google, Yahoo and other companies, have been canceled. The eight defendant companies who resisted the lawsuits won’t pay anything to Eolas or its partner, the University of California, for using the web.

Eolas maintained its patents entitled the company to royalty payments from just about anyone running a website with “interactive” features, like rotating pictures or streaming video. The chief issue in the case was whether the first computer program that allowed access to an “interactive web” was created by the little-known Chicago biologist Doyle, who runs Eolas out of Chicago. Or was it one of the web pioneers put on the stand by the defendant companies — such as Pei-Yuan Wei and his Viola browser, or Dave Raggett and his “embed” tag?

The Eolas patents were denounced for years before this week’s landmark trial, but managed to survive repeated re-exams at the United States Patent and Trade Office.

However, Thursday’s verdict is likely a setback Eolas can’t overcome. It may well be appealed, but that will be a long process, and in the meantime Eolas won’t be able to go after new targets…

Kate Coultas, a spokeswoman for JCPenney – the only primarily bricks-and-mortar retailer who continued fighting the patent, added: “JCPenney is very pleased about the jury’s decision and thank all of them for their service. We also want to thank the true inventors who traveled from all over the world to testify in this matter and tell the real story about who invented the technology…”

As for the many companies that settled with Eolas, they might be regretting that pragmatic decision in light of the verdict.

Those companies include: Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, JP Morgan Chase, New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises International, Rent-A-Center, Sun Microsystems (bought by Oracle while this litigation was underway), and Texas Instruments.

I truly resent the context built over over time from the policy pushed by insurance companies and lawyers that says — settle with these schmucks even though their case sucks. It will cost less over time.

The cost to integrity is never worth it.

Turkey condemned comments by US Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry as “unfounded and inappropriate” after he said the country is ruled by Islamic terrorists and questioning whether it should remain in the Nato alliance…

“Obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that sort of activity against their own citizens, then yes – not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong in Nato, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it,” Mr Perry said…

Turkey noted that it had joined Nato when Mr Perry was just 2 years old, and cited its long history of fighting terrorism, including co-chairing the Global Counterterrorism Forum with the United States.

“We strongly condemn the unfounded and inappropriate allegations expressed yesterday evening about our country during a debate held in South Carolina by Texas Governor Rick Perry…Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said in Ankara.

He noted that Mr Perry trailed in the race for the Republican nomination to oppose President Barack Obama’s re-election next year and said, “This reflects the commonsense of the US electorate.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the Obama administration fundamentally disagreed with the assertion that Turkey was run by Islamic terrorists.

Pretty much anyone with an education above that of a Texas 6th-grader and the ability to read and comprehend words of three or more syllables would disagree with the crap that rolls off the tongue of one of Texas’ more prominent Republican ignoranuses.

A debt is a debt. Even if it comes in the form of a 58-year-old parking ticket with a $1 fine.

That’s what 79-year-old Dale Crawford thought when a ticket issued on Feb. 3, 1953, made repeated appearances in his home in recent years.

“It kept popping up every couple of years, and a couple weeks ago I went in the drawer and there it was,” Crawford said. “And I said, ‘I’m going to contact the city.’”

The ticket was issued on the day Crawford was inducted into the Army after being drafted. He had driven his 1946 Nash to the induction center at 1200 Milam, where he left the car for his father to pick up after he reported for duty. Crawford didn’t see the ticket until he found a box of keepsakes after his mother died in 1995, he said.

He sent a letter to the mayor’s office about his outstanding fine and said he wanted to pay it off. Mayor Annise Parker commended Crawford at a news conference Wednesday where he handed over his payment. She praised him as an example for others to follow…

Parker was so impressed with Crawford that she waived all penalties and interest that could have added “some zeroes” to his debt, she said.

Good for you, dude. Cripes – imagine what the interest would have been if Houston decided to bag him!

Some folks will never learn

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles rejected a specialty license plate with the Confederate flag Thursday.

The commissioners, all appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, voted unanimously against issuing the plate, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The vote came two weeks after Perry came out against the plate, saying the state doesn’t need “to scrape that wound again.”

The plate would have shown the so-called Confederate battle flag, the flag most commonly associated with the short-lived Confederate States of America. State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who sponsored the plate with his agency, said it would honor “the soldiers, not the politicians.”

African-American groups opposed the plate. Gary Bledsoe, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the state, said approving the plate would hurt Texas.

“This is the wrong thing to do,” Bledsoe said. “We don’t want others to look at Texas with scorn and ridicule and think that we are a bunch of country bumpkins.”

Cripes. We’re going to lose all our favorite stereotypes of dumb rednecks at this rate.

First Mississippi fails at ordering the government to interfere with women’s reproductive rights — now, this! I wonder if when Rick Perry gets back home from playing at being a national-class buffoon he’ll change things round and restore his original plan to revive the Confederacy.

 
Har.

Federal civil rights officials announced…they have sent election observers to locations in five states to keep an eye out for potential trouble at the polls Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division dispatched 11 staff attorneys along with 85 trained election observers from the Office of Personnel Management to watch activities at the polls and report any irregularities…

In Mississippi, monitors are being dispatched to four counties, as voters go to the polls in a gubernatorial election to replace Haley Barbour, who is term-limited from running again. The campaign features the white Republican Lieutenant Gov. Phil Bryant and African-American Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, a Democrat. Mississippi political observers say Bryant is a strong favorite to win the election…

The Justice Department has also assigned monitors to Lorain County, Ohio, to protect the rights of Spanish-speaking voters. Last month, the federal government signed an agreement with Lorain County to resolve concerns that limited-English Hispanic voters were being denied their full voting rights because the county failed to provide language assistance as required by law.

In Alameda County, California, the U.S. will monitor voting following an agreement between federal officials and the county in July. The agreement requires Alameda County to provide election materials and information in Spanish and Chinese. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said the agreement “ensures that Alameda County’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking citizens will be able to cast an effective ballot and successfully participate in the electoral process.”

In Jasper, Texas, racial tensions have run high over the recall election for three African-American city council members responsible for the hiring of the city’s first black police chief.

In Springfield, Massachusetts, activists claim minorities were turned away at the polls in the September primary, and said there was no Spanish-language assistance for voters. Hispanic leaders, the NAACP and ACLU had all urged the Justice Department to travel to Springfield to protect voting rights of all minorities.

Republicans around the country continue to mobilize to deny the franchise to citizens on the basis of ethnicity and language. Nothing new about the practice. Nothing less than bigotry is expected – after all – since the so-called Southern Strategy has never been limited to the South. Or to Black folks alone.

Pilgrim Chickens on the left – with his favorite chicken plucker

On a July morning in 2008, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and several aides boarded a plane for Washington to lobby on ethanol use, an issue important to corn growers and livestock owners in his state.

The growers favored federal rules requiring the use of the corn-based fuel in gasoline, but beef and chicken suppliers said the rules would raise the price of feed stocks. Mr. Perry was firmly in the livestock camp, and he took his case straight to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, urging him to waive the ethanol mandate to lower the cost of corn.

While executives from the livestock industry did not attend Mr. Perry’s private meeting at the E.P.A., the governor would not have made it there without them — literally. The Hawker 800XP plane that Mr. Perry and his team flew from Austin to Washington and back was provided by Lonnie Pilgrim, one of the world’s largest chicken producers and a leading critic of the ethanol mandate…The poultry magnate also flew the governor to Washington in June to take part in a news conference on the issue.

The two trips, each valued at $9,179, were among more than 200 flights worth a total of $1.3 million that Mr. Perry has accepted — free — from corporate executives and wealthy donors during 11 years as governor, according to an analysis of Texas Ethics Commission records by The New York Times.

Although many of the trips were for political or ceremonial events — not unusual for elected officials — others involved governmental functions, including some that were of interest to the planes’ owners. As a result, a group of well-heeled businessmen has effectively helped underwrite some of Mr. Perry’s activities as governor.

The head of a Texas oil refinery spent almost $20,000 flying Mr. Perry and his staff to a trade meeting in Mexico, where the governor asked Mexican energy officials to consider more joint ventures with Texas oil companies. Other Texas business owners have paid Mr. Perry’s way to Washington to lobby on immigration, testify before Congress and meet with the homeland security secretary.

Mr. Perry’s travels adhere to Texas ethics laws, and he is far from alone in accepting gifts of air travel. But among politicians he stands out for taking private flights for activities that are considered part of his job as governor. That is different from campaign travel or the sort of quasi-official trips for which officeholders normally use private planes, like attending a conference or giving a speech.

Texas ethics laws, of course, is a contradiction in terms. Ethics has little or nothing to do how Rick Perry or pretty much any other Texan governs. Taking care of the Big Boys is what counts. The Texas legislature will make certain laws are bent, broken, or stapled together to allow for as much influence as “grassroots” organization like the Petroleum Club or Chickenpluckers International require.

RTFA for lots of details, anecdotes, the sort of corrupt practices considered trivial in Texas.

A central Texas gun dealer ran radio ads advising “Socialist” liberals, those who voted for President Barack Obama, Arabs and Muslims that they need not apply for his concealed gun license class.

Crockett Keller, who owns Keller’s Riverside Store, ran the ads on the radio station in his rural hometown of Mason, Texas, which is 120 miles west of the state capital of Austin…

Keller said he is simply exercising his freedom to teach concealed handgun license classes to whomever he wants. He said he has received “hundreds” of calls from Americans who support his stance…

Is anyone surprised there are hundreds of bigots in Texas?

He said he was not joking when he put the lines about socialists in his commercial, because he knows some socialist liberals and did not want them to enroll in the class.

“I didn’t want them to show up and have to tell them no,” he said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the concealed carry program, and licenses instructors, said in a statement that “certified instructors are required to comply with all applicable state and federal statutes, and conduct by an instructor that denied service to individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion would place that instructor’s certification at risk.”

I wonder how often the state of Texas enforced that compliance?

The department said it had begun an investigation into the matter, and would “take appropriate administrative action based on the findings of from the investigation.”

Adults in Texas are allowed to carry concealed weapons if they have completed a class such as the one Keller teaches.

Keller wrapped up his radio by saying: “With no shame, I’m Crockett Keller. Thank you, and may God bless.”

Need I make special note here to my Christian friends and visitors to this site that this is an illustration of why I take the time to point out idiots who are Christian fanatics?

I’m well aware of sensible decent human beings who profess a faith, who practice one or another religion with leanings towards human beings instead of dumbos like Crocket Keller. But, parallel to the Kool Aid Party bigots and reactionaries who now own the Republican Party, there is an even longer history of crap-brained and superstitious ignoranuses who shout to the world they are the mainstream of American Christianity. It’s hard not to take them at their word when they’re the only ones hollering.

Rental RV ready to tow away from the courthouse
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

It’s one thing for tipsy teenagers to break into a county courthouse and clown around with a judge’s robe and gavel. If you’re a foreign national suspected of such behavior, you’ll get a whole lot more attention.

Five young men learned that Wednesday in San Antonio, Texas, after the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security joined an investigation that will determine whether the incident was an escapade or part of a terrorism plot.

So far, Bexar County officials said Wednesday afternoon, it appears to be a prank. “I think probably, if their mother found out, she wouldn’t approve,” Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz said.

Ortiz said the five men who had reportedly been traveling in an RV are from France. Luis Antu, a spokesman for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, said the men, in their 20s, claimed to be French Moroccan…

Authorities say two of the men climbed a fire escape and entered through a fourth-floor window shortly before 1:30 a.m. A video image released by authorities shows two people walking or running down a hallway while wearing sombreros.

Alarms sounded. Police quickly had the place surrounded. But they bided their time during the 30-minute incident, authorities said…The pair exited the courthouse and, along with three others outside, including one sitting in an RV, were arrested…

According to the security surveillance tape, the two suspects “were playing with a judge’s gavel and robes,” the spokesman said. “They went into one of the libraries and put on sombreros and were walking around the halls…”

As a precaution, a bomb-sniffing dog was brought to the site and searched the facility.

There’s a distinct possibility they were plastered. Beer cans were found in their rental RV – and in the courtroom. It’s presumed the beer cans were theirs.