Where's the Outrage?

from the Chicago Tribune

Alleged child molester, child rapist Jerry Sandusky has been arrested again. It appears that he was unable to post is $250,000 in bail. I’m going to continue to follow the story. I think that there are thousands of vulnerable children in the United States. They look for role models. We provide a place that is supposed to be a safe haven for kids and it turns out to be a child predators paradise that is particularly devious, underhanded and despicable.

Update: Jerry has been released from jail. Somehow he came up with bail. Also, his wife has made a statement. (You can guess this one. If you, as the wife, state that you knew something was fishy all along, you are in hot, deep water because then you are an accomplice.) She knew nothing!! Her statement:

“I want to thank our children, our family, our extended family of former Second Mile participants, and all our friends for standing by us through these difficult times. Jerry and I want to express our sorrow for all the hurt that has come to those who have supported us and our beloved Penn State and State College Communities.

“I have been shocked and dismayed by the allegations made against Jerry, particularly the most recent one that a now young man has said he was kept in our basement during visits and screamed for help as Jerry assaulted him while I was in our home and didn’t respond to his cries for help.

“As the mother of six children, I have been devastated by these accusations. I am also angry about these false accusations that such a terrible incident ever occurred in my home. No child who ever visited our home was ever forced to stay in our basement and fed there. All the kids who visited us ate with us and our kids and other guests when they were at our home. Our children, our extended family and friends know how much Jerry and I love kids and have always tried to help and care for them. We would never do anything to hurt them. I am so sad anyone would make such a terrible accusation which is absolutely untrue. We don’t know why these young men have made these false accusations, but we want everyone to know they are untrue.

“I continue to believe in Jerry’s innocence and all the good things he has done. Jerry’s many success stories with his Second Mile kids and positive memories of those kids keep me going. I am asking everyone to please be reasonable and open-minded until both sides of this case are heard, and Jerry has the opportunity to prove his innocence.

“I would like to thank all those individuals who continue to support Jerry and hope they will continue to support us through the conclusion of this very sad time in our lives.

“Dottie Sandusky”

Tags: Legal, Sports by ecthompson md
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from the Chicago Tribune

I spent most of the morning on pins and needles. I was a huge Rod Blagojevich fan (read with plenty of sarcasm). He completely flaunted the law, even starred in a reality TV show, not to mention the puzzlement over how he could have even gotten elected to such a high office with no major skills in the first place. (I know – that part sounds a little like Rick Perry.) He just had that special something. As you know, he was railroaded convicted of trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat. So the Feds had a few tapes of him asking what he could get for that seat. That’s nothing… unless a jury of your peers says that it is indeed something. Today, the judge decided that the former Illinois Governor needed to do about 14 years. It is more than time for him to exit the stage.

Tags: Legal by ecthompson md
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Last week, I talked about the turmoil that surrounded Penn State, Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky. Last night, Bill O’Reilly dedicated his Talking Points segment to the scandal. Bill O’Reilly (see video above) rightly chastises several people in the scandal for not calling the authorities. Then, in typical Bill O’Reilly fashion, he goes over the top. He basically calls for mandatory life sentences for anyone convicted of child molestation. I do believe that child molesters should receive harsh sentences. I do not believe they should be locked up forever. I do believe in redemption. I do believe that some people can change. I do believe that we should give them that opportunity. I am aware of the dismal record of rehabilitation.

Finally, I have to mention that Bill O’Reilly mentions that Penn State has “done the right thing by cleaning house.” Mike McQueary was/is the assistant coach who reportedly saw Jerry Sandusky molest a child in the showers. As far as I know, Mister McQueary is still employed at Penn State. So, Penn State did not “clean house” as thoroughly as Bill O’Reilly suggests. (I almost completely agreed with O’Reilly. I’m not sure if this is a time for celebration or personal introspection.)

This Penn State situation is truly awful. Resolution will not be quick. Every time it appears that things are moving in the right direction something else happens. There are allegations of Sandusky “pimping out” some of the young boys to high-class donors. This is kind of the sensational claim. There is also the District Judge, Leslie Dutchot, who used to volunteer for Sandusky’s charity, the Second Mile. She did not recuse herself from the case. It would seem to me, in this high profile case that a judge should reveal any connection that she had with coach Jerry Sandusky. Not doing so is a lapse of judgment. In this case which features nothing but huge lapses of judgment it would seem that we don’t need any more.

Tags: Legal, Sports by ecthompson md
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When I grew up, in the ’70s, it seemed as if every week 60 Minutes would have a blockbuster story. Over the years, the CBS news program seems to have lost its focus and hard-hitting journalism. Last night, they seemed to be getting back into form. Last night, they revealed that many Congressman, as most of us thought, aren’t working for us. We elect them to represent our interests in Washington. It appears that many of our congressmen are more interested in lining their own pockets than they are in passing legislation that helps the American people. This isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an American people issue.

Here is some information on the Stock Act (here, here and here)

Tags: Congress, Legal, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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A couple of days ago, I wrote a post in which I accused the media of focusing on some assistant coach that most of us had never heard of it having been accused of child molestation. Foolishly, I thought that this was an isolated case in which a disturbed man was responsible for an isolated act. I was wrong. As more more allegations and details pour out of Penn State, it is clear that something was really wrong. It is clear that Joe Paterno knew about the allegations but did the least instead of the most to protect children. It is also clear that several other people knew that assistant coach Jerry Sandusky molested children (this link is the grand jury indictment) and they did nothing to protect the children.

Last night, the president of Penn State University was fired. Last night, the Board of Trustees did the only thing that they could have possibly done to try to right so many wrongs and fired legendary coach Joe Paterno. It is a sad ending to an illustrious career. Now Penn State and the people of Pennsylvania need to figure out how this happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening ever again. In my opinion, Joe Paterno needs to personally set up a fund to help the eight boys who’d been sexually assaulted over a 15-year period. The Board of Trustees did the right thing, the only thing.

Tags: Legal, Sports by ecthompson md
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It is unclear whether the Citizens United decision will be one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the last half-century or not. What is clear is we are living the results of that decision. This group, Citizens United, is spending well over $100,000 in Ohio in order to support a law which strips workers’ collective bargaining rights. They want to defeat a referendum which overturns that law.

Corporations are not people. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico has introduced a joint Senate resolution to overturn the Citizens United decision with a constitutional amendment. I think that this is a longshot at best, but we need to start somewhere. Maybe the Occupy Wall Street movement can latch onto this constitutional amendment and give it an infusion of energy.

Tags: Legal by ecthompson md
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I have been bothered by the death of Troy Davis. What the hell? There was an opportunity for those who love life… I keep thinking about this case. Why did this guy “have to” die? Where was the governor of Georgia? Could Mr. Davis been pardoned? Where was the president? No one could have saved this man?

From NYT Editorial:

As the unconscionable execution of Troy Davis in Georgia last week underscores, the court has failed because it is impossible to succeed at this task. The death penalty is grotesque and immoral and should be repealed.

The court’s 1976 framework for administering the death penalty, balancing aggravating factors like the cruelty of the crime against mitigating ones like the defendant’s lack of a prior criminal record, came from the American Law Institute, the nonpartisan group of judges, lawyers and law professors. In 2009, after a review of decades of executions, the group concluded that the system could not be fixed and abandoned trying.

Sentencing people to death without taking account of aggravating and mitigating circumstances leads to arbitrary results. Yet, the review found, so does considering such circumstances because it requires jurors to weigh competing factors and makes sentencing vulnerable to their biases.

Those biases are driven by race, class and politics, which influence all aspects of American life. As a result, they have made discrimination and arbitrariness the hallmarks of the death penalty in this country.

For example, two-thirds of all those sentenced to death since 1976 have been in five Southern states where “vigilante values” persist, according to the legal scholar Franklin Zimring. Racism continues to infect the system, as study after study has found in the past three decades.

Tags: Legal by ecthompson md
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I was on Local Edge Radio yesterday. I chatted with Blake and Leslie. We discussed the death of Troy Davis. We have to fix this. We need a system that is fair for everyone. Our government shouldn’t be in the business of vengeance. We need to get into a position where the death penalty is used rarely, if ever. We then drift into a couple of other topics. We note that the stock market took a huge hit yesterday. Then we delve into global climate change secondary to man’s burning of fossil fuels. I point to the difficulty of tackling threats that are in the future. I then talk about the science of global warming. Ice core samples reveal that CO2 levels are higher now then at any time during the last 500,000 years. The question that I ask is whether we can face a complex problem like global warming. We then discuss the problem that California is having with water. California has known for more than 40 years that their water supply is dwindling. The population of California’s increasing. The agricultural demands on water continue to increase. Yet, California continually puts the problem off by rationing water. Rationing water is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. There are only two ways to fix this problem. One, significantly decrease demand on water – move large segments of the population. Two, significantly increase water, make water. Leslie mentions the decrease in the water in aquifers. Finally, I mention a book that I’m currently reading called the Watchman’s Rattle. I highly recommend it.

Enjoy.

Local Edge Radio 9-23-11 [ 25:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Entertainment, Legal, Podcasts by ecthompson md
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Currently it’s 10 PM on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. Troy Davis was scheduled to be executed a little over three hours ago. His execution has been delayed by the United States Supreme Court. The question that looms is whom the state should execute. When do you institute the death penalty? Right now, the Troy Davis case hangs over this country. No matter what you think of this case, there are a few undeniable facts. First, nine eyewitnesses initially testified that Troy Davis shot and killed off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989. Since then, seven of the nine eyewitnesses have recanted their testimony. There is no physical evidence that I know of. The weapon used to shoot Officer MacPhail was never found. So, is this a case in which the death penalty should be instituted?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Interestingly, Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in Texas tonight. He died at 7:21 EST. Mr. Brewer was convicted of dragging James Byrd, Jr. to death. This was a famous case at the time, a terrible race-based crime. Interestingly, the family of James Byrd holds no animosity toward Mr. Brewer. They actually petitioned the court not to execute him.

As I mentioned earlier, I think that somebody like Timothy McVeigh should have been executed. So, once again, should we consider using the death penalty much more narrowly than ever before? Should it be something that is used rarely, maybe once or twice a year across the United States? Will it be possible for us to have a serious debate over the death penalty or will it turn into a media circus, like every other major issue that we have discussed over the last 10 years?

Update: The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Davis’ motion for a stay of execution. I suspect that My Davis will be executed later on tonight. So sad, so very sad.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Legal by ecthompson md
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Troy Davis is scheduled for execution later on today. His final appeal has been denied. In my opinion, the question is whether justice be served by executing Troy Davis. Will we be safer?

If you are seen in the company of extremists, does that make you out of the mainstream? Who’s that with Rick Perry? (By the way, I do not play the game of guilty by association. I think the game is wrong and dangerous.)

American hikers who have been jailed for espionage (being stupid beyond belief) have been released from an Iranian jail. Look for them to be hitting all the media outlets by tomorrow morning or late tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

Reports are circulating that the Hewlett-Packard board may be looking to boot out the CEO.

The Fed’s instituting Operation Twist seems to have stocks falling. I’m guessing that investors are not believing in the wisdom of the Fed.

Existing home sales rose in August. This looks like speculators taking advantage of a depressed market rather than homeowners buying houses. If we immediately stop construction on all new homes, we still have an eight months’ supply of empty, unoccupied houses.

Former first Lieutenant Dan Choi who was an outspoken critic of don’t ask, don’t tell was one of the first to reenlist once this awfully destructive law was repealed. Now this is patriotism.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup have all been downgraded by Moody’s. Over the next few days, we should figure out what this means. I don’t see how this can be good for the average American.

Finally, several Republican members of Congress have written Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and have basically asked him not to help the economy. Really? How does this help Main Street? Politicians are always talking about helping Main Street. One of these guys can step up and at least propose something that’s going to help – MainStreet.

Tags: Business, Economy, Legal by ecthompson md
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There’s been an outpouring of support for Troy Anthony Davis. Mister Davis, 42, is on death row in Georgia. He is accused of killing an off-duty police officer.

First, before I go on, we need to set the ground rules. I believe that capital punishment should be reserved for the worst of the worst. I believe that capital punishment should only be applied in extremely clear-cut cases. With capital punishment, we must be 100% correct, 100% of the time. There is no excuse to execute an innocent person. None. Timothy McVeigh is an excellent example of someone who deserved the death penalty, in my opinion. We had the evidence. We had his confession. We had his accomplice. There was no doubt that he was the one that bombed the federal building in Oklahoma.

Back to Troy Davis’s case. There are several places on the Internet where you can read up on his case. (Here, here) Basically, there was a fight in the parking lot back in 1989 in Savannah, Georgia. An off-duty police officer, Mark MacPhail, steps in to restore order. The off-duty police officer gets shot twice. The police officer dies. At trial, there are several eyewitnesses who testify that they saw Tony Davis with a gun. Davis maintains his innocence. Davis gets convicted for the murder of Mark MacPhail. There is no physical evidence. So, basically, the whole trial boils down to a combination of he said, she said. In subsequent trials and appeals many of the eyewitnesses stated that they were coerced into their testimony. Troy Anthony Davis is set to die, tomorrow.

There are only a few of us who have brains that actually act as a recorder. There are some remarkable individuals who can remember almost everything, down to the most minute detail. Most of us remember bits and pieces of an event. Later, when we are retelling the event, we fill in the details with pieces of our imagination. This is the way our minds work. For the majority of what we do as human beings, this is perfectly adequate. If you’re trying to remember how to get home, you don’t need to remember every single detail of every single street in order to get back home. Instead, all you need to remember is a few details, landmarks, and you can get home every single time. (Read more on eyewitness testimony – here and here.)

Our brains fail us in times of stress. There are multiple reasons for this which I will not go into. Basically, in times of stress, fight or flight, your body is primed for survival. You have a surge of epinephrine and multiple other hormones and cytokines that are designed to give you strength, speed and agility to preserve yourself. These hormones also give you the ability to block out extraneous information and focus intently on survival. Because of this, you’re not focused on the face of the stranger that is attacking you. There are many psychological studies which have shown this to be true. We also know that cross-racial identification is extremely poor. Therefore, all witness identifications should be thought of as suspect and unreliable. They may be true; on the other hand, they may not be true.

So, what do you do with Troy Anthony Davis? I do not know if there’s enough evidence to say that Troy Davis is completely innocent. I do know that there isn’t enough evidence to say that he is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because our system is designed in such a way that you’re innocent until proven guilty, the State must NOT execute Troy Davis. In my opinion, it is the right thing to do. (f you want to do more, if you want to fight for justice – Amnesty International.)

Tags: Legal by ecthompson md
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I’m traveling again. Being herded from place to place in an airport makes me want to “moo.”

• Rondo proved once and for all that you need two good arms to play in the NBA. Boston dropped game four. Garnett was completely ineffective on offense. If Boston can’t generate any more offensive power than what we saw on Monday night, this series is over.
• If you break the law you should be punished. If you are convicted of marijuana (which should be legal) possession, you should go to jail. A life sentence is a waste of tax payer money and over the top.
• Pastor lies about being a Navy Seal. Come on.
• As expected, House Majority leader John Boehner is holding the economy hostage. He wants big cuts, again, before he will raise the debt ceiling.
• Newt Gingrich is going to run for president. Yep, that Newt. I guess being wrong on major policy decisions and flip-flopping on major policy issues doesn’t disqualify you.
• New Florida election law is a great way to exclude voters. This law should be unconstitutional.
• Microsoft to buy Skype. I think that I can outbid Microsoft. Hey, can I borrow $8.6 billion from someone?
• BTW, how hard is it to de-feather a room? After three calls to the front desk and housekeeping, the Sheraton proves that it is impossible. Fail!

What’s up with you?

Tags: Budget, Civil Rights, House of Representatives, Legal, Military by ecthompson md
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Linda Monk is a constitutional scholar and friend. She just posted this powerful piece on HuffPo:

In rallies much like those currently being held in Wisconsin, and across the nation in state capitals this Saturday, workers during America’s first Gilded Age fought back against the forces of corporate greed that ground them to the bone.

In those days, the Supreme Court believed that the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech, only applied to the federal government, not the states and the local governments. So any governor, or mayor, or town boss was free to put you in jail or kick you out of town for saying something they didn’t like — union organizing usually being at the top of the list. But union supporters didn’t take that lying down — they flooded towns with speakers who violated local laws that limited free speech.

One of those early union leaders in the fight for free speech was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the “Rebel Girl” of martyr Joe Hill’s famous song. Flynn worked for the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World, who organized miners and migrant workers in the western states in the early 1900s. These workers had little political clout because they moved from job to job and weren’t registered to vote. Presaging the civil rights movement, their principal recourse was a mass protest.

Flynn helped lead one of those “free speech fights” in Missoula, Montana, in 1908. Here’s how she described it:

We sent out a call to all ‘footloose rebels to come at once — to defend the Bill of Rights.’ A steady stream of I.W.W. members began to flock in by freight cars… As soon as one speaker was arrested, another took his place. The jail was soon filled.

These mass protests in favor of free speech definitely had an effect. In 1925, the Supreme Court finally ruled that the First Amendment did apply to state and local governments, nationalizing the protection of free speech. Without the concerted action of union supporters, that victory would not have been possible.

Unions have contributed remarkable things to the American way of life: the growth of the middle class; expansion of health care and social security; paid vacations and paid sick leave; a work week that leaves time for families to enjoy each other. None of these things were possible in Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s day. As she said in 1962: “We never heard of vacations, let alone vacations with pay.”

Make no mistake: What is at risk in Wisconsin, and every state in America, is the quality of life that American workers have fought — and died — for during the past century. When plutocrats like the Koch brothers tell the governor of an American state to roll back the clock on public employees, they are seeking to end protections for all workers. The Kochs are part of an ideological movement that hopes to end all legislation controlling wages, hours, and workplace safety — returning America to a “Social Darwinism” that ensures survival of the fittest (read: richest). This is the constitutional theory that prevailed before the New Deal. To these extremists, Ayn Rand is on par with James Madison.

We must never forget that the most important achievement of the union movement was the protection of the right that makes all other rights possible — freedom of speech. The First Amendment comes with a union label.

Tags: Civil Liberty, Legal, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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All of the ups and downs of the Healthcare Affordability Act make it somewhat dizzying. Here’s the latest from DK:

Tags: Healthcare, Legal by ecthompson md
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Kelley Williams-Bolar

Just a couple of items:

• I know that the progressive thing to do is to talk about the riots in Egypt. I’m sorry, I’m not an expert on Egyptian politics, but my friend Brian Katulis at the Center for American Progress is an expert. He’s laying down his insight.
• It is no surprise to me that any objective panel would find that Wall Street may have violated federal securities law. The whole mortgage-backed security debacle was dependent upon two critical deceptions – first, someone had to be set up with a loan that was bigger than they needed. This was done in a variety of ways, but the most commonly used was the adjustable-rate mortgage. So, the home owner would sign up for an adjustable-rate mortgage and would either refinance the house or sell it within a couple of years in order to avoid paying the high mortgage payments. Secondly, the banks needed to securitize these mortgages and then sell them to pensions and municipalities who could only invest in very safe AAA rated bonds. As we now know, many these bonds weren’t even BBB in quality. The Ponzi scheme depended upon this type of deception. Thankfully, somebody’s paying attention.
• Gross Domestic Product grew at a higher than expected rate. I was ready for some good news and I guess this is it.
• Finally, I wanted to take just a minute to talk about Kelley Williams-Bolar. Ms. Bolar is a 40-year-old woman who was sentenced to 10 days in jail after it was discovered that she used a fraudulent address in order to get her kids into a better school system. Now, I think it is admirable to try to get your kids into a better school system. As a matter fact, I think it is a parent’s duty. I know that this is being done hundreds of thousands of times across the country, yet I don’t know of anybody else going to jail for it. With the overcrowding of jails I’m not sure that this is a jailable offense. But, being thrown in jail for 10 days is not the most egregious aspect of this case, in my opinion. For some reason this is a felony. This mother of two now has a felony on her record. She is trying to become a teacher’s aide, has been taking some sort of classes. She may not be able to get a teacher’s license because of this felony conviction. This simply isn’t right.

Tags: Economy, Education, Foreign Affairs, Legal by ecthompson md
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I’m not a lawyer, nor am I a judge, but I could smell something rotten from over a mile away. Several weeks ago, I read the story of Jamie and Gladys Scott. Bob Herbert highlighted the sisters in one of his columns. To me, this story screamed of a miscarriage of justice. Briefly, here’s their story:

On December 24, 1993, Scott County Sheriff’s Department in Mississippi arrested the sisters for an armed robbery they vehemently deny participation in. In 1994 they were convicted after being implicated in the crime by three young black men who confessed to the robbery in exchange of a plea bargain that gave them 10 months. The sisters were not offered a plea and went to trial.

Many bloggers have focused on the fact that this armed robbery raked in a whopping $11. I like to focus on the fact that nobody died. I would like to focus on the fact that each of the Scott sisters had a clean record. So, what should be the maximum sentence for armed robbers who are first-time offenders? In Mississippi, the answer is two life sentences. The three guys who admitted to this crime received only 10 months. They took the plea bargain. So what happened?

Right now, I’m going to speculate. I’m going to speculate that the prosecutor saw these two black women as agitators. He saw them as two people who were going against the system. His system. He saw them as two black women who did not show the proper respect to authority. He took it as a personal affront that they had the nerve to contradict him and state, multiple times, that they were innocent. Therefore, the prosecutor acted as any dictator might, with rage, and he overreacted. He threw the book at the Scott sisters. Two life sentences. (Why this is even possible in Mississippi isn’t clear to me. What’s the sentence for jaywalking, a decade of hard labor behind bars?)

Time passed. All of their appeals were denied. The Supreme Court wouldn’t even hear their case. One of the robbers signed an affidavit that stated the Scott sisters had nothing to do with the armed robbery. The Mississippi justice system simply yawned. They didn’t care. Then, one of the Scott sisters developed renal failure while in prison. (Probably from poorly controlled diabetes and hypertension. I’m just guessing, but it is an educated guess. One would figure that as an inmate you could get basic medical care. I guess not.) Jamie is dying. She needs a renal transplant. Her sister Gladys is a match. Somehow, the NAACP got involved. Governor Haley Barbour was petitioned to pardon the women.

Now, here’s where Lady Justice is turned on her head. Haley Barbour, a governor who gives out few pardons, decided to pardon the Scott sisters, although he did not hand out an unconditional pardon. They could be released only if Gladys donated a kidney to Jamie. What? Why is that a condition for their release? This is crazy. Isn’t that coercion? (Let me digress for just a half a second. Organ donation is supposed to be a completely and totally generous act. Transplant physicians do not want their patients pressuring family members to give organs.  It is illegal and violates transplant ethics. This is an extremely slippery slope.) In my opinion, Haley Barbour is wrong in so many different ways. Either commute or pardon the sentences or leave the sisters in jail. To pardon them with this stipulation is simply wrong. It is wrong for the transplant community. It is wrong for Gladys. It is wrong for Mississippi. This can’t be justice. It just doesn’t smell right. What are your thoughts?

Tags: Legal, Race by ecthompson md
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It seems to me that every merger should be looked at through the lens of the middle class. Is this merger good for the middle class? I just don’t think that the answer is yes. I think that this limits choices and will lead to increased consolidation and increased prices.

From HuffPo:

Today, the Federal Communications Commissionblessed the merger of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable and residential Internet provider, with NBC-Universal. The Justice Department immediately followed suit, removing the last obstacle to the unprecedented consolidation of media and Internet power in the hands of one company. (FCC press release here)

You should be afraid and mad as hell.

The new Comcast will control an obscene number of media outlets, including the NBC broadcast network, numerous cable channels, two dozen local NBC and Telemundo stations, movie studios, online video portals, and the physical network that distributes that media content to millions of Americans through Internet and cable connections.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts called it “a proud and exciting day for Comcast,” and showered Obama’s FCC and DoJ with praise. (more…)

Tags: Business, Legal by ecthompson md
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We have had the death penalty in this country ever since its inception. So is it time to change? I believe that the debate over the death penalty touches on the some of the fundamental questions about why we have a justice system. Is the purpose of a justice system to protect the public or to seek revenge for the wronged? So, does the justice system need to balance these two competing interests? If the purpose of the justice system is to rectify some injustice that has been perpetrated on a person or family, I would suggest that there is no way to fix that wrong. If a loved one is been taken from you, there’s no way to bring that person back. There is no way to right that wrong.

I would also ask whether a “civilized” society should put its own citizens to death. If a society can put its own citizens to death, then under what circumstances is that okay?

From Outside the Beltway:

The Texas Observer takes note of the case of a man executed in Texas more than a decade ago who quite possibly may have been innocent:

Claude Jones always claimed that he wasn’t the man who walked into an East Texas liquor store in 1989 and shot the owner. He professed his innocence right up until the moment he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas execution chamber and put to death on Dec. 7, 2000. His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene—a strand of hair—that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.

But DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project show the hair didn’t belong to Jones after all. The day before his death in December 2000, Jones asked for a stay of execution so the strand of hair could be submitted for DNA testing. He was denied by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

A decade later, the results of DNA testing not only undermine the evidence that convicted Jones, but raise the possibility that Texas executed an innocent man. The DNA tests—conducted by Mitotyping Technologies, a private lab in State College, Pa., and first reported by the Observer on Thursday—show the hair belonged to the victim of the shooting, Allen Hilzendager, the 44-year-old owner of the liquor store.

Because the DNA testing doesn’t implicate another shooter, the results don’t prove Jones’ innocence. But the hair was the only piece of evidence that placed Jones at the crime scene. So while the results don’t exonerate him, they raise serious doubts about his guilt

This wouldn’t be the first case of a Texas execution being called into question. Last year, an arson expert pretty much definitely established that the 2004 execution of Cameron Tood Willinghman was based on faulty expert witness testimony:

In a withering critique, a nationally known fire scientist has told a state commission on forensics that Texas fire investigators had no basis to rule a deadly house fire was an arson — a finding that led to the murder conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.

The finding comes in the first state-sanctioned review of an execution in Texas, home to the country’s busiest death chamber. If the commission reaches the same conclusion, it could lead to the first-ever declaration by an official state body that an inmate was wrongly executed.

Indeed, the report concludes there was no evidence to determine that the December 1991 fire was even set, and it leaves open the possibility the blaze that killed three children was an accident and there was no crime at all — the same findings found in a Chicago Tribune investigation of the case published in December 2004.

Tags: Ethics, Legal by ecthompson md
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Texas Rangers' pitcher Clay Rapada reacts after closing out the sixth inning against the New York Yankees

• The Texas Rangers proved that they’re not the Texas Rangers of old. They were not to roll over and play dead for the New York Yankees. A double steal in the first inning to generate a run was one clue. The second and more important clue came in the sixth inning when the Rangers were up against the wall. The Yankees look like they were poised for one of their patented innings which generates multiple runs. Somehow, some way, the Texas Rangers got out of that inning. Game three is on Monday in New York.
• Millions of dollars are rolling into Republican coffers. Mysterious groups like American Crossroads and American Action Network are shoveling large amounts of money at House candidates.
• Everyone was bowled over when Sharron Angle announced that she raised more than $14 million during the last quarter. Unfortunately for her supporters, she has only $4 million left in the bank.
• The brother of the “underwear bomber” has been arrested in Nigeria. He seems to be connected with the bombing in Lagos.
• I think it’s going to take years to straighten out the foreclosure mess. I think the Wall Street Journal summed it up very well, “The financial system and legal system have been on a collision course for some time in residential real estate. Both the lower standards for loans and the lax controls involving foreclosures were based on the premise that home prices would never fall, making it unlikely that many loans would go bad at once. Once that premise fell apart, the flaws in the system became obvious, and the long-term challenge now facing lenders is to rebuild the mortgage system on more solid footing. Banks argue that these problems will be repaired swiftly, and they’ll soon be running the foreclosure machinery at full speed again. But analysts say the problems could expand into a legal crisis if banks can’t prove that they are following standard property-law procedures.“
• Sadly, in Baltimore, an off-duty police officer got into an argument over a parking spot and was beaten to death. This kind of violence is senseless. Unfortunately, as a trauma surgeon, I see this on a weekly basis. My heart goes out to his family and friends.
• Lots of craziness going on in college football. Number one Ohio State had only a week to enjoy their number one spot before they lost.
• Another myth bites the dust. There really is no such thing as Eureka Moment. Major breakthroughs come with hard work.
• Barbara Billingsley, best known as the mother on Leave It to Beaver, died at age 94. I will always remember her for her hilarious performance in the movie Airplane!

Tags: Business, Domestic Issues, Foreign Affairs, Legal, Sports by ecthompson md
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I thought that this was a particularly thoughtful commentary. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Buying Health Care, the Individual Mandate, and the Constitution

Posted by NEJM • June 23rd, 2010
Sara Rosenbaum, J.D., and Jonathan Gruber, Ph.D.

In Rashomon, a classic film that explores the concept of truth, director Akira Kurosawa presents a story about a single incident retold by four narrators, leaving the audience to figure out what is real. Litigation has a Rashomon-like quality to it: two sides meet in a courtroom and each presents its case, arguing not only that abstract legal principles favor its cause, but equally important, that its version of the event that gave rise to the dispute should be the filter through which the court decides the matter.

Three separate cases raising constitutional challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are now under way(1,2,3) and together they present issues of great legal complexity.(4) Yet although difficult legal questions must be resolved, a pivotal issue is whose version of events will serve as the judicial analytic filter. For reasons related to the very basis of Congress’s constitutional power to enact health care reform, the fight is over whether the individual mandate to purchase health insurance (or pay a tax) is about regulating individuals’ economic conduct or regulating their noneconomic status. Depending on which characterization of the facts prevails, the individual mandate either falls within or lies outside Congress’s power to act.

The Supreme Court precedents indicate that the framers of the U.S. Constitution vested Congress with enormous powers to regulate individual economic conduct, even as they limited congressional authority over noneconomic activity. The source of this power to regulate economic activity down to the individual level is found in the Constitution’s Commerce Clause (article 1, section 8, clause 3), on whose reach the legal resolution of these cases ultimately depends. This clause explicitly grants Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

In Gonzalez v. Raich, a 2005 decision involving federal regulation of home-grown marijuana, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that growing marijuana amounted to economic activity and interpreted the Commerce Clause as permitting Congress to reach the “consumption of commodities for which there is an established and lucrative interstate market.” In other cases involving the constitutionality of federal laws sanctioning individual conduct — gun possession on school grounds (in United States v. Lopez, 1995) and domestic violence (in United States v. Morrison, 2000) — the Court concluded that the specified activities did not amount to economic conduct within the definition of the Commerce Clause. To be sure, both gun possession and violence against women have economic consequences, but an indirect economic effect is insufficient to warrant congressional regulation. As a result, only states, using their police powers, can directly regulate such activity, which lies beyond the limits of Commerce Clause control.

Thus, the outcome of the battle over the individual mandate turns on whether the courts understand the ACA as a law that regulates economic conduct. Complaints recently filed by the state of Virginia and by multiple state claimants in Florida represent a direct challenge to the proposition that economic conduct is involved. In their complaint, the multistate plaintiffs argue that the law should be viewed as an attempt “to regulate and penalize Americans for choosing not to engage in economic activity.” Similarly, in his June 2010 brief, the Virginia attorney general argues that the ACA must be understood as an attempt to compel individuals to undertake economic conduct by forcing them to buy health insurance. In other words, highly cognizant of the distinction drawn in Raich between economic and noneconomic conduct, the plaintiffs argue that health care reform is a blatant attempt to force an economic undertaking; they frame the ACA as a law about status (being uninsured) rather than about economic activity. [Read more →]

Tags: Economy, Legal by ecthompson md
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