Secret Hearings

While most of us were enjoying Thangsgiving dinner, Nicholas Slatten of Tennessee (pictured, right) is fighting for his freedom. Unfortunately, Slatten is one of five Blackwater security guards who allegedly participated in the Baghdad, Iraq massacre in 2007. 

This year the Rove Republican Racket had to drop charges against Slatten because of the lack of evidence.

However, in recent secret hearings and a filing two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice wants to re-open the case against Slatten.

According to the Associated Press:

The recent secret hearings focused on whether statements some of the guards gave to the State Department after the killings in Baghdad under a grant of immunity tainted the government's subsequent criminal case. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina has yet to rule. In its court filing Wednesday, Slatten's defense team called the U.S. government's handling of the charges against Slatten "a disturbing case of prosecutorial misconduct, undermining the integrity of the judicial process."

The case against Slatten became untenable, not merely because of a fundamental lack of evidence against him, but also because the trial team repeatedly mischaracterized the testimony of witnesses and excluded evidence that ran in Slatten's favor from the grand jury that indicted him, Slatten's lawyers wrote in asking for a public hearing before the judge. "The collapse of the government's case against Mr. Slatten should be as public as the baseless allegations against him," Slatten's lawyers added. "He should not be required to endure the government's repeated public mischaracterization of the evidence while non-public proceedings tell a very different story."

Buckeye Turkeys

Firstly, we would like to wish our readers a Happy Thanksgiving.

In honor of this holiday, we have a news story about two Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers who were fired recently for being real "turkeys."

From yesterday's Cincinnati  Enquirer:

Drunken behavior off-duty in Clermont County got two Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers fired....Lonnie M. Butler, a trooper for about two years, and Joshua N. Baker, a trooper for about three years, were both terminated after the investigation of an Aug. 5 disturbance at the Cheeseburger In Paradise restaurant on Eastgate North Drive in Clermont's Union Township.

"Trooper Baker took it upon himself to take a pineapple from a restaurant fruit basket and cut it up on the bar, making a mess of the bar and causing several cuts to the plastic bar surface," a report says. Butler grew indignant when his buddy, Baker, was confronted about the mess.

The bar manager asked them to leave. "When the manager threatened to call the police, Butler challenged him to do so, announcing that he and Baker were both the police and that the police would not do anything," the report says.

The men, both 30 years old, left when they realized police were on the way, the report says. When Baker and Butler met with Union Township police who were investigating the bar's report of disorderly conduct and criminal damaging, Butler again grew indignant and used profanity when talking to the Union Township officers, the report says, attracting attention of neighbors around Butler's home.

California Travesty

In California, a gang of correction officers won an appeal to be reinstated after being fired for an alleged beating scandal.

According to Sunday's Monterey County Herald:

A state appeals board has ordered reinstatement of eight correctional officers who were fired from Salinas Valley State Prison in the wake of revelations about a rogue gang of guards known as the Green Wall.  The state Personnel Board ruled last week there was insufficient evidence to support allegations that the officers stood by or helped beat up an inmate during an unauthorized "extraction" from a caged exercise yard.  A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said her agency and the state Attorney General's Office will consider appealing the decision.

So who is to blame in this fiasco, this travesty of justice? Foot soldiers of the Rove Republican Racket who ignored requests for an investigation.

According to the local warden, the FBI and his office contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office

Edward Caden, the former warden of Salinas Valley State Prison who initiated the investigation and who later testified regarding the Green Wall, was appalled at the board's decision. He said the case was mismanaged by the CDCR, which assigned at least three different attorneys to handle the case during its pendency. Caden said he and the FBI also tried to get the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute the case, to no avail. "This is just an absolute travesty. This sends a clear message" to both honest and dishonest correctional officers, said Caden, now a Sacramento-area attorney. "If you commit a crime under the color of authority and stick together and keep your mouths shut, no one can do anything."

Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Joseph P. Russoniello (pictured)allegedly did nothing and let this travesty occur.

The Endgame in Alabama

From 2001 through 2009, the Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration and left-over members of the Rove Republican Racket have successfully targeted leading political operatives across the country for political crimes against the state.

From Pierce O'Donnell in Los Angeles to Jim Tobin in Maine, politicians have been dragged through a deep puddle of vengence with a strong stench of injustice by U.S. Attorneys.

So what is the endgame? In other words, what pieces are left after all this turmoil?

In Alabama, the question has been answered. From the Associated Press:

The Alabama Republican Party has a new campaign video filled with lots of Democrats — the convicted kind. State Republican Party officials unveiled a video Tuesday that they plan to use in campaign ads and online during the campaign for the 2010 legislative elections as they push for GOP majorities in the House and Senate, which Democrats have controlled for more than a century.

The video includes images of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman; former state Reps. Bryant Melton and Sue Schmitz; former Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford; former Democratic Party chairman Bill Blount; former Democratic Party executive director Al LaPierre; former state two-year-college chancellor Roy Johnson; and former state Sen. E.B. McClain. All are Democrats, and all have been convicted or pleaded guilty to government corruption charges.

The sound of jail doors closing can be heard in the background of the video, which then shows screens with the words “Alabama Democratic Party leaders. Scandal, corruption, crime.”

Extra Well-Done Grilling in the Silicon Valley

Last week, we told you about a study that shows that prosecutors in California who engage in prosecutorial misconduct truly get away with it.

In the posting, we quoted from the San Jose Mercury News that in Santa Clara County, home of the Silicon Valley, only one prosecutor has been held accountable for misconduct, a Mr. Ben Field.

Now comes news that Field is appealing his four-year suspension before the State Bar of  California. Fortunately, the review panel grilled Field's lawyer extra well-done on Wednesday.

The Mercury News writes:

Former Santa Clara County prosecutor Ben Field on Wednesday took his fight to clear his disciplinary record to a State Bar of California appellate panel, but he ran into a tough inquiry from judges who sent strong signals they believe his four-year suspension for misconduct may not be harsh enough.

During an hourlong hearing, Field's lawyer, Allen Ruby, encountered generally hostile questioning from the three-judge appellate review panel, which is considering the former prosecutor's bid to overturn a ruling last summer that suspended his law license for four years "because he abused his prosecutorial power" in a series of cases over a decade.

At least two of the judges, Presiding Judge Joann Remke and Judge Judith Epstein, grilled State Bar prosecutor Donald Steedman on why his office didn't seek to permanently strip Field of his law license, given the argument at trial that he'd repeatedly violated ethical rules and the constitutional rights of defendants in criminal cases.

An Important Question from Mississippi

On Sunday night, the Greenwood (Mississippi) Commonwealth newspaper's editorial asked, "Why isn't Peters facing prison, too?"

Ed Peters is the corrupt DA from Mississippi who we affectionately call the "Pied Piper." Pied Piper Peters plays a tune so wonderfully that he worked out a sweet immunity deal with disgraced and embattled U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee of the Northern District of Mississippi. The immunity deal has been sealed tight and the U.S. Department of Justice won't provide details.

The Commonwealth correctly opines:

Why has Ed Peters, who was hired by [Richard] Scruggs and his friends to try to bribe [Judge Bobby] DeLaughter, gotten off so lightly? It was Peters who federal prosecutors say dangled the poisoned fruit -- a lifetime judicial appointment in exchange for a favorable ruling in a multimillion-dollar dispute over legal fees -- in front of DeLaughter. It was Peters who was the go-between, ferrying messages and documents between the judge and the Scruggs team. Yet, the former Hinds County district attorney has been able to skirt prosecution by turning on his onetime protegé. Peters’ only penalty, other than losing his law license, was giving back what was left of the $1 million the Scruggs team had paid him.

“I find it rather odd that the man who got $1 million is out fishing, and Bobby DeLaughter is going to prison,” [DeLaughter's lawyer] said. “At least in Chicago we chase the money.”

So have federal prosecutors in Mississippi, except when it comes to Peters. So far, six plaintiffs’ attorneys, three state judges and a former state auditor have drawn prison time in three judicial bribery cases -- some of them for misdeeds that were a lot less culpable than Peters’.

Why did he get such a sweet deal? That’s a question the feds have yet to answer.

Alaska Debacle Continues

Forget former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin!

The Rove Republican Racket is getting slapped around again.

Earlier this year, the Racket was slapped around for witholding evidence in regards to the case (and eventual conviction) against former Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder voided the convictions and withdrew the charges due to prosecutorial misconduct on April 1.

In June, we reported how the two federal prosecutors who withheld evidence of a star witness in the case were reassigned.

Now a related case is making headlines. From today's Alaska Dispatch:

Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys faced off in federal court Tuesday in an attempt to win the mind of the judge who will decide whether the corruption convictions against Pete Kott should be thrown out. The former Alaska representative, convicted of bribery, extortion and conspiracy in September 2007, was freed from prison in June pending a review of withheld evidence that his lawyer claims seriously discredits Bill Allen, the feds' star witness.

Specifically, the newly discovered evidence counters Allen's own statements that the transactions were bribes to keep Kott as a well-greased political ally, [Kott's lawyer]claims. The government had documents and interviews that showed Allen at times had made statements that Kott didn't extort the oilman, but that Allen gave Kott money out of friendship and as a bonus for the flooring work.There is also the matter of whether Allen had motivation to cooperate with the government out of fear that his alleged sexual indiscretions with prostitutes and minors -- which resulted in police investigations but no charges against Allen -- might come to light. McCloud argues these allegations were strong motivators for Allen to cooperate with the government, and Kott's defense team should have been allowed to question Allen about them at trial.

Looks like the Rove Racket took a heavy gamble on Allen and is losing on all bets held. Bill Allen was sentenced last month to three years in federal prison for bribery.