Judge awards $101 million to men wrongly imprisoned for 35 years

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to pay $101 million to four men who were wrongly imprisoned for more than thirty years on murder convictions when the FBI withheld exculpatory evidence. Two of the four men died in prison. The Department of Justice argued that the federal government had no obligation to share information with state prosecutors even though they knew that the testimony identifying the men as the killers was false.

The judge declared that the DoJ's position was "absurd" and "The FBI's misconduct was clearly the sole cause of this conviction."

The FBI gave bonuses and commendations to its agents who were responsible for these erroneous convictions for the murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan.

(Via The Agitator, who rightly asks why the FBI agents responsible for this travesty of justice are not themselves in jail.)

UPDATE (July 31, 2007): The Agitator reports on FBI Assistant Director Wayne Murphy's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on the use and abuse of confidential drug informants, in which Murphy argues that the FBI should not be required to disclose evidence about wrongdoing by confidential informants to state prosecutors in order to prevent murders or to prevent people from being wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Apparently the FBI considers the war on drugs so important that it is better to allow people to be murdered or people to be wrongly imprisoned than to jeopardize a drug investigation.

Arizona allows quacks to perform surgery

Orac at Respectful Insolence points out that a recent Arizona death after liposuction was a case of "minor surgery" being performed by a homeopath. And Arizona law permits these quacks to perform "minor surgery."

UPDATE (July 28, 2007): Orac has more on what Arizona allows via its regulation of "homeopathy."

Union hires homeless and unemployed at low wages to protest low wages

Outsourcing the Picket Line

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.
…
Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They’re hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs.

“It’s about the cash,” said Tina Shaw, 44, who lives in a House of Ruth women’s shelter and has walked the line at various sites. “We’re against low wages, but I’m here for the cash.”

Via Long or Short Capital.

Nice list of questions for Democratic presidential candidates

Many of these, from Radley Balko at The Agitator, are also appropriate for Republicans. A few I especially liked:

A recent study found that over half the country now derives part or all of its income from the federal government. Three of the richest counties in the country are in the D.C. suburbs, a telling indicator of just how bloated with taxpayer dollars Washington has become. The federal government is today pervasive in our day-to-day lives, from cradle to grave, from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep. Do you think these trends are healthy? Looking at the premise of this question, would you agree or disagree federal government is getting too large, too influential, and too pervasive?

Do you think it's appropriate for drug cops to be making medical policy?

What is your philosophical approach to federalism? What issues do you feel are best decided at the national level? What issues should be left to the states? Is there any underlying principle you use in separating one from the other, or would you make such decisions ad hoc?

Do you believe the U.S. military should be deployed for humanitarian missions?

Do you think an atheist could be president? Do you think an atheist should be? Assuming you generally agreed with an atheist on more issues than the alternatives in a given election, would you vote for one?

Name five things you think are none of the federal government's business.

What is your view of the pardon power and executive clemency? Should it be used frequently? Should it be use to show mercy and forgiveness or to correct injustices that slip through the cracks? Neither? Both?

Is there any type of speech you believe should be criminalized?

Do you promise not to claim for yourself any of the executive powers you've criticized the Bush administration for claiming?

What is your position on Kelo vs. New London? Under what circumstances would it be appropriate for a government to seize land from one private party and give it to another?

What federal crimes will you instruct the Justice Department to make a priority during your administration?

Are there any currently private industries that you believe are "too important" to be left to the private sector? Oil and gas? Health care? Google?

America by far and away has the highest prison population in the world. Does this concern you? Are there any federal crimes you feel should be repealed from the books, or devolved to the states?

What's your philosophical approach to risk assessment and the precautionary principle? Do you think government should ban products, treatments, and procedures until they're proven safe, or permit them until they show signs of being unsafe?

Do you think it's a legitimate function of government to protect people from making bad decisions or prevent them from developing bad habits? Even if those habit or decisions don't directly affect anyone else? How far should the government in preventing bad habits and bad decisions? In other words, should the government's role be merely advisory, or should it criminalize things like gambling, pornography, drug use, or trans fats?

Should members of Congress be required to follow all of the laws that they pass?

Should members be required to read each bill before voting on it?

Would you support a sunset provision requiring Congress to revisit and re-pass each law after five years?

The complete list is here.

Chicago PD fights to protect bad cops

One out of every twenty police officers on the Chicago Police Department has received at least ten official written complaints filed against them in the last five years, but the only reason we know is because of a lawsuit. The Chicago PD is still fighting to prevent the release of these bad cops' names--yet average citizens accused of crimes are identified in newspapers. Shouldn't police be held to a higher standard?

More at the Agitator, including links to some specific serious abuses that have come out of the Chicago PD.

Back from the Grand Canyon

I spent most of the last nine days in the Grand Canyon, rafting down the Colorado River on the National Center for Science Education's 2007 trip. I met interesting people and made new friends, ate great food, and saw amazing sights. This was my third trip down the Canyon, but my first in the last two decades (my previous two were in August 1976 and June 1985).


This trip included the presentation of both creationist flood geology and real geology, but there was no contest--when you have hundreds of feet of successive ocean floor beds full of fossils of marine life that has lived and died, and a large variety of completely different kinds of formations that have clearly been deposited in different kinds of events, it's transparently nonsense to claim that it was all laid down in a single year-long flood.

Top photo: Grand Canyon about 25 miles downstream from Lee's Ferry (mile 0); bottom photo: downstream view of river from Nankoweap Canyon (mile 53).

UPDATE (August 7, 2007): Here's a blog post about our trip by a member of the crew.

Ron Paul, Religious Kook

One of the serious problems I have with our democracy is that politicians are a package deal. When one gets elected we celebrate their good ideas, but we have to endure their idiotic ones. I think this could explain the popularity of the "lesser-of-evils" argument people often use to persuade others to vote for their pet candidate of the moment. Arguably, all politicians are idiots - to a greater or lesser degree.

Case in point: Ron Paul. You can love him for his stance on the war in Iraq, but this sort of stuff really makes me wonder about the guy:

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion.

WTF??? Isn't Ron Paul supposedly a constitutionalist?

It's not a big surprise to me to find that the source of the above patent absurdity is an article posted at lewrockwell.com - home of the kookiest of the kooks in the "libertarian" world.

Thanks to the no god zone, which has more to say on this topic.

UPDATE by Jim (October 18, 2007): Dispatches from the Culture Wars has more on Ron Paul's views on religion and government, with lots of data in the comments.

UPDATE by Jim (December 25, 2007): Ron Paul rejects evolution.

Adopt Bully!

Bully is about 4 years old, approximately 40-45 pounds. For most of his life, Bully and his caretaker have been homeless. Bully currently is kept outside, behind the store where his caretaker works. He has little shade or other comforts, and does not get the love and attention he deserves. I keep tabs on him and his ‘owner,’ but I’d like to find Bully a better home if possible.

We tried to adopt him about 1 ½ years ago, but after two perfect months in our house, he began to attack one of our dogs. Neither dog was ever injured, but we could not trust Bully around our dogs. Other than that, he is a great dog. He loves attention and belly rubs, will come when called, won’t chew inappropriately, and never had an accident in the house. Despite his rather tough life, Bully always has a smile on his face and is happy to see you.

Bully is: affectionate, lap dog, house broken, neutered, eager to please, unknown behavior with children, extremely intelligent, unpredictable aggression towards other dogs.

In his ideal home he would be the only pet. As I have never seen him around children, I’d only want him to go to a home where any children are 16 or older. A prospective adopter home inspection is required. No adopters farther than 300-400 miles outside of Phoenix will be considered, as I will be unable to travel to inspect your home on Bully's behalf.

Asking printer manufacturers to stop spying results in Secret Service visit?

The fact that color printers print a pattern of yellow dots on all pages that indicate which printer was used, for the purposes of being able to track the identity of who has printed any page, has been known since the EFF decrypted the codes and publicized the information in 2005.

Now, however, the MIT Media Lab has started a project called "Seeing Yellow" to encourage printer owners to contact the manufacturers and complain, after it has been found that those who do so get reported to the U.S. Secret Service as subversives. (There is one known case, in which someone called to ask a printer manufacturer if there was a way to turn off the "feature.")

(Via Don Lloyd at Distributed Republic.)

DI promotes round 4 for creationism in public schools

They plan to get Paul Nelson's Explore Evolution book used in a Tacoma, Washington public high school biology classroom.

Round 4's strategy is to avoid mentioning creationism or intelligent design, but just present evolution badly, and let the students infer creationism or intelligent design on their own or with the help of materials supplied outside of the classroom.

The successful defense this time may not be through the courts, but by refuting the material and getting schools to abandon it (or better, refuse to adopt it) because it contains errors and doesn't meet minimal standards of accuracy or value for the science curriculum.