Off the Kuff: Crime and Punishment Archives

Where's the DA?

May as well enjoy those indictments of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales while you can, because it sure looks like they won't last very long.

Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were bewildered Wednesday when the prosecutor in a slew of indictments against them failed to appear in court.

Willacy County prosecutor Juan Angel Guerra's no-show ruined hopes their motions would quickly quash cases against their clients and stumped the presiding judge as well.

"At the very least, I expected the district attorney to be here," Manuel Banales said, asking Guerra's office manager, "Do you know where he is?"

The manager, Hilda Ramirez, was subpoenaed by defense attorney J.A. "Tony" Canales after buzz in the courthouse that Guerra was nowhere to be found. She told the judge she had been trying to reach Guerra all day.

[...]

When Banales asked Ramirez if she were concerned for Guerra's safety, she said she didn't know how to answer the question. Guerra's cell phone message box was full much of the day, but an assistant who answered the line late Wednesday said he was not ill.

I'm trying to decide which crime-and-courtroom TV drama this saga most resembles. Maybe "Hill Street Blues", if you could credibly portray Guerra as some kind of tragic anti-hero, or "Boston Legal" if you think it's farce all the way. If you have any better suggestions - and by all means, include your casting if possible - leave them in the comments. In the meantime, if this indictment survives much past the scheduled Friday arraignment, I'll be shocked. Like I said, enjoy it while you can.

11/20/08 | permalink | comments [0]

More on the Cheney indictment

Here's some more news on the indictments handed down by a South Texas grand jury against Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, State Sen. Eddie Lucio, and others.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra himself had been under indictment for more than a year and half before a judge dismissed the indictments last month. This flurry of charges came in the twilight of Guerra's tenure, which ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.

Cheney's indictment on a charge of engaging in an organized criminal activity criticizes the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.

You can see a copy of the indictment here (PDF).

Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.

Another indictment released Tuesday accuses state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio's prison consulting early last year.

Lucio's attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.

"Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong," Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.

Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility, just four days before de la Rosa's scheduled release.

In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzalez indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.

Vince and XicanoPwr, among many others, have more. You can also find related information at the SEIU's Eye on Wackenhut blog. This ought to be quite the circus, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.

UPDATE: More on the detention center in question.

11/19/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Cheney, Gonzalez indicted in South Texas

Holy crap!

A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.

The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.

Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.

That sound you just heard was all hell breaking loose. I am flabbergasted. More here, here, and here.

By the way, not to minimize the national aspect of this story, but the charges against State Sen. Lucio could have a profound impact on the upcoming legislative session. The Democrats will have at least 11 members even without Lucio, but still. If nothing else, it has the potential to really shake up the political structure in South Texas. Stay tuned.

11/18/08 | permalink | comments [1]

He's guilty

In honor of Alaska's soon-to-be-former Sen. Ted "Tubes" Stevens and the jury of his peers that found him guilty today, I present to you the following musical tribute:

Gotta love Steven Bochco - even when he failed, he still succeeded.

10/27/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Virginia anti-spam law struck down

I actually think this is no big deal.

The Virginia Supreme Court declared the state's anti-spam law unconstitutional today and reversed the conviction of a man once considered one of the world's most prolific spammers.

The court unanimously agreed with Jeremy Jaynes' argument that the law violates the free-speech protections of the First Amendment because it does not just restrict commercial e-mails. Most other states also have anti-spam laws, and there is a federal CAN-SPAM Act as well.

The Virginia law "is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," Justice G. Steven Agee wrote.

I say this because I think this is an antiquated approach to dealing with spam. The problem of spam isn't so much a bulk email problem as it is a fraud problem. Most spam is sent by identity thieves and other criminals. Who cares about how much mail they're sending and the free-speech implications of it if they're breaking existing laws? This strikes me as the right approach to take.

When a new spam attack occurs, the nation's cyberdetectives call Gary Warner.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) computer forensics researcher, who spends much of his time collecting and analyzing thousands of bogus e-mail messages, is in demand these days. He gets calls from overseas investigators, he speaks at conferences and he's working with federal law-enforcement officials to track down the root of the recent spam attacks pretending to be from CNN and MSNBC.

His goal is not to filter spam better, but to actually catch the criminals sending it.

"Spam is not a technical problem. We've been acting like it's a technical problem. It's a societal problem," Warner said. "Why aren't there more bank robbers? Because if you rob a bank, you go to jail. Why are there so many cybercriminals? Because they don't get caught and go to jail."

That's the ticket. Find the crooks that are sending these phishing emails and stuff like that and bust them for some flavor of fraud or racketeering. Sometimes the old ways are the better ways.

One more thing:

Warner also wants to show the public how big a problem spam and its attachments can be. Because Internet service providers, e-mail programs and companies all provide filters, most of us see only about 10 percent of the spam that comes to us, he said. In reality, about 94 percent of all e-mail sent is spam, malicious or not, Warner said.

"We've insulated people from the problem so they believe it's not a problem," he said. "But the truth is it was the No. 1 crime last year. Identity theft had more victims than any other crime in the United States."

My Gmail and mostly-fallow Yahoo mail accounts get about a thousand pieces of spam a week combined. That's what I see, and it thankfully gets mostly filed into spam folders. If that only represents about 1/16th of the real total, it really is scary how big the problem is.

09/17/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The DA that did the judge

I have not been following the Charles Dean Hood case, in which the presiding judge and the District Attorney have finally admitted under oath that they had a long-term sexual affair - you can get some background here, or just Google around. But I would like to point out this awesome rant that Evan Smith has on it from a correspondent of Hood's.

Well, good people of Texas, I hope you like having people from the rest of the country laugh at you, because they're going to be whooping it up in the next few days. Yes, it turns out that Judge Verla Sue Holland, who presided over the 1990 capital murder trial of Charles Dean Hood, was indeed sleeping with D.A. Tom O'Connell while the case was going on (and for some time before and after). They admitted it at a court hearing today and yesterday in Collin County; by the end of the day the CCA had stayed Hood's execution (his sixth stay). Ah, Texas justice: adjudication before fornication. Where habeas corpus REALLY means show me the body. The state where it's not only okay for your lawyer to fall asleep on you in a death penalty case, it's okay for your judge and your prosecutor to sleep together! Ha ha ha ha! Apres le petit morte, le grande morte! Here come da judge! Bwa ha ha ha!

People around the Collin County courthouse have known about the affair for years -- yet no one, and in particular neither of the two lovers, came forward and did anything about it. Hood's attorneys first found people who talked anonymously about the affair back in 1995, but they couldn't get anything firm enough to attack the conviction with. Salon published a story in 2005 naming a couple of sources for the affair as well as including a couple of anonymous sources. And this past June Hood's attorneys found a former assistant district attorney, who said the affair was "common knowledge" around the courthouse back then. Still, the CCA wouldn't stay Hood's execution, which was set for June 17. He survived that execution only because his lawyers kept badgering the district court, the CCA, and the Supreme Court with these allegations. The CCA bulled past them, getting the okay to execute Hood about 11:05 pm. But the state ran out of time and Hood was spared. Good for him.

I think we all need to contemplate what should happen to O'Connell and Judge Holland now that they have finally come clean about this. I say what they did is such an outrage and an affront to decency and justice that at the very least, they should be held liable for every penny that Collin County and the state of Texas have had to pay defending the appeals in this case. Frankly, I'd like to include everyone who knew about this affair but chose not to blow the whistle on them, but I don't know how to account for them. So, just put it on the two lovebirds. Total up the costs, split them evenly between them, then hand them a judgment and start freezing assets and garnishing wages. Oh, and by all means disbar them as well. Let them flip burgers to pay off this debt if they have to. Maybe that will make future Abelards and Heloises think twice before hopping in the sack like that.

09/12/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Candidates speak on mental health and criminal justice issues

Wish I'd known about this, I'd have loved to have been there.

Candidates for three of Harris County's top elected offices promised Tuesday to reduce the number of mentally ill or drug addicted jail inmates by providing more community services through partnerships with advocacy groups.

Harris County spends an estimated $87 million a year to incarcerate and treat mentally ill inmates.

Speaking at a forum on behavioral health and the criminal justice system, Republican and Democratic candidates for county judge, sheriff and district attorney offered ideas meant to divert the mentally ill from jail to treatment.

There's not much detail about their statements in the story, so it's a little hard to offer a cogent critique of any of them. The good news is that everyone seems to be taking the idea that using the jails to warehouse these folks is not a good use of public resources. There's a real need for reform here, and a lot of opportunities to do better. I'm glad to see that we've started this discussion without having to argue that point.

08/27/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Pistol-packing DAs

Here's a nice little can of worms.

Harris County District Attorney Ken Magidson has asked the state's top lawyer if he can legally stop his assistants from taking handguns into courtrooms despite a new law removing most restrictions on where prosecutors with gun licenses can carry their weapons.

Magidson requires members of his staff, even those with concealed handgun licenses, to obtain his permission, as a condition of employment, before they can carry a firearm into a court.

He is seeking Attorney General Greg Abbott's opinion on whether he can continue his policy, despite a 2007 law that allows prosecutors with handgun licenses to pack their pistols anywhere except jails or prisons. They also are prohibited from carrying while intoxicated.

Pet peeve time: I do not understand why, in the year 2008 when so many people will read this story online - something the Chron obviously encourages thanks to its Del.ico.us and Digg and Technorati and Yahoo! Buzz links - the story does not include the relevant bill number and Texas statute information. Why not provide that information, so the readers may look up the bill and statute in question and see for themselves what they say and what they think about DA Magidson's actions? You might even include the links in the online version of the story, because once you have those pieces of information, it's only a small extra step to take. Why wouldn't you want to do this?

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I will tell you that as far as I can determine from searching the Texas Legislature Online, the relevant bill was HB2300, which amended Section 46.15 of the Penal Code to exempt "an assistant district attorney, assistant criminal district attorney, or assistant county attorney who is licensed to carry a concealed handgun under Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code" from the prohibition in Section 46.03 against possessing a firearm "on the premises of any government court or offices utilized by the court, unless pursuant to written regulations or written authorization of the court". Note that "a district attorney, criminal district attorney, or county attorney" was already exempt from this prohibition - the new law merely extended that exemption to ADAs and the like.

Now that we're all clear on that, the question is whether or not a DA can implement, or in this case maintain, a policy of restricting ADAs from packing heat in the courtroom unless said ADA meets some kind of training standard. This seems a reasonable thing to me, but it won't shock me if AG Greg Abbott says no, the law doesn't allow for that. I'd be interested to know what any actual lawyers think of that.

And it would be interesting to know what the two people who hope to inherit the DA's office from Mr. Magidson think as well. He had said, upon taking over the office, that he expected to make "small changes" during his tenure. I don't know that this counts as such, but then it looks like he may have been forced to take some action. I may try to track down a response from C.O. Bradford and Pat Lykos; if I succeed, I'll add an update.

08/26/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Forensic Science commission recommends examination of capital arson case

This has the potential to be a political earthquake.

Cameron Willingham never stopped insisting he was innocent of murder. Even as he lay strapped to a gurney awaiting execution, the burly Corsicana auto mechanic denied setting the house blaze in which his 1-year-old twins and 2-year-old stepdaughter were incinerated.

Now, 17 years after the deadly fire and four years after the execution, a state commission charged with investigating negligence and misconduct complaints against forensic labs has agreed to look into allegations that Willingham was convicted and sentenced to die on fire officials' faulty testimony.

Meeting Friday in Houston, the nine-member Texas Forensic Science Commission unanimously authorized the investigation in response to a complaint filed by The Innocence Project, a New York City-based group dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted.

The commission also agreed to investigate a 1986 West Texas arson fire in which two people died. Oilfield worker Ernest Willis, 63, was sentenced to die for the crime. But just months after Willingham's execution, a judge found Willis had been convicted on faulty scientific evidence and he was freed.

"These two cases in Texas are just the tip of the iceberg," Innocence Project co-director Barry Scheck said in an e-mail statement. "Across Texas and around the country, people are convicted of arson based on junk science that has been completely discredited for years."

This Chicago Trib article from 2004 goes into a lot of detail about the Willingham case, as does this peer review panel report (PDF) commissioned by the Innocence Project. I'll give you the Executive Summary so you can get a feel for it:

Neither the fire that killed the three Willingham children nor the fire that killed Elizabeth Grace Belue and Gail Joe Allison were incendiary fires. The artifacts examined and relied upon by the fire investigators in both cases are the kind of artifacts routinely created by accidental fires that progress beyond flashover.

The State's expert witnesses in both cases relied on interpretations of "indicators" that they were taught constituted evidence of arson. While we have no doubt that these witnesses believed what they were saying, each and every one of the indicators relied upon have since been scientifically proven to be invalid.

To the extent that there are still investigators in Texas and elsewhere, who interpret low burning, irregular fire patterns and collapsed furniture springs as indicators of incendiary fires, there will continue to be serious miscarriages of justice.

Continuous (and in some cases, remedial) training and professional development of fire investigators is required. Additionally, participants in the justice system need to become better educated, and more skeptical of opinion testimony for which there is no scientific support, and need to ensure that defendants in arson cases are afforded the opportunity to retain independent experts to evaluate charges that a fire was incendiary.

In the cases of individuals already convicted using what is now known to be bad science (or no science), the Courts should treat the "new" knowledge as "newly discovered evidence." It was resistance to this concept that allowed the State to execute Mr. Willingham, even though it was known that the evidence used to convict him was invalid.

Links via Grits. What do you think might happen if and when the state of Texas is no longer able to claim that it has never executed a provably innocent person?

Look, I'm as much a believer in the mythology of criminal forensic science as anyone. There's a lot of good work done in crime labs, and they have been justly lauded for a long time because of it. But there are also a lot of problems with that business, and they need to be addressed, lest we create more Cameron Willinghams. Really, there are a whole raft of reforms that need to be put in place, for prosaic things like eyewitness identifications, evidence retention, and other problematic areas. I mean, do we want to feel confident that in general we're putting the right people away or not? Seems pretty simple to me. I'm not even sure I can tell what the argument against is. But I don't think the impetus to do anything is going to be there until something shakes people up. I think this may be it, so I'm very much looking forward to the Commission's report.

08/17/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The great sex toy disappearance

So HPD misplaced fifty grand worth of sex toys. It could happen to anyone.

The Emperor is gone. So is Cyber Wabbit.

Three years after Houston police seized these and hundreds of other sex toys worth $50,000 from the Adult Video Megaplexxx, the devices may be missing from the department's property room.

The discovery came to light when a lawyer for the adult-entertainment shop sought to reclaim the 564 items that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently declared legal to sell.

After initially telling attorney Richard Kuniansky the sex toys would be returned, Houston police then said they were destroyed.

"They said no problem, you can send somebody by to pick them up, and then we get another call and it's 'Whoops, we don't have them,' " Kuniansky said.

Kuniansky said police told him they were destroyed, but he doubts that explanation.

"There is apparently no court order authorizing destruction of the property or any record of what happened to the property," he said.

[...]

Richard Segura, acting director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, said Kuniansky has a right to ask for the devices back, but police shouldn't have to safeguard them forever.

"If I go over to your house and spend the night there and leave my shoes, can I expect my shoes to be there three years later?" he said. "What is the police department going to do with a bunch of (sex toys) ... keep them?"

Still, he said whether the items were destroyed and under what authority would likely be set by department policy.

No matter how much time had passed, the department can't destroy property without following regulations, Kuniansky said.

Ray Hill, who has been a consultant for adult businesses, said sex toys were too tantalizing for police to destroy.

"I think the cops stole them," he said. "We've got these gifts to give our girlfriends and friends, and as gags."

I think Ray has the right answer here. I mean, that was always the thing about the sex toy law, the one that AG Greg Abbott still wants to be able to enforce. You could have one or two toys for your own personal use. It was having more than five that made you a menace to society. Given that, if this is indeed what happened, you can view the cops' actions as beneficial, since by dispersing the sex toys, they diffused the threat of having them all there in one place. Yeah, I don't buy it either.

08/09/08 | permalink | comments [1]

The legacy of Henry Wade

08/06/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Still not safe for sex toys

08/04/08 | permalink | comments [2]

New jail bond to miss the November election

08/03/08 | permalink | comments [1]

The costs and effects of mass imprisonment

07/24/08 | permalink | comments [2]

The jails and the mentally ill

07/21/08 | permalink | comments [3]

Commissioners Court to try, try again

07/20/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Policing the jailers

07/16/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Pee in a cup, go to jail

07/13/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The Feds inspect the jails

07/09/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Jackson Lee wants hearings on Harris County criminal justice

07/07/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Them that has the gold gets the patrols

07/07/08 | permalink | comments [1]

New DNA tests for Darlie Routier

06/20/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Commissioners Court presses forward with scaled-down jail plan

06/18/08 | permalink | comments [2]

The definition of insanity, Harris County style

06/14/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Running prosecutors

06/11/08 | permalink | comments [0]

No Galveston jail for Harris County

06/05/08 | permalink | comments [0]

No excuses for CPS

06/02/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Supreme Court upholds FLDS ruling

05/30/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Sheriff still hasn't learned his lesson about deleting emails

05/29/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Court thwacks CPS over FLDS raid

05/27/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Is the death penalty declining in Texas?

05/27/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Quintero's lawyer speaks

05/25/08 | permalink | comments [0]

DA probes Sheriff's surveillance of Ibarra brothers

05/22/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Not so minor after all

05/21/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Mrs. Medina pleads not guilty

05/21/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The cost of the FLDS case

05/17/08 | permalink | comments [5]

The Rosenthal investigation

05/16/08 | permalink | comments [3]

Let's get serious about innocence

05/10/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Kelly Siegler resigns

05/09/08 | permalink | comments [1]

The Chron on jail overcrowding

05/09/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The Galveston option

05/08/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The real fix for the jail overcrowding blues

05/07/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Abbott makes hash of needle-exchange program

05/06/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The jail overcrowding blues, part whatever

05/06/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The next frontier for innocence

05/05/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Mrs. Medina released on bail

05/03/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The Texas Justice Newsladder

05/02/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Medina grand jury reconvenes, indicts wife

04/30/08 | permalink | comments [0]

A cozy little family in juvenile court

04/21/08 | permalink | comments [2]

The state prison guard shortage

04/21/08 | permalink | comments [0]

For a public defender's office

04/13/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Interview with Craig Watkins

04/11/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Public defender's office gets OK to be studied

04/10/08 | permalink | comments [1]

The high cost of getting tuff on crime

04/06/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Commissioners Court to study public defenders office

04/05/08 | permalink | comments [4]

Whitmire: Abolish the TYC

04/05/08 | permalink | comments [2]

The jail chronicles

04/02/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Rusty Yates has a new son

04/01/08 | permalink | comments [0]

The new DA's new direction?

03/29/08 | permalink | comments [0]

More on a public defender's office for Harris County

03/26/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Harris County juvenile facilities criticized

03/26/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Magidson makes his mark

03/21/08 | permalink | comments [0]

You have the right to an attorney, just not right now

03/19/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Sen. Ellis calls for a public defender's office

03/16/08 | permalink | comments [0]

More jail deaths

03/11/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Feds investigating Harris County jails

03/08/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Who should investigate Chuck?

02/23/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Defense attorneys want new DA named

02/21/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Support resolutions to reform youth and adult corrections

02/20/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Now the world really is safe for sex toys

02/15/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Back to court, Chuck

02/11/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Coleman's conviction upheld

02/11/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Grits talks criminal justice with Texas Monthly

01/28/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Medina grand jurors want to keep the ball rolling

01/24/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Medina grand jury disbanded, judge criticizes DA

01/22/08 | permalink | comments [1]

Tough times in the DA's office

01/22/08 | permalink | comments [2]

The lawyer versus the jurors

01/21/08 | permalink | comments [5]

Two more views of Rosenthal

01/20/08 | permalink | comments [0]

Complaining about the grand jury

01/19/08 | permalink | comments [1]