Austria case revives European debate on light prison terms

Come on now. Cart/horse anyone?

I'm no barrister nor psychologist, but the first order of business it seems to me is to determine the mental health of Fritzl before there is any debate about how long he should be imprisoned.

Jesus H Christ in a mental ward, if he doesn't qualify as a mentally disturbed individual I don't know who does. Perhaps Jeffery Dahmer, but then he was imprisoned rather than given psychiatric help?

Its hard to contain the public when they're out for blood.

Police say Josef Fritzl left a lot of human wreckage in his wake: the daughter he imprisoned and raped for 24 years, the seven children he fathered with her and the wife whose life he shattered.

Yet, for an atrocity that has stunned the world, he may wind up serving just 15 years in prison if charged, tried and convicted.

Practically speaking, that may translate into a life sentence for Fritzl, 73. But his case has revived a debate over Europe's lenient penal system — and whether harsher, U.S.-style sentencing guidelines might help deter such heinous crimes.

"Fifteen years for destroying human lives is unacceptable," said Harald Vilimsky, a public safety policy official with Austria's conservative Freedom Party. "Any punishment that falls a single day short of a life sentence is a mockery of the victims."

Many Europeans abhor the death penalty, and capital punishment is illegal across the 27-nation EU. But in many countries, even convicted murderers handed life sentences seldom serve more than 25 years.

Note: Headline links to source.

Judge stacks the deck for Liberty City retrial

I only steal from the best and this is total theft.

If at first you don't succeed...stack the deck for the second try. A mistrial was declared in the trial of the Liberty City 7 "gang" of "terrorists" (the ones whose "well-thought out plans" involved a "one-two punch" of poisoning salt shakers and bombing a building they had never seen in a city where they didn't live and couldn't even afford bus fare to). So for the retrial, the judge has decided to give the government a little help, and make sure the jury knows these are real terrorists, not just clowns and would-be con artists. She's having the jury members identified only by number (aren't they always?), ordered criminal background checks on all prospective jurors, and having those chosen escorted to and from the courthouse, all to increase the atmosphere of fear and "terror" on the part of the jurors, and help assure a conviction on the second go-round.

The judge claims that "there is a strong reason to believe the jury needs protection,", because "here we have defendants accused of being members of a terrorist cell." Of course the latter was true the first time as well, and there wasn't a single threat or any action during that trial which would prompt her to conclude that protection was necessary. Only one thing has changed - she, and the Justice Department, have realized just how laughable this case is, so they've decided to put their thumb on the scales of justice to see if they can't change the result the second time around.

Judge Joan Lenard, by the way, is the very same judge who denied a change of venue to the Cuban Five, forcing their trial to be held in a city where the public expression of any kind of support for Cuba has been the source of bomb threats, actual bombings, and murders over the years, and at a time when that anti-Cuban atmosphere was even further exacerbated by the ongoing Elian Gonzalez saga.

Hey, I did provide attribution and even retained all the links. Back off. I have a Taser® and know how to use it, I think. All I know is if you don't back off, one of us is going down convulsing on the floor. Probably you.

Courtesy Link Left I on the News.

Judge orders White House to hold e-mails

File under career limiting decisions.

This judge ain't going anywhere while Bush is in office.

A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.
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U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.

The White House is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government and the National Security Archive.

The organizations allege the disappearance of 5 million White House e-mails. The court order issued by Kennedy, an appointee of President Clinton, is directed at maintaining backup tapes which contain copies of White House e-mails.

The Federal Records Act details strict standards prohibiting the destruction of government documents including electronic messages, unless first approved by the archivist of the United States.

Justice Department lawyers had urged the courts to accept a proposed White House declaration promising to preserve all backup tapes.

"The judge decided that wasn't enough," said Anne Weismann, an attorney for CREW, which has gone to court over secrecy issues involving the Bush administration and has pursued ethical issues involving Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Oh yeah, we can trust Bush's "promises". Hahaha.

And somehow I find it comforting to read about a Kennedy sticking it to Dim Son. OK, I'm perverse.

Via Yahoo! News.

May I get a little help over here?

If this story doesn't make you laugh out loud, there's no hope for you.

The insulting idea that, as Shaw puts it, "they thought just because we're old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains and backbone."

So, after stewing over it all weekend, on the following Monday, she went downstairs, got Don's claw hammer and said: "C'mon, honey, we're going to Comcast."

Did you try to stop her, Mr. Shaw?

"Oh no, no," he says.

Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company's office. BAM! She whacks the keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!

"They cuffed me right then," she says.

Her take on Comcast: "What a bunch of sub-moronic imbeciles."

Being a responsible newspaper, we must note that this is a misdemeanor, a crime, a completely inappropriate way of handling a business dispute.

Oh yeah, "sub-moronic imbeciles" is just a great term.

Also, kudos to the reporter who wrote the piece perfectly.

A few more incidents like this and corporate customer service should improve immensely.

Via WaPo.

H/T Ted Compton (buncha numbers).

Elderly Nuns Evicted As Church Raises $660 Mil Fine against Predator Priests

One of many examples of why I HATE organized religion.

The Catholic Church in Southern California must pay $660 million to victims of pedophile priests, so, naturally, one of the first things to go on the chopping block is a nuns’ home in Santa Barbara.
“We all have to pay the price for the sins of the few … I didn’t get a raise this year.”
- Spokesman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, reacting to nuns’ loss of their home and jobs.

Hahaha. They're evicting the wives of Jesus? This is beyond bizarre.

Yes, I'm a heretic and should be pummeled by several priests. May I choose the time and place?

Via Pensito Review.

Ex- convicts and addicts may get DoD clearance

Isn't this just special?

At the Pentagon’s request, Senate defense authorizers tucked deep within a defense bill a repeal of the department’s restriction on granting security clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent.

The repeal provision now is creating discord between the Senate Armed Services and the Intelligence committees. In its markup of the 2008 defense authorization bill, the Intelligence panel voted to delete the Armed Services provision.

The fate of the provision could become a flashpoint this week as the Senate takes up the bill.

The Senate Armed Services panel seeks to repeal a seven-year-old law that established mandatory standards disqualifying certain people from receiving security clearances.

Under the law, members of the military services, employees of the Department of Defense or contractors working for the Pentagon cannot receive a security clearance if they were convicted of a crime in any U.S. court and went to prison for at least one year; if they are unlawful users of illegal substances; if they are considered mentally incompetent or if they were dishonorably discharged or dismissed from the armed forces.

The ramifications of Bush's fucking decisions are paramount. He's turned the US into a land without "proper" laws. I say "proper" laws because he is consistently undermining Congress and the Judicial branches of law.

Who has a clue where this will lead?

(read more)

Judge Rejects Padilla Torture Argument

Will this poor man ever get justice? Under Bush? Stupid question.

A federal judge rejected a motion by alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla to dismiss terrorism charges against him over claims he was tortured in U.S. military custody. The ruling removes one of the last major obstacles to the start of Padilla's trial next week.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke stressed in a 12-page order filed late Monday that she was not passing judgment on the torture allegations. Rather, she said the effort to dismiss the case for "outrageous government conduct" was faulty on legal grounds.

Padilla's lawyers claim that during the 3 1/2 years Padilla was held as an "enemy combatant" at a Navy brig he was routinely subjected to harsh treatment and torture.

He claimed that he was forced to stand in painful stress positions, given LSD or some other drug as a "truth serum," subjected to loud noises and noxious odors, and forced to endure sleep deprivation, extreme heat and cold and harsh lights.

The Pentagon and Justice Department have repeatedly denied those claims. Officials with the brig in Charleston, S.C., said during earlier testimony before Cooke that Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen and Muslim convert, was not mistreated, though they acknowledged occasional removal of the mattress in his cell and of his copy of the Quran.

Why don't I feel sorry for the 15 Brits detained by Iran?

Padilla? Check here, here and here.

I apologize for the image quality, but I seriously doubt the fucking government hires good professional photographers to record their mistreatment of detainees.

(read more)

Bush Justice

Bush justice

I stole this from Bad Attitudes who "borrowed" it from Paul Krugman.

It just a matter of time before Bush is gonna start political arrests out in the open.