CALIFORNIA V. PETERSON

The Value Of Dog Trailing Evidence In The Peterson Case

2012-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

How strong is the dog trailing evidence in the Peterson case?

Here's some testimony that may help explain the dog trailing evidence, and which shows the Modesto Bee got its facts wrong when the paper reported that one dog (Merlin) trailed Laci's scent from her home to Maze Boulevard.

Testimony taken from pwc-sii.com, Case Files.

For general information about Scott Peterson's appeal and an overview of the case, plus transcripts and evidence, also visit ScottPetersonAppeal.org.

From the Testimony of Cindee Valentin, dog handler/trainer

In the following testimony, Valentin describes the training of Merlin, the dog brought into the investigation on December 26th who did the vehicle trail.

Pat HARRIS (Defense): So he was passed by CARDA approximately four and a half to five months before he undertook, excuse me, approximately five and a half months before he undertook the service that is the subject of your testimony today?

VALENTIN: That's correct.

P. HARRIS: During that time afterwards, I believe it was your testimony that he had twice previously gone out on actual finds?

VALENTIN: Of the searches that he did, two of them were finds, yes.

P. HARRIS: Both of the ones that were successful, or that he found, in the Mount Diablo in and Discovery Bay, the only two where he was successful, both of those were essentially wilderness searches, were they not?

VALENTIN: That's incorrect.

P. HARRIS: Okay. Both of them were over terrain?

VALENTIN: One of them was over wilderness terrain, and one of them was in an urban environment.

P. HARRIS: The two searches that he was successful on, neither one of them involved trailing a vehicle, did it?

VALENTIN: No. Actually, yes. The second one, the one that was at the house in the housing tract, he had an option of taking vehicle trails out of there, because the gentleman drove in and out of his driveway and down the street. He opted for the footpath the freshest footpath trail.

P. HARRIS: But he did not vehicle, follow the vehicle trail, correct?

VALENTIN: No. He's trained to follow the freshest trail.

P. HARRIS: Essentially, in your note of that particular, first of all, have you turned over those notes to the District Attorney?

VALENTIN: Yes. You have them.

P. HARRIS: You have provided those?

VALENTIN: Yes.

P. HARRIS: Of the two searches?

VALENTIN: That's incorrect. There are search reports done that Contra Costa County would have to release, though.

JUDGE: Have you got those?

P. HARRIS: No, we don't.

JUDGE: Have you got a copy of those? Rick Distaso: We don't have those.

D. HARRIS: I don't think we have search reports for other searches.

JUDGE: They don't have it, so she can't give it to you.

P. HARRIS: You said on the other occasions he was, you don't want to use the term unsuccessful, he did not find eventually the person he was looking for, the thing he was looking for?

VALENTIN: That's correct.

P. HARRIS: How many times would you, approximately, say that was?

VALENTIN: I don't know. I'd have to go back and look.

P. HARRIS: Could you approximate for us?

VALENTIN: In the teens.

P. HARRIS: So he would have found what he was looking for twice, and been unable to mind what he was looking for in the teens somewhere?

VALENTIN: Yes.

From Justice For Scott Peterson:

To get the most traction out of the dog trailing on the 26th, Brocchini ensured that the media received only his interpretation, and thus we read in the ModBee:
When Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department deputies brought in a specially trained bloodhound on Thursday [Dec 26] to help in the search, it didn't head into the park. Instead, it headed to Yosemite Boulevard. Later, the dog led its handler from the Peterson house all the way to Maze Blvd.

Which, of course, was a blatant lie. Merlin led Valentin to the Gallo Winery.

Merlin actually led Valentin to Maze Boulevard, not from the Petersons' house, but from Scott's warehouse, where they started the trail. Here's the testimony:

P. HARRIS: And what happened on the third search?

VALENTIN: On the third search Detective Brocchini pointed out the door of Scott's warehouse. I took him up to that door. It was B 1. I scented him and he headed immediately east, straight out of the warehouse to North Emerald Avenue.

P. HARRIS: Okay. Where was he on North Emerald Avenue?

VALENTIN: Where?

P. HARRIS: Where was he actually on North Emerald Avenue? Was he in the middle,

VALENTIN: When he made his corner, he made the corner on the sidewalk.

P. HARRIS: And, in fact, as he went down North Emerald Avenue, he was on the sidewalk?

VALENTIN: I don't recall for sure. On North Emerald, I don't remember.

P. HARRIS: Do you recall him at any point jumping into the middle of the street? You would recollect that, wouldn't you?

VALENTIN: I don't remember if he was in the middle of the street on North Emerald at that point. He definitely was in the middle of the street traveling along North Emerald Avenue.

P. HARRIS: In your debriefing, Detective Brocchini, you never mentioned at any point the dog went into the middle of the street on North Emerald, did you?

VALENTIN: I don't, I don't remember.

P. HARRIS: Okay. Where did the dog go from there?

VALENTIN: Continued south on North Emerald to Maze Boulevard, and at Maze we headed west.

P. HARRIS: The dog at this point appeared to have picked up a scent, didn't it?

VALENTIN: Yes.

P. HARRIS: Okay. And the dog had appeared to pick up a scent that, in fact, was based on the sunglasses of Laci Peterson, correct?

VALENTIN: That's correct.

P. HARRIS: As the dog went down Maze Boulevard, it was tugging very hard, correct?

VALENTIN: Yes.

HARRIS: Detective Brocchini at that point stepped in and stopped the search, didn't he?

VALENTIN: That's correct.

P. HARRIS: This was December 27th? 26th, excuse me, I'm sorry. December 26th?

VALENTIN: I don't remember if it had been past midnight or not, but it was definitely the night that,

P. HARRIS: It was getting, I'm sorry, it was getting late at night; wasn't it?

VALENTIN: Yeah.

P. HARRIS: Okay. Despite the fact that there was a missing woman out there, whose scent had now been picked up by a dog in an area of town where very possibly she could be kept, Detective Brocchini made the decision not to pursue that scent, didn't he?

VALENTIN: Yes.

P. HARRIS: When you got to the point where Brocchini shut you down where the dog was tracking the scent, did you protest that?

VALENTIN: No.

P. HARRIS: You wanted to quit too?

VALENTIN: It was his call.

P. HARRIS: But didn't you put up a fight, you didn't say, "We have got a great scent here," "We got to move," you know, "Hit it," "The iron is hot, could have a woman in danger here"?

VALENTIN: I don't think I put up a fuss, no.

In the following testimony, Valentin explains why she felt Merlin was doing a vehicle trail, and how she can tell. In this testimony, she describes the track Merlin took leaving the Petersons' home on Covena.

VALENTIN: Okay. From the southern edge of the property at 523 Covena Avenue he headed immediately north on Covena. He then turned, at the very first intersection he turned west on Highland Drive. He went into a house on Highland Drive, 1326, I believe, Highland Drive. He went down driveway and into the backyard of the residence, circled throughout that backyard, then came back through the gate and then continued on west on Highland Drive.

D. HARRIS: Let me stop you there for a second.

VALENTIN: Yes.

D. HARRIS: You indicated he goes down this driveway to the backyard. Where does that back yard abut to?

VALENTIN: The backyard at 1326 Highland Drive is catty‑corner to the property, catty‑corner and behind the property at 523 Covena Avenue.

D. HARRIS: The Peterson property?

VALENTIN: Yes, the Peterson property.

D. HARRIS: The dog circled around the area catty‑corner to the Peterson property, and goes back out on to the street?

VALENTIN: That's correct.

D. HARRIS: Where does the dog go from there?

VALENTIN: He then continues heading west on Highland Drive. He gets to Santa Barbara Avenue. He goes several areas past that. I don't remember. It is stated in my report. And then he turned back and headed south on Santa Barbara Avenue. He crossed several intersections and came to the intersection of San Barbara Avenue and La Loma Avenue, at which point, he turned southeast on La Loma Avenue and continued to the intersection of La Loma and Yosemite Boulevard. At Yosemite Boulevard, he turned west and continued to Santa Rosa Avenue, at which point he turned south and headed down Santa Rosa Avenue. And I stopped him at the Gallo, inside of the Gallo property at the end of Santa Rosa Avenue.

D. HARRIS: Why did you stop him?

VALENTIN: As we were traveling down Santa Rosa Avenue, he wasn't showing all the signs of being on trail. And when we hit the dead end into the Gallo property, there was nowhere else to go. I could have taken him back and worked to see if there was an in‑and‑out trail there. However, with the information that we have, I stopped him and we went back to debrief with the detectives at the command post.

D. HARRIS: Now, in terms of when Merlin is working, do you use the terminology, has a strong pull on the harness?

VALENTIN: A strong pull on the harness, yes. That is a terminology that we use.

D. HARRIS: What does that mean, for the Court's information?

VALENTIN: When they are pulling strong in the harness, they are on trail and driving hard to get to the end to find the person.

D. HARRIS: And in this,

VALENTIN: Motivation.

D. HARRIS: With this particular track that's depicted in People's Number 9, where, approximately, was it that he stopped really pulling on the harness?

VALENTIN: It was after working through the intersection at Yosemite Boulevard and Santa Rosa, he wasn't giving me a strong pull in the harness. He was not, he was not, he was showing me that he really didn't have anything.

D. HARRIS: You said that you went back and you debriefed. That means you go back and you talk with the detectives at MPD about what was the, Merlin had done, what that trail meant to you; is that correct?

VALENTIN: Yes. I went back in and debriefed with them, and I told them that the trail, to me, seemed like it was a vehicle trail not a foot trail. The reason is that when with the vehicle trails, he tends to run center of the road, sometimes side‑to‑side on the road. With his foundation in tracking, training him to track, a scent, that he tends to work very close to where the person has walked. Most people don't walk down the Bott Dots on the street.

And he was pretty dedicated to always going back and checking those Bott Dots as we were traveling down through the neighborhood.

When we hit Yosemite Boulevard, he wasn't in the middle of the sidewalk where a normal person would walk. He was up against the sides of the stores on that. We did not have enough backup officers with us to be able to shut down Yosemite Boulevard, so we couldn't give him the option of working it differently.

D. HARRIS: So from your opinion, was this a track which that person the dog was scented on walked away from the residence?

VALENTIN: No. What he displayed in his body language is that the person left the residence in a vehicle.

(Emphasis added.)

So: What I take from this is that Merlin had not tracked a person via vehicle trail previously, but Valentin was pretty sure that he had Laci's scent, and that he tracked her away from her house to the Gallo winery. She describes Merlin's approach to Gallo, on Yosemite, as being carried out on the sidewalk, because there was traffic in the street (no following of Botts dots possible). She testifies for the prosecution that Merlin wasn't giving her a strong pull on the harness at Yosemite; however, it sounds, from her description, like the traffic overwhelmed the search at that point.

She does discuss Merlin pulling strongly at Maze Boulevard, but the search is called off nevertheless--even though, when you think about it, a strong pull from a search dog and a missing woman, combined, ought to make law enforcement officers think about their priorities.

Ya'd think, anyway.

Valentin's complete testimony can be read here.

Meanwhile, what the Modesto Bee wrote, in order to be correct, should have stated that Merlin led detectives to Maze Blvd. from Scott's warehouse, where the search started.

But, instead, the paper's report presented the general public with a selling point toward Peterson's guilt: a distorted report, never retracted or addressed as an issue of fact, taken at face value by Californians and Modestans who are all, at this moment in time, with Laci just missing days ago, on the edge of their seats.

Judge Delucci's Regrets

2012-01-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

An entry on the Scott Peterson: Truth Be Told Facebook page illuminates what may be...a tiny corner of Judge Alfred Delucci's opinion, several weeks into the trial.

*Remember that media reports (television interviews with Peterson) were used as evidence by prosecutors in this case, which would imply that they were taken as reliable and objective.*

__________________________

CBS News reported: "Juror No. 5, an airport screener, was taped saying what sounded like "could lose today" to Rocha on Thursday. It was unclear what he meant, or whether Rocha responded."

USA Today and San Mateo Daily Journal reported: "Juror No. 5, an airport screener, was taped Thursday saying, "Could lose today," to Brent Rocha. It was unclear what the juror meant, or whether Rocha responded beyond flashing a brief smile."

The Modesto Bee reported: "The judge in Scott Peterson's trial wants to see a recording of a brief hallway exchange between a juror and Peterson's brother-in-law. Juror No. 5, who regularly greets Peterson and defense attorney Mark Geragos with nods and raised eyebrows, said something to Brent Rocha on Thursday as they passed through security screening at the Redwood City courthouse entrance.

The remark was unintelligible except for words that sounded like "lose today" at the end."

KRCA reported: "The actions of a juror in Scott Peterson's double-murder trial were being scrutinized Friday after pool video footage caught him chatting and laughing with Brent Rocha, Laci Peterson's brother, as the two passed through a courthouse metal detector.The interaction between the two occurred Thursday. It was unclear exactly what juror No. 5 said to Rocha, or whether Rocha responded beyond flashing a brief smile.On the tape, it sounds like the juror told Rocha "It looks like we may lose today."

The San Francisco Gate reported:"The juror, an airport screener, was seen on a media pool camera chatting briefly with Brent Rocha, Laci Peterson's brother, as they passed through a metal detector. "Could lose today,'' the man, identified as Juror No. 5, reportedly said to Rocha, who smiled in response."

After the hearing, Judge Delucchi responded in the courtroom with this statement-

Delucchi: "I regret to say that the media account of what took place is inaccurate."

Modesto's Post Office Makes International Headlines (Sort Of)

2011-12-29T16:13:00.000-08:00

Modesto, California, makes The Guardian this year....
for the travesty of what's happening to the U.S. Postal Service.
Of course, it's not just about Modesto, but that's Modesto's beautiful post office in the photo below.

SaveThePostOffice.com

On 9 June, the General Services Administration threw Modesto's downtown post office onto the auction block. Like so many other postal facilities, the Renaissance-style palazzo had long served as an anchor for downtown stores of the California town, a public space where citizens met to exchange news as well as transact business in an ennobling lobby of polished travertine and marble beneath murals of local farming activities.

The federal government once designed its post offices to elevate and inspire the public whose assets it is now selling. An architectural journal in 1918 spoke of the tutelary value of post offices:

"They are generally the most important of the local buildings, and taken together, [are] seen daily by thousands, who have little opportunity to feel the influence of the great architectural works in the large cities."

President Hoover's administration built facilities such as Modesto's in a last-ditch effort to end the Depression, before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal unleashed a far greater torrent of public works that succeeded where Hoover had failed (pdf). In less than a decade, the Roosevelt administration built over 1,100 post offices, distinguished by fine architecture, materials and detailing, as well as by a lavish programme of public art that, for the first time, reflected back to patrons and workers their regional identity.

Mandated by the US constitution as a service vital to democracy, the post office has fallen victim to structural adjustment as well as to electronic communication. Congress has successively demanded that the US Postal Service run itself more like a business since making it a quasi-corporation in 1971. Required to provide universal service, even as the internet and private carriers cut into its profit centres, the USPS has spun into a death spiral, raising its rates as it slashes employment and service. It's now stripping its assets, as well.

The post office where I go to pick up mail in Hollywood, on Wilcox Avenue, is also beautiful. It's one of these grand old buildings and it's decorated with stamps twice as tall as human beings depicting old movie stars.

I used the USPS when I had an ebay business some years back (selling mosaic tiles which were cut from damaged vintage chintz and painted plates). They were fantastic. I do not recall them ever losing a package, as a matter of fact; and I used USPS to ship overseas, as well; mostly to Australia, Norway, Holland, and England. Their priority packages were the most frequent choice, and their tracking has always been good. And when I say they didn't lose a package, I mean it. There were a few---just a few--that got temporarily lost, and a few that came back---but they did not lose track of them.

This past week, I had the USPS lose track of a package, which hasn't happened in a long time (I still get things shipped via mail order and they've been consistent to this day). And when I went to the post office and stood in a line that stretched nearly out the door without moving, for 25 minutes, I realized: this is the start of the breakdown.

When the paid talkers say "Government is Bad and We Must Shrink It" ---this is what happens. When the paid talkers start talking profits and acting like government is a business--this is what happens. Government is not a business, nor is it meant to be run like a business. Business has profits first. The government, which is all we have standing between ourselves and lawlessness, has representation of taxpayers' interests and consumers' interest as its main objective.

These two objectives are not compatible.

That does not mean fiscal irresponsibility should reign; but at the USPS, that was not the case.

Their stamps are beautiful. They send letters anywhere in the country for under 50 cents. No one else does that.

I just ordered one of these "Keep Our Post Office Open" T shirts. Pretty good price.

Once-Embattled Journalist Moves West To Pursue Law

2011-12-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

Former "Journo" Stephen Glass, who made stuff up for his stories at one time, has a case before the California Supreme Court this year which will decide whether he becomes a lawyer in this state.

Upon reading this CNN story, the name Julie Hilden came up, which rang a bell. She's Stephen Glass's partner. She wrote this great piece on the Peterson case which I'm sure I've linked on this blog before.

Anyway, the story's very interesting.

Would I trust a person who lied before?
If he hand-wrote 100 letters to people he'd wronged, and sent them out one by one, yeah, maybe.

It's an interesting piece.

Glass withdrew his application to the New York State Bar in 2003, when it became obvious he would be turned down. He applied to the California Bar in 2005, after he moved to Los Angeles. The bar committee declined to find him morally fit to be a lawyer; Glass appealed and the State Bar Court sided with him last year. The California Supreme Court will have the final word, having added "In Re Glass on Admission" to its docket for 2012.

.......

After Glass and Hilden moved to Los Angeles in 2004, he applied for jobs at law firms. One of his resumes crossed the desk of Paul Zuckerman, managing partner of a plaintiff's litigation firm. He was impressed with the resume, but then he read the cover letter.

"I was familiar with the story. I knew who he was. And I kind of laughed to myself and promptly deleted his resume," Zuckerman told the bar court.

But then he thought about his own struggle with alcohol, and how he'd come back from the brink.

"I sat there, which is unusual for me, to sit there and be reflective during the day. ... I have been a liar in my life. I myself have had some problems and have had difficulties that I've overcome, and I've been given a very big second chance, and I thought that I was being incredibly judgmental ..."

He invited Glass in for an interview.

"I called him mainly because I felt ... it was wrong for me to be judgmental and to throw somebody away without ever having given them a chance or ever having talked to them," Zuckerman said. Upon meeting Glass, he became convinced that he had gone through a genuine transformation. He could see the remorse in his eyes.

He hired Glass on the spot, but at first watched him closely.

"When I first hired him, there was no way I was giving him my Social Security number and my mother's maiden name," Zuckerman told the California Bar. "He can have that today."

He advised Glass that his downfall ultimately would make him a better lawyer:

"I've always found brilliance untempered by failure is purely arrogance but brilliance that has overcome failure can be truly useful to your fellow man," he said. He's glad he opened his mind to Glass' potential.

Those who saw the promise in a 25-year-old fabulist may still feel the sting of disappointment and betrayal. But for Zuckerman and others who believe in redemption, the latest story by Stephen Glass is nothing short of fabulous. It's about a man transformed.

"I love having him at the office, because he is like my touchstone, my benchmark for honest and proper conduct. It's like 'What would Steve do?' "

Christmas 2003 Timelines, And Jonna Spilbor On Testimony-Related Profit

2011-12-26T14:44:00.000-08:00

Marlene Newell has a timeline that shows a multi-faceted view of what went on December 24, 2002, the day Laci Peterson went missing.

And then she has a timeline for Christmas Day, 2002--the day the search for Laci revved into full gear, alongside the search for evidence of Scott Peterson's guilt--two different investigations, one of which would ultimately suck the life out of the other.

More from Jonna M. Spilbor at CNN:

.....The defense, ignorant of the book, was unable to argue that Frey's motivation was monetary.

Thus, by keeping the fact that she was writing her book secret, she imperiled the legitimacy of the ultimate verdict in the Peterson trial, and impeded the Peterson defense, which should have been entitled to cross-examine her on her book: the timing of her writing of it, its content, and the profits she received.

At the very least, if a witness stands to profit from a guilty verdict, the jury ought to consider that in weighing the witness' credibility. Think about it. What would the book have been called had Peterson been acquitted? "Witness for the Side that Can Get Me the Best Movie Deal"?

To the jurors, it could have been critical information. While Frey may have a right to ultimately cash in on her role in the Peterson trial, Peterson had a paramount right to have the 12 men and women who condemned him to death know about it. They didn't.

Whether you agree with his conviction or not, the fact remains that a man was on trial for his life. The "star" witness took the stand knowing she had a book deal brewing, and knowing that she stood to make a ton of money from his successful prosecution -- yet she never disclosed this fact to the jury.

That brings us to the question of whether Frey can be prosecuted - either for concealing the book or for profiting from her largely self-created role as star witness.

The California Penal Code prohibits non-experts in criminal cases from receiving compensation by virtue of their bearing witness. To this effect, it states, in part:

"A person who is a witness to an event or occurrence that he or she knows, or reasonably should know, is a crime or who has personal knowledge of facts that he or she knows, or reasonably should know, may require that person to be called as a witness in a criminal prosecution shall not accept or receive, directly or indirectly, any payment or benefit in consideration for providing information obtained as a result of witnessing the event or occurrence or having personal knowledge of the facts."

A violation of this section is a misdemeanor -- and punishment is a mere $1000 fine and/or six months in jail.

Granted, the same prosecution that enlisted Frey's help, is unlikely to prosecute her. But if it chose to, could it? My guess is yes. The question of will a district attorney's office pursue criminal charges against Frey or her publisher -- or her famed lawyer, Gloria Allred, who no doubt knew of, if not negotiated, her book contract -- most likely is a resounding, no.

The "exception" to the rule that Frey and her publisher may have on their sides, is that the prohibition does not apply once final judgment has been rendered in the action.

But when does "final judgment" occur? Peterson has not yet been sentenced. To be safe, Frey and her publisher might have waited to publish. But publishing the book now, while the case is still warm, is likely to generate more sales.

Jonna M Spilbor is a frequent guest commentator on various television news networks, where she has covered many of the nation's high-profile criminal trials. In the courtroom, she has handled hundreds of cases as a criminal defense attorney, and also served in the San Diego City Attorney's Office, Criminal Division, and the Office of the United States Attorney in the Drug Task Force and Appellate units.

People Talking About Scott Peterson Today

2011-12-22T15:05:00.001-08:00

A conversation at Greta's blog over on Fox has continued for a couple of weeks now. I've popped in and gotten drawn into it.

Anyway, someone named PaleBlueEyes popped up in the last few days and replied to one of my comments, and several of VOS's posts, and a whole bunch of others. He/She had a lot to say. Lots of different posts, the gist all the same: Y'all are insane for thinking Scott's innocent, statistics show that husbands are usually the killers, Scott's a scumbag, killed his wife and child, Amber's life was destroyed.

I had posted that it doesn't seem right that Amber testified as a "star witness" while not revealing to the jury that she had a book deal which was likely contingent upon Peterson's conviction (no one has ever denied this contingency).

Anyway, I had posted several questions, because PaleBlueEyes insisted that he/she knew the case inside and out and followed it from the beginning and had done lots of research &cetera &cetera. So I asked---"So what do you think about the Aponte tip? What about what Harshman saw? What about the baby's development? What about that bow around his neck? (I don't think I asked that one)."

PaleBlueEyes logged on to the conversation yesterday evening and had one response:

A coarsely-worded insult toward a person I'm sure he or she doesn't know personally, followed by: This is a stupid conversation, ya'll are ridiculous, I'm out of here, see ya bye.

But wait a minute, you had so much to say just the other day. OK, bye.

Whatever.

From CNN:

"Now that we know she (Amber) has written a book about the case, we must ask: Was her decision to position herself deep in this case motivated by a burning desire to assist the police in capturing Laci Peterson's suspected killer? Or was it, much more simply, motivated by the prospect of a lucrative book deal?

"Certainly, from a defense perspective, it makes a huge difference. But the defense, ignorant of the book, was unable to argue that Frey's motivation was monetary."

From an online conversation years ago which still hangs in Cyberspace, echoes of thoughts long forgotten, most likely:

"Dissention" on Frey's ~~agent~~ attorney:

"I will watch her interviews but man, I cannot stand her attorney. Gloria makes my skin crawl. I could not stand how she pranced around throughout the entire trial, acting as if she was supposed to be there, and constantly pushed the fact that Amber was a "victim" down our throats. Yea, I know she sort of was but damn the girl had four dates with Scott. FOUR dates. They knew each other for like a month and now she is such a devastated victim from his lies. I know the trial and publicity was awful for her and I dont mind her writing a book, although it is tasteless...but don't try to portray Amber as this poor victim who was taken advantage of by big bad Scott. Sorry that was LACI."

"Strandinthewind":

"She hired an attorney right from day one. I knew then that she was going to try and profit in some way from this.

.....Her father kept selling stories to the National Enquirer. Whether or not she was the recipient of any of that money, I do not know but I wonder.
The tapes. Ugh.

....They are going to kill a man over those tapes. And to my ears, all I kept hearing was a guy who was trying to get the hell away from her. Any woman knows the lies a man is capable of telling. The tapes were no smoking gun for me.
Have I answered your question? :laugh:"

***

One person on the forum speaks in defense of Amber Frey, with a reply:

For example "just because they were adulterous on a pregnant woman" is a "spun" statement because this is NOT why he was convicted. He was convicted for committing a murder. Also HE was adulterous, Amber was not.

Also "for Amber it was the champagne two hours after meeting the magnetic Peterson :rolleyes: ", do you seriously judge her for this? I mean, yes its fast, but that is pretty common nowadays. Remember, she did NOT know he was married.

And "though no evidence directly links you to the crime, you are a creep, an adulterer, and you do not appear to be grieving in the media" then pull out a gun and shoot him in the head? That essentially is what happened here." No that isn't at all what happened here. He was put on trial and the timeline and his behavior lead to his conviction. He's still alive, remember? Also "social vigilanteism" is NOT what happened. He was put on trial where evidence was presented. You are correct that there was no direct evidence but there was irrefutable evidence IMO.

Incidentally I hope that he is not put to death, I don't support the death penalty at all.

I agree to disagree with you on this forever and ever (which doesn't mean that I don't expect a retort ;))

Strandinthewind's reply:

. . . and retort you shall have :laugh:

I believe he has been sentenced to death. So, the gun to the head analogy was correct except in a temporal sense, the latter being immediate and the former being prolonged :shrug:

Also and again, there was no direct evidence linking him to the crime. So, that means he was convicted on circumstantial evidence - none of which links him to the crime and the evidence the judge inexplicably excluded proves Peterson's boat could not have been used for the crime.

Part of that circumstantial evidence was his affair with Frey - thus my statement that his affair with Frey got him convicted is and was correct. I mean do you really believe that jury (at least the last one :rolleyes: ) took him having an affair while his wife was preggers and ran with it all the way to a conviction - then I suggest you do not know about juries. I do and they did.

Put it this way, if Frey had not testified, do you think on the evidence remaining there would have been a conviction?

I submit there would not have been. Again, I do not think the prosecution alleged Peterson's motivation was to kill Laci in order to wind up with Amber. If they did, the tapes prove them wrong.

So, what other possible evidence could her testimony prove - I submit it was to show Peterson had an affair while his wife was pregnant - therefore he killed her. That is a non-sequitor - it makes no sense. People have affairs all of the time without killing their pregnant wives :shrug:

But, people will never see it this way. All they can think is, well, who cares, Peterson was probably guilty anyway so screw him and the system. These people do not have the foresight to see where that kind of logic and disregard for the rules will lead.

Again, applying that logic, why bother with a trial.

.....As for the rest of the evidence, it just does not add up. Yes, he went fishing on Christmas Eve - so what - I know a bunch of people who do as well.

He was going to mexico - so what - he knew he had a police escort and therefore could hardly be running away.

Laci's hair was found on his stuff - big deal - she was his wife and had access to it.

And Mad4Stevie says, and I hear ?her?:

"It is easy for all of us to judge Amber, and her feelings and motivations regarding this case, BUT how many of us have ever dealt with someone who is a pathological liar like Scott Peterson?

"I once dated someone who lied about everything and anything and appeared to have no conscience about it. He was very charismatic and charming and had most everyone fooled. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent, socially aware person, and I was fooled by his charisma and charm. Granted, he is not a killer (or one who has been charged with such a crime), but I can feel for what it is like to feel that kind of betrayal of trust by a person you think cares about you. It can really mess you up emotionally and spiritually. And I have my therapist to thank for straightening me out ;)

"People who lie like that are very scarey to me."

To which I say, yeah, but, the money.

Also:

"......As for the pre-therapy answer: oh my god i am responsible for this man being put to death and i am the cause of Laci's murder! ;)

"As for the post-therapy answer: i did what i could to provide information and help to the authorities so that they could find Laci and bring her home to her family. ;)."

Crappy therapists can mess you up for years....I have seen it with my own eyes, and more than once or even twice. Included are therapists who tell one what one wants to hear. They have their own issues, and become involved with their patients in dysfunctional ways; these are human relationships, and just as there are competent mechanics, and surgeons, and plumbers, and teachers, so there are also incompetent therapists and psychiatrists who do not necessarily help heal their clients. Being human, and having issues of their own, can prevent them from being a healing influcence.

Not the worst of it all is that there's a built-in motivation for the patient not to heal: it would mean no more doctor visits.

Had a friend years back who saw an analyst four times a week for eight years. She could afford it, and he took lots of money from her.

Years later, she said going to that analyst for so long actually delayed her healing. He kept going back over and over and over the same childhood stuff, making her re-live it, rather than moving forward. When she finally got away from him her life actually started to improve. I haven't seen my friend in a while, but I watched her bloom after she left him---I remember it vividly.

It happens. There are also wonderful healers out there who can and will change your life for the better.

Just had to respond, because the implication in the post is that the proper analysis of Frey (a woman the poster likely does not know personally, nor do I) is to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I just can't get there. She's had plenty of time by now to read the other side of the story. Maybe she's got people all around her who say blah blah, he did it, blah blah, those people are nuts, yata yata yata, no other points of view presented, who knows. I don't know. I just know the info's out there, it shows he likely didn't do it, and she's OK with killing a person she once knew and refuses to examine or respond to the evidence....
Sorry just can't;

Yuck;

**********************

But on the whole....it was a long time ago...who cares? Why does it matter?

I mean, who really wants these people in one's head at all?

It matters because they are planning to put a living Californian man to death over it, while withholding exonerating evidence--and they withheld information on a profit motive.

It doesn't get worse than that-----death for profit.
I mean, if anyone can think of something more disgusting, please feel free.

Jim Hammer-- Lawyer, Or Entertainer?

2011-12-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

In the conversation that continues on Greta Van Susteren's blog over at FoxyLady News, Jim Hammer has come up in the comments section. So I looked him up to see what his role is in this debacle.

He's a "legal expert" for television news programs, he does speaking engagements, he influences conversations and thought, for a living. And he's a great example of why this story stinks to high heaven.

Source

"They've put on a whole lot of nothing," said Michael Cardoza, a former prosecutor turned Bay Area defense attorney, of the state's case so far. "The first week was immensely important, and they blew it."

Cardoza, who sat in on the trial in Redwood City, and other experts say the prosecutors' opening statements -- a road map of what they hope to prove -- were a muddled mess that failed to do much more than portray Peterson as a cheating, smarmy jerk. Furthermore, the prosecution's first few witnesses, including a Trader Joe's manager who read off Laci Peterson's shopping list in tedious detail, failed to deliver much punch, the experts say.

"Every law student is taught that the two things the human mind remembers is the first and last piece of information it hears," said Jim Hammer, a former San Francisco prosecutor who now does legal analysis for Fox News. "And a Trader Joe's receipt is not the most powerful thing they have."

Some believe that one of the biggest blows to the prosecution's case came during the defense's opening statements. Prosecutor Rick Distaso set the stage for defense attorney Mark Geragos' move when he told the jury that Peterson had lied to investigators about the day he said he last saw his wife alive -- Dec. 24, 2002. Peterson said he had spent the morning with Laci watching the Martha Stewart show -- a segment on meringue. Investigators apparently studied the show that aired that day and decided there had been no mention of meringue and that the episode Peterson referred to had run the day before.

Based in part on Peterson's so-called lie, authorities obtained a search warrant to go through the 31-year-old fertilizer salesman's belongings.

But when Geragos took his turn before the jury, he played a clip of the Dec. 24 show on two giant, flat-screen monitors flanking the jury box. And sure enough, Stewart and her guest talked about making meringue cookies. Geragos rewound and repeated the tape, saying, "I played it twice, just in case the Modesto P.D. couldn't hear it."

The courtroom erupted into laughter. Geragos had thrown down the gauntlet, and his attack on the investigators who he says bungled the case had begun.

"I nearly fell off my damn chair when I heard it. It was definitely a good moment for the defense," Cardoza said, adding that the jury now has been officially conditioned to be skeptical of anything the police testify to during trial.

But Hammer, who also has been in the courtroom, says the defense won't win the case with whipped egg whites and sugar.

"The prosecution still has some powerful evidence," he said. "And the defense never addressed three big questions: Why did the bodies of Laci and the couple's baby wash ashore only 2 miles from where Peterson went fishing? Why did Scott Peterson lie right away about what he did (telling some he had played golf, when he went fishing instead) on the day his wife disappeared? And was the cement residue found on his boat trailer from homemade cement anchors used to weigh down his wife's body?

"These are facts that could get him convicted," Hammer said.

What facts?

Where was it proven that Laci and Conner "washed ashore"?

The prosecution's "expert" on the movements of objects via tidal currents in the Bay could not track Laci's trajectory.

Conner "washed ashore" over those huge, sharp rocks without sustaining any damage? Conner was inside his mother's womb for four months, but his skin was still intact? No animal feeding?

Who knew Peterson went to the bay? Everyone within reach of the telly, including anyone besides Peterson who might have been the actual killer and who could surmise that placing the bodies by the shore would suggest Scott's guilt? How many people had access to that area, by night, when no one was around? The searches were long over.

This would be evidence---if it had not been broadcast far and wide.

But it was.

Regarding the golfing/fishing business---
What's so hard to understand about a plan A, and a plan B? Scott tells Laci he might golf, he might fish, the day before. This gets relayed to Laci's relatives, who then claim Scott said he was golfing.
So what? He decided to take the boat out instead?
This is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

And, finally, the cement. A competitor of Scott's testified that he'd seen concrete mix on the trailer months before. Scott was putting in fence posts at his home.

Besides, that "evidence" fell apart in trial. The bucket supposedly used to make anchors wasn't used after all. And the anchors wouldn't have been sufficient to weigh Laci's body down, anyway. And ---- since we're on the anchors..what happened to the bloody things? Anchors sink...they don't just wash out to sea. Never found a one of 'em.

From Marlene Newell's editorial on the matter:

Phil Devan, a very interested trial watcher, conducted his own experiment, determined to prove that Scott Peterson used that 14 foot Gamefisher boat to dump Laci's body in the Bay. He used 4 8-lb. weights, the same size and number as the ones Scott was supposed to have made, and a dummy. He was able to get the weighted dummy overboard without capsizing the boat, but he had one problem. The weights weren't sufficient to sink the body. It kept bobbing up.

The State provided no expert claim that 32 lbs. of weight would have been sufficient to sink Laci's body and keep it submerged. The area where Scott was fishing is shallow, only 3-4 feet deep at low tide. The buoyancy caused by the gases forming in her decomposing body would have eventually caused the body to float.

But, most curious of all, is Hammer's assertion that these questions are "facts."

They are not facts, and no facts were presented supporting the theories at trial.

But also---as a person trained in the law---why is Mr. Hammer placing the burden of proof upon the defense?

Maybe 'cause the audience does that, and the audience likes to hear what it likes to hear, and he's pimped out to it and to the Fox gig?

Who knows?

It's only the lives of others, after all.

Media Ignores Mounting Questions About Scott And Laci Peterson Case

2011-12-21T18:58:00.001-08:00

This entry on 'Exiled' will also be posted at Firedoglake, and it contains links to various posts on this blog that explain how this case was a lie from the beginning.

771 people.......

and counting.

771 People Publicly Questioning Peterson's Conviction--Still No News Coverage!!!

2011-12-21T18:36:00.000-08:00

Scott Peterson: Truth Be Told, a great outreach forum dedicated to examining the Peterson case witness by witness using trial testimony, is liked by 771 people!

That includes my honey, who was skeptical for quite a while but for my sake, has been reading the materials and agrees now it's likely Peterson didn't do it.

It's really great to see the conversations on that page. A few haters show up just to do some hatin', but there are also people who are curious, interested, and having conversations about it while withholding judgement.

That's excellent progress.

Even if Greta doesn't report it.
Ten Years of On The Record With Greta---and STILL no disclosure of the Aponte tip or Harshman's evidence!

Some "record!"

Dalton/Aponte Article At Firedoglake.com

2011-12-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

I've posted a rundown here of Dalton's missing witnesses, and the tip from Xavier Aponte, in hopes of reaching a wider audience.

I'm also going to send the story to the Riverside Press Enterprise--who knows whether they will run it, and I somehow doubt it.

Full credit to Marlene Newell and researchers at SII.

Sent a small donation to the Petersons. Anything you can spare, even if it's five bucks, is moral support, in addition to practical support. Put it in the Karma bank.

This is a tough time of year for many--these families definitely included.

Here's to truth and disclosure. Cheers.

Great News For High-Profile Death Row Inmate/Radio Host

2011-12-09T19:19:00.001-08:00

Death Penalty Dropped from Case of longtime death row inmate and radio host Mumia Abu Jamal.Source: National Lawyers Guild.

New York--The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office announced today that it will not seek another death sentence for National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Vice President Mumia Abu-Jamal. Under Pennsylvania law, Mr. Abu-Jamal will now be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

“While there is overwhelming doubt about what the state claims to be the facts in this case, even those allegations never supported a capital charge,” said Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. “That it has taken three decades to remove death from the table is astonishing.”

The National Lawyers Guild has long maintained that Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to a new and fair trial. Procedural irregularities plagued his case from the outset, including blatant constitutional violations, from the judge allowing the prosecution to admit evidence of his affiliation with the Black Panther Party, in violation of the Supreme Court case Dawson v. Delaware, to the use of a faulty sentencing form that misled jurors during the penalty phase, in violation of the Supreme Court case Mills v. Maryland.

A great deal of relevant evidence has never been reviewed by any court, much less presented to a jury. This evidence includes several photographs of the crime scene which impeach the testimony of a police officer who was a key eyewitness and proof that another individual was present, and fled, the scene of the shooting.

Mr. Abu-Jamal was charged at a time when, it was later revealed, there was extensive corruption within the Philadelphia Police Department. In 1995, then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham promised the city that she would dismiss any case in which there was evidence of police perjury or purposeful misreporting of facts. Given the history of police misconduct in Philadelphia when Abu-Jamal was arrested, and the specific instances of police perjury in his case, the National Lawyers Guild urges current District Attorney Seth Williams to act on his predecessor’s unfulfilled pledge.

Scott Peterson, TV News, And Journalistic Integrity

2011-12-09T16:38:00.000-08:00

Greta Van Susteren recently did a retrospective show, which I didn't watch, but the synopsis is online.

I've left several comments there, attempting to explain the problems with the case.

Wish she could have done it somewhat less close to Christmas.

None of my comments has been deleted (so far), so that's a plus.

But I've left these comments many times before. And you know, google searches are really not that difficult. The information about Peterson's case is here for everyone to read. Has been for years and years now.

But TV news is not necessarily about the truth, as we've seen, and when it comes to lies of omission, it's the champ at this point. But it's not just TV. Keeping company are all or most major media outlets. It's just how it is. Those who work for them do their best. They have bosses who decide what they do. They're employees too--unionized, in fact, yes, even at Fox, where they bash unions! I wonder how the anchors feel bashing unions when they're represented by AFTRA (American Federation of Radio and Television Artists).

So that's got to mess with your head a little.

Also--the crushing schedule of TV news is designed to curdle the brain cells of anyone. I think I've mentioned here that my ex worked for one of the big 3 networks here in LA editing video for a popular nightly news program. They do pay you well---but you're worked like slaves. I don't know how it is for anchors, but if they need a union, it's a sure bet that they're so busy with their jobs that they genuinely don't have time to research.

However--that's really no excuse.

Not when life and death are in the balance. Not when you can influence public opinion with a raised eyebrow.

Here's an example of a story of great importance that is (so far) getting no play on the news---though it probably will, and should. At some point it's not going to be a secret anymore. But this happened in November and there's almost nothing. However, Daily Kos did pick up this story.

When I tell you about it, please think about whether this is something important that you would want to know about on the news. It's not pretty, and in fact it's the most disturbing development to come out of Japan in some time.

The architect of reactor 3 at the Dai-ichi plant said in a November 17th interview (and I can't find the original interview, which is probably in Japanese) that since things have not improved at the plant since 3/11, it's likely that the hot reactor core material has seeped into the ground.

Uehara Haruo, the former President of Sawa University in Tokyo, said Tepco's explanation does not make sense, and that what's known as the "China Syndrome" may be inevitable. (The sites publishing this information have him saying straight-out "inevitable".) Since I haven't heard the interview, and don't speak Japanese, I can't comment.

He added, if the fissioning core material reaches an underground water vein, it will cause a massive contamination of ground water, and seep into the soil and sea as well. Moreover, if the underground water vein keeps being heated for a long time, it will cause a "massive hydrovolcanic explosion."

He also said that "tons" of radioactive derbris has reached the Marshall Islands as of 11/15/2011.

No major media has picked this up. So why do I think it's an important story?

Well-first of all---this is a specific, qualified, credible person who's said this.

If he didn't say this, and it's been on the Net since November 19th (the date of the Daily Kos story)--then he'd be yelling his head off about it.

Daily Kos is a very popular site.

I think that if he didn't say it, we'd have heard something out of Japan by now.

That's why I think it's a story.

Also consider that getting information about Fukushima, even online, is like pulling teeth.

Haruo's statement does not impress everyone. This website states that "his level of nuclear illiteracy is severe." It states that Haruo did not design the nuclear components of the reactor, but rather the outer building structures.

However---looking over that site (and now knowing the credentials of the writer), it looks a lot like a pro-nuke site dedicated to discrediting people who've been bold enough to speak up about what's going on.

Example:
"Edwin Lyman, of the decidedly anti-nuclear Union of Concerned Scientists, said, "I think that a prediction of thousands of cancer deaths as a result of the radiation from Fukushima is not out of line." On a more rational note, Seiji Yasumura of the state-run Fukushima Medical University, and head of the prefecture's 30-year cancer study of its residents, said people probably received too little radiation from Fukushima to cause cancer, but was immediately downplayed because distrust in the government. Thus, fear-generating statements went unchallenged while a realistic comment was attacked."

But wait---state-run Fukushima Medical University.

Conflict of interest?

The site also attacks a a visiting professor at the University of Ulster in the U.K. I'm not familiar with Christopher Busby's commentary, though I've been aware of him. The Guardian reports that Busby has been marketing radiation pills at very high prices through a website.

That's not good.

Looks bad.

But there are very few people speaking out about the dangers of Fukushima. All we are hearing is that everything's OK. But it's not OK in Japan--not by a long shot.
A colleague of mine the other day said to me: "Oh, is that thing still going on?"

--Meaning the disaster/meltdown/melt-through at Fukushima.

But what's not in dispute, even by Tepco, is the melt-through scenario.

That means the live core material has eaten through the base of the pressure vessels and is eating into the outer containment vessels.

NHK, a Japanese TV network, has reported:

"TEPCO said that in the "worst case," all fuel rods in the plant's Number 1 reactor may have melted and dropped through its bottom into a containment vessel. The bottom of the vessel is concrete covered with a steel plate.

"The utility said the fuel may have eroded the bottom to a depth of 65 centimeters. The thinnest part of the section is only 37 centimeters thick.

"TEPCO also said as much as 57 percent of the fuel in the plant's Number 2 reactor and 63 percent in the Number 3 reactor may have melted, and that some of the melted fuel may have fallen through reactor vessels."

Here's the deal: TEPCO is as much as saying the fuel "may have" eroded the bottom to a depth of 65 centimeters.

The thinnest part of the section is only 37 centimeters thick.

That suggests two layers have been breached, and makes it likely that Dr. Haruo in fact may not be blowing smoke here.

"TEPCO also said as much as 57 percent of the fuel in the plant's Number 2 reactor and 63 percent in the Number 3 reactor may have melted, and that some of the melted fuel may have fallen through reactor vessels."

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported something similar December 2nd.

If the officials who run the plant are saying the above, then I have no problem believing Haruo. These are two mainstream Japanese sources.

The problem with live nuke fuel is that you can't get too close to it. Workers can't get too close, and the reactors are wrecked.

The workers are flying blind.

If you read here about the first 24 hours at Fukushima, you will find that, without power to run the display panels, the plant's engineers went to the parking lot and gathered all the car batteries and used them to take readings. Unfortunately, the machines were completely out of whack, and the readings were not near accurate.

I would call these guys heroes, and I'd call the US media's lack of attention to them disgusting.

If you view these high-res drone photos of Fukushima from above, you will see that it's a very large, very dangerous, complete mess.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone thinks differently about all this. This is too serious a subject to mess around with---or to ignore.

And media has ignored Fukushima strenuously since a week and a half after the disaster. All of a sudden, there was no news coverage. None at all. Gone silent.

"Media blackout" was one search term that brought people to my other blogger site, which discussed Fukushima in detail for many months. "Why no news on Fukushima" --another example.

Update 12/20/11
I've been out sick for quite some time now, but wanted to add this link to a video by Arnie Gundersen at Fairewinds.com. Gundersen has managed nuclear plants and lost his job after blowing the whistle on safety hazards in the 90's, I believe. In any case, he's been a really good source of information on Fukushima. He does not believe, based on the water temperatures, that the core material has breached the containment.

Here's a link to his video, which wasn't available when I posted this article.

It is somewhat reassuring---however, the situation there is very serious, and the absolute lack of coverage of Japan's situation is really shameful. The world needs to know what's going on--because it could happen here, or anywhere.

Gundersen does say it'll be a while before Japan can be cleaned up:

"So we are not out of the woods. We are far from out of the woods. It will be 30 years before we capture all that nuclear fuel that is underneath that reactor vessel. And until then, it will be surrounded with water that is leaking into the groundwater."

"Letter From A Priest"

2011-11-23T18:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a story of incarceration written by a woman who is now back outside.

It made me thankful for the little comforts I take for granted every day.

Source: Crane-Station at Firedoglake

I have not seen a flower since last year sometime, and so I draw a picture of tulips and send them to my family in Seattle, where there is a tulip festival every Spring.

I do not yet have any work. There are no classes. There is an outdoor cage that is less than twenty steps around. We sometimes go out there for an hour of recreation- a dozen or so inmates crowded into a tiny, filthy space. We are not allowed to use the toilet while ‘outside,’ so we often squat and urinate on top of the drain in the concrete floor.

This jail limits toilet paper allotment, to force us to buy toilet paper from commissary at an inflated price. When I run out of toilet paper, I use a prayer book that the priest gave me because the pages are tissue-thin, like the Phone Book.

A couple of other women on their periods were using floor rags, because they did not have pads, nor could they afford them; the jail sells ten menstrual pads on canteen for four dollars.

The cell I have been moved to is a tiny, six-person dank cell with no view even to the hallway. The shower is slick with black mold.Thankfully, the lighting is dimmer in this jail than it was in McCracken County Jail. Also, this jail actually turns the lights off at night. I can draw here because the jail allows colored pencils and so, this jail is an improvement over McCracken County Jail.

The women in the cell are all State inmates- we are segregated from county inmates. This segregation eliminates some of the acute mental illness and noise. However, the women are very mean. It is a level of mean that I do not understand, and have never been exposed to. Unlike McCracken County Jail, where women frequently beat the hell out of each other, the meanness here is of a female backstabbing variety, which is, to me anyway, the worst kind of mean.

Another inmate in this cell, a nurse, of all things, is mean to me because I am a nurse, and she busies herself talking behind my back nonstop, to the point that I am in tears. A guard offers to move me to a different cell. I tell her I will be okay because the woman will go home soon, but that I am not accustomed to this level of hate, and I do not know what to do.

Other inmates tell me to be mean in return, to confront and start stuff, but I am not like this. Plus, I do not want to get an assault charge, so I stay on my bunk and try to write and draw, and make up my own Sudoku puzzles, which sometimes works but usually not, because I can never fool myself into forgetting the answer grid that I made up.

Six months ago I lost a crown on a bottom incisor tooth. I told the judge and asked if I could get it fixed before starting a sentence, but he refused and ordered me to begin my sentence immediately after my trial and before ‘final sentencing.’ I have quit eating solid food and only eat a little commissary cereal and cookies. There is no dairy, or fresh fruit or fresh vegetables here because some inmates like to make hooch and so, I order a few things I can break apart. I have diarrhea, I guess from the malnutrition or the starch and grease, although I am not sure of the cause.

California Prisoners Kept For Decades In Solitary Confinement

2011-11-22T18:42:00.000-08:00

This article was first posted at Firedoglake.com, where there's a pretty good discussion in the comments section with different points of view on this.

Since this concerns California's prison system, I'm posting it here too.

Usually during this season I try to keep it quiet on this blog because it's a tough time for all involved, and the fewer outside nattering voices, maybe, the better. But this year I do plan to write a few pieces on the Peterson case, so, stay tuned. I feel I've been somewhat neglectful of this blog, being distracted by other stories and other obsessions -- but I have to say that I've met such interesting, thoughtful people through my studies of the Peterson case--and this will be high on my list of things to be thankful for this year. The kind of citizen activism with which independent people have scrutinized and written about this case makes me hopeful for the future in a way not many things have. There are some good discussions about the Peterson case on the Facebook site "Scott Peterson: Truth Be Told". A number of entries asks people to say what they think of the evidence, and people of all stripes weigh in, including the clever ones who say "yeah and I bet OJ is innocent too!" (rolls eyes) So check it out, because the conversations are ongoing.

Source: Solitarywatch.com's report on California's Assembly Hearing last summer on solitary confinement.

Scott Kernan of California's prison system says of 165,000 prisoners in CA, 3,000 of them are in solitary confinement.

He "repeatedly" stated, according to the article, that the average stay in solitary is 6.8 years.

"Harriet," the sister-in-law of a man in solitary for 25 years, asked at the hearing how he could possibly still be in a gang after all that time.

66-year-old Hugo Pinnell has been in solitary for 40 years, despite not having had a disciplinary write-up for 30 years.

Meanwhile, Three inmates who committed suicide in recent months had been kept in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay and Calipatria and participated in hunger strikes in protest.

Details about inmates’ deaths are hard to come by, and what little is known is in dispute because prison officials refuse to be forthcoming about the circumstances of the suicides, prisoner advocates say.

"As far as we understand, these three people were involved in the hunger strike, and as far as we understand, these three people are dead now,” said Isaac Ontiveros, a spokesperson for the Prison Solidarity Hunger Strike Coalition, a network of organizations that advocates for prisoners’ rights.

“The how and the why is a hard thing to say more about, and it’s become more and more devastating when there is such a lack of clear information from the [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation].”

The fight for basic updates and information from the California Department of Corrections is nothing new for prisoner advocates and their loved ones. During the latest round of prisoner hunger strikes, prison officials disciplined those who participated in the strike by limiting inmates’ access to family members and advocates. Even in the wake of a series of suicides, distraught family members are being given very little information about what exactly happened with their loved ones.

Family members were informed of their loved ones’ deaths via automated recordings left on their voicemails, Ontiveros said, and those who have tried to reach out to the CDCR for more information have been rebuffed.

And....

The CDCR did not respond to repeated requests for comment, though their spokesperson Terry Thornton disputed the prisoner advocates’ story in an interview with SF Weekly.

On the FDL post, "Booradley" commented:

See Matthew 25:31-45 about “prisoners.” It reaches across 2,000 years with great accuracy.

The Sheep and the Goats

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, ‘I WAS IN PRISON AND YOU CAME TO VISIT ME.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in PRISON and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in PRISON and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in PRISON, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

DOJ: Not OK To Lie To Taxpayers

2011-11-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

Source: Propublica.org

Last week, Propublica reported that a proposed Freedom of Information Act rule from the U.S. Department of Justice would allow agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security records that the information did not exist -- even if it did.

The measure riled open-government advocates and some members of Congress, who have pushed for greater federal transparency.

Thursday, DOJ said it had withdrawn the measure from its final regulations.

In a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of several members of Congress who had questioned the proposal, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said that the measure would not be included in the DOJ's final rule.

"The Justice Department decided that misleading the American people would be wrong, and made the right decision to pull the proposed regulation," Sen. Grassley said in a statement.

Corrections Corporation of America

2011-10-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

(Los Angeles, CA) -- California corrections officials will be in Oklahoma invstigating a prison brawl that broke out among inmates who were shipped out of state because there's no room for them in California facilities. Fights broke out Tuesday at various locations inside a medium-security prison that's housing 23-hundred California inmates, according to the "San Francisco Chronicle." The privately-run prison is managed by the Tennesee-based Corrections Corporation Of America. California has nearly 95-hundred inmates in prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma that are run by the same company.

Online Community Fills Up Coronado Patch Bulletin Board With Shacknai Discussion

2011-10-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

This article on the Coronado Patch has around a thousand comments, an ongoing discussion on the Shacknai case and the July death of Rebecca Zahau.

UPDATE 10/14/11: The article referenced above was removed; however, the Patch has put up another article with nearly as many comments at this point.

It's interesting that public scrutiny can work both ways---in this case, people are curious and outraged that what seem like obvious, legitimate questions are going unanswered, and are turning out (online) in droves to ask why.

In the Peterson case, public focus on Scott Peterson (aided by media) kept a force of blame and ridicule on those who asked questions about the evidence that pointed away from Peterson, effectively silencing the people who were asking them.

Rebecca Zahau's death has been called a suicide by San Diego County Sheriff's investigators, but there are questions about the evidence, including common-sense questions of whether a suicidal person would have plans for the next day, would be able to bind her own hands and feet, whether a message painted on the door was in her handwriting, what it meant--in any case, up and down the Southern California coast, and across the world, in fact, people are looking into a dark occurrence in San Diego and wondering what it means.

If something happened to someone I loved that was this troubling, this violent, this sudden, I doubt I would be able to go on the computer and read the silent text comments by ranting strangers. But most of the comments, it appears, are supportive, and say the obvious: more investigation is needed.

Opening Brief In Peterson Case Deadline Extended To November 29, 2011

2011-10-03T20:13:00.000-07:00

v. PETERSON (SCOTT)
Case: S132449, Supreme Court of California

Date (YYYY-MM-DD): 2011-10-03
Event Description: Extension of time granted
Notes:
On application of appellant and good cause appearing, it is ordered that the time to serve and file appellant's opening brief is extended to and including November 29, 2011.

Jonah Shacknai: The Opposite of the Peterson Case

2011-09-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

Many, many people are scratching their heads over this one, especially the victim's family.

In July, Rebecca Zahau's family, upon learning of her sudden death, wanted more information.

Rebecca was the girlfriend of a pharmaceutical tycoon, Jonah Shacknai of Scottsdale, AZ-based Medicis.

In July, Shacknai's 6-year-old son fell down a flight of stairs at his 27-room mansion on Coronado. The boy died later at the hospital.

Rebecca's death came right on the heels of the boy's demise.

She was found nude, dangling from the mansion's balcony, with her hands bound behind her back, and her feet bound as well. On the door were scrawled the words in black paint, "She saved him, can you save her?"

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department declared Rebecca's death a suicide.

Rebecca's family has been pushing for more investigation. From their website:

"Rebecca's mother said, “Why would they say that? That she committed suicide? Our family is hurting. We’re a poor family. We can’t pay for investigators...we know for sure, she wouldn’t ever kill herself. And she was very modest. It is our Asian way. She would never do a thing like that, and never without clothes on. But nobody will listen to us.”

They have questions. For example, they'd like to know why there was a t-shirt stuffed in Rebecca's mouth.

Jonah Shacknai says he accepts the Sheriff's department's assertion that Rebecca's death was a suicide. He asked California Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate, he said, to settle the doubts and questions of the public. The AG has announced she will not investigate Rebecca's death.

The AG's response reads, in part:

"The California Department of Justice would review a local investigation under very narrow circumstances. Some of the factors that are considered before committing the state's scarce resources include whether a clear conflict of interest exists, whether a local law enforcement agency has requested assistance, whether local investigative resources have been exhausted, and whether there are allegations of gross malfeasance by the investigative agency. Based on a review of your request, we must decline your invitation to review this investigation at this time."

Shacknai isn't alleging gross malfeasance, so maybe it's Zahau's family that needs to write to the AG.

And in the comments attached to this story, something really interesting is playing out. One or more people reallllly want the public to believe Rebecca killed the boy. Not only that, they want people to believe she's a "Burmese golddigger," a "shoplifter," "eaten by guilt" "conniving" "mentally ill" "murderer" and so forth. Pretty creepy..it looks to me like someone with inside knowledge or at least an agenda is posting like a maniac over there. Someone named "J" in particular seems to be flaunting inside knowledge and derogatory insults toward Ms. Zahau, and has made scores of comments on the subject.

A story out four days ago by San Diego's News 10 reveals that the boy, Max, may have been suffocated prior to his fall down the stairs.

(She saved him, can you save her?....?)

The story also states that "According to the warrants, Jonah Shacknai -- the founder of an Arizona-based company that makes anti-aging products -- was working out at a gym on July 11 when he got a call from his girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, that 6-year-old Max had fallen over the railing."

The railing? I thought it was the stairs. Did he fall over a railing? If so, could the fact that Zahau's body was dangled over a ...railing..have significance?

I was looking last week at the Zahau family website. Oddly enough, google searches are not turning up that site today. It's in my history though at Rebeccazahaufund.com.

(I am beginning to wonder about Google these days, especially since search engine traffic on this blog dropped off very suddenly at some point after the Anthony case went away. It was a sudden drop from hundreds of hits a day to about 20, not a slow taper. I am reading of other people having this problem, but they seem to believe it is only happening with non-blogger or non-Google sponsored sites. Since Blogger is a Google function, this obviously doesn't apply. It happened with my other blog too, a few months before the Peterson blog's search traffic took a dive. Anyone else have this experience?)

Another weird thing about this case is that the Sheriff's department is claiming Zahau killed herself in distress over a voicemail message that has now been...guess what....erased.

Here's another article from NBC:

Nationally known attorney Anne Bremner says she's almost done with her investigation into the mysterious death of Rebecca Zahau.

And now she's revealing some of her findings, which could re-open the case and shed new light on what happened at the Spreckels Mansion on July 13 when the body of Rebecca Zahau, 32, was found hanging from a balcony.

"There's just been an outpouring, not only from the media, but from people all over who including experts who want to help, that don't believe it's a suicide, Bremner told NBC 7 in a phone interview."

Bremner says she has a team of forensic experts working with her and they believe there is enough evidence to re-open the case which has already been ruled a suicide by three agencies including the San Diego County Sheriff's Homicide Unit.

"Just because it's possible that someone committed suicide, doesn't mean that the case should be closed, Bremner said. "We know there were clumps of hair that they found, there were gloves found at the scene, I always suggested that if there is a killer that he used gloves and that's why they didn't leave their DNA and fingerprints."

Bremner also points out that the doors are closed on the balcony where Zahau was found hanging. "Did she turn around and close the doors before she hung herself off the side?"

And what about the voicemail message that investigators say Zahau listened to on her cellphone at 12:50 that morning, just hours before her body was discovered.

Bremner says detectives told family members the call originally came in at 12:30 and it was from Jonah Shacknai, informing Zahau that his six year old son Max was in grave condition.

Investigators believe the guilt of Max's impending death pushed Zahau to kill herself. But Bremner says Zahau's phone records tell a different story.

"They're talking about a message that was erased, and her phone records don't indicate any incoming call prior to her demise."

Bremner also says she found a neighbor who heard a woman screaming from the mansion at 11:30, more than an hour before investigators believe Zahau checked her voicemail.

Bremner says that could mean Zahau died much sooner than investigators believe and she is now trying to get the cellphone so it can be examined by a forensic expert.

San Diego County Sheriff's spokesperson Lt. Larry Nesbit said investigators will re-examine Zahau's cellphone.

"It's amazing to see how much information there is out there about this tragic death and clearly it's not a suicide, Bremner said."

Bremner says investigators are aware of that neighbor who says she heard the screaming, but it's unclear if it made any difference in their investigation.

And according to Shep Smith below, during Shacknai's marriage to his former wife, there were domestic violence calls to the police from both of them.
It really starts to seem like no matter what Shacknai does, the police just won't take a hard look at him and his family connections. In one of the linked stories, it comes out that the mother of the boy who died, Shacknai's ex, has a twin sister. That twin sister sent a message to Rebecca the night she died asking if she could come over and talk. Interesting?

How does a person hang herself over the side of a railing with her hands tied behind her back?

Someone ought to sic Al Brocchini on Shacknai, and I mean, now.

Read more: AZFamily.com

Corrections Officials Sign On For Troy Davis

2011-09-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

Source: The Law Office For the Southern Center For Human Rights

Statement:
We write to you as former wardens and corrections officials who have had direct involvement in executions. Like few others in this country, we understand that you have a job to do in carrying out the lawful orders of the judiciary. We also understand, from our own personal experiences, the awful lifelong repercussions that come from participating in the execution of prisoners. While most of the prisoners whose executions we participated in accepted responsibility for the crimes for which they were punished, some of us have also executed prisoners who maintained their innocence until the end. It is those cases that are most haunting to an executioner.

We write to you today with the overwhelming concern that an innocent person could be executed in Georgia tonight. We know the legal process has exhausted itself in the case of Troy Anthony Davis, and yet, doubt about his guilt remains. This very fact will have an irreversible and damaging impact on your staff. Many people of significant standing share these concerns, including, notably, William Sessions, Director of the FBI under President Ronald Reagan.

Living with the nightmares is something that we know from experience. No one has the right to ask a public servant to take on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt, and for some of us, shame and guilt. Should our justice system be causing so much harm to so many people when there is an alternative?

We urge you to ask the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider their decision. Should that fail, we urge you to unburden yourselves and your staff from the pain of participating in such a questionable execution to the extent possible by allowing any personnel so inclined to opt-out of activities related to the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. Further, we urge you to provide appropriate counseling to personnel who do choose to perform their job functions related to the execution. If we may be of assistance to you moving forward, please do not hesitate to call upon any of us.

Respectfully and collegially,

Allen Ault – Retired Warden, Georgia Diagnostic & Classifications Prison
Terry Collins – Retired Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Ron McAndrew – Retired Warden, Florida State Prison
Dennis O’Neill - Retired Warden, Florida State Prison
Reginald Wilkinson – Retired Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
Jeanne Woodford – Retired Warden, San Quentin State Prison

Davis Execution Delayed

2011-09-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

Source: The Guardian

Glancing through articles about Davis's case it appears that demonstrations have been happening all over the world, not just the US, on his behalf.

I really hope this is good news for Davis.

The execution of Troy Davis was delayed temporarily by the US supreme court on Wednesday night, in a dramatic intervention just as he was due to be put to death by lethal injection.

As the first news came in at the Jackson prison that houses death row, a huge cheer erupted from a crowd of more than 500 protesters that had amassed on the other side of the road.

Davis's supporters kissed each other and threw placards which read "Not in my name" into the air.

But the jubilation was short-lived. Talk of a reprieve from the US supreme court quickly gave way to rumours of a stay, and finally the realisation that the court had only ordered a temporary delay as it considered the matter. The mood then grew more sombre as the waiting game that has now been going on for years with Davis resumed.

***

Fox News just reported that three of the jurors who judged Davis's case have come out and said that they would not have voted to put him to death had they known the witnesses would recant their testimony. In other words, it was that testimony which convinced them.

Troy Davis: How Could This Happen?

2011-09-20T20:55:00.001-07:00

..That's the question a colleague of mine and I were asking each other as we discussed this case and searched for details just now.

The case of Troy Davis is truly unbelievable.

Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a police officer in Georgia in 1991 (the murder was in '89).

It's similar to the Peterson case in that there is no physical evidence tying Davis to the murder.

Out of nine witnesses, seven recanted, and several said they were pressured into their testimonies by police. The two who have not recanted are police officers.

News reports said thousands of people were protesting as Davis's hour of execution, 7pm Eastern Time Wednesday, draws closer.

Davis has had support. Amnesty, NAACP, former President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Pope, no less, have all called on Georgia to halt this execution and give Davis a new trial.

Wikipedia says: "The appeals were denied with courts declaring that Davis had not provided a "substantive claim" of innocence and that the recantations were unpersuasive."

And:

"In August 17, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence". The evidentiary hearing was held in June 2010, during which several former prosecution witnesses recanted their previous testimony and described police coercion. Other witnesses asserted that (Sylvester "Redd") Coles (who was at the scene of the crime and who fingered Davis) had confessed to the killing; this evidence was excluded as Coles was not given the opportunity to rebut it. In an August 2010 decision, the conviction was upheld, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia declaring that the new evidence cast only "minimal doubt on his conviction". Subsequent appeals, including to the Supreme Court, were rejected, and a fourth execution date was set for September 21, 2011. A clemency hearing by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles was set for September 19. Over 650,000 people signed a petition urging the Board to grant clemency. On September 20, the Board denied him clemency.[1]

Davis's family says Troy dropped out of high school and attended an education center so he could drive his sister, who has Multiple Sclerosis, for treatment every day while his mother worked.

Seven witnesses out of nine recant and this casts only "minimal doubt" on a conviction in which there is no physical evidence?

Not only that, but Davis was fingered by this guy Coles---who was "not given an opportunity to respond when witnesses said Coles had admitted to the killing."

Why not? Was he in court? Apparently not. And if you were Coles, would YOU come to court when you've been free and clear for 20 years?

You can email Georgia's Clemency board to give them your thoughts.
The address is
Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us

Or, you can fax them (this I would reccommend-in fact I am looking personally forward to using a little bit of their fax paper myself to send them a message).
404-651-8502

Wall Street protestor, September 19, 2011

The problem with Troy Davis is that--like Scott Peterson---he could be any one of us.

Apparently, the people on Georgia's so-called Clemency board don't believe that, even when out of nine witnesses recant. What would it take?

Murderabilia

2011-09-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

Scott Peterson's letters are being sold by people he once trusted.

I realize this isn't new news, it's just that I just noticed this particular auction.

The site is "Murderauction.com." I guess people buy stuff associated with people famous for killing other people? Crime scene relics, artwork...maybe the artwork is cool.

Scott P. has nice handwriting. In fact it looks a great deal like the penmanship of my favorite cousin, Hazel, who died last year the night before Christmas Day.

Scott Peterson: Lied About & Lied To

2011-09-16T15:23:00.001-07:00

January 16, 2003

Transcript excerpt, phone call between Brent Rocha and Scott Peterson. This comes the day of the Enquirer story on Amber, and a day after the police sat Laci's mother down with pictures of Scott and Amber and a tale about Scott supposedly recently "taking out life insurance on his wife."

A language note: this is how you heard it described: "taking out health insurance on Laci." But that's quite different from Laci and Scott buying a homeowner's insurance policy. They bought the policy, and, as often happens with mortgage obligations, *they* took out the accompanying life policy, which is a financial decision joint owners of homes commonly make. And when Scott suggested he be covered for 250K, and Laci for 150K, Laci spoke up and said her coverage should be the same as Scott's, so, that's what they did. This was according to the testimony of the insurance broker. So this is another example of what you heard "in the media" did not describe what actually happened. Instead, it's one small easy-to-instantly-grasp-and-never-forget bite of information, "took out life insurance on her"--with implications of possible secrecy, "on her" (as if she wasn't present for the event) and with its suggestion of maneuvering and control.

Now, here's the excerpt.

Brent ROCHA: Um.. so then I’m just trying to understand. My point of view is your motive. I mean, like were you happy to have this baby coming?

Scott PETERSON: Oh, absolutely, Conner. Come on, you know that.

Brent ROCHA: Okay.

Scott PETERSON: I mean, we’ve…I mean that would be wonderful.

Brent ROCHA: Then, I mean…because I mean…it looks like they’re out to nail you right now.

Scott PETERSON: Oh, of course they are.

Brent ROCHA: And…and we’ve been standing up for you. (emphasis mine)

Scott PETERSON: I know it.

This is another example of It's OK For Others To Lie, But Not Scott Peterson.

At least Brent was trying to talk to Scott and doing it civilly. It's really too bad that he didn't sit down with him privately one-on-one, because phone conversations (especially on cell phones) are so un-private and just not as personal..you can't read faces, which you need to do for honesty. (As an aside, this is one reason telephone customer service sucks..just one reason..)

Anyway, what bothers me about Brent's conversation is this: I can't get out of my mind that he bought a gun to shoot Peterson. That action speaks volumes. And the fact that privately, Laci's family was not really supporting him, not in the community nor in front of the police, from the very beginning--the only support was shown for the cameras, for people who were physically far away and not connected with the case or what was happening on the ground there.

It's one thing to go on TV and claim you're supporting someone or something. Unfortunately, and of course this doesn't only go for the Peterson case, the fact is that what people say on TV doesn't always match up with what they are actually doing.

In this way, Laci's family contributed to the false media image of what was playing out in Modesto----an aggreived and victimized family, graciously giving the secretly-suspected suspect the benefit of the doubt. In fact, in Mrs. Rocha's own words, in her own book, she describes behavior that is clearly not supportive of Scott, right from Ron Grantski's first challenge to Peterson's honesty in front of police the night of December 24th.

The Rochas were not "standing up for Scott." Nor are they being honest with him. Nor are they pressing him to meet with them. It's clear to me from everything I've read that Scott would have been willing to sit down face to face, and in fact, did ask to speak in person to Laci's mother immediately after the news about Amber Frey came out.

She refused and told him flat-out not to come over. (From "For Laci" -pg number on request)

So the narrative that has the Rochas supporting Scott, and Scott avoiding the Rochas, is not supported by their own words and actions.

The Depth of Censorship In US Media

2011-09-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

An article excerpted below was published July 20, 2011. This was right about the time that the news cycles were consumed by the latest political show in DC: the Budget Obsession, reminiscent in ways of the Peterson Obsession (grin-I might even be making fun of myself a little here for those who don't know me well).

Well, I checked Google News frequently to see if any outlets would pick this up. I mean, to me, it's a pretty big story. George Bush might not have been elected in 2004? For the first time ever the physical map of the server setup in that election can now be studied by the public, online (in a time when election software is considered proprietary information which is not even allowed to be seen by elections officials in most cases.) In Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's case, he may have had access because was also a GOP operative and the "honorary chair" of Bush's campaign in Ohio (how this was even allowed is another stumper for me).

I never noticed any newspapers or broadcast outlets picking this story up. And I wouldn't have even known to find it without endlessly browsing cyberspace chasing trails of thought down ever-cascading links to information. So I happened to find this about a week after it was published. I wonder how many other stories are out there, going on right now, that will be important to me --when I finally find out about them by random chance, or by dint of minimum internet saturation needed for me to find them.

For many, censorship is not something that could happen in the United States. But for too many years I have come to know about too many stories far too late like this. As a matter of fact, on the topic of censorship, some of it has to do with the pyschological bent of news reporters and directors and executives, who determine what the people under them do whether the actual journalists like it or not. For instance, it's becoming clear to me that the 9/11 Truth movement will not get a foothold in New York anytime soon. Those people--there, and in DC, are simply too traumatized--in my opinion. My partner recently had lunch in NYC with a longtime network producer on an hour-long national newsmagazine show that is very highly regarded. I asked him to ask his friend about Building 7. He said he didn't know about it.

But there is excellent research being done by people in California---one reason to be very proud of our beautiful state. And as far as the ridicule dished out in the corporate culture that controls media, towards people who generally have more legitimate questions than conspiraciy ideas, what that ridicule does is keep employees of news organizations unwilling to listen seriously to people who should be taken very seriously. For example: David Ray Griffin at Claremont College in Pomona, whose excellent and rigorously scholarly, extensively-footnoted-and-sourced book "Debunking 9/11 Debunking" absolutely shreds the 120-page Popular Mechanics book that claims to debunk what it calls, erroneously, "Conspiracy Theories."

(An aside about that book. It is compiled from Popular Mechanics writers, and the senior researcher on those pieces was 25-year-old Benjamin Chertoff. Name sound familiar? His cousin Michael came to head up the new organization known as "Homeland Security" after 9/11. However, despite this fact, Chertoff is only noted as being "thanked" in the book--possibly because enterprising reporters called family members and outed the Chertoff connection after the articles were published in 2005 (the book was published in 2006).

As for myself----9/11 was complete shock and awe. And surrounded by the news coverage 24/7, I also would never, ever have believed that "inside job" could possibly be a factor in this event. I listened to the news conferences. I heard Donald Rumsfeld's voice shaking. George Bush pausing for seven minutes to read to grade-schoolers after learning his country had been attacked was slightly disturbing, but not ominous, because he seemed pretty goofy to begin with. I definitely didn't completely grok the fact that what appeared to be a major attack on our soil was not met by fighters even though there were actually plenty available, including several that flew daily missions within a stone's throw of Manhattan----between 8:30 and 9 in the morning, most days. Only later did I wonder: Why such a shoddy level of defense, considering our military is widely known to be the most effective and enormous in the world? And that bothered for a while.

Building 7 was what eventually did it for me. I could not, and cannot, fathom how a 47-story steel skyscraper could collapse completely from top to bottom in a matter of about 7 seconds without any help from human hands. World Trade Center Building #7 was not hit by a plane. Other buildings closer to the Twin Towers were much more completely demolished by falling derbris, and did not collapse the way Building 7 collapsed. Not only that, but their steel frame structures were thinner than Building 7's. The US Government's official explanation for why Building 7 collapsed so quickly is that it burned down because of fires that were fueled by office furnishings.

Remarkably, the fact that steel skyscrapers are apparently so vulnerable to fire hasn't perturbed the hundreds of thousands of people who work in them around the world.

There is literally no explanation for why such an obvious visual physics puzzle, represented so heavily and commonly in videotape from that day, should have been ignored by television stations----if censorship is not in the equation. Watching Building 7 fall is a remarkable experience, and physics teachers in high school across the country have been scratching their heads about it for years now.

It was very difficult for me to listen to broadcast news as the anniversary of 9/11 approached, because I do care, very much. In the politics and dysfunction that followed, my own family was torn apart, maybe for good---the division in political views (or--versions of reality?) could not be stronger or more bitter among my siblings and parents. I did listen, though, and I heard what I expected to hear, and I read what I expected to read, meaning insults toward the people who really should be known as "9/11 Skeptics." Because these people haven't presented a theory, none of them. A rough outline begins to emerge when you study what went on that day and since, and this is where the idea comes from that people "need to believe something conspiratorial." What they are doing is asking questions that should be asked. This includes organizations with members being victims and families of that disaster, numerous professionals in related fields who are putting their names on petitions for a real investigation: Military Officers for 9/11 Truth, Veterans for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Patriots for 9/11 Truth--over 200 military, intelligence and government professionals--even one of Bush's own top men came out in 2006 and said it had to have been an inside job.

What's truly funny about propoganda, and I have noticed this lately, is the very clever business of providing camoflage ("balance") ---and thereby allowing controversial stories that will not get airtime on "liberal" media outlets onto "conservative" outlets. (I am using quotes because I no longer think the people who call themselves conservatives are really conservatives, and so forth--I think the language of politics has been corrupted and meanings twisted, in other words.) I have noted that Fox News has provided more coverage of the movement to remember Building 7, and of questioning 9/11, than NPR has.

To be sure, it's not the best coverage--but it is coverage.

One lie that I saw told in online rags like Slate is that the "Truther" ("troofer"-insulting spelling) movement is lessening, not increasing. However, two years ago there were 1300 members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Now there are over 1500. The number of professionals willing to publicly demand a true and independent investigation keeps rising, not falling. And this is because book after book keeps coming out. People with direct involvement are writing their stories. The books are where journalism is now--books and the web. And in this way news does spread. Among people who have time to read---which in this economy are not plentiful.

And none of this even gets into the mysterious and unexplained deaths of people who knew things about 9/11 and were willing to talk about them.

In any case, the idea that people are finally coming around to see that the government's story was the truth is simply the opposite of the truth. This is not something that is going away. Some of the strongest voices have been the voices of victims, for example the "Jersey Girls"---wives of husbands lost---who demanded, two years after the event, that an investigation be completed. This led to the 9/11 Commission-finally. Which was basically run out of the Bush White House, with provisions made for Bush and Cheney to testify behind closed doors, not under oath, and not on the record. The Commission report was produced "for the masses," said one of its authors. That's you and me, folks. The masses.

Can you think of a more disrespectful term for American taxpayers?

On the so-called "liberal" LA station, K-Talk, I heard a conversation Friday September 9th that infuriated me so much I had to turn off the radio. And then I came in here to work and sat down and paid money to get the podcast of that show so I could listen again and transcribe it to my other blog that no one reads.

That made me feel a little better.

Stories that are seen as too controversial will alienate management for the most part. Because broadcasters have become afraid of controversy--probably because they are now run by distant but powerful executives not trained or experienced in broadcasting who don't realize that controversy is actually healthy, actually great broadcasting, and is actually the fuel fanning the flames that will eventually burn down the endless paper walls of lies by omission.

Here is the article about the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio.

New court filing reveals how the 2004 Ohio presidential election was hackedBy Bob Fitrakis (co-counsel in King Lincoln case)

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.

The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.

Additionally, the filing contains the contract signed between then-Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Connell's company, GovTech Solutions. Also included that contract a graphic architectural map of the Secretary of State's election night server layout system.

Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney in the King Lincoln case, exchanged emails with IT security expert Stephen Spoonamore. Arnebeck asked Spoonamore whether or not SmarTech had the capability to "input data" and thus alter the results of Ohio's 2004 election. Spoonamore responded: "Yes. They would have had data input capacities. The system might have been set up to log which source generated the data but probably did not."

Spoonamore explained that "they [SmarTech] have full access and could change things when and if they want."

Arnebeck specifically asked "Could this be done using whatever bypass techniques Connell developed for the web hosting function." Spoonamore replied "Yes."

Spoonamore concluded from the architectural maps of the Ohio 2004 election reporting system that, "SmarTech was a man in the middle. In my opinion they were not designed as a mirror, they were designed specifically to be a man in the middle."

A "man in the middle" is a deliberate computer hacking setup, which allows a third party to sit in between computer transmissions and illegally alter the data. A mirror site, by contrast, is designed as a backup site in case the main computer configuration fails.

Spoonamore claims that he confronted then-Secretary of State Blackwell at a secretary of state IT conference in Boston where he was giving a seminar in data security. "Blackwell freaked and refused to speak to me when I confronted him about it long before I met you," he wrote to Arnebeck.

Steven Spoonamore, the witness in the King Lincoln case, was also a friend of Michael Connell (who died in the plane crash). There's more about their relationship, the details of the server setup, and Spoonamore's urging Connell to testify, in This story by Simon Worrall reprinted in Veterans Today.

I hope Spoonamore has a good bodyguard and some food tasters.

Amber Lies, Al Testifies

2011-09-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

Previously posted material: Amber Frey and Alfred Delucci take turns at Scott Peterson.

The judge's comments are toward the end of the article. He has some choice words for Scott Peterson's intentions, right there in front of the jury. Given his authority in the case, how could this not affect their thinking?

But Amber Frey's testimony is what made me take a second look at that post. It just seems like she's trying so darn hard to say Scott Peterson did tell her she shouldn't go to the police, at some point. On the transcripts, it's not there. And Geragos clarifies the issue as he questions her.

At first read, I thought that maybe she didn't quite understand exactly what Geragos was asking.

But on the second read, it feels different to me. It feels like she did know exactly what he was asking. And I'm sure she had professional help preparing for her testimony, and most likely did understand.

Not a big deal? Actually, I think this issue is a big deal. It actually matters very much, in terms of defining Scott Peterson's character, whether *at some point* he discouraged her from going to the police.

But as far as really outrageous behavior goes, that's barely a whimper compared to Alfred Delucci's liberties with his inner judicial commentary. How can any trial be fair when the judge, of all people, rips on the defendant?

California Judge Lets Inmates Rot (And Even Die) While Waiting For Habeas Rulings

2011-08-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

From the Los Angeles Times: Six years! The man's conviction was found to be wrongful and he was waiting to be released or retried. The judge just ignored the case for six years, apparently.

Justice delayed was justice denied for Omer Harland Gallion. He died in prison in his sixth year of waiting for U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to act on a decision that he had been wrongfully convicted and should be released or retried.

Anderson took no action until December, when he dismissed the matter as moot after an attorney brought Gallion's death to his attention.

Two other cases in which junior judicial officials found grounds for striking prisoners' felony convictions also languished unattended by Anderson for five and a half and eight years, respectively. Another prisoner who petitioned for relief in 2002 is still waiting for an answer.

Prisoners who appeal to federal judges with claims of wrongful conviction are rarely successful in their quests for relief, known as writs of habeas corpus, "the great writ" that is a hallmark of American justice. Only 1 in 284 petitions is approved, according to a 2006 report by a Vanderbilt University law professor. But ignoring recommendations for relief in the few meritorious cases among the 17,000 or so filed each year raises concern about a judge's objectivity, judicial scholars say.

Anderson declined to discuss the delays. Legal experts say the years-long inaction is highly unusual, even given the complexity of many habeas petitions that raise dozens of issues about the fairness of a prisoner's trial and sentence. Some attribute the delays to the court's staggering caseload and judges' obligation under the Speedy Trial Act to give priority to pending criminal cases. Others question Anderson's objectivity in prisoners' cases and speculate that he may be dismissive of their claims of mistreatment.

The chief judge for the Central District of California defended Anderson, describing the long delays as "extremely unfortunate" but blaming them on the district's huge caseload.

"Judge Anderson is an excellent judge," said Chief Judge Audrey B. Collins. "I have absolutely no reason to believe there was any bias that permeated his handling or played any part whatsoever in this." She noted that the district's 25 active judges carry caseloads that should be spread among at least 36.

Judicial scholars and defense attorneys say Anderson's handling of the habeas cases raises concern and should lead to a misconduct inquiry.

"The delay is what makes this troubling," said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and expert on the federal judiciary. "The delays are unexplained. It certainly raises concerns that are going to persist as long as there's no explanation."

A Times review of Anderson's record found that 565 habeas cases, excluding death row appeals, have been assigned to the judge during his nine years on the bench. He accepted the reviewing magistrate's recommendations to grant relief in two cases assigned early in his tenure and dealt relatively quickly in denying or dismissing the rest of those in which he has issued rulings. That swift dispatch of denials contrasts with the three long-delayed rulings on recommended grants that were brought to public attention last month by the Daily Journal, a legal publication.

Read more

How Long Would A Body Last In San Francisco Bay?

2011-08-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

For some reason I can't post comments on my blog, and I'm still looking into how to fix that. But this is an interesting discussion which has ended up at VOS's video of an elephant being eaten to the bone by predators within a week.

The thing is, how can we tell how much predator feeding Laci's remains might have been subjected to in the bay?

What's in the bay? What's eating what?

And;

Other bodies wind up in the bay, obviously. There must be, somewhere, people who could testify at an expert level on how fast bodies decompose in the bay. Or at least how fast bodies of, say, sea lions decompose.

Invasions and Extinctions Reshape Coastal Marine Food Webs is one example of an article I found which suggests that most of the carnivorous activity in the bay comes from "filter feeders" like shellfish. The summary states that 70 percent of extinctions come from the top of the food chain (top predators and other carnivores).

This Science Daily article from June 21 discusses how dire ocean extinction rates are.

The article corresponds to news items I've seen over the years which, taken all together, paint a worrisome picture. Garbage patches the size of large states are floating around in the Pacific. Tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water have been dumped into the Pacific from the melting-down Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. 172 million gallons of oil in the Gulf are now slicking the bottom of the sea and killing sea life there. At least 8.1 million gallons of toxic Corexit (and likely more, according to Congressman Ed Markey)were thrown after the oil in the gulf.

Keep in mind water migrates and mixes over time. Drilling platforms are crusting coastlines worldwide, bringing dramatic changes to ecosystems over the past 100 years. It's not rocket science; when you look at the overall picture and consider the fact that major problems combined can increase loss exponentially, the oceans are in very big trouble. And if we lose them, as a species, we're done. They are literally that important.

So--what does all this mean for the subject at hand? To me, it suggests that larger animals might not exist in the numbers needed to finish consuming human remains as quickly as the big cats and hyenas picked that elephant clean. The elephant's a lot bigger, but there was a lot of activity there.

No one has so far brought up that cistern that Citizen Q photographed and sent to the court...it can be seen here on Marlene's site, SII.

"Hate's Fun, Ain't It!"

2011-08-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I go on these forums and shoot the breeze about the Peterson case.

Not very often.

But it is illuminating.

On this particular forum, anyone who cares to click through will find people (not just one) who are advocating televised executions.

I wonder, ya know. I wonder what it is that happens to people that they would want to see someone they don't know put to death on TV.

But I don't wonder that much, because the TV has been the town square for more decades than I've been alive---and we know what used to happen in those town squares.

One thing that strikes me is that it's supposedly all in the name of Laci---who, I would think, is not resting easy right now.

Laci would want certainty about the case. Wouldn't she? (Wouldn't most people?)

I mean, let's say he didn't do it (which appears to me to be more than a strong possibility, with the exonerating evidence not shown at trial).

What's that do to Laci?

Where does that leave her?

I think the possibility that she is rolling in her grave is just as strong as the possiblity that he didn't do it. That is to say, very strong.

Besides, if Mr. Peterson actually was the homicidal maniac he's supposed to be, there would be some leak from that prison fortress to let us know he did this, or did that, or so on or so forth. As it is, he appears to be what they call a "model" inmate.

Never committed a violent crime, never even smacked anyone around. Was a nice kid, didn't kill small animals. No one at any time had any story about any kind of actual violent tendency --not even a whiff.

So he suddenly ups and kills his wife right before their dinner plans with her Mom--

and then never again in any way, shape or form, shows aggression or violence.

Just doesn't make sense to me.

Women Charged For Pregnancy Complications In Mississippi, Alabama

2011-07-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

Source: Alan.com

Alan Colmes describes this as "anti-choice insanity." I'm not sure whether that encompasses all of it, but insanity pretty much nails the basic gist.

Connection with Peterson? Not sure. Except to show that the business of accusing others in front of society can get way out of hand.

Mississippian Rennie Gibbs could face a mandatory life sentence for her miscarriage in December 2006--when she was only 15 years old. Prosecutors discovered she had a cocaine problem, so they charged her with ”depraved-heart murder” using a 130-year-old statute that punishes someone for placing another human life in imminent danger of death. Of course there is no evidence that Gibbs’ cocaine habit led to her miscarriage, but evidence has never stopped Mississippi DA Forrest Allgood before.

Allgood has already sent two people to death row who were later acquitted, and tried to have the evidence destroyed in one of them. When the case was argued in front of the Mississippi Supreme Court back on May 25th, Gibbs’s lawyer Robert McDuff argued, “If it’s not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is.”

Also on Alternet.

Another woman's case:

In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state's "chemical endangerment" law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.

Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her fetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."

She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."

LAPD: "Oops, Wrong Guy"

2011-07-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

I asked my colleague, "so what's going on today?"

"Bryan Stow," he said.

Bryan is the guy who got beat into a coma in the Dodger's stadium parking lot.

He told me they arrested three new people in the case and let Giovanni Ramirez go. Ramirez was the guy they arrested several weeks ago and put in jail for parole violation, something his attorney said wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been blamed for beating Stow up.

"Looks really bad for Chief Beck," he said. "I mean, he was coming out and all but saying, 'this guy did it.' Putting his picture everywhere. You don't do that. You wait til you've got evidence on the guy, right?

"So did you see the police sketch of this guy? Looks like any other homey from East LA, right? Little moustache, tattoos on the neck, coulda been one of ten thousand other guys running around this place. They put him in a lineup and the people go, that's the guy. That's the guy I saw in that dark garage!!

"And that's all they've got on him! A couple people said it was him. What happened to the others? There were two people beating the guy up, right? So what happened to them? Where's the woman with the kid who was driving the getaway car?

"So they arrest this guy, make a big deal of it, one day goes by, two days, three, four, five, a week, and they don't charge him. And I'm thinking, this is not the guy. They would have charged him by now. So here it is weeks later. The whole time they've been putting this guy's name and face out there practically saying he's guilty. And they're wrong."

He went on to say that he thinks Beck is a good chief anyway. But he said, "Bratton would never have done that."

From the Times article:

Jose Romero (Ramirez family attorney) said that during a police lineup, only one of seven witnesses identified Ramirez as the assailant in the case. He said two other witnesses identified someone else and the other four failed to identify anyone in the lineup.

Police had earlier released an artist's rendering of the suspect showing that he had tattoos on his neck and a teardrop tattoo under his left eye.

As a result, Ramirez's attorneys asked that the suspects in the lineup all have their necks covered with towels and that a teardrop be drawn under each of their left eyes so that witnesses would not be prejudiced.

Ramirez's uncle, Eleno Gaitan, who was also at the news conference, said Ramirez was at Gaitan's house at a family picnic the day Stow was beaten. Defense investigator Ray Lara said the alibi was confirmed by numerous witnesses. The next door neighbors, for instance, remembered people coming over to look for Ramirez's girlfriend's cell phone after he pretended to throw it into their yard when the couple had a fight.

Desperate Conditions At California Prisons, Reporters Denied Access

2011-07-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

Source: Los Angeles Times

Conditions in California prisons are so bad that a panel of federal judges ruled that they violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but until recently the ensuing protests came mainly from lawyers rather than the inmates themselves. That changed on July 1, when thousands of inmates at one-third of the state's prisons started a hunger strike.

A core group of at least 400 inmates in four prisons continues to refuse food, protesting the way the state treats prisoners deemed to be gang members. The strike began in the Special Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, where 1,100 inmates are isolated in soundproof cells for 22 1/2 hours a day. Their sole reprieve: one hour a day outside in a small area with high concrete walls.

_________

Think about one thousand & one hundred people isolated in soundproof cells all day long. (May as well be.)

I wondered, recently, if zoos are a sort of moral conditioning that allows people to see creatures confined in cages----and normalizes this. I wondered if the idea of domination as the solution for social problems infects everyone. I wondered about the 12-year-old Afghan kid that was captured, isolated, and tortured for years and years at Gitmo---- the same kid Eric Holder's Justice Department tried to keep imprisoned, until the judge on the case screamed bloody murder. He was finally released in 2009 and allowed to go back home to his family.

This is on all of us. We pay for it.

Remember

2011-07-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

A ghost is someone whose face you long to see with every fibre in your being, who you know you will never see in this life again.

The longing that punches you in the gut is the thing that is strong enough to drive you mad, or even kill you. The longing is a gravitational force. It can pull you to others, or drive you away from them. It can pull you to reality, or push you over the edge into hopelessness. It can drag your thoughts into fast-swirling currents. It comes at unexpected times.

For me, it's this way. Sometimes the intensity of it makes me wonder if it is, this pain, a signal from the other side, from the one I am missing. Is it some connection from some other realm, some other reality? Or is it a simple physical twinge connected to nothing? I leave this question alone because I don't want to know the answer, and something tells me it cannot be known. Something tells me that life has to be with the living, has to be now. Another sense tells me that I simply don't understand time, that no one really does, and somehow, this is a comfort. And something also makes me think that in the "now," where the beloved person does not seem to be, they might very well be, in some way I cannot divine. Who am I to try to describe the limits of reality, with only five senses at my disposal? And who am I to say that a person is no longer here? In what invisible way might we not be alone? What invisible hand, from the spirit world, might be present yet undetected by cold common sense?

The thing about grief is that no one escapes it. No one, not ever, unless one truly hasn't known love.

Whatever happened to Laci, she obviously did not deserve it. I have a photo of her on my fridge (with a bunch of others). It's my favorite photo of her and is one of the beautiful photographs that her mother included in her book, which also contained some things that are not beautiful at all. She's standing outside watering the lawn, wearing shorts, and the caption says, "Laci doing what she liked best: working in the yard."

I like this better than Laci looking beautiful with makeup on. I like it better than anything posed. I like it because ...I don't know, exactly.

I don't know if I would have liked Laci, but one thing that's been said about her makes me think I would. I can't remember whether I read this in her mom's book, or not. But someone, a friend of hers, described her as someone who would open her mouth and the most unpredictable things come out. I have this problem myself. And I really like people like this. They often make things really fun.

What I do know we have in common are just little things. She was a horticulture student, and she and Scott had a relationship with the land; she with her plantings, and landscapings; he with his landscapings around the house and agricultural career. She seemed to be focused in the present, connected to living things.

So I think of Laci when I do my indoor gardening. I know I've said this here before.

But I really think, to solve the mystery of what happened to Laci, one need look no further than Laci. Was she happy?

If she was unhappy, or had troubles, how deep were they?

Life is contradictory, and she and Scott were private about handling problems--which included a previous marital breach by Scott, in the period after the two were first married. Times of transition are stressful, committment is stressful---but after that, the two were known to others for years as people who were each other's best friends and partners. I mean--if she didn't tell them about the affair before, would she necessarily do it the second time? She strikes me as someone who would try to work it out privately with her husband before bringing it to others.

One thing that puzzled me when Peterson was being pursued so avidly by media and cops in early 2003 was the images of the Petersons that showed up briefly, flashing by on the TV screen in the room at the radio station where I worked. (KCRW, in Santa Monica.) They looked happy to me.

Was I only seeing an image? After all, an image cannot capture an aura, the living essence--and photos often distort that essence, even.

But the images I saw were of people that appeared to like each other very much. And when I began to read about the case, with Anne Bird's book, she described the way the two acted toward each other, and her impression seemed to be the same.

You have to consider that the only two people who really know a marriage are the ones who are in it. Not necessarily the folks who hear one partner's complaints about the other, or what have you. Only those two people know.

In fact, Scott said it to Diane Sawyer, that shark's-tooth showgirl with the big cameras---"Only we know our relationship."

To some that might have sounded like an excuse.
To me, it only sounds like the truth of any couple.

Some photos of the plants.
Not terribly recent, have been meaning to post them for some time.

Before cranberries boiled over..

After the cranberries boiled over

Birdseed got spilled in the plant in this next photo. Click to enlarge

"This Dynamic Afterlife"

2011-07-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Source: Voice of Sanity's blog

*111 Days Compared With 7 Days*

If you go to VOS's site, you can see the video.
An excerpt:

New Scientist presented this striking time-lapse video of a dead African elephant (Loxodonta africana) being dismantled in Kenya. It took just a week for scavengers to reduce the corpse to a pile of bleaching bones. This will be part of a Channel 4 program, "The Elephant: Life After Death," that will air in the UK on February 16.

An elephant. An entire elephant. In one week. One week. And people still try to claim that Laci's body (153 lb) could last over 111 days in the sea without becoming a skeleton. Right.

Bodies decompose in water half as slowly as on land, so that means two weeks maximum in the water. †

_______________

The video on this entry isn't for the faint of heart (or for someone about to hit the burger joint for lunch).

But it makes a really good point.

It took predators a week to finish off the carcass of an elephant. The idea that Laci's body was in the water for over a hundred days, yet was as intact as it was, becomes very strange when you witness this.

But also, VOS says that Allison Galloway presented the length of time that Laci was in the water, but did not base it on anything but her opinion, without scientific reference for backup.

Then there's the child, Conner, the baby found by the water. (Not "in" the water.)
The idea that the child's body, with such limited damage/animal feeding, was even in the water for all those months, even inside of his mother's body (especially with the perspective of this video), is something I personally couldn't grok unless I ingested sixties-type drugs of the sort that the CIA liked to experiment with on people, and people liked to experiment with on themselves (acid, anyone?).

I mean----until I was 14, I basically lived in the woods. I saw decomposition all the time, every day. When I say I lived in the woods, I don't mean I was raised by wolves, but that our house, in the country in Northeastern Ohio, was surrounded by woods, and I spent most of my time there with my dog chasing animals and watching animals and bringing back animals to the house to try to nurture, being an outdoor kid who liked and actually even lived for animals. Bodies of animals (and humans, one must extrapolate) just don't last all that long when they're exposed to the living ecosystem that surrounds them, and the natural elements which work their chemical magic to return the once-living to the living.

So it's a really good question. The business of Laci being in the water, supposedly, from December 24th to April, what, 13th or 14th, and the remains are somewhat intact?

What does this dynamic afterlife tell us?

First Gorman, Then Jackson Kicked Off Jury--Gorman Supported Jackson As Foreman

2011-07-15T14:12:00.001-07:00

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

...Greg Beratlis said he suggested they vote to pick a new foreman.

The motion failed by just one vote. Jackson kept his role, but the friction in the room only mounted. The following day, the fifth day of deliberations, there was more upheaval. Juror No. 7, Fran Gorman, was about to get booted. Gorman, who worked as a systems auditor for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., had been troubled by the testimony of a computer forensics expert who testified for the prosecution in August.

Peterson had been confronted about his marital status by Frey's best friend on Dec. 6, and prosecutors said he had checked a fishing-oriented Web site on Dec. 8 -- which they said indicated premeditation. The defense, however, argued that Peterson had accessed the site on Dec. 5, which was the date on the information Peterson printed out. The expert never explained the discrepancy.

Shortly after the testimony, Gorman had gone online on her home computer and discovered that the fishing Web site wasn't updated every day. Peterson, she determined, could have accessed and printed the fishing information on Dec. 8.

Early in the deliberations, Gorman mentioned that she'd gone to the Internet and accessed the site. But before she could even tell the other jurors what she'd found, she felt a tap on her shoulder. A fellow juror was cautioning her not to discuss her findings. A couple of jurors seemed bothered but didn't make it a big deal.

But when they appeared close to taking a vote on guilt on day 5 of deliberations, two of the jurors said they didn't think Gorman could be objective or fair because of the research she'd done. A note was sent to the judge, who after interviewing her and other jurors removed her from the panel.

In an interview this week, Gorman said she felt the jury was being kept in the dark about inaccurate information. "I don't know why the witness was allowed to give us the impression that Scott had gone on the Web site on the 5th," when that may not have been the case at all.

After excusing Gorman, the judge brought the jurors back to court and told them that with the addition of a new juror, alternate Richelle Nice, they would have to start from scratch.

___________

From "We, the Jury," page 139: "Juror 8 (Guinasso) volunteered to monitor the jury rulebook, which made him the most powerful figure in the room." One of the most important elements of this guide was that the jurors could only discuss evidence entered into the trial and not outside issues or thoughts. Guinasso was a strict interpreter of this dictum. It would immediately place the blue-collar Guinasso in conflict with (Gregory Jackson) the white-collar attorney and physician.

I would suggest that Guinasso being "the most powerful figure in the room" may also have had something to do with the fact that he started the campaign against pro-acquittal juror Justin Falconer earlier in the trial, and succeeded in getting him kicked off the jury despite the fact that the other jurors did not back up his assertions about Falconer's supposed misdeeds, when they were interviewed behind closed doors by the judge.

Source: Defense Motion For A New Trial, Mark Geragos

From "We, the Jury," page 144, Guinasso said to Jackson (according to Greg Beratlis): .."He wanted to go through all the books (notes Jackson took during the trial). Guinasso even asked him about that, saying, "What are we going to do? Spend six more months going through your notebooks because you wrote instead of listened?"

Er......one can't write without listening. And, in fact, I find that when I write notes (and I do when I'm on a jury, which has been twice in the last three years)--I remember the details more accurately. Writing down something is a second step in comprehension. And reviewing the notes is very effective when it comes to remembering what was actually said or presented.

I mean, this goes back years to school and college and all that (as boring as school actually is most of the time, just sitting and listening to droning lectures). You gotta write stuff down. I do this all the time in my job, writing notes and reactions and questions on page margins.

Page 145: "Guinasso...was concerned the deliberations might drag on becasue some of his colleagues were having such a good time (this was after a little party they had to break the tension). ....On Friday night, Guinasso couldn't sleep. He turned to the Cartoon Network and watched Tom & Jerry. Ever the worrywart, he became fearful the following day when he saw Zanartu's exercise equipment delivered.

"I thought, oh, no, she's making it her home," he said.

p. 146: During deliberations, Beratlis was in such agony from back pain that he had to lay flat on the floor with a lumbar pillow placed under his back, which he had strained while remodeling his house. The stress began to affect his body as well. "I had chest pains and I went to see a doctor afterwards," he said.

There is some serious mental tension going on in that jury room.

Another juror (who I won't name here) (p 146) "had been secretly battling her own emotions during the trial. She had accidentally killed her 22-month-old son when she didn't see him walk in front of her Dodge van some 18 years earlier. She had disclosed this in judge's chambers during voir dire (before the jurors were chosen) but not to the other jurors.

Then at lunch one day during deliberations, 'she unloads a bombshell,' Beratlis said. The jurors had no idea about the accident involving her son, whose name was the same name she had chosen to be called during the trial (all the jurors picked nicknames).

'I think the hardest thing for me was to find out that her son's name was (redacted), and we were calling her (redacted)," Beratlis said. 'She's reliving the accident over and over during the trial.' "

I sense the shadow of Howard Varinsky in this, the jury consultant who tells in this book of his ability to judge people better than they can judge themselves, without their being aware of being so judged, apparently. A juror on a trial where the ghost of a lost child hangs mournfully above the proceedings is haunted by her own small child's ghost.

Ghosts are real. You really can't underestimate their power. I say this not superstitiously, but in an emotional sense. A soul that is loved and then lost has power. No matter how long ago the loss was. Some people can forget. Some can't.

But here's the interesting part of "We, the Jury," as it pertains to the removal of Fran Gorman, just prior to the removal of Gregory Jackson. Before Jackson was excused he was first deposed as foreman, as noted above by the Chronicle.

But not right away.

There was a vote to kick Jackson out of the foreman's chair.
Monday, November 8, 2004, "The group agreed to vote and Jackson won a 7-5 majority. D-Day (Jackson) retained his throne." p. 147

So Jackson retained his "throne" by two votes: his, and Gorman's.

So why do I think this?

Because Gorman spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle.

And the article goes on:

"But Gorman's departure meant more trouble for Jackson. Gorman had supported Jackson's bid to stay as foreman. Now, with the addition of Nice, the jury was told to start over. After ripping off everything from the walls and wiping the whiteboard clean, the jury voted to elect a new foreman. They settled on the man they called "Cap."

Get rid of Gorman: kick Jackson off his "throne."

Then step up the pressure on Jackson.

He tells the judge he's worried about his safety, is excused, and immediately leaves the country.

Justin Falconer told Dan Abrams on MSNBC that he left California because he was getting death threats, his car had been vandalized, people were lurking around his apartment, and even though he got a watchdog, he still felt that people were after him.

Was Justin Falconer just a worrywart? Was Gregory Jackson just a worry-wart?

Listen to what Guinasso told the judge in chambers during Falconer's ouster:

Juror 8: ".... he keeps saying If anybody has a problem with this, they should be man enough to come up to him. Well, I have, but what am I supposed to do? I can't be physical with him."

Remember, he's a really big guy, and he's a Teamster---which implies a whole bunch of heavy-duty colleagues ready to maybe break your knees if he brings 'em on.

Source: Defense Motion For A New Trial---transcript of discussion in judge's chambers.

And that's not even bringing in the extreme degree of hostility toward the defendant, nurtured and channeled by Laci's family, and displayed in the courtroom to great effect, with great ceremony and faithful coverage by the tube & tabloid bunch. Remember the women standing outside the courtroom, with T-shirts showing a photo of Peterson with a noose around his neck. Remember the smiles and the cheers when Peterson was convicted, the mob scene outside the courthouse. Remember the shameful jeering of Peterson's supportive parents when they appeared after the verdict.

Gorman had an instinct they were being shielded from key pieces of information, and she was right.

Scott Peterson's Case: The Lies Continue

2011-07-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

And they are media-sanctioned, distibuted by our own state's capital newspaper, the Sacramento Bee.

Source: Sacramento Bee

Garth Stapley writes for the Modesto Bee, reprinted in SacBee:

"Sequestered Peterson jurors reviewed five months of courtroom notes, argued and spit out two jurors replaced by alternates before proclaiming him guilty nine days after huddling behind closed doors, with 31 hours of actual deliberation."

Peterson jurors were not sequestered until the penalty phase of the trial.
At that point, they had been released into the community in which they were now high-profile, television personalities.

They refused to argue or deliberate. John Guinasso had an active role in removing not one, not two, but three jurors. As noted in "We, The Jury," the book by the jurors, including Guinasso. So that part is true.

They were NOT sequestered before finding Peterson guilty. That is an out and out, stone-cold lie.

They argued? Actually, based on their comments in "We, the Jury," and also this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Behind Closed Doors," they did not want to argue with jurors who felt that there was evidence exonerating Peterson. One juror told the "Chronicle" that when Gregory Jackson went into his notebooks and tried to explain to them certain testimony was important, jurors were exasperated --"We'll be here all day."

Jurors in "We, the Jury" expressed a desire to get the deliberations over with and go home, over, and over, and over again----John Guinasso most strenuously. He had signed on to a trial which would take all these months, so many months, of his going to court for a full day while working FULL TIME OVERNIGHTS. That's going to wear you out unless you're in your 20's, which Mr. G. is not. One juror was quoted in "We, the Jury" as being very freaked out by the weird vibes and the mobs around the courthouse and the helicopters hovering--she said "I just wanted to get out of there."

31 hours of "actual" deliberation? What does THAT mean? It's more twisting of the truth and it completely ignores the orders the Peterson judge gave to the jury. The jurors were instructed to deliberate from the beginning when the fourth version of the Peterson jury (three were kicked off at different points in the trial, remember) and the THIRD version of the deliberating jury convened.

That third version of the jury, when assembled, was tasked with going through the 5.5 months of evidence, once again, from the beginning.

That jury deliberated for no more than seven hours before finding Peterson guilty.

Did they go through five months of evidence and deliberate the pros and cons, the weight of controversial testimony, did they ask questions and attempt to have them answered? No questions even in a life and death case that covered five months of exhibits, testimony, audio tapes, and scientific analysis? Did they even try to undestand March's testimony (which, as Marlene Newell pointed out, was correct---even as Mrs. Rocha sat there while March testified knowing exactly what day Laci had called friends about her pregnancy test)? Because the idea that all this could be deliberated in that time frame seems, actually, to be somewhat of a physical impossibility.

Given this jury's need to get it finished and get out, as they themselves repeatedly expressed was their desire---these questions sure seem interesting, to me, at least.

It is amazing to me that newspapers with national audiences should be able to print such outright lies and distortions, but I guess I should be used to it by now.

Sequester The Jury: Duh.

2011-07-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Peterson case has nothing to do with another case recently ended. Nothing whatever----nothing at all. But the fact of the matter seems to be--if site stats are any indication--that this other case has sparked interest in Peterson's case. Quite a bit of it. And, if the search terms are any indication, the searches are minus the intensity that seems to be part of the other case. I've peeked a little bit at articles on this other case, and the level of violence toward the defendant is the only common thing I can see. Peterson's case is deemed to be solved and in the past---this other is a wave that's crested and is crashing now into keyboards, and what's washing over is a solution with a high concentrate of pure vitriol. It scares me, and I don't like it. So I go somewhere else.

It's this vitriol, this ongoing demand for revenge and retribution that people are expressing, that drew me to the Peterson case after it was over. The seeking out of stories of misery, and the application of blame. What does it mean? As people go about their lives, as I see them out and about, walking here or there, eating at restaurants, gathered with family, it's invisible. They seem calm. I see them obeying traffic lights (mostly), and obediently bending to their computers at work. And yet there it is, coming through the wires. On the surface of our American dream: placidity. Isolated eruptions behind the scenes, easily contained and often silenced. Underneath: something else. Some molten current. A distant rumble, the jostling of tectonic forces, ionospheric disturbances, electromagnetic botherances that twang my gut with a power that I think does not come from within myself, but rather from some connective sense of human consciousness. Or so I believe. The connection runs both ways, so it is hard to tell, sometimes.

I'm glad that jury was sequestered. It only makes sense, considering the hay that was made by media on this case. Marlene Newell has a great post about the case on her Justice for Scott Peterson blog. She makes the point that it isn't brain surgery---and that the difference common sense made in this one verdict could easily have made a difference in the Peterson verdict.

She says (and I can hear the ring of clarity in every word):

"Why sequester a jury? It's just common sense in a high-profile case that commands not only the print media but the airwaves as well. Oh, and let's not forget the Internet. Now, jurors can avoid googling the defendant's name on the Internet, but is it reasonable to expect that not a single juror has a home page that gives headlines of current national and local news? Such as Yahoo, Google, and other home pages thousands of people access every day to retrieve their emails. (My emphasis) And how can jurors totally avoid radio announcements of news bulletins about the case -- must they NEVER listen to radio during the entire trial? Same for TV. And what about the newspapers on display at grocery store checkout lines? Or along the sidewalks in front of stores? What about family and friends that know the person is on the jury? Delucchi actually believed that giving the jurors a warning not to discuss the case, not to read or see or hear the news reports about it, would be faithfully, 100% obeyed. That's not naivety -- that's incompetence. That Delucchi laughed off the need to sequester the jury demonstrates more than anything else his incompetence to sit as a judge in a high-profile, capital murder case."

The Peterson case, despite the silence, is not over.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

Judge Who Put California Executions On Hold Moving To Job In Washington, DC

2011-07-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Source: LA Times

The federal judge who five years ago halted executions in California is leaving the San Jose bench, the state — and most likely a contentious death penalty case — for a new job in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel on Friday was named to direct the Federal Judicial Center and will be moving to the nation's capital in October, long before any resolution in the protracted legal challenge to lethal injection can be expected.

Fogel said he has neither ruled out taking the case with him to the largely academic post as center director, nor determined whether that is an option under the judiciary's rules. But Fogel noted that the court record in the lethal injection case brought by death row inmate Michael A. Morales is "voluminous" and would be a time-consuming task for another judge to take over.

Whether Fogel's departure portends further delay in the case if it gets assigned elsewhere in the Northern District of California was unclear, legal experts said.

"Usually reassignments are made by the chief judge and the district clerk in consultation, but this is such a big case and Judge Fogel's got so much invested in it in terms of expertise, I don't know," said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who follows the federal judiciary.

Executions have been on hold in California since Fogel stepped in on the eve of Morales' February 2006 lethal injection date to weigh whether the condemned man's arguments that poor training and cramped conditions at the San Quentin death chamber had exposed previous condemned men to pain amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. After evidentiary hearings, including inspection of the death chamber, Fogel ruled 10 months later that the state procedures needed reform.

New procedures were drafted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation over the next three years, and the state adopted them nearly a year ago and presented them to Fogel for review. A month later, the state attempted to schedule the execution of convicted rapist and murderer Albert Greenwood Brown, which Fogel rejected as his judgment on the new protocols was still pending.

Efforts by the state to resume executions were further hampered in March when the corrections department and the attorney general requested a delay until next year to allow the new warden at San Quentin to put together another execution team. California has 714 death row prisoners, although only seven have exhausted their appeals.

Privacy Expectations In An Unprivate World

2011-06-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

One thing that gets me about this case over and over again is, how on earth was it legal to tape record all those conversations Peterson had with Amber Frey and then use them in court? And not only that---but to selectively edit the hundreds of hours of talk, one end of which was conducted by Amber Frey, not by herself, but with prodding and direction from police---to showcase Peterson's comments that were deemed most helpful to the prosecution, while excluding those that would tend to exonerate him?

The audiotape aspect of this case is--to me---very, very ominous.

What legal protections do we have left when it comes to privacy?

I was browsing around today and came across this on Alternet.

the Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to allow government to attach GPS devices on “suspects’ vehicles to track their every move.” According to the Justice Department, “A person traveling on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another,” and that is why, as of April 2011, they wanted a lower court’s decision that reversed a conviction and life sentence for a drug dealer whose vehicle had a GPS attached without a warrant undone.

The ACLU of Delaware filed a brief at the end of May urging Delaware to uphold its ruling on the case of the drug dealer. The brief asserts, “The Fourth Amendment protects all persons, regardless of their location, from government searches, absent exigent circumstances, unless a court has issued a warrant upon proof of probable cause.” It adds, despite the rise in use of “sophisticated electronics,” the New York Court of Appeals, for example, does not find the public’s “socially reasonable expectation that our communications and transactions will remain to a large extent private” has diminished.

Additionally, the FBI’s use of warrantless GPS tracking is invasive, for the reason outlined by a Washington, DC, federal appeals court:

A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.
The US Supreme Court agreed on *June 27* to hear the case on whether police can attach a GPS tracking devices to a suspect’s vehicle without obtaining a warrant. The court’s decision could have profound implications for US citizens because a majority carry a “tracking device” every day—a cell phone. It could define whether the FBI would be able to circumvent traditional wiretapping guidelines and just use this loophole to tap citizens through their cell phones.

Nice Going, Gloria

2011-06-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

(Riverside, CA) -- An ex-Sheriff's deputy accused of having intimate relations with a teenaged police Explorer pleaded not guilty to six felony counts Tuesday in San Bernardino Superior Court. Nathan Gastineau of Redlands, who is 31, will be back in court August 2nd for a pre-trial hearing, according to the "San Bernardino Sun." The 16-year-old girl appeared in court with her mother and father. Gloria Allred, the girl's attorney, allowed news photographers to capture the girl's face, but asked reporters not to reveal her name.

(Emphasis mine.)

Source: San Bernardino Sun

Truth-Out.org: Reveling In The Pain Of Others

2011-06-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Interesting piece on media imagery, ideas, the promotion of war and violence as problem-solving mechanisms, and other ideas sure to put your day in a funk for at least five minutes can be found in this analytical piece at Truth-Out.org.

Truth-Out, by the way, has been churning out serious ass-kicking investigative pieces for a number of years now. One of Truth-0ut's movers and shakers is Jason Leopold, who broke the Enron story in California earlier this decade. Leopold has made enough waves to get important people fired, embarrassed, and to get himself set up (in my opinion) on an infamous story having to do with some particular political cretins. Actor John Cusak recently tweeted to his followers how much he liked Truth-Out. (If that makes any difference to ya'll.) They are a free service with voluntary subscription, not supported by corporations, and dedicated to the very expensive process of investigative journalism deemed so useless and as "non-working capital" by the people who run media financed by foundations, corporations and commercial enterprise.

Here's an excerpt from this Truth-Out piece by Henry A. Giroux. It is somewhat wordy, but I believe the essence of the piece is important.

"The broader cultural turn toward the death drive and the strange economy of desire it produces is also evident in the emergence of a culture of depravity in which the American public appears more and more amenable to deriving pleasure from images that portray gratuitous violence and calamity. As mentioned above, exaggerated violence now rules screen culture. The public pedagogy of entertainment includes extreme images of violence, human suffering and torture splashed across giant movie screens, some in 3D, offering viewers every imaginable portrayal of violent acts, each more shocking and brutal than the last."

And:

"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilized and innocent people.... The coldness of the societal monad, the isolated competitor, was the precondition, as indifference to the fate of others.... Regressive tendencies, that is, people with repressed sadistic traits, are produced everywhere today by the global evolution of society.... Everywhere where it is mutilated, consciousness is reflected back upon the body and the sphere of the corporeal in an unfree form that tends toward violence." -Theodor Adorno

I think this speaks to the Peterson case, along with numerous other facets of life that end up confronting us in the media.

A warning: below is an image which is just one of hundreds of shocking views transmitted from these overseas wars back home. It's very graphic. I include it not to shock (well, maybe a little if that's what it will take), but to demonstrate that there is an aggression, an appetite for blood in the air this decade. Those soldiers do not go over there to stay. They come home; they are in the world. Violence does not stay where it is enacted. It is a social communication that continues itself, whether one inflicts it back upon himself, or directs aggression outward. This picture is of something that happened in a faraway land. But it also represents what our tax dollars are paying for, what our beloved people are either doing or exposed to, or being told to do; what they are exposed to as norms of behavior before returning home to family and society; and as such, it is real. It has become part of our emotional and cultural language, which is why I think this piece is important.

If anything, this should comfort Peterson supporters somewhat. Because this aggression --being aimed at ideas and images that come from outside our own lives--is not about Peterson. It is about the people who say such vile and heartfelt things in response to what they think he did. They are responding, not to the facts, but the propoganda.

It is about the lack of information, and the promotion of the idea that guns and killing, removal, extermination, and concealment---- not truth--- are the real sources of power that move civilizations forward.

These ideas must be dealt with.

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock poses with the body of an unarmed Afghan boy named Gul Mudin in the village of La Mohammad Kalay. (Photo: US Army)

The Cost Of California's Death Penalty: Alarcon & Mitchell

2011-06-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

(Los Angeles, CA) -- California taxpayers have spent 308 million dollars apiece for every execution, according to a new study on the death penalty. The "Los Angeles Times" reports Loyola Law School professor Paula Mitchell, along with U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur Alarcon, collaborated on the report. They found that overall, since capital punishment was reinstated in California in 1978, taxpayers have spent a total of over 4 billion dollars on these cases. Mitchell and Alarcon used California Department of Corrections records that have not been available to others wishing to study the costs of capital punishment. The study, along with others, blames the delays in death penalty cases on a lack of attorneys qualified to handle death penalty appeals. California is currently battling legal challenges to its death penalty procedure.

Read more at the LA Times:

Among their findings to be published next weekin the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review:

The state's 714 death row prisoners cost $184 million more per year than those sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A death penalty prosecution costs up to 20 times as much as a life-without-parole case.

The least expensive death penalty trial costs $1.1 million more than the most expensive life-without-parole case.

Jury selection in a capital case runs three to four weeks longer and costs $200,000 more than in life-without-parole cases.

Also:

Michael Millman, executive director of the California Appellate Project, says more than 300 inmates on death row are waiting to have attorneys assigned to work on their state appeals and federal habeas corpus petitions. He says there are fewer than 100 attorneys in the state qualified to handle capital cases because the work is dispiriting and demanding and the compensation inadequate.

National News Wire Rejects Appeal Story On Peterson

2011-06-16T18:39:00.000-07:00

Update on Peterson story posted here yesterday:

No national distribution.

No, not even edited.

I have written to the national desk editors (this week) about my concern with their rejecting my story submissions on Fukushima Daiichi, where three reactors are melting through their steel casings into the ground (and where amount of live, fissioning spent fuel rods exceeds by a factor of about 24 the amount at Chernobyl), where Japan's government admitted last week that they lied about the amount of radiation that escaped (it's twice as much) because they were afraid of causing a panic.

US Media:

*crickets*

National Desk @ MS:

*crickets*

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. You know what?
I even searched NPR for this latest on the Daiichi melt-throughs.

You guessed it:

The recent revelations in Japan by the way, are not a matter of controversy.
Just of censorship in the US media.

Just like with Scott Peterson.

Media reform now.

Japan's report submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency June 7th.

Count The Killers

2011-06-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush a friend to the unborn?

Can you count the killers in this picture?

Depleted uranium causing "unprecedented" birth defects in Fallujah: The Guardian.co.uk

See studies

More from The Guardian article:

Birth-defect rates in Fallujah have become increasingly alarming over the past two years. In the first half of 2010, the number of monthly cases of serious abnormalities rose to unprecedented levels. In Fallujah general hospital, 15% of the 547 babies born in May had a chronic deformity, such as a neural tune defect – which affects the brain and lower limbs – cardiac, or skeletal abnormalities, or cancers.

No other city in Iraq has anywhere near the same levels of reported abnormalities. Fallujah sees at least 11 times as many major defects in newborns than world averages, the research has shown.

The latest report, which will be published next week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, says Fallujah has been infected by a chronic environmental contaminant. It focuses on depleted uranium, used in weaponry during two US assaults in 2004 as a possible cause of the contaminant. Scientific studies have so far established no link between the rounds, which contain ionising radiation to burst through armour and are commonly used on the battlefield.

Scott Peterson's Attorneys Granted Appeal Extension To August 1st

2011-06-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

Below is the story I wrote for Riverside County and then sent on to the National Desk.

(There are 2,000 radio stations plus)

They don't like my stories. (Because they are wankers, most likely.)

Even when they're sourced.

Dollars to donuts this changes radically, or: is ignored.
I'll tell you the results tomorrow.

Still getting over the bug, but there is still writing in the hopper to be posted here soon.

I have to admit to some frustration about the delays. There is no evidence!
Scott should be freed. What are his attorneys doing?!!

It's really ridiculous, this case.

CA - IE Scott Peterson

attn: natl desk

>>Riverside County Has Connection To Scott Peterson, Appeal Extended

(Riverside, CA) -- Riverside County has a connection to the case of Modesto's Scott Peterson, who is accused of killing his wife Laci and their unborn son on Christmas Eve, 2002. A little-reported factor in Peterson's appeal is the lost audiotape given to the Modesto Police by a detective at the NORCO Correctional Facility in Riverside County. On the audiotape, Modesto inmate Sean Tenbrink and his brother Adam discuss a robbery that took place across from the Petersons' home that Christmas Eve morning. The Tenbrinks knew the convicted burglar, Steven Todd. Adam Tenbrink told Sean that Laci had interrupted the burglary and there had been a confrontation. Detective Xavier Aponte at NORCO said in sworn statements that he had given the tape to the Modesto Police, who subsequently said they lost it. Peterson's attorneys have just gained another extension to file their appeal. The new deadline is August 1st.

###
Cindi Burkey IE)

court notification via email:

sendme@earthlink.net, the following transaction has occurred in: PEOPLE v. PETERSON (SCOTT) Case: S132449, Supreme Court of California Date (YYYY-MM-DD): 2011-06-15 Event Description: Extension of time granted Notes: Appellant's request for relief from default is granted. On application of appellant and good cause appearing, it is ordered that the time to serve and file appellant's opening brief is extended to and including August 1, 2011. For more information on this case, go to: http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/dockets.cfm?dist=0&doc_id=1864127

NORCO information: Defense Motion For A New Trial

http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/peterson/captrsn22505dmot.pdf ------------->see page 14, Line 17

Praying For Time

2011-06-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

These are the days of the open hand.
They will not be the last.
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars, and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past--
Hand in hand
with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we'll take our chances
Because god's stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way,
He must have let us all out to play..
Turned his back..
and all god's children
Crept out the back door.

And it's hard to love,
There's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope,
When there is no hope to speak of?

And the wounded skies above say it's much too late;
Well maybe we should all be praying for time.

These are the days of the empty hand.
Oh, you hold on to what you can..
And charity is a coat you wear...
twice a year

This is the year of the guilty man.
Your television takes a stand.
And you find
That what was over there
Is over here...

So you scream from behind your door,
Say "What's Mine is Mine,
And not yours"
I may have too much, but I'll take my chances,
'Cause God's stopped keeping score.
And you cling to the things they sold you...
Did you cover your eyes? When they told you

That he can't come back
Beacuse he has no children to come back for???

It's hard to love.
There's so much to hate

Hanging on to hope
when there is no hope to speak of??

And the wounded skies above
Say it's much too late.
So maybe we should all be praying for time.

g.michael

"Videotape Of A Murder"

2011-06-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

This fairly recent comment by Voice Of Sanity pretty much sums it up.

From this entry by Dennis Becklin, a publisher who says Peterson is innocent and that fair trials are impossible as long as television is allowed to profit from the criminal justice system the way it has here.

Some critics comment: "You would need to see a videotape of a murder to believe it really happened by a certain person."

Sure.
A videotape would be great. But we don't have that.
An eyewitness would be great. But we don't have that.
A confession would be great. But we don't have that.
A weapon would be great. But we don't have that.
Time of death would be great. But we don't have that.
Place of death would be great. But we don't have that.
Cause of death would be great. But we don't have that.
A crime scene would be great. But we don't have that.
Forensic evidence would be great. But we don't have that.

All we have is motive.

On December 14, 2004, a juror, Greg Beratlis, took part in Larry King's TV show on CNN. During the show, Larry King asked Greg Beratlis the following question.

"KING: And what do you think his motive was?"

"BERATLIS: You know, Larry, I think if we all knew the motive, if there was this one thing that stuck out, we'd probably have the answer to the whole thing."

So the jury had no motive. NONE. So where is the evidence? ALL of the evidence, ALL of it, goes to his innocence. None goes to guilt.

Scott Peterson is innocent.

Stockton, CA: S.W.A.T. Team Breaks Down Doors Looking For Student Loan Defaulters

2011-06-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

A snapshot of Central Valley law enforcement.

Violence Incited By Media In California & The US: Case Study

2011-06-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote this on my other site and am reproducing it in part, here.

This is a recent blog post about a California murder case I have been studying since August 2009.

By studying, I mean: reading the most popular/relevant literature by involved players; reading trial transcripts (one of the best ways to get a handle on things) with the guidance and vastly useful online library created by Marlene Newell about the Peterson case. I also mean communicating electronically with other supporters of the accused man, whose conviction seems supported by extremely scant evidence. It's the level of hate toward that guy that makes this case relevant for me.

It's also the fact that this case was a huge spectacle, nationwide and across the world, even. I have to thank Michael Wilson and Kathleen Kennedy at the University of Texas at Dallas where I studied spectacle and philosophy of science. Their teachings opened up a whole new world of thought and world-understanding for me. Both are truly great teachers. I think their lessons helped my attention gravitate to the meaning of this case. And I do think it has importance.

One of the reasons I think it is an important case is that, to me, it has shocked me how much the "media"---newspapers, tabloids, and television in particular---manipulated the public's understanding of the evidence against Mr. Peterson. For example, one of the favorite tricks of commentators (like Nancy Grace, who used her television prosecutorial platform to dispense lies about the evidence against Peterson) ---is to imply that the people who support Peterson are all lovesick and lonely women. In actual fact, the Peterson Family website in support of Scott registers comments from far and wide from others who have studied the case and are truly alarmed at the precedent that was set here. Men and women of all ages, couples, intelligent-sounding people, mostly, who know how to spell and keep their comments gramatically correct. It speaks well for their case, and so does the love and affection that are clear on the Peterson's web site. At least twice I have seen posts by men, lawyers, who say that Peterson's case inspired them to become defense lawyers.

It is truly good to see this level of curiosity, of non-acceptance of endlessly repeated media myths. For example, the idea that Peterson did not cooperate with police is one of the biggest lies the public believes. He cooperated fully and has been a model inmate. There are no reports of violence or maladjustment (and you know they would make the press, given how much he's hated).

I think the Peterson case is a great study of how people can become agitated to the point of lusting for another's physical death at the prompting of electronic media which presents highly distortive facts. That is what drew me to this case in part--because I have been watching the media ignore and censor extremely relevant stories of immediate public concern for many long years now from my place in the communications machine. For a long time I did not pay it that much attention because I considered crime stories "beneath" me. That was before I read the Peterson's web site, which re-activated all my questions about this case I had watched play out on the three cable channels I shared a room with every day.

I sure don't miss watching those TV wankers, I tell you what. The last thing I need in my head at the end of the day is the memory of the sound and look of those bastards. They are weird people. You are in the studio too long, you are stroked by public attention for too long, you lose reality. And the establishment pays TV people extremely handsomely. Everyone in the business knows TV is where the money is at in broadcasting.

It's a recipe for being bought.

From your perspective, on TV with your well-paying job, you have no idea the shit going on in the world. You figure if you can be prosperous, so can everyone else. And thus TV personalities have no clue how difficult life is in this United States today, where for important personal life-and-death issues like health care we are not allowed to deal with decision-makers face-to-face, but are forced to do it on the phone, with surly employees threatened to keep conversations to a certain minute length, who are instructed to deny care to applicants to preserve the HMO's bottom line. When something as important as matters of life and death become this soul-less and impersonal, things are truly headed in a bad direction. And they ain't getting better.

However, the TV folks in their cushy gigs don't seem to have a clue--or a care.

Content Coming

2011-06-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some writing from home, at home, in a notebook.

If I weren't catching a bug, I'd stay late and type it in.

That's going to have to be tomorrow or possibly later. But I am thinking of Mr. Peterson and his family, and about the case.

I have also been listening to a great record, Peace Not War Volume 2. There's a beats disc and a chords disk.

Playing the beats disk at top volume in my car (so loud you can feel the thud in your chest) has been therepeutic through my recent illness....never forget sound therapy. The music is not for everyone, and I hated it the first time I heard it. Then I became addicted. I believe this is because of the social relevance of the lyrics. But the beats get my brain banging. I can't deny it. To each his own.

I just lately have been thinking about, and wondering why, so many important questions are being covered up---there are valid questions about 9/11, starting with, how did a 47-story building come to fall down in the space of a 7-second free fall when it hadn't been hit by a plane and buildings all around were standing and untouched and did not sustain damage?

Or, thermite in the wreckage?! And then there's the government trying to screw over the 9/11 first responders applying for health care for the cancerous chemicals they breathed cleaning up the city. That's real nice.

Then, we have horrors like Citizens United, or the recent US media censorship of the triple-meltdown crews are trying to keep a handle on in Japan. (Though some PBS affiliates give access to BBC and NHK1, which are reporting on the aftermath.)
I talked to a particle physicist at UC Berkeley for an hour and a half and he nearly talked me into believing radioisotope radiation isn't really very harmful after all.

Then I watched a documentary called "The Battle of Chernobyl" and had a second think about it. The key to understanding the BS surrounding the "safety" of the "levels" of radiation in the water, milk, groundsoil and produce is that it's not the background radiation that counts. It's the fact that actual particles are distributed via the jet stream, and they came streaming right into Southern California.

Just google it, you can see the maps of the radioactive plume, which were being tracked by a number of international bodies.

It's not the background radiation, as they tell you. There are actual particles, and when you ingest them, if they have a long half-life like Cesium-137, they will sit inside your body and beam death rays at your cells. It's the contamination of the food chain that is a real, immediate health concern. Especially for Japan, whose experiences we can watch or read about online, but also for us in the US who are lucky it hasn't happened here.

But it could. Recent articles by Rolling Stone and Propublica, along with a hair-raising report by Congressman Ed Markey about the state of repair in our nuclear plants across the country, say these plants are accidents waiting to happen. Not only that, but they are happening. There have been disasters in the US even in the wake of Fukushima. Did they get media play? No. There was a terrible accident, in, I think, Iowa. A real crisis situation at a nuke plant. Not a peep in the national news. Even though the accident comes at a time that demands we take a look at this incredibly important public safety issue, which is also a taxpayer issue, because nuke plants can't be covered by insurance. The taxpayers end up footing the bill. And the Fukushima disaster is going to be devastating financially for Japan. We really need awareness of these issues, but when you have nuke companies like MSNBC that own the media, it ain't gonna happen.

And, at this venerable news wire service of a decade's age, recently bought by a competitor, the national desk editors are censoring my content on stories--about the radiation, for example---when it comes to national distribution. I can get the stories to Southern California. But the national desk will not publish my recent stories about Bradley Manning, Wikileaks and Julian Assange winning a prestigious journalism award last weekend (The Martha Gelhorn Award)----these would surely seem of national relevance, and no one else at my company is covering them. But they are trashing them repeatedly. I say it is censorship and that they are wankers.

But, I also must thank my company because I write the blog from here.

They have surely contributed. The good news is, apparently, we won't have to change our name now that we have been bought. When you've worked for the same company for 16 years and have a loyalty to the name, that's a small comfort.

Peace out, and more to come soon.

75K Investigation Finds No Brutality In Modesto Police Department

2011-06-01T22:06:00.001-07:00

Source: ABC News 10

MODESTO, CA - A report released Tuesday morning about accusations of abuse by Modesto police officers does not find a serious problem in that area.

A Palo Alto based attorney, Robert Aaronson was asked to investigate the department following the release of an email last year by a retiring officer, in which he described suspects were routinely beaten by officers. That email was followed up by an anonymous letter sent to a Modesto attorney, alleging the same problems.

Though Aaronson does find some problems within MPD that could use "fine tuning", he didn't find the allegations of excessive force to be credible.

"I'm not one to put my reputation on the line, or the police department's reputation on the line, and allow misconduct in any sense what so ever," said police chief Mike Harden.

The city spent 75 thousand dollars on the report from Aaronson. He reported spending 26 hours interviewing 21 different people.

Scott Peterson's Appeal Deadline Passes Quietly

2011-05-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today, May 31st, 2011, was the deadline for Scott Peterson's lawyers to file their opening briefs in Peterson's appeal.

A search of Google News with the words "Scott Peterson" and "appeal" yields two articles that (at least initially) appear to be about our Scott Peterson.

This one turned out not to be, after all.

This one is not about Peterson, either. But it contains the following paragraph:

Scott Peterson, who was convicted in California of murdering his wife and unborn child, had dozens of women pleading for his mailing address the first day he arrived in prison. “The more notorious, the stronger the allure,” says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University who has studied what he calls “death row groupies.” “These are usually women who would love to date a rock star or rap idol, but if they wrote to a musician, they might get a letter. Here they could get a marriage proposal.” At the same time, he says, “The inmate is seen as evil by society, but only these women see the gentle side of their man. That makes them feel important.” The husband’s legal case adds purpose to her life.

Meanwhile, last week the LA Weekly published a hair-raising story about the Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles, which is so bad that apparently even Sheriff Baca wants it shut down. Not that he's talking about it much, but that was a quote from his spokesman.

Meanwhile, though I hesitate to link to Huffington Post because of its almost-unbearable slowness to load on my computer, here's another point of view:

"America's prison population topped two million for the first time in in 2002. 7,248 inmates under 18 are in adult jails. The report published this month by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics says one in 31 adults was incarcerated or under supervision at the end of 2007. Black American males are incarcerated at a rate more than 6.5 times that of white males.

"America is addicted to incarceration. The Texas Control Model, eye-for-an-eye carceral paradigm that pummeled the rehabilitation movement in American prisons has bloody footprints leading all the way back to the plantation. Along the path, countless families decimated by the wars on drugs, crime and gangs waged utilizing profit-driven law enforcement ideologies born in California under Nixon, Reagan and Bush.

"Last week Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca talked on NPR about medical marijuana, drawing the conversation away from California's Supreme Court mandate and into the addiction matrix. He neglected to mention the methodical indoctrination of black and brown adolescents in low-income areas into the judicial system by the LAPD officers and LA County Sheriff's deputies."

Source: Sam Slovic for Huffington Post (Another dollah for Ariannah.)

So Scott Peterson's appeal deadline sneaks quietly by, not a word on the Google, the world asleep. Once the biggest news story in California, no, the nation, now barely a whisper in cyberspace.

Jury Survivor, Part 2: Jurors Deny Misconduct Of #5 On The Record

2011-05-13T16:20:00.001-07:00

This part of the article contains transcripts from the Defense Motion For A New Trial, (With thanks to SII and M. Newell) in an attempt to show that the dismissal of Juror Falconer was motivated by media interference and was inappropriate. I wrote this, and the previous entry, several months ago. There's more to come. In particular, the process of getting rid of Juror #7 during deliberations, then the second Juror #5 immediately following, shows how a process by which jurors came to their decision was one of elimination of dissent, rather than dealing with the legitimate questions other jurors had raised about the evidence. It is my opinion that the jurors, by rejecting the attempts of doubters to explain the evidence giving them doubts, were essentially refusing to deliberate. That was the practical effect, and it had a decisive role in determining the outcome.

I realize this jury worked very hard, and with the best of intentions. I appreciate that they put their thoughts into the book and in fact I am glad they wrote it. I don't believe the book was motivated by profit or fame in the main, at least not for the jurors. (The non-jurors who participated in its production are another matter.) As for the jurors, this death penalty trial was a life-changing, traumatic event. That's clear from the book. It's also clear that being present at the trial gives them a window into the situation that I, as a detached reader, do not have.

As I read the book, I found myself wishing tht juries would write books more frequently. On the one hand, that leaves them open to accusations that their verdict will be motivated by "whatever makes the ..best book.." as one Peterson juror fumed to the judge before he left the case. But on the other, disclosure from juries could provide a real view into the workings of the justice system at any given time. For democracy, it's hard for me to see how this is an entirely bad thing.

I think this jury got it wrong. But they didn't have a chance, even, to get it right. The best some of these individuals could do, it was clear, was to try to answer nagging questions not answered in the trial. Juror #7 said she had a feeling they weren't being told everything. To ask a group of people to make a life-and-death decision, while withholding information, is institutional abuse of the most horrifying kind. To me, it equates to sending people into war without armor or truth. No government should ever ask its people to end the lives of others without a rigorous and thoroughly vetted process of exposing all relevant facts.

For the jurors, this case was not fair to them right from the get-go. Important facts were withheld from the public airwaves, and also from the trial process. Indeed, Peterson's defense did not even know what Xavier Aponte taped, until nearly the end of the trial.

____________________

From the Defense Motion For A New Trial, Mark Geragos:

Likewise, Juror 4 denied any misconduct by Juror 5. He said that one of the alternate jurors wondered how much the anchor weighed, and that another juror (whose identity she could not remember) said it may weigh "this much" and that Juror 4 said that they would be able to ask for that information later. He said that Juror 5 had asked once on the way to the jury room returning from lunch whether he had gotten anything Brocchini's testimony, and Juror 4 had answered "yes." Juror 4 did not remember any comments about Laci's weight, and did not remember any comments about the Modesto Police reports' inconsistencies. He recalled some comments made by jurors about the prosecution's presentation of its case, but could not recall who made the comments. Juror 4 remembered that Juror 5 said that his girlfriend had told him that a Court TV commentator was criticizing him. Finally, Juror 4 did not recall other jurors admonishing Juror 5 not to discuss the case.

Juror Number 6: Juror 6 also denied any misconduct by Juror 5. Juror 6 said that Juror 5 had not made any comment regarding the anchor at issue in the case:

The Court: For example, have you ever heard juror number 5 make any comments about the anchor which is marked -- which was marked into evidence in this case? Have you ever heard him say anything about the anchor?

Juror 6: Specifically that anchor, no.

The Court: Okay. How about any anchor?

Juror 6: Yes.

The Court: What has he said?

Juror 6: I don't really recall because I wasn't really paying attention. They
were just talking about an anchor and he went out boating and how it's amazing what underwater currents can do, or whatever, and pull a boat with an anchor.

The Court: Okay.

Juror 6: It wasn't actually specific to this case, as far as I know.

The rest of the interviews were similar. The jurors all seemed to agree that their colleagues were trying to follow the rules and that Juror 5 had not been spouting off. Not a single juror confirmed Juror 8's emphatic accusations against Juror 5.

The Court: Have you ever heard any other juror in your presence admonish
juror number 5 not to be talking about the facts and issues in this case?

Juror 7: Well, I mean I have heard on occasion there would be maybe some conversation in the room and someone would go "Shh," and everybody would stop.

The Court: Have you heard either juror number 3 or number 2 comment to number 5 that he should not speak about the facts and issues of this case?

Juror 9: No.

The Court: Okay. Have you heard juror number 5 say anything about this case in your presence while you were in the jury room?

Juror 9: Not directly related to this case. Maybe about people in the courtroom or like --

The Court: I'm not concerned about that.

Juror 9: -- stuff like that.

The Court: Did he talk about the case is all I'm concerned about.

Juror 9: No, not really.

The Court: At any time when you're there have you ever heard number 5 make any comments about any of the evidence in this case? For example, did you hear him make any comments about the anchor which was marked into evidence yesterday?

Juror 7: No, I don't -- I didn't hear it.

The Court: Okay. Did you hear him make any comments about Detective Brocchini's testimony?

Juror 10: No, I did not.

The Court: Any comments about Laci Peterson's weight?

Juror 10: No.

The Court: Any comments about the Modesto Police Department reports by officers and detectives regarding their inconsistencies?

Juror 10: No.

The Court: Any reports about the prosecution and the manner in which they're presenting this case?

Juror 10: I don't believe so.

The Court: Any comments about the prosecution and the manner in which they're presenting their case?

Juror 11: No.

The Court: Any comments about him getting reports about Court TV from his girlfriend where he was described by one of the commentators as being a loose cannon or very gregarious?

Juror 11: No. We. A -- Monday morning there was some comments, some jokingly comments that was made about him.

The Court: Okay.

Juror 11: But they were just jokingly, and they were laughing about it. And that was about the size of it....

The Court: Okay. Have you heard any other jurors mention to him that he shouldn't be talking about facts or things that were in issue?

Juror 11: No....

The Court: Any reports about him getting a report from his girlfriend on Court TV about his performance down at the -- down at the weapon screening station and the issues that came up accordingly?

Juror 12: Yes, sir....[S]omething that his girlfriend told him that the Court TV anchor person was being disrespectful about him....

The Court: Has he described himself as a loose cannon to the other jurors and he's proud of that fact?

Juror 12: To my knowledge he didn't describe himself as a loose cannon. I think he felt it was how others were perceiving him....

The Court: Have you ever heard any juror tell him that he shouldn't be discussing things like that in front of the other jurors?

Juror 12: No.

The Court: Okay. Have you heard him -- or have you heard any other jurors tell him that he shouldn't be commenting upon any of the evidence in this case in the jury room?

Alternate 1: I haven't heard anyone admonish him, no.

The Court: Any comments about his girlfriend reporting to him about Court TV and the way he apparently, in her opinion, was disrespected on Court TV because of this -- the confluence here at the --

Alternate 2: Yes, I did hear him say that.

The Court: What did he say about that?

Alternate 2: Just that his girlfriend said that the Court TV lady, whoever she is, was slamming hm.

The Court: Okay. Have you heard any of the other jurors tell juror number 5 that he should not be discussing facts and issues in this case in the jury room?

Alternate 2: No.

Alternate 3 had a vague recollection:

The Court: While you were there, the time that you were in the jury room, after you took your little walk or something, did you hear anybody ever chastise juror number 5 and tell him he's not to speak about the facts and issues of this case?

Alternate 3: Yes, I did hear someone a long time ago. Actually, I couldn't tell you who it was.

The Court: So was he making comments about this case?

Alternate 3: He had made a comment about something, and I think someone said, you know, we really shouldn't be talking about this.

The Court: How long ago was that?

Alternate 3: It was very early in the trial.

The Court: Do you know what it was about?

Alternate 3: No. I couldn't really tell you.

The Court: Okay.

Alternate 3: I don't recollect.

The Court: Okay.

Alternate 3: It was just some comment he had made.

The Court: About the evidence?

Alternate 3: Yeah. Well, I don't even know that it was about the evidence, but about the -- the case.... Something along that line.

Alternate 4 denied all of Juror 8's accusations as well.

The Court: Have you heard whether or not -- have you heard any juror in there confront him and tell him that he's not to make any comments about the facts and issues in this case in the jury room?

Alternate 4: No.

The Court: Any comments about the prosecution and the manner in which they are presenting this case?

Alternate 5: Kind of.

The Court: Okay. Do you remember what he said?

Alternate 5: I don't remember him saying anything. I just remember right after the opening statements there was a comparison contrast. And a response was, they have different roles. That's the only thing that I remember.

The Court: You don't know if Five said anything?

Alternate 5: I don't remember if it was, who it was.

The Court: All right. Have you heard any jurors there admonish him about discussing the facts of this case in the jury room in front of the other jurors, contrary to the Court's instructions? Hear anybody tell him that?

Alternate 5: I have not heard him singled out....

The Court: You never heard anybody make any direct comments to Juror Number 5?

Alternate 5: Correct.

After hearing each juror contradict the complaints of Juror 8 while under oath, the judge ordered Juror Number 5 dismissed from the jury.

It's a real question whether the judge even heard what the jurors were saying, because he said this afterward:

"Problem with this is this. The other jurors that have, since the beginning of their case, according to their testimony, been telling Juror 5 not to talk about the facts."

But that's not what they said. Without exception, none of the jurors said Juror 5 was causing any sort of problem or speaking improperly.

However, the sentiment against the defendant was fierce. The victim's family had pull among people they didn't even know they had pull with. The gravitational strength of the hatred for the defendant automatically applied to anyone who seemed even slightly sympathetic to him. Juror 8 got a little political help---from the bailiff, a woman who told the judge that Juror 3, despite what she told the court under oath, had complained about Juror 5. The judge believed the bailiff and Juror 8over all the rest of the jurors.

Juror 5 was dismissed for being a "distraction." The blonde anchorwoman who peddled tabloid fodder for the camera raised a glass in celebration that night. And Juror 5 talked to the press as soon as he was released, and said that based on what he'd seen so far, "there's no way I'd even believe Scott Peterson did this."

In We, the Jury, although the other jurors denied having a problem with Juror 5, the book states: "Juror 4 was not impressed by Falconer, whom he thought was immature and couldn't play by the rules."

In contrast to his testimony under oath, Juror 4 said later, for the book: "I knew he couldn't keep his mouth shut..I got the feeling that he was toying with the media. Days prior to his dismissal he made mention on at least one occasion that when he was returning from lunch, he ruined a media photo opportunity with one of the families." But not so fast--wasn't this the same incident as "ruining your shot for the news today--" an innocent exchange blown out of proportion by zealous TV talkers.

Of course this came up in conversation. Had Juror 4 been spoken about on TV, and almost been removed from the jury because of it, it would have affected him, too.

Noted Mark Geragos in his motion for a new trial:

Each of Juror Number 8's accusations was shown to be either false or a gross exaggeration. Every juror confirmed that Juror Number 5 had not suggested that he had received any information regarding the merits of the case from outside the evidence. He had heard that he had been criticized in the press, particularly by false and scurrilous reports by Nancy Grace of Court TV. The Court, however, despite multiple opportunities, never admonished Juror Number 5 to refrain from mentioning that incident.

Juror 8's accusation that Juror number 5 "constantly speaks about facts and issues in this case" was refuted by the other jurors, who stated categorically that they had heard nothing from Juror Number 5 that could be considered comments about the facts or issues of the case. Some of the jurors stated that there was a general feeling among the jury that the defense presentation was smoother than the prosecution's. There was testimony about Juror Number 5 being asked by other jurors about seamanship, and testimony about a single question and answer about the anchor in the case.

There was absolutely no support for Juror 8's accusation that Juror Number 5 had made comments about Laci's weight and the term of her pregnancy, every juror denied that accusation emphatically. A few of the other jurors recalled some comment about reports, but no one supported Juror 8's accusation that Juror 5 had criticized the Modesto Police to the other jurors. There was no "constant" speech about facts and issues in the case.

Juror 8's accusation that Juror Number 5 reacted with hostility to reminders to
watch his speech was also shown to be untrue. The other jurors testified that they would generally remind one another not to speak about the case, and no one except Juror 8 singled out Juror Number 5. As for Juror 8's accusation that Juror Number 5 "prided himself" on being a "loose cannon," those jurors who recalled the comment said that it arose as a result of joking among the jurors.

In short, there was no evidence in the record that Juror Number 5 committed substantive misconduct. Certainly there was no evidence in the record that Juror Number 5 committed such "serious and willful" misconduct to warrant removal. (See Bowers, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th at p. 722.)

This case does not even approach the circumstances in Halsey. In Halsey, the removed juror was quoted as having substantially prejudged the case before receiving evidence, commenting that the prosecution's opening argument was poor, and "this was an easier case than he thought it would be.'" (Halsey, supra, 12 Cal.App.4th at p. 892.) There was no similar evidence here that Juror Number 5 had improperly prejudged the case.

There was, however, evidence that Juror 8 had improperly prejudged that case, and that he targeted Juror Number 5 for removal because he was not susceptible to bullying and was showing leadership ability among the other jurors:

The Court: Okay. Has anything you've heard about this in the jury room affected your ability to be a fair juror?

Juror 8: Not mine, but my only thought as I sit in there, I see him with the clique, and that -- meaning that three or four people that are constantly with him, talking.... That maybe just him speaking, maybe they'll take that into their own presence as they view this case so early. I mean obviously we still have a lot of testimony to go.... We still have to be fair to both sides, but if somebody is going to base their opinions on how it is presented in the court, we can't do that. It's based on facts..... So, you know, his belief is out there, thrown out there, and two -- or one or two capture that belief, they're going to go ahead and be prejudiced through the rest of the trial. I'm not a psychologist --

The Court: Yeah.

Juror 8: -- but I can see that happening just in the conversation. Now, you know, they become more palsy and sort of cover for him. I mean when I spoke about Hey, you should take care of yourself first, [name deleted] popped off. No they should come to the person, and -- and the redhead. I mean they're all together. If they're in there, they'll be together, all three of them, mostly, one time....

The Court: I can see you're concerned.

Juror 8: Right. Because I don't want to sit here -- I wouldn't waste the court's time if this is all for naught. I mean, you know, if it's a ballgame, we're only in about the third Inning, right?

The Court: That's right.

Juror 8: I mean, we've got a long ways to go. I've got to be fair to both sides. I mean, we haven't even heard, you know, the whole pack. I can't - there's no decision at this point.

The Court: Okay. We'll excuse you. Thanks very much.

Juror 8: Oh, you're welcome.

In the absence of evidence on the record, the Court relied on hearsay from the bailiff that other jurors had complained about Juror Number 5 -- despite those jurors denying under oath that any of them complained. Moreover, the Court failed to articulate how Juror Number 5 was unable to perform his duties. Instead, the Court relied on medical metaphor, comparing the juror to a "cancer" and himself, implicitly, as a surgeon.

Metaphor, however, is not a substitute for jurisprudence. Juror Number 5 was able
to perform his duty, and the Court committed serious error in removing him.

After Juror 5 was replaced, Juror 9 said: "I didn't know if they just threw him in an alligator pit." Falconer left abruptly, and the other jurors didn't know why. Continued Juror 9, "I got kind of paranoid. It was like I'd better not say anything. By the questions they were asking me, "Did I ever hear him say this or that?" I got the gist that people were complaining he was talking. Then I realized you can't say anything. You could say something and people would misconstrue it. It made you pay attention. When I would see (the victim's brother) or anyone else I wouldn't even look at them. Then it was like I couldn't even make eye contact with people. I was so afraid. What are people saying or thinking about us?"

The new Juror 5 was a doctor/lawyer who worked for a biotech firm. He jotted notes during the trial, ending up with 19 filled notebooks. He would become another obstacle to a guilty verdict---and he would become a target of Juror 8, who continued to work through the night and attend the trial during the day.

TBC.

We, the Jury: Deciding the Scott Peterson Case

San Francisco Chronicle: Behind Closed Doors With the Scott Peterson Jury

Juror #8 Takes The Initiative: Jury Survivor, Part One

2011-05-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

With his message ready to go, Juror 8 faced another issue. "How was I going to get it to Judge Delucci without any of the jurors and alternates knowing?" he thought. "I decided the best way was to walk in last to the break room and hand it to Jenne in an envelope addressed to Judge Delucci.

"I looked at the clock in the cafeteria and it appeared to be stuck on 7:30, but it was all my imagination," he said. "It just seemed that long. It took forever to get to 9am. The tension was building."

Juror 8 climbed the staircase to the third floor of the courthouse and sat in a rickety chair aligned against the wall. "I sat there waiting for Jenne to escort us down into the break room," he said. "As we walked, I nervously grasped the letter I wrote and handed it to Jenne behind the door as I was closing it to the break room. I sat in my chair and waited."

We, The Jury page 86-87

Juror 8, who had held down two jobs at a time since he was 18, was the only juror whose employer didn't pay for jury service for the extended length of the trial. He was used to working seven days a week, especially during baseball season, when he managed a parking lot at AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants. During the trial he would often work from 10pm to 6am, and start jury service at 9 am. If he was lucky he'd get four hours of sleep during a 24-hour period. Between his jury service and his work as a parking lot facility supervisor he was logging 100 hours a week.

"I was rarely at home," he said. "I needed to work to pay my bills. I had no social life during this period. My social life was replaced with sleep when feasible. I was tired. I was cranky. I was drained."

A fellow juror suggested he should get off the trial. "You are not going to make it through," he told Juror 8.

"But we weren't best of friends at the beginning," Juror 8 said. "We clashed all the way through, mainly because Cap is very opinionated and he was one of the younger ones."

Early in the trial, Jenne, the bailiff, pulled Juror 8 out of the line. "Your eyes look pretty heavy," she told him.

"I'll drink more coffee," Juror 8 responded. "I am a big guy. If I lean back my chin is going to go down. But you know what? You've got to look at my head movements. If my head's moving, I am awake. I am paying attention."

From then on, Juror 8, who wore a blue windbreaker over his uniform to cover up his name, "John," and to protect his identity, was always seen holding a cup of coffee.

Jenne pulled Juror 8 out of line several other times.

"Jenne was looking at our mannerisms and marking them down in a notebook," he said. "It was almost like she was documenting a race horse. I was pulled out for my facial expressions. I explained to her, "laughter is spontaneous and so is frowning." You respond. It's not something that is planned. I was also pulled out because my note taking was too predictable."

WTJ, page 170

____________

Juror number 8 was tired.

He was working from 10pm each night to 6am the following morning, then coming to court from 9 to 5 to hear the case. The case would be long, they had told him: five months or possibly more. But he wanted on the case. The lawyers dismissed those with hardships, as they usually do when preparing for long trials. Juror 8 wanted to be on the panel. He raised no objections.

It was a high-profile murder case that had been followed obsessively by the national media since the story broke one Christmas Eve night. All eyes were on those who would decide the case--the 12 jurors and six alternates who had been selected from thousands of prospective panelists. Being at the center of the attention was mesmerizing--something anyone on a jury learns to an extent, because the whole show is for the jury. But this was the mother of all juries---a real 21st Century crucible playing out as daily spectacle on televisions, on newsstands, and in gossip around the kitchen table. It was, in fact, the biggest "news" story that had come along in years, except for the really big news story that people somehow didn't really want to talk about. 9/11 was too divisive, baffling, terrifying, and monumental to comprehend; besides, unless you had been there, it was just another action-adventure series playing on the TV set. One understood that our soldiers were going to go kick some overseas ass and make sure the bad guys thought twice before messing with the U.S. of A. again. So it was taken care of. Those who said the government had known about or been in on the attacks were ridiculed as "truthers."

Truth was not big in the early 21st century, and it wouldn't be during this trial, either.

But the jurors had to do their best. So there they were, ordinary people thrown together and forced to sit and listen, day after day after day, and never say a word about their thoughts. Everyone else could go home for dinner and hash over the case, which dominated the television. But not the jurors. The one thing they did all have in common was the case; and by the rules, discussing it was not allowed.

The jurors understood this and tried to respect it. Occasionally someone would say something about the trial or someone who had been in the room. Sometimes topics edged close to the evidence, but they were charged with not discussing the evidence, and if someone came close to the line, the jurors corrected each other. Day by day, they felt their way and tried to be respectful toward each other and toward the rules. Everyone was aware of the rules.

But Juror 8 had a bad feeling. One of the jurors was annoying him mightily. He was a young guy, an airport screener, popular with the other jurors, and friendly, unlike Juror number 8, who was somewhat of a grouchy grizzly bear.

So everyone in the courtroom was watching everyone else. And people had varying attitudes toward the people they saw every day. Juror number 5 had caught the eye of the media, too. In particular, a blonde woman with a popular TV show noticed his demeanor. He made eye contact readily, liked to chit-chat, and was not one of the jurors who avoided looking at the defendant, who sat quietly during the proceedings. The blonde anchorwoman was sure the defendant was guilty, and said so over, and over, and over again, in her nightly broadcasts---in so many different ways that her fury was almost a religious fervor, an artistic outpouring of anger, a sizzling comet through the universe of public opinion, with a gravitational pull that sucked in attention like a black hole. Her eye was on Juror 5, and she started talking about him on TV.

Juror 5, like the rest, was not watching TV. He took his jury duty seriously and followed his oath not to discuss the case or follow it outside the courtroom. Such a thing wasn't always possible, since everyone on the planet was following the story. So Juror 5 was outraged when a friend told him the blonde TV lady was ridiculing him on the air. He mentioned to the others that his friend had recorded the blonde's comments so he could hear them later. The gist of the blonde's remarks was that Juror 5 was acting friendly toward the defense. "I never said a word to them," he was to tell the judge. But by then it was too late.

The blonde went bananas when Juror 5 actually did make a remark to the murder victim's brother. They were going through the metal detectors, entering the courthouse, and Juror 5 made some small talk. The blonde began reporting that Juror 5 told the victim's brother: "You lose today!"

After a weekend during which this gossip roared through the community, the judge was concerned. He called in both the victim's brother into his chambers and interviewed him. "Did he say anything to the words like You're going to lose today?" Judge D. asked. The victim's brother said, "No, it wasn't "lose," it was "news today. All he said was I got in the way of your shot for the news today."

Then the judge called in Juror 5, whose version was identical to the victim's brother. "We walked in the checkpoint....And when I had got to the other side, he was there, and he said Good Morning...And I looked at him and I said Morning...and when I saw him, the camera was right there, and I said Ah, I'm ruining all your shots, I guess you're not going to be on the news tonight. And he said good, and walked the other way."

Judge D. said, "Okay. Did you ever say You're going to lose today?"

Juror 5 said, "No."

Then he said, "And you know what, since I'm here, and all the other jurors want me to say this, and I want one of y'all to get on the news to say I don't say Yo, yo, what's up, Peeps to anybody. Especially--that's the report---My girlfriend wants to kick the crap out of the Court TV lady. She--apparently I walked up to (the defendant) in the courtroom and said, Yo, yo, peace out..and that's stupid. I mean, I have never said two words."

Judge D: "Okay. You've never discussed the case with anybody?"

Juror 5: "No. No, not at all."

The judge released Juror 5 without any further instruction.

Juror 8, meanwhile, was still tired. And he was seething about the clown who did not seem to display the requisite disapproval of the defendant. It was a subtle thing playing out among all those assembled---their attitude toward the man who sat accused of a heinous crime, who insisted he was innocent, whose face had been flashed hundreds of thousands of times on the television. His image had appeared on a billboard by the highway that said, "Man or Monster? Call 1-800-something to vote." The Internet message boards seethed with hatred for him and various punishments were vividly imagined, described, and reveled in, day after day, on the computer. He was an abomination, people said, a man who could kill his wife and unborn baby without a twitch of remorse. It's true that he didn't seem remorseful.

People also said he was an emotionless sociopath. He was guilty, guilty, they said. And at court, the family of the victim were superstars---universally adored. And as much as the victim and her family were adored and loved, the defendant was hated. He had cheated on his wife shortly before she disappeared, and the woman had gone to the police and informed them that she'd been involved with their number one suspect. Of course he wasn't a suspect officially at the time. At the first interview with her, police were eager for details and not at all suspicious of the woman, whose alibi was sketchy. "He's a con man," one of the cops told her and her friend. "He's a suspect, but we're not telling anyone that."

The man had told this woman that he'd lost his wife and it would be his first holidays without her.

This was enough for most people to hang him on. It didn't even matter so much that his house, business, and vehicles had been turned upside down only to find not a shred of evidence that he had anything to do with her disappearance. Hundreds of hours of wiretapped conversation were also fruitless and turned up nothing. However, the community by then was seething for vengeance, and as the suspect received death threats and hate mail, rotten tomatoes on his lawn along with teddy bears for his unfortunate wife, he began to be cagey about revealing his location on the phone. After someone crashed a truck into his office building, he became even more fearful and cautious. Knowing how non-private cellular communications really are, he declined to give his true location on the phone, with the understanding of his family, who were horrified at what was happening to him. This was used against him in court to show what a liar he was. In Gilroy while claiming to be in Bakersfield! A liar through and through.

Most people following the case from afar had no way of knowing the hatred that raged through the little town where he'd only lived for two years. Without a solid base of community support (his parents lived elsewhere, and he had moved to Modesto to be near his wife's family) he found that he was increasingly a hunted man, forced to leave his house because it had become a reminder of horror, and practically living in his car. That counted as points against him, too: because when he was arrested, he had a lot of stuff in the car, including camping gear. He was fleeing to Mexico! shouted the headlines, although he had been driving north when he was arrested. He was near his parents' house, which was outside of San Diego. That was near enough to the border for a pre-trial conviction: Tried To Flee.

The victim's family had decided he was the guilty one. They had ceased to treat him as a human being, and their example was followed by most. Silently, people avoided eye contact with the defendant. They only watched him when his attention seemed elsewhere.

Juror number 5, Mr. Friendly guy, did not carry any such animosity. And the blonde lady on Court TV somehow picked that up. Her accusations were baseless and her story on what he said was wrong, but it was too late. Juror number 5 had been put on the map in the minds of the audience.

And it rankled Juror number 8 that he wasn't removed. Juror 8 was already thinking about jury politics and what everyone thought, and he didn't like that people liked Juror 5 and went to lunch with him. A few days after the judge dismissed the concerns about Juror 5, Juror 8 decided it was time to act. In the wee hours of the morning, at his job as a parking lot superintendant, he sat and wrote out a series of accusations against Juror 5.

* Constantly discussed the evidence
* Told other jurors the anchor was too small to anchor the boat in the bay
* Made comments regarding Brocchini's testimony
* Made comments about Laci's weight during pregnancy
* Criticized Modesto police reports
* Criticized the prosecution
* Was told by his girlfriend that Court TV had criticized him and called him a loose cannon and gregarious, which he said he took pride in
* Was told repeatedly by other jurors to stop speaking about the case but wouldn't listen.

Juror totaled up 8 complaints against Juror 5 and turned them into the judge the next day.

And the inquisition began, starting with Number 8, who came into the judge's chambers, and tried talking to him man-to-man. "I started by saying that Justin is speaking about how well Mr. Geragos presented his opening statement and how awful the prosecution had performed theirs," Juror 8 said. "I then paused and asked the judge that as a juror, this case is not judged on one's presentation, but the evidence itself, isn't it? This immediately provoked a smile from Mr. Geragos." Juror 8, ever-aware that he needed to express respect for the rules, continued, "I followed up by stating that 'If this was a baseball game, we were probably only in the bottom of the third, isn't that true, your honor?' He replied yes."

One by one, the judge called them all in. Every juror, every alternate.

"Juror 5 was a loose lipster who could sink this trial by continuing to break the rules of silence," opined the authors of We, the Jury, the book by seven jurors on the Peterson case. "The juror who played the key role in removing Falconer was (John) Guinasso." The book describes the note as "succinct" and "powerful." Juror 8 "had assumed the unofficial role of sergeant at arms, policing the conduct of colleagues, and he wasn't afraid to speak. If others on the jury didn't like him, so be it. He was the loner."

The carefully worded note read, in part: "My concern is that he may prejudice himself and some of the jurors from providing a fair trial. He constantly speaks about the prosecution not hammering home any points, and the wonderful job Geragos is doing." The note also asserted that two other jurors had complained about Juror 5.

The note was signed, "Concerned Juror, No. 8."

One by one, the jurors visited the judge in his chambers, and Juror number 5 was on trial. By the time the judge had interviewed all of them, only one, the sixth alternate, remembered Juror 5 as discussing the anchor. Most of the jurors were aware of the Court TV flap---it had been pretty hard to ignore.

The Court: Let me ask you this. Did you hear Number 5 make any
comments about the anchor which was marked into evidence yesterday?

Alternate 6: Yes.

The Court: What did he say?

Alternate 6: He said it was smaller than he anticipated, or thought it was.

The Court: Smaller than he thought it would be?

Alternate 6: Yeah.

The Court: Did he say anything about that that anchor was too small to anchor a boat like the one we saw?

Alternate 6: Yes, he did.

The Court: He did say that? Okay. Any other comments about the anchor that you can recall? If you can recall.

Alternate 6: No. He and I talked about anchors that one would use for fishing. I think I asked him, would you use an anchor like that in the Bay, and he said, no, probably not.

The Court: Why would you ask him?

Alternate 6: I don't remember how the conversation got --

The Court: Did he bring this subject up?

Alternate 6: I think so. It emerged. I certainly didn't raise it.

The Court: You didn't bring it?

Alternate 6: I didn't raise it.

The Court: Somehow you and him, and all sudden thy [sic] issue of anchors came up?

Alternate 6: (Nods head affirmatively).

The Court: You asked him if he would use an anchor like that in the Bay, and he said no. And he said words to the effect that he thought that was too small an anchor to be able to moor a boat that size?

Alternate 6: That was the general sense much it [sic], yes.

The Court: Did you hear him make any comments about Detective Brocchini's testimony in which he felt any questions that had to be answered yet?

Alternate 6: No, I don't remember anything about that.

The Court: Any comments about Laci's weight during her pregnancy?

Alternate 6: I don't remember hearing anything about that.

The Court: Did you hear him make any comments about the Modesto Police Department reports that were made, regarding any inconsistencies, and so forth, saying I work for the San Francisco Airport, and I can't be making reports like that, these are shoddy reports, or anything like that?

Alternate 6: No, I didn't hear that.

The Court: Did you hear him make any comments about the prosecution and the manner in which they are presenting this case?

Alternate 6: I don't remember it.... I couldn't identify them as from him. There has been comments that have floated around the jury room about, you know, about general responses to -- or opinions about somebody doing something particularly well, or --

The Court: The lawyers, for example?

Alternate 6: Or not. I'm trying to be police, since everybody is in the room.

The Court: They have commented upon the lawyers' performance?

Alternate 6; It's been very kind of tentative. You know how -- it's hard to not. This is a whole group of people that are trying to avoid having the conversation, for the reason that they are all there. So it's --

The Court: Did you hear Juror Number 5 make any comments about Court TV, about him getting phone calls from his -- a phone call from his girlfriend with the incident at the weapons screening station, and that he was trashed, or he was disrespected by the commentator?

Alternate 6: Nothing about a phone call from girlfriend. But he did make some comments about Court TV.

The Court: What did you hear?

Alternate 6: That he knew that he was being trashed by someone at Court TV, is what I recall.

The Court: You recall that? Okay. Do you recall anybody in your presence ever admonishing him or cautioning him about speaking about the facts and issues of this case in the jury room?

Alternate 6: I don't. I don't think anyone that I have heard say anything.

Under oath, all the jurors denied that Juror 5 was constantly spouting off about the case. Juror 3, named as someone who had complained about Juror 5, emphatically denied complaining and said that someone other than Juror 5 had been admonished not to talk about the case, and that Juror 5 had only said general things about the prosecution's presentation style.

The Court: Did you -- did you mention to Jenne, the bailiff, that number 5 is sort of acting out and not following the court's instructions? Do you remember saying anything like that?

Juror 3: No. No.

The Court: Other than what I've mentioned here, have you heard him say
anything else that you thought was inappropriate or -- or discussed the case in any way in front of the other jurors?

Juror 3: No. I couldn't...

Did Someone Threaten The Key Defense Witness?

2011-04-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

Sharon Rocha Validates Dr. March on Justice for Scott Peterson is very interesting.

And March is interesting. He's the key defense witness, and what he had to say was important. However, it wasn't heard. That's what's interesting to me. Maybe you had to be there. What he had to say was complex and difficult to understand, and the way he said it became the most important thing to the jury. They just didn't believe him.

Just from reading the transcript, it sounds like March totally lost his composure. So either he's just a highly anxious character, or maybe not used to testifying. I do seem to remember he had served as an expert witness previously, but I may be wrong on that.

Here's part of a great essay by Carey-Ann Sandell that's part of Marlene Newell's SII library. It's linked from JFC as well. (There's another equally fascinating link as well having to do with the trying-to-get-pregnant culture.)

GERAGOS: That the measurements, all five for five, were younger? Made the baby younger, correct?

MARCH: Yes, sir.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GERAGOS: And that at this point if you map out this and you use whatever -- all the scientific data at your -- that's available, that the earliest date is December 29th?

MARCH: Yes, sir.

~~ Testimony of Dr. March / Re-Direct ~~

I chose to start with the above quote from testimony because like the majority of the important pieces of this case, the jury either ignored the facts being presented or completely missed the point being made. In fairness to the jury, I believe they were saturated with far more information than they would have ever been able to consume. I believe that was the Prosecutors game plan -

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, you baffle them with bull.

~~ Ron Granski / comment to the media ~~

The idea was to give the jury so much information, whether important to proving their case or not, so they didn’t pay attention to the details, or spend too much time analyzing all the information they were given. So that the facts that didn’t favor their case against Scott got lost between Laci’s grocery list from December 23rd, and a receptionist at the medical clinic who called in sick the day after Christmas.

GERAGOS: Were you really sick the day after Christmas?

RAMOS: No.

GERAGOS: "No" you weren't sick?

RAMOS: No.

JUDGE: No other questions?

GERAGOS: I was going to ask her why she's here, but it's okay. Welcome to San Mateo, and bye.

~~ Testimony of Corina Ramos - Receptionist OB/Gyn ~~

I believe that Dr. March lost the jury’s attention, if he ever had it – when he became flustered because of being badgered by the Prosecution regarding a typo in his original report to Geragos. When all he was really asking was for the same courtesy extended by the jury for Dr. Devore’s 2-day error in his report.

MARCH: Why not be -- sir, it was in error by two days. I would like everybody to cut me the same two-days slack that was cut Doctor DeVore, who moved his date -- the date of Conner's death from the 25th to the 23rd. I'm sorry, it was an error. I made a mistake. And if we make it June 9th, then we have a death date of Conner of the 29th. It's New Year's Eve if it's June 11th. I'm sorry, I made an error.

~~Testimony of Dr. March – Cross ~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dr. March was the doctor/lawyer's favorite witness — the guy who did a meltdown on the stand. The 11 of us almost fell off our chairs when he said that. We all gave (March) zeros. He lost all credibility when he asked us to cut him some slack."

~~John Guinasso – Juror – comment to the media~~

So what the hell happened to March?

He says he was mistaken four(4) times. He apologizes 2 times, and asks for "some slack" once (which counts as another "I was mistaken" in the juror's minds).

Was he just nervous because of the amount of vengefulness and anger in the room, or out of personal anxiety over something else? Remember he's the key witness to the defense. Remember the level of violence around this case---that's what drew me to it in the first place. The violence I'm talking about is from vengefulness.

It's Brent Rocha buying a gun and thinking about killing Scott Peterson. It's the death threats to people associated with the defense, death threats for Scott, people calling Laci's mother and offering to kill him, Matt Dalton's slashed tires, the repeated breaking into of Scott and Laci's house, the mob outside the courthouse, the vandalizing of Justin Falconer's car. The hostility toward Greg Jackson by the other jurors. Greg Jackson quits because he's literally worried for his life. He jumps a plane, leaves the country. Justin Falconer moves out of California because, he told Dan Abrams, of the death threats.

Today the violence toward Scott Peterson and his family continues online. The rage toward innocent people one does not even know is what confounded me about this whole thing. I was floating through the Internet and reading my crime books at night about catching bad guys. (And gals.) Just floating across the world, in my mind, looking out over the continent. And lo and behold, there on my radar, scattered by distance but angry as ever, a mob.

The mob is what got me. All that negative energy focused around a fixed point, the attention of many focused on a few. I was like, what's that mob over there? Who are these people who are the target of such irrational hate by people they have never met? So, OK, I saw a mob. If it was just another crime story it would have been over for me a long time ago. But this one, this one is interesting, because if Scott Peterson is evil, you really can't tell from his relentlessly-scrutinized behavior through this whole thing. At least from where I stand, not knowing him and never having met, or spoken, he actually doesn't seem like such a terrible person as people said he was. The pointing and yelling mob is still yelling at something I can't see, and lusting after a man's death over it. And I can't see it. OK, so I don't know the situation firsthand. But as well as anyone can know anything via written communications, the violence comes from the mob in this case. I can't see it in Peterson's behavior, as described by others convinced of his guilt, at all. Avoidant, sure. Not enough information, maybe. But violent? Not that I can tell, which is another reason I have the feeling they've got the wrong guy.

The aggression comes from people wanting revenge, who feel strongly enough about it to write things online and publish in books for the public's consumption. The violence is psychological, obviously taking place over distance. But it's there. Death threats are no laughing matter. Fear is not funny. Having to fear strangers is bizarre, and tragic.

Considering the violence around this case, might one wonder if Dr. March was threatened by someone?

What do you do with an authoritative voice you want to silence?
You bully it behind the scenes. You make sure the mark feels threatened, physically or otherwise. Then, when the time has come and he speaks the important words, he'll lose his composure.

I'm not saying that's what happened, I'd have to be clairvoyant.

But it doesn't really seem like a stretch, with this case.

Peterson T-Shirt

2011-04-05T14:34:00.001-07:00

"Peterson is Innocent" T shirt

I don't love the color. But maybe I can go to one of those sites where you make your own T shirt and do something different. His face needs to be on it.
Will you wear it? I sure will. I mean, I just bought a Charlie Sheen shirt that says "Winning!" I'd be all over a Peterson T. Time and computer access is an issue, though. Anyone else wants to put one together, I'll buy it. Just let me know.

Wait, I spoke too soon. Look at all these. I think I'm going to go for it. Update: I bought a shirt that says Peterson Defense Team. When I get my tax refund I will send Scott's family a small donation for his defense fund. I would urge anyone who has followed this fascinating case and developed the doubts that many of us seem to have, to donate as much as they can, even if it's a small amount. It's the thought that counts, and the number of donations rather than the amount will go far to tell the Petersons they're not alone. They should know that.

Photo Source

This one's kind of funny too.
The note on this one says: "This disgustingly offensive shirt has gained us more negative attention and hate mail than any other shirt we sell. Yay for cashing in on the suffering of others!"

I do like the idea of going fishing with Scott Peterson, because I don't think he's guilty. People who fish are generally OK with me, because they like the outdoors and just being on the water, for the most part. Weird that people would send hate mail over a shirt, but then this whole case is weird.

Not so funny is this journal cover.

"Of Course Scott Peterson Is Guilty!" Publisher Dennis M. Becklin

2011-04-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

There's an accusation that Peterson supporters are "liberals" which annoys people who don't identify that way. I do, so I don't mind so much. But there are plenty of people who identify as conservatives who can see what happened here. Here's the voice of one such person.

Support for Scott Peterson does not reside with any particular political affiliation. It's a human rights issue, one that speaks to the first great court spectacle of our new century.

Posted on Saturday, November 13, 2004 7:08:24 PM by CaliRepublican97

November 13, 2004

Of Course Scott Peterson Is Guilty - Court TV Channel Has Been Screaming The Verdict For Months by: Dennis M. Becklin

Medford, Oregon - Off with his head, I guess. I don't personally know if Scott Peterson is guilty. I didn't personally hear any of the evidence. But, it's obvious that he's guilty because Nancy Grace of CourtTV, and Geraldo Rivera and Gloria Allred of FoxTV have all been screaming for his head on national TV for months. How could they possibly be wrong?

It's shades of the coliseum again. 82-percent of American TV watchers signaled with their thumbs down. The prisoner is a dead man. Off with his head.

This is what the American justice system has become in selected instances of court television for profit...an outside-the-court television drama expressing the personal opinions of celebrities who earn their livings entertaining America's TV blood-sport courtroom addicts.

Scott Peterson has been a dead man from the moment television crews began stalking him shortly after the disappearance of his wife, Laci, and their expectant child, Conner.

Regardless of the outcome of the trial, Scott has been a dead man since he was implicated in this heinous crime. If he had walked free on an innocent verdict, he may not have lived long given the mob hatred shown outside the courthouse today. If he is sentenced to life in prison, he may not live long there, either, given the propensity for some opportunistic convict to gain personal notoriety by killing him. If he is sentenced to death for his crimes, he may live for years as his appeals are heard, perhaps many years longer than for either of the other outcomes.

I am left wondering how many other capital murder cases have been prosecuted since the Scott and Laci tragedy first hit American TV sets...probably thousands...maybe tens of thousands. But none of them were subjected to the intense prejudice of 24-hour-per-day commentators like Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, Gloria Allred, Jeffery Figer and Laura Ingle.

With a jury that was not sequestered during the course of this lengthy trial...and given the judge's removal of two jurors since deliberations began just two weeks ago...it is difficult to imagine that the convicting jurors were completely untainted by the shrill and personally vindictive opinions of commentators such as CourtTV's Nancy Grace, a woman who appears to have had a personal axe to grind after the murder of her fiance...or Geraldo Rivera, who called Scott Peterson every name in the four-letter book...or Gloria Allred, who represented one of the prosecution's primary witnesses against Peterson.

Every accused person in America has the right to a fair trial before his/her peers. I don't believe that any television-celebrated trial can possibly remain fair or untainted...unless jurors are totally sequestered, totally isolated from everyone and every form of communication during the pendancy of the trial. There are simply too many ways that the voices of the media can infect the process to the detriment of the American system of justice.

Scott Peterson has been found guilty of first degree murder for the death of his wife, Laci, and second degree murder for the death of his unborn son, Conner. He is a dead man. May God rest his soul.

May God also deny the gladiatorial coliseum media's loudmouths any measure of piety when Scott Peterson is laid to rest.

Dennis M. Becklin, Publisher

GrantsPassNews.com MedfordNews.com NewsAshland.com http://www.TheConservativeRepublican.com

The Real Reason Scott Peterson Bought Concrete Mix

2011-04-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

In December, Marlene Newell posted about the concrete "circles" on the trailer, which were shown again and again and again on the news with yellow markers on them to show where the "circles" were supposed to be. This is one of the images that was used to saturation during coverage of this story. That post is here.

Now, here's a follow-up which has a piece of evidence that's new to me-- a receipt that appears to show Scott Peterson was doing concrete projects around his house and yard.

It includes a link to a receipt that shows Scott Peterson returned three bags of concrete mix to Lowe's November 1st.

You will also see a little bit of testimony from someone not necessarily a supporter of Scott Peterson, but which further corroborates that Scott was doing work with concrete, and that is why he had the concrete and the concrete messes--not from making weights for his wife, but from other projects.

GERAGOS: Could I ask you one other question?
GROGAN: Yes.
GERAGOS: Do you remember a gentleman by the name of Doug Phelps? Doug Phelps called into the tip line and said he was a competitor of Scott Peterson. And Doug Phelps said he had been in the shop, Scott Peterson's shop. And Doug Phelps said that he noticed that there were four-by-four fence posts and bags of what I would assume is concrete on this trailer back in the month of September? Did you ever, did you ever let the petographer know that maybe one of the reasons that there was a mess there or that the reason he's find fence post concrete is because Scott Peterson's doing fence post concrete work?
GROGAN: No.

Meanwhile, Scott's attorney has asked for some extra time to file the appeal. It was due April 1.

Scott Asked To Spend More Time With Rochas Before Laci's Death

2011-03-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

Marlene N. has an interesting post at Justice For Scott Peterson. Check it out.

Part of it discusses what apparently is Scott asking to spend more time with Laci's mother and her partner, Ron, in the months leading up to the baby's birth. Ron Grantski testified as follows:

GERAGOS: Okay. The, is it a fair statement that as Laci got more pregnant, or as the pregnancy proceeded, that Scott made an effort to try and include you and Sharon more with them?GRANTSKI: Yes, he did.GERAGOS: Okay.GRANTSKI: Yes, he did.GERAGOS: And would that also involve having you and Sharon, as she progressively got more pregnant, or the due date approached, coming over on Sundays, for instance, for dinners?GRANTSKI: Yes.GERAGOS: Okay. And that he wanted to spend more time or have the families get closer together?GRANTSKI: About two weeks before Laci,GERAGOS: Disappeared?GRANTSKI: disappeared, I made a point of asking Sharon about that, you know, it's kind of strange, we're all starting to get together. She said that Scott, Laci said, Scott wanted us to spend more time together because of the baby.

Wife Killer Embraces Social Outings With In-Laws?

Doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. I mean, I know people are contradictory, but please.

The overall picture I get of Scott Peterson from reading the testimony, and also from reading the books--that picture is quite different than the media legend created on the small screen and in the pages of the Enquirer.

On the one hand, you can go, OK, the guy's a scoundrel for cheating on his pregnant wife. I grant you that. And you can pull out all the lame details of Scott's joking about being a Horny Bastard (which apparently made Amber Frey's best friend think he was a good long-term match for her). You can say, gosh, he got a boat and his in-laws still didn't know about it three weeks after he bought it. (As if he's not an adult and entitled to buy stuff with his own money, and is required to report all purchases to headquarters immediately.) And you can say, gosh, he kept in touch with Amber, after his wife disappeared, and you can ride that pony for a little while...but there are so many BUT's.

Things people say to support guilt:

HE DIDN'T COOPERATE WITH POLICE.
But, in fact, he did--even talking to them numerous times against the warnings of his attorney.

HE SAID HE LOST HIS WIFE.
But, guys say that sometimes when they're hiding the fact of a wife. Like Amber Frey's other friend who told her he lost his wife, who she then ran into at the gas station. That friend embellished with grand details: she had cancer, it was very difficult, blah blah blah.

HE WENT FISHING ON CHRISTMAS EVE WHILE HIS POOR PREGNANT WIFE WAS AT HOME ALONE.
But, at the same time he was pushing his wife to spend more time with her family. And they had plans that night, and the next day, with family. Is a guy not allowed to take a break before back-to-back family gatherings? Plus, he'd just spent the night taking in a movie at home. He spent the previous evening with Laci and Amy at Amy's Salon Salon. Do they need to be glued together like Siamese twins?

HE WENT FISHING SO FAR AWAY FROM HOME.
But, he was a traveling salesman who thought nothing of burning through hundreds of miles of petrol in a day's time. It was usual for him.

HE ACTED STRANGE.
But, the people around him were acting strange, too. Especially the police. And, name me one person who acts "normal" when suddenly their partner vanishes into thin air.

HE DIDN'T TALK TO THE PRESS ENOUGH.
But, the press was printing and broadcasting complete out-and-out lies about the case, and building opinion in the court of public dialogue about his guilt based on those lies. Would you feel trusting enough to speak to the press?

HE CRIED FAKE TEARS.
But,that's just your opinion. It was also Diane Sawyer's opinion, and she told the world that she thought his tears were fake at the very beginning of her interview with him. The one that was edited from 120 minutes to 12 minutes, allowing the network to assemble the moments that most enhanced a narrative that would cater to the listener's sense of drama.

HE DIDN'T CRY ENOUGH.
But, he cried when he was around family, or people he could trust who believed in him. That is usually when people feel safe to cry, not in front of strangers. The victim's mother was much more public about her grief, but not everyone is willing to share their most vulnerable moments with the cameras. Particularly not when what those cameras were looking for was anything that could be used to bolster the dramatic story of a man who killed his wife on Christmas. With encouragement from Sharon Rocha, who wanted to give the media video tape of Scott saying holding a baby wasn't fun, he was also dealing with the very weird vibes from Laci's family that are documented in Laci's mother's book, by her own account. As if she doesn't realize how very rude she appears in her dealings with the Petersons. With the in-laws and the police both actively spreading suspicion, his reticence starts to look more and more like well-advised caution and privacy in a time of confusion and grief.

It's not such a hot story, see, if she interrupted a home invasion robbery across the street. That's much too ordinary.

I wonder if people want to believe a guy would kill his pregnant wife on Christmas Eve? Yes, there are abusive bastards who might. And some women are very, very, very angry about the abuses they suffer at the hands of this type of guy. And what they believed about Peterson was that he was capable of such a crime, because, perhaps, they know someone who is. And so their anger is personal. But that someone is not Peterson. Scott Peterson is a guy who was made infamous by a case that grabbed everyone on that silent, holy night of Christmas Eve, when people all over the world learned that a California girl had gone missing.

For every one concept communicated by TV, there are a hundred auxiliary concepts that cannot be expressed because of the limitations of the medium. In part, that's because TV's small screen is unable to capture subtler nuances. Drama needs to be big to play for that screen. And so characters depicted there are drawn like cartoons. You get a live show, like Larry King, it's a little better.

I've been posting on my other site about other things recently.

California Justice? Los Angeles Student Jailed For "Attempted Lynching" For Videotaping Police Beating

2011-03-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

So the altercation starts at a bus stop. The school police officer was busting a kid's chops for smoking. She's got him up against the bus. A group of kids is in the background, shuffling around, giggling. The kid who was smoking, whose back is to the bus while the officer is holding her hand on his chest, keeps saying, "Hit me, man! Come on, I want you to hit me!"

The lone female officer is probably scared. With the other kids cheering on the smoker and jeering the officer while she continues to hold him against the bus, it's not clear what point she was making. The kid wasn't breaking the law. Underage smoking is a violation, sure, and a kid can be cited, sure. But the kid isn't making any moves on her. He just keeps saying, "Hit me!"

At some point, she does. She beats the teenager with her baton. She pepper sprays him. She bashes his head into the bus window, knocking the window out of its rubber casing. And all the kids, what are they doing? What any red-blooded kids today would do: they're videotaping the whole thing.

One of those kids is Jeremy Marks. And he gets the crucial part of the episode on videotape: the caning, the head bashing, the pepper spray. You can see Marks in the other kids' videotapes. He's hanging in the background next to another, taller kid, and not saying much, if anything.

Marks eventually leaves. He goes to a McDonald's with his friend. And here come the cops. They get him down on the ground. He obeys. It's the beginning of a nightmare for a kid who videotaped the wrong thing at the wrong time.

The officer, Erin Robles, said in a preliminary hearing that she didn't know who among the kids yelled what. But somehow, someone came up with the accusation that Jeremy Marks yelled "Kick her ass!" And he gets thrown in jail.

A judge ups his bail to 155-thousand dollars at the request of prosecutors who say Jeremy's a gang member.

"The cops fingered Marks — and only Marks — for having videotaped the beating. They arrested him and D.A. Cooley’s office claimed Marks’ alleged yell during the fray amounted to his trying to “incite a riot during an attempt to free a suspect from police custody.”

"Cooley charged Marks with several felonies, including “attempted lynching,” which carries up to seven years in prison. Marks, who was a minor at the time of his arrest, was sent to Pitchess Detention Center for adults."

So Jeremy gets to continue his education in an adult school of hard knocks for 7 months. Jeremy's mother works for the city, which pays her such a princely sum for her work that she in no way can afford bail. It took a concerned citizen from the Bay area to get Jeremy out of jail in time for Christmas, December 23rd. Neil Fraser is his name and he is an engineer for Google. thanks, Neil. Good man.

But it gets worse. January 26th, a Gestapo-style raid at the homes of Jeremy and a friend who is a defense witness terrified parents and neighbors.

According to Pittman (Jeremy's mother) and her neighbors, Jason Glothon and Jesse Cruz, a multitude of Foothill Division cops stormed her house looking for something to bolster the district attorney’s case against Marks. The victims described a terrifying scene as the cops arrived with drawn guns and threatened neighbors and their children at gunpoint. They say the cops searched through the kids’ backpacks, conducted body searches, felt-up the baby in the crib and trashed the Pittman home.

Pittman told the L.A. Weekly that when her neighbor Glothon saw what was happening, he went to her house to get his kids, ages 11 and 13, who were there waiting for a ride to school, “and the police pointed their guns at him and told him to leave. He wouldn’t go without his kids and told them so. We were scared to death,” Pittman said.

Glothon told the publication: “There were about 10 cars and a SWAT van and it was hard to keep up with the volume of cars at the Pittman house. All the officers had guns drawn. Those were my kids at Rochelle’s door. SWAT got out with their guns drawn and went toward my children.”

According to the search warrant, DA senior investigator Cynthia Palm was looking through Pittman’s home for Marks’ phone camera images and any other “photographs, images, audio and/or video recordings of the incident ... and the attempted lynching ... by fellow Pacoima Piru Blood gang members.”

According to published reports, Janet Moore, director of the D.A.’s Bureau of Branch and Area Operations, said: ”There were no guns drawn. That’s not the way we do things unless some sort of threat was presented, and I have not been told that that happened.”

But, Capt. Jesse Prieto, the D.A.’s investigator who led the search, said the LAPD cops did draw their guns, but didn’t point them at residents. Uh huh.

In an apparent coordinated raid, eight D.A.’s investigators and two LAPD cops searched the Sunland-Tujunga home of student Jesse Cruz, a high school acquaintance of Marks’. Cruz’s father told the L.A. Weekly that the search of his home was harrowing, and he was not presented a search warrant for nearly an hour.

“When they pulled my son, Jesse Jr., out of his bed, they had the gun up to his head. My whole family was put against the fence outside while they searched inside.” The elder Cruz, who is disabled as the result of a series of surgeries he underwent following an accident, said his already damaged shoulder was injured by the cops, who invaded his home dressed in riot gear, with drawn guns and carrying a battering ram.

Mark Ravis, Jeremy Marks’ attorney, denounced the searches as having been “executed in a way that was terrifying to Jeremy’s family and neighbors, as well as to an important and totally innocent defense witness, Jesse Cruz.”

Jeremy's attorney, Mark Ravis, says there were 17 kids who witnessed what went down at the bus stop, and they all say Jeremy wasn't doing anything but videotaping. He made no moves to be involved except for that. And since officers---school police officers in particular--are accountable to the public, and the incident took place in public, that should not be a crime.

Jeremy's mother told the LA Weekly that the officers trashed her son's rooms and did body searches, even feeling around the baby. They took her cell phone, computer, and other electronics owned by the family, she said. She also says her son is not a gang member, never has been, and has never participated in any kind of gang activity.

The LA Weekly reports:

On Dec. 2, Jeremy Marks, a Verdugo Hills High Schoolspecial education student, was offered a new plea offer by the L.A. County District Attorney: If he pled guilty to charges of obstructing an officer, resisting arrest, criminal threats and "attempted lynching," he'd serve only 32 months in prison.

That actually was an improvement from the previous offer made to the young, black high schooler — seven years in prison.

The D.A. then handed Angela Berry-Jacoby, Mark's lawyer, a stack of 130 documents, and the message within those thick files was clear: She says District Attorney Steve Cooley's prosecution team plans to try to discredit Marks, and several other Verdugo Hills High School students on the witness stand, by dragging out misbehavior incidents from their school records over the years.

Student videos.

Marks' video can't be found, and I'm sure the DA's office doesn't want it found, either.

The LA Weekly also has an expose of school cops in LA, a story that makes this organization look like a very bad accident waiting to happen.

"Punishment: A Complex Social Function" - Michel Foucault

2011-03-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

From Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison

Today the judge--magistrate or juror--certainly does more than 'judge.'

And he is not alone in judging. Throughout the penal procedure and the implementation of the sentence there swarms a whole series of subsisdiary authorities. Small-scale legal systems and parallel judges have multiplied around the principal judgement: psychiatric or psychological experts, magistrates concerned with the implementation of sentences, educationalists, members of the prison service, all fragment the legal power to punish. It might be objected that none of them really shares the right to judge; that some, after sentence is passed, have no other right than to implement the punishment laid down by the court. And, above all, that others--the experts--intervene before the sentence not to pass judgement, but to assist the judges in their decision.

But as soon as the penalties and the security measures defined by the court are not absolutely determined, from the moment they may be modified along the way, from the moment one leaves others than the judges of the offense the task of deciding whether the condemned man 'deserves' to be placed in semi-liberty or conditional liberty, whether they may bring his penal tutelage to an end, one is handing over to them mechanisms of legal punishment to be used at their discretion. Subsidiary judges they may be, but they are judges all the same.

Discipline and Punish was published in 1975. I wonder what Foucault would have made of the role of media and public opinion as judge?

I'd like to think he'd agree with me that the judges in the 'world court' opened up by modern communications systems (including the Internet) have multiplied, increasing pressure on the system itself. Of course, public opinion is eternal no matter what the medium is. But involving people from far away, some of whom may be powerful and influential, adds a different element to the role of punishment in our communities.

The distortion media can create by reporting some facts and not others confuses issues of guilt and innocence. And the media had a truly unique role in the Scott Peterson case. Personally, I cannot think of a single trial, except for the OJ case, that has gotten so much airtime in the past decade. The coverage came at a time that the U.S. government was sending its military to war for reasons that were known to be lies at the time. The whole nonsense that our representatives believed the President in his State of the Union speech, when he told us that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium from Niger, is nothing but nonsense. The media knew it was nonsense, because they'd reported that the memo was a fake long before. And yet the supposedly liberal media--- including NPR--said nothing. I remember hearing NPR's coverage of the speech and the analysis that followed. It's one of my vivid memories of this past decade. Not a single analyst, and there were three or four of them, brought up the dubious nature of this memo the President had just referenced as a reason to invade Iraq. If a local voice at a radio station had heard enough about the memo to know it was understood to be fake by experts, then what was going on with these nationally-broadcast 'analysts' that they didn't bring it up? This was one of the moments I started falling out of love with NPR, despite the fact of their excellent worldwide reporting, which still blows other news media right out of the water by simple virtue of examining issues for more than :45 seconds at a time a la' commercial media.

So while lies dominated this public discourse around the drums beating for war, lies permeated the Peterson case, too. The Peterson case and the demonization of Scott Peterson, and the Iraq war and the demonization of previous US ally Saddam Hussein, were noted by Scott himself. In Anne Bird's book, she relates how he tries to make a joke of it--Scott Peterson and Saddam Hussein, the two worst guys in the world, according to TV.

As such, the publicity campaign against Peterson had enormous power to shape opinion, for the simple reason that exposure of selected facts and media reaction/spin put the whole public conversation in motion in the first place. And by public I mean nationwide attention, beyond the community or state in which the crime occurred. If what you learn about the Peterson case comes through the prism of Nancy Grace's perceptions, you're going to hear endless variations of how evil Peterson is, along with endless 'mis-statements of fact.' Ah, what the hey, let's just call em LIES! But if you don't know they're lies, you might assume that the person in the position of power, the broadcaster, in this case Grace, is right. And persuasion is a personal process. The power of single people to affect their audiences shouldn't be underestimated in the Peterson saga.

Peterson strikes me as a private person and maybe somewhat of an introvert. He certainly didn't engage the media like his mother-in-law did. Not that he could have, because when he tried, he was not believed despite his trying. And his wife's family's public condemnation of Peterson on national airwaves presented sympathetic figures an audience wanted to believe, and resonated with: in particular, the grieving mother. With so few role models for grief in this day and age, and on this public media, Sharon Rocha stirred a lot of hearts and minds. Hardly anyone presents a living face of grief that people can refer to, in public forums. People held to her disclosures as a lifeline of humanity in a public discourse starved of it. She had enormous power, and still does, to influence opinion, with every book she sells.

And she wants vengeance; not just against anyone, but against Scott Peterson.

That's why this case isn't over. That's why Scott and his family's battle for his life is so poignant and immediate. Because it's clear Scott Peterson and his terrible crime is still spoken of in online discussions. His side of the story has not been told loudly enough, with enough coverage, to make a difference. And he has too few people speaking up on his behalf online. There are a few of us. But we need more. The public conversation that doomed him in the first place could also save him, if conversations based on truth are happening. That's why these blogs are so valuable; they are intended to pose topics for thought and conversation. But there is no profit in them. Blogs are frequently volunteer activities by lay observers and online activists. And it's hard to scratch out time to do them, sometimes. It really is a labor of love, speaking personally.

But it's not just love for Peterson, who I don't know and have never spoken to. It's love of justice and outrage that truth doesn't always prevail. It's civic participation of the sort that is required for a true democracy, and it takes time, meditation, and effort. There are countless hours I've spent mulling over this case, which grabbed me right away when Laci went missing that fateful night. In the recent years that I've been familiarizing myself with the details of what happened, Laci comes to mind again and again.

There's a great photo of Laci that Sharon Rocha put in her book, and the photos she included are worth thousands more words than she herself could write. My favorite photo is not one of the glamour shots, but rather a casual picture of Laci out watering some plants in the yard. You can see her wedding ring, she's casually dressed, you can see her wedding band gleaming on her left hand, and she's got more than the great smile on her face. Rocha titled the photo: "Laci doing what she loves best---working in the yard." And she looks happy. She looks happy. I've seen some people write that her smile seemed "painted on." Not in this photo.

She looks as happy as it gets in this photo. It is very difficult for me to imagine someone who looks as happy as Laci does, in that photo, is married to a man who would be capable of murdering her.

No, my gut feeling about Laci is that she and Scott were best friends. She has a look of confidence about her that makes me believe this. I realize women can appear confident while being battered in private. I understand this argument well. It's simply a gut feeling that Laci and Scott were, despite their difficulties, happy and committed to each other.

As much as I think about Laci, I want to believe she would be cool with what I'm doing. If my suspicions are correct and Scott did not kill her, then I feel very sure she'd be down with this blog. And also that the assumption of his guilt would be devastating to her.

But Laci loved her family. Before anything else, public opinion, local consensus, gossip channel or paperback outpour, she would want her family to know he didn't do it. She would be heartbroken at their belief in his guilt.

On the other hand, if he did do it, but there are these nagging doubts, I believe she'd want these doubts addressed so that his guilt *could* be recognized beyond the many reasonable doubts that currently exist. So I think she'd be OK with my posts here, even if he did do it.

At the same time, her family figures prominently in Scott's ongoing lynching. And there is no way to get at the truth without identifying the sources of falsehood. Mrs. Rocha was most likely acting out of grief and confusion through all this. She lashed out at the Petersons publicly in her book---just read the Amazon reviews online and see how people believe her. So I can't ignore Laci's mother's role in what looks to me like it may well be officially sanctioned, highly public murder of an innocent person. Especially since her mother has included the public in her sentiments and poured them out frankly as she sees fit. She intiated this conversation, and when you do that, responses will come whether you like them or not, in the whole process of getting to the truth of any matter. My observations are responses to her public statements and published material, and not intended to instigate anything but questions--because the questions around this case are still many. Far too many to kill someone.

Scott said to Brent Rocha: "I can't lose any more of my family." He regarded Laci's loved ones as his family. He has lost that family in the most terrible way possible. For that reason, his plight strikes a chord with me.

Cory Gray Argues For Peterson

2011-03-09T14:40:00.001-08:00

Cory Gray is one of Peterson's volunteer advocates here on the wires. And he's an especially good one. We need more voices like this speaking out publicly for the paucity of evidence against Peterson, and applying time and thought to the big picture the evidence of this case does present. Anyway, he responds to a skeptic below.

Meggan Bartos posts:

"To me, this is Scott stumbling over his own words:

Brent Rocha: "And do you think that girl [Amber] had something to do with it?"

Scott: "No, she...didn't."
...
Scott immediately says "She didn't" then when confronted by Brett...

Brent: "She didn't?"

Scott realizes what he just said and then tries to cover his tracks:

Scott PETERSON: No, she couldn’t have. She didn’t know about Laci."

Cory replies:

They had his phone tapped for hours upon hours of conversations... they coached Amber on exactly what to say to try and trip Scott up... and he slips up on talking with Brent?

The problem is... you guys are looking at these conversations an...d looking at the smallest detail for something, because you have nothing else. You are going over his words with a nitpick... if you did that to anyone, you'll find stuff and wonder (including your conversations). There is nothing unusual about what he said.. I'd say it if someone told me something like that about someone I knew... it's just reasonable to think Scott didn't suspect anyone around him, I mean, why would he, Scott was surrounded by decent people (as he was).

Meggan... it's far more likely that the robbers across the street had something to do with Laci's disappearance. We have a robbery across the street the day Laci goes missing. We have eye witness accounts of Laci being seen in the neighbour after Scott left (for work and subsequently the bay). We have one of the robber's girlfriends pawning a watch identical (rare watch) to the one Laci wore (all the time). We have a recorded conversation between two brothers associated with the robbery (and/or robbers) telling an account about that pregnant lady threatening Todd (one of the robbers). We have a tan van spotted across the street from Laci's house (the robber's van) that morning and then another independent witness describing that same van (separated by both space and time) and a pregnant lady being forced inside, and the location of this second sighting was close to a known drug hangout the robbers frequented.

But... the husband did it right? Scott, a man with no criminal record at all, not even traffic violations, decided to murder his wife, and then did so without leaving any physical evidence at all.... nada... NOTHING. The police know everything about Scott... they tested everything... and NOTHING... no evidence at all. Trust me, if Laci was in the back of Scott's truck (or in the boat) for the trip to the bay... evidence would have been left by her body. It's far more likely that the police never found the actually crime scene and therefore the evidence was never located... and if this is the case, then Scott is exonerated.

There is only on conclusion that makes sense... Scott is INNOCENT. Scott is not alone here, there have been well over 250 people exonerated from life imprisonment or the death penalty (over 100 alone) in the USA since 1989.

He goes on with a possible theory.

When you micro analyze any one of these guys (Scott, Brent, and Ron), you start to find things that look suspicious... but when you look at the whole picture and take it in the context that Laci is missing and they are frantically looking for her... it starts to make sense. For example... Ron points to Scott and calls his fishing on Christmas Eve a little strange... but what was Ron doing that very day - fishing as well. Even concerns that Sharon had conveyed to police and things she said seem a little strange... but her daughter was missing, Scott's wife was missing, and Brent's sister was missing... they weren't acting normal for good cause.

I don't think Scott should have been a suspect at all... I think they should of looked at Scott... and then moved on and followed the leads to wherever and whomever they led to.

As an investigator... I would have been searching for the actually crime scene... they had no crime scene and that was a problem (still is). They had no physical evidence at all (still don't)... they had no cause of death (still don't)... no motive that makes any sense (still don't) ... and no suspects... they have nothing more then the people in Salem had against their accused witches. All they had was their paranoid perceptions of what was meant and what was done by an innocent man and their overwhelming lynching of him by the media and police who were telling their fictional story to the public and framing it as truth.

Remove the lies in this case and you're left with NOTHING against Scott... or Brent... or Ron.

My theory: What your left with is a couple of desperate robbers who are on their third and final strike getting caught red handed by a feisty little pregnant lady from across the street coming back from her walk... after some commotion and back and forth between Laci and Todd (this includes chasing her with the van as she walks past her house - she wanted to keep her house location a secret), they panic and throw her in the back of the van not knowing what to do... they take her over to a crack house to consult with some buddies on what to do next. As they drive away slowly from the crack house, Laci escapes the van and takes off running and screaming, she is quickly caught up against a chain link fence... a struggle ensues, and Laci squats down (which is mistaken for her urinating) to make herself harder to get back inside the van. Laci is then transported to presumably a criminal compound near Tracy where she is kept alive until she meets her end. Her body and that of her sons is then transported at some later date and placed in the Bay. Conner's body is carefully placed on the shore where it's discovered the next morning. Laci's body floats ashore the following day and is spotted.

Brent Rocha's Testimony, Revisited

2011-03-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

Brent Rocha's testimony, reviewed by Scott Peterson: Truth Be Told.

"There are a couple things to remember from this testimony- first of all, that Sharon Rocha was apparently so hysterical that she had to be held up by people. In the near future we will post Scott's interview around midnight on the 24th with Detective Brocchini. Scott asked during this interview that if Laci is not found soon, would there be counseling or something available for the family. The detective saw this as suspicious, as if Scott knew she wouldn't be found soon. I would argue that the more reasonable explanation would be that Scott was concerned for Sharon, seeing how hysterical she was just hours after Laci is unable to be found."

In a more recent entry, Truth Be Told answers a question from a skeptic of Peterson's innocence.

An Overseas View of Supermax Prisons, Whistleblowing, and Bradley Manning

2011-03-07T15:27:00.000-08:00

From Guy Rundle, Crikey.com

....That retaliation has now fallen on Manning, who has been held virtually incommunicado, save for lawyer contact, for the past 10 months. Despite being innocent until proven guilty, even under military law, his extended remand has been a bloody-minded application of every regulation associated with US “supermax” prisons — he is in permanent solitary confinement (even his one hour/day exercise), under permanent surveillance, must make a verbal response to a query every 10 minutes, and if he attempts to take exercise in his cell — push-ups, for example — he is physically prevented from doing so. Visitors — including former Salon journalist Glenn Greenwald and Congressman Dennis Kucinich — have been prevented from visiting him.

The clear intent of such a process is to break Manning down to a pitiful state of desperation, and persuade him to incriminate Julian Assange as an active conspirator (although even then, it would be difficult to charge a non-US citizen with espionage charges). In his online chats with Lamo, Manning talks of some contact with Assange but it would be up to the prosecution to prove that this was something more than idle chat.

Whether it achieves that or not, it may well overshoot the mark and drive Manning completely and irrevocably insane. Such forms of confinement are unquestionably torture, but they are torture of a very specific kind — a sort of paradoxical torture. If the aim of torture per se is to make the prisoner’s body rebel against their soul — have animal pain and terror fill the consciousness until any principle, belief, or commitment is undermined — then the “supermax” regime is the opposite — it dissolves subjectivity by removing all that is most basically human, from diversion to human connection.

This is the point made most famously by Foucault: that the notion that neat antiseptic prison regimes are more humane than physical punishment is the founding conceit of modernity. In many ways they can be worse. Solitary confinement and the microcontrol of a prisoner’s behaviour are designed as a form of total annihilation, because they exert enormous energies in ensuring that the prisoner goes on existing, while depriving him of anything resembling life. That division of existence from purposeful life is effectively a standardised and routinised way of producing despair.

Not surprisingly, it is a particularly American form of human annihilation. The “supermax” prisons, and such total regimes, are the descendants of the first modern prison schemes, the penitentiaries established by the Quakers in Pennsylvania in the 1830s. Where other prisons housed prisoners collectively in squalor as part of their punishment, the Quakers believed that this merely bred criminality. The object was to make a prisoner repent (as the name suggests) by developing a relationship with God — and the only way to do that was to deprive a prisoner of a relationship with anyone else.

Thus, prisoners in the penitentiary were ideally utterly isolated from anyone else — they even had separate corridors so they couldn’t see each other. Eventually through their screaming isolation they would seek and find God. The gentle and peaceful Quakers thought that this invention was a force for good; many of those who observed it, such as Charles Dickens, thought it was a horrifying nightmare. But someone who never saw a problem with it was Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America was based on the trip he took to the US to report on this marvellous new prison system, for the French government.

Much of Democracy in America was devoted to trying work out what the problems of the new American society might be. He never realised that the answer was the very thing he was sent to study — the penitentiary was the other side of American depthlessness, an indifference to the full humanity of others hidden from oneself by following correct procedure and affirming goodness of heart.

For so many years now, years and years and years, billions and billions of American tax dollars have supported military actions overseas, with very little reporting to us about what's really going on. Are these actions keeping Americans safe? Or are they endangering us further? This is one instance in news where we need to know.

One excellent book about the Iraq war is Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq, 2003-2005. The author discusses the difference between true counterterrorism strategies and what has actually been going down in Iraq on the ground. He interviewed numerous soldiers and officers for the book.

There is also a good companion book for Fiasco that asserts Iraq's government begged the US to avoid war and capitulated to everything through back-channel diplomacy. Susan Lindauer asserts that Iraq even agreed to purchase a million American-made automobiles a year for ten years. She says Iraqis were ravaged by the destruction of U.N. sanctions and were willing to do just about anything to get back in the U.S.'s good graces. Her book is called Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Coverups of 9/11 and Iraq.

One person who left a comment on the above-linked story explained why he sees Bradley Manning and his situation as extremely important and relevant to all of us.
He said:

I wish I could just watch the telly. I like telly, some people don’t, but it’s the only thing that relaxes me-if I could just stay out of these discussions. But I can’t. I just can’t.

I’ve said this before,-either here, or elsewhere. And MICHAEL JAMES, you would have some idea about my reluctance for detail.

I was third generation military. I followed my father and brothers into the Service. Suffice it to say, I worked in military aviation. Just like the Pater I followed the trend and went into law afterward. Pathetic really, but that was the way it was. (Having watched Immigration Nation last night, I count my blessings that this was in the UK. I doubt that White Australia would have let someone of my skintone into service in the OzMil,- they were reluctant to let me into the country as it was!)

I know the military. Three generations of service added up to nearly 100 years for our family!!
My father before his death, was one of the ex. military that tried to stop the Iraq invasion. He and many others wrote to Blair (grief!! I wrote that ‘Bliar’ the first time. Very Freudian!).

I have long argued that (in modern history. How far do we go back?),-the military has been used as an Attack Force and not a Defence Force. To that end I will NEVER go with the ‘he was a soldier, he should follow orders-he is therefore a traitor….’.

I know the old man was VERY perturbed about the nature of engagements in the latter part of the 20C. He was appalled at the rationale for the Iraq invasion. And I am absolutely certain he would endorse what I’m saying.

If you want to argue the rationale that:- ‘once you put on a uniform, you do not question anything. You do not feel. You do not get emotionally involved. You follow orders. Because you are wearing that uniform’,-then I am more than comfortable discussing that at some length.

I can match and raise you on military experience, I suspect.

It has become imperative to question. It has become critical to stop the humanitarian abuses that the West seems to get away with, but that the East is so rightly condemned for.

IF..if Manning has done what he is accused of, then he is a very courageous human-being. I hold Manning as FAR more courageous than the Assange team, if Manning has done what he is accused of.

In your enthusiasms to condemn Manning,-you choose to ignore his disgraceful treatment. A cold calculated and deliberate attempt to break him. This behaviour is being carried out ‘in plain sight’ by an allied country. A country that dragged smaller nations into its revenge engagement by using a very subtle force over them. A country with the blood soaked stain of Abu Ghraib,-of Guantanamo-and countless breaches of human rights.

And Manning is a bad guy!!
_____________________________________

The distinction I make between Assange and Manning, is that Manning has received a fraction of the attention that has Assange. That is an outrage.

But BOTH are necessary. Both are very courageous. Both have been long overdue.

I will repeat it again and AGAIN: there are those who control,-and those who do their will. It is the global World Order. It has led to the innocent deaths of millions as time has passed.

“Do not question what we do, for we know what is good for you.
Do not seek to ask us why, for ours is but to do, and yours is but to die”

Perhaps there was a time; a feudal time when we obeyed. We did as we were told. But this is the late 20 early 21C and now we are starting to ask WHY?

Manning was asking WHY?
Assange (and importantly all his group) are asking WHY?

Not before time. We have gone too far. World Order still demands that the poor get poorer; the rich get richer.
…………………………..that we do the bidding of powerful men (women?),- and a superpower becomes omnipotent and countless lives are lost.

Not least the families of service personnel who must-MUST be proud of their family member when they are handed a f.ucking flag in exchange for their life. For these types of unjustifiable engagements.

I would never;-could NEVER decry the job a military man/woman has to do,-BUT, the ethic of their Government-or the palpable lack of ethic IS starting to show in the ranks. Some of these personnel are vicious bloody thugs!

There is an incalculable amount at stake here. What is at stake is the principle that I wrote that ‘poem’ over.

It is requisite of those that control, that we MUST do their bidding. It is how the world has turned. But WE pay; NOT them!

If the alleged actions of Bradley Manning ore true then that young man has my undying respect.
Assange has also, because he broke the journalistic embedded style of hack reporting-he kicked the sh.it out of it.

Both of these men, BOTH are remarkable. And this global society has suffered, and will continue to suffer if their like are subjugated, are suffocated; are stopped.

My father served with honour. My brothers served with honour. I served with honour.

What our compatriots are being asked to do today is NOT honourable., and it is turning many of them into cold blooded killers.

DON’T give me ‘the terrorists are killers thing’. We KNOW it. We condemn them. We do not need to turn into them.
______________________________

No damned apologies for the length of this post

"Sunshine is the best disinfectant"

Commission On Safety And Abuse In America's Prisons

2011-03-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

Confronting Confinement:
"A report on violence and abuse in U.S. jails and prisons, the broad impact of those problems on public safety and public health, and how correctional facilities nationwide can become safer and more effective."

“Most of us in Congress and most Americans do not spend a lot of time thinking about the conditions of the prisons across our nation, but we should. We should, because, in the words of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, ‘What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons.’ And, as the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky once reflected, ‘The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.’”
—Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation Subcommittee

“For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.”
—Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), Chair, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation

This is the most important report on conditions in America's prisons and jails for decades. If the Commission's recommendations are implemented, prisons will be safer places, and so will the communities to which most prisoners ultimately return.”
—Elizabeth Alexander, Executive Director, National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union

“The conclusions of Confronting Confinement make clear that the U.S. corrections system is facing a serious human rights crisis. In a society governed by the rule of law and a basic belief in human dignity, incarceration is supposed to mean loss of liberty, not violence and humiliation.”
—Lovisa Stannow, Co-Executive Director of Stop Prisoner Rape

"The Lucifer Effect" or, How Good People Do Bad Things

2011-03-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

A lecture by Philip Zimbardo

Caution: Images are very disturbing.

From the website:

Perhaps no one comprehends the roots of depravity and cruelty better than Philip Zimbardo. He is renowned for such research as the Stanford Prison Experiment, which demonstrated how, in the right circumstances, ordinary people can swiftly become amoral monsters. Evil is not so much inherent in individuals, Zimbardo showed, but emerges dependably when a sequence of dehumanizing and stressful circumstances unfolds.

....The recipe for behavior change isn’t complicated. “All evil begins with a big lie,” says Zimbardo, whether it’s a claim to be following the word of God, or the need to stamp out political opposition. A seemingly insignificant step follows, with successive small actions, presented as essential by an apparently just authority figure. The situation presents others complying with the same rules, perhaps protesting, but following along all the same. If the victims are anonymous or dehumanized somehow, all the better. And exiting the situation is extremely difficult.

Source: MIT World

Cyril Wecht On The Scott Peterson Trial

2011-02-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

Saw this quoted on a forum that has linked to this site. Voice of Sanity is not the author of this blog, however he has been a really important voice in the conversation about Peterson and has a great site. I especially like his presentation, The Odds.

Meanwhile, Here's Dr. Wecht.

I bet that the California Supreme Court or the federal courts will reverse this conviction and grant Scott a new trial. There were so many issues during this case — from overwhelming pretrial publicity and possible illegal wiretaps to the introduction of improper testimony and evidence.

One key issue on appeal will be the dismissal of the first jury foreman, Gregory Jackson. A lawyer and a physician, Jackson reportedly asked to be removed from the jury after several days of deliberations. When Judge Delucchi agreed to let him go, Jackson stated that “given what’s transpired, I would never know personally whether or not I was giving the community’s verdict, the popular verdict, the expected verdict, the verdict that might, I don’t know, produce the best book.”

To me, it was clear that at least some on the jury felt pressure from the local community to convict Peterson. Some may have been looking to profit from their jury service by signing a book deal. Moreover, it is only under the most extraordinary circumstances that a judge should dismiss a juror during deliberations. In fact, the California Supreme Court and the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals have made it clear that jurors should not be dismissed simply because they are tired or uncomfortable with the pressure.

In the end, The People v. Scott Peterson, the trial that had it all, was missing two significant items: any direct evidence linking Scott Peterson to his wife’s murder and a courageous jury willing to put aside community attitudes and pressures in order to decide the defendant’s fate based on the actual evidence.

Cyril Wecht, Tales From The Morgue

Ventura County Inmates Not Allowed To Receive Letters In Envelopes

2011-02-18T22:19:00.000-08:00

Ventura County Prison Inmates Are Not Allowed To Receive Letters.

Only postcards.

Public defender is speaking up for the inmates, since no one else seems to be.

The comments below the story were-----well.

Sobering is one word that comes to mind. My heart sinks that the basic right to communicate is not recognized by many folks, if the person communicating is incarcerated.

People forget that good people, too, are imprisoned for various reasons, including wrongful conviction. It's not necessarily true that if you're in the hoosegow, you're a bad person who should be thrown in a pit. Besides, many of these people are coming back out. Overseeing their captivity in a humane way would seem to be a good thing considering they are our future community members, and people tend to give back what they get, to an extent. I'm talking general karma here, or your basic Golden Rule. It bugs me that people are this nuts yelling about this stuff online, as if a prisoner writing letters is a threat to their well-being in any way. I would argue that prisoners treated badly---like those kept in the hole 23/7-- are more of a liability than prisoners with some chance of keeping up communication skills.

My guess is the pit-throwers and shame-blamers have wronged people, too, in their lives, and maybe have even been on the wrong side of the law and maybe just didn't happen to get caught--too bad for those who did. Their assumption is also that the justice system honors the law of the land, that the laws of the land are just, and that communication, rather than being a right, is a privilege.

I don't think it's a privilege. I think communication is a basic human right and as essential to the human mind as the air we breathe or the food we eat. People cannot survive, mentally, without it.

We, the taxpayers and the owners of this State of California--because that's us---really have a responsibility to think about the establishments our money pays for, and what goes on inside them. The illusion is that bad people are tucked away and you don't see them anymore, not your problem, buh-bye. Wrong. It is our problem. It is all of our problem to make sure that the people running things in our world don't make the bad things--like crime---worse, by sending people with behavior problems to be overseen by people with behavior problems. Or by a system with ethical or moral problems carried out by people with same. That's called Crime University. And if we send people there, you better believe there'll be recidivism, and you can blame part of it on the system, part of which is us and our uninvolvement.

It's hard enough just to work to pay those taxes and get the house cleaned. Am I doing enough by blogging about it? By at least contributing to the conversation during the hours I'm yoked to the communication machine here at work? There are so few hours of my own. I have to clean up bird poop twice a day, and all those plants are like pets in slow motion. They require care. The errands, the laundry, the bills..how do people with kids do it? Maintaining one's private sanctuary is work. So I get it, I really do. I know it's hard for people to pay attention. But someone, please, pay it forward and at least think about this stuff before posting support for a system that rides roughshod over human rights. They are, after all, human beings---and, once again, our future neighbors, many of them, whether we like it or not. Then think about private prisons for profit. That's a reality too. The big picture has to be considered. Punishment has limited use.

In the meantime, I'm sure inmates can't have these, but correspondents could not do better than the Pentel Slicci, which writes with a superfine .25 mm tip. My personal favorite pen.

Pilot Hi-Tec C's are another great pen with the superfine line--in fact they were the first gel pens to hop on the superfine train. Which is why there are more photos of them to show.

The Japanese kids love 'em and they can even write on rice.

Off Topic

2011-02-18T21:53:00.000-08:00

A wet Friday, down with the flu this week. Arguing Peterson's case on other sites today. The conversation goes on.

I don't know the person in this video that I posted on my other blog, but I liked his singing.

Gregory Jackson: An Exemplary Juror

2011-02-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

Sources:
We, the Jury: Deciding The Scott Peterson Case
The San Francisco Chronicle
Defense Motion For A New Trial
SII, where you can find a complete library on the Peterson case, including court documents, exhibits and transcripts, independent research, coverage of media coverage, and analysis.
Please visit ScottPetersonAppeal.org, which is the Peterson family website. Analysis of the case is laid out with facts established by both sides. It makes for compelling reading.

I saw this on a message board about the Peterson case: "I believe the first foreman asked to be relieved..... because he thought because of his Dr./Lawyer status he was going to run the show during deliberations and found out differently."

Jurors who were skeptical of Scott Peterson's guilt didn't last on the Peterson jury. And it's not a coincidence that two pro-acquittal jurors and one juror open to the idea of Scott's innocence were all removed. There was one person acting against these jurors.

This was a guy who was working overnights, from 10pm to 6am, then coming to court to hear the case each day. His employer wasn't paying him and it's mysterious why he would want to put in such hours for five months--suggests he had feelings of some kind about the case, possibly a prejudice about it. He was a member of the Teamsters and was a very large, intimidating man who professed to not care what others thought of him.

Juror 8's efforts to get Justin Falconer dismissed are now legend. But less is known about the second person who was removed, Fran Gorman.

Gorman had committed one unforgiveable sin. Her fellow jurors decided that one ten-minute mistake was more important than all the five months she sat on the trial, did her civic duty, refrained from watching TV and discussing the case, and applied her heart and mind to a heartbreaking, mindbreaking task.

The unforgiveable: she looked something up on the Internet.

Ah, the Internet! That silicon synapse to the universal mind, where all facts and opinions float in space until fingered from keyboards round the world. The tree of outside knowledge, forbidden fruit. How could a juror resist checking something? Every night, every juror in America goes home, and there it is---the portal. A moment of weakness, a glass of wine...not that that's what happened. She simply looked something up, and out of the goodness and honesty of her heart, sought to tell the others about during deliberations.

The same deliberations during which one juror, a woman grieving the toddler son she had struck and killed with her car, told the others that for the whole time they had been addressing her by her son's name. The jurors had picked nicknames to help keep their identities under wraps, and a woman juror I won't name had selected her dead son's name as her nickname. During deliberations, she told them whose name it was and what had happened. They were shocked.

But that was just one fissure through which the chaos burst. The pressure between idealogies of guilt was immense, and the jury focused its discontent on the foreman, Gregory Jackson, who had taken 19 notebooks during the 5 month trial---by the way, the spiral notebooks they give us in Superior Court are rather small and slim. The jurors, in their book, accused Jackson of writing and not listening during the trial. But the problem is, as anyone who's ever written anything down knows, you have to think it before you write it. And you have to hear it before you think it. So Gregory Jackson was listening, and, in fact, recording --a service to all these jurors, had they realized it.

But they didn't, because they wanted one verdict and he wanted another. So they looked for reasons to ridicule this juror. They had sat in a courtroom where the most understandable thing they witnessed was the victim's mother, who vibed grief for her daughter and intense hatred for the defendant and his family. That they understood. The grieving woman wanted something and they were not going to disappoint someone who had already been so devastated. Her gravitational pull, enhanced by her folk hero status, obliterated any sort of objectivity about the case. Likewise the grisly photos that should not have been given to the jurors to view, because they had no answers to offer, only shock.

Anyway, Gregory Jackson was in Juror 8's sights, and no doubt he radiated his own anti-Jackson vibes just enough so the other jurors found it a wave they would ride with not so much discomfort. And they all wanted to get out of there, too. Disagreement was threatening to derail the whole process--the guilty verdict they wanted to give to the grieving family, and, yes, to that whole TV audience some would later speak to.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Beratlis said he suggested they vote to pick a new foreman.

The motion failed by just one vote. Jackson kept his role, but the friction in the room only mounted. The following day, the fifth day of deliberations, there was more upheaval. Juror No. 7, Fran Gorman, was about to get booted. Gorman, who worked as a systems auditor for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., had been troubled by the testimony of a computer forensics expert who testified for the prosecution in August.

Peterson had been confronted about his marital status by Frey's best friend on Dec.
6, and prosecutors said he had checked a fishing-oriented Web site on Dec. 8 -- which they said indicated premeditation. The defense, however, argued that Peterson had accessed the site on Dec. 5, which was the date on the information Peterson printed out. The expert never explained the discrepancy.

Shortly after the testimony, Gorman had gone online on her home computer and discovered that the fishing Web site wasn't updated every day. Peterson, she determined, could have accessed and printed the fishing information on Dec. 8.

Early in the deliberations, Gorman mentioned that she'd gone to the Internet and accessed the site. But before she could even tell the other jurors what she'd found, she felt a tap on her shoulder. A fellow juror was cautioning her not to discuss her findings. A couple of jurors seemed bothered but didn't make it a big deal.

Guess who tapped her on the shoulder? Juror 8. Why did he tell her to be quiet? And why didn't he drop the matter there?

But when they appeared close to taking a vote on guilt on day 5 of deliberations, two of the jurors said they didn't think Gorman could be objective or fair because of the research she'd done. A note was sent to the judge, who after interviewing her and other jurors removed her from the panel.

The research she'd done.

So suddenly this person who's been through thick and thin with this, who made one mistake, the other jurors think that one thing she looked up would prevent her from being objective? Were they aware that misconduct should be "willful" and "egregious" to justify removing a juror?

I'd love to hear any of those jurors articulate exactly how that research prejudiced their colleague.

Anyway, what you don't learn from the jurors' book, you learn from the Chronicle: that Fran Gorman supported pro-acquittal Gregory Jackson as foreman. I have to wonder what led these jurors, who didn't have a problem before when she told them about viewing the site, to suddenly decide they want to get rid of Gorman. How did that come about? Might they have been motivated by a worry that she would vote acquittal, since her question showed she was open to the idea of innocence? That must have been a big no-no in that way that when something's a big no-no, everyone in the room knows it but won't speak it out loud.

"I sat there knowing what was going to transpire next."

In We, The Jury, John Guinasso, Juror 8, tells how it went down. He describes Gorman, when she first brings up her web search, as like "a child who cannot hold a secret."

He writes, "As we were taking our seats, Gorman sat down first. Then I did. As the others were being seated, I slid the black jury binder across to Fran and pointed to the page where it stated that outside investigations were not permitted.

"She gave me a look of concern, followed by anxiety and tearing. (Translation: she started to cry.) I sat there knowing what was going to transpire next."

The other jurors were unaware of what would unfold. Juror 8 wrote a letter to Delucci about Gorman's investigation. "I knew this would only be used if no one else expressed concern about the matter," he said.

As it turned out, the other jurors, though they were "unaware of what would unfold," either brought up the issue, or Guinasso brought it up. He doesn't mention who brings the issue. What he does say is this:

To Juror 8's suprise, Juror No. 3 conveyed her concerns about Gorman's probe to the foreman (Jackson). Others indicated that they were concerned about a mistrial and the judge should decide Gorman's fate.

"I was so relieved that the majority supported my thoughts about Gorman," he wrote for the book. What happens next is that Jackson, as foreman, writes a note to the judge and the jurors are all called in to chambers to be questioned.

In chambers, the judge asked Juror 8 what he thought of Gorman. "I told the judge that if Juror No. 7 were to remain on the jury, it would taint the judicial process. I told him I did not want to be part of it if she remained."

Greg Beratlis, one of the other jurors, said Gorman's disclosure (about visiting the fishing web site) put the foreman in the spotlight.

"Jackson felt the screws were put to him," he said. "Juror 8 (Guinasso) said this is a mistrial if we allow this. Jackson said, 'Well, not necessarily.' John (Guinasso) said, 'what the hell kind of lawyer are you? You're our foreperson, and you're going to tell me if we allow this and keep it a secret this is not grounds for a mistrial?' That set off Jackson."

Juror 4 agreed with the decision that Gorman had to leave because of the threat of a mistrial. "It's not right for Laci and her unborn child to do anything but give them a fair trial, and it's not fair to Scott," he said. "We reminded ourselves many times to do that. We commended ourselves many times in doing that."

It's clear that at least some of the other jurors believed Juror number 8, a parking lot facility supervisor whose efforts had resulted in one juror being dismissed already, over a person educated in the law. What Gregory Jackson likely meant was that the juror's error needs to be of a certain magnitude to taint the proceedings in a meaningful way. But it apparently didn't matter what he said, because he was on the "wrong" side and was, they may have perceived, working against getting the verdict that the core of the group wanted.

Juror number 8 took the initiative in writing a letter to the judge before it was discussed among the jurors, and and I have to wonder how the subject came up. Did another juror just *happen* to bring it up, as Juror 8 was sitting there writing while Juror 7 cried across the table from him?

(page 150)

Fear. It must have been fear and pressure, because I can't think why jurors would turn on someone who had been through this with them for all that time and whose internet lookup. Fear of being on a jury whose verdict could be reversed seemed to loom large for the jurors, and obviously they wanted to do things by the book. The problem is, which book? How do you interpret the book? If Juror no. 8's writing the book, it means Gorman's mistake was so despicable that he told the judge he would refuse to participate if she stayed on the jury.

Whatever the case, the mutual respect these folks must have, should have had for each other, must have been wearing thin in the intensity of deliberations and the public brouhaha as the world held its breath waiting for their decision: an enormous amount of pressure, especially for people who had sat through such a long and tortured trial.

Turning against their own began somewhere, and maybe it began when Gregory Jackson wrote three verdict choices on the white board when he first got up to be foreman: Acquittal, Hung, Guilty. Juror 8 told him he could take acquittal off as an option. Maybe that was where the friction caught a spark and became truly bad vibes. Because, all these years later, it looks like there was rift on the jury and that became the fault line. Guilty/Acquittal. Not because Mr. Gregory Jackson was a smarty-pants, know-it-all who thought he'd just tell them all how to do it. But because he thought Peterson didn't do it. He didn't agree with them. His opinion was discredited, unfairly perhaps, by his peers.

So Fran Gorman had to go, maybe not because she looked up a fishing website, but for another reason: she supported Gregory Jackson as foreman.

Right after they got rid of her, they had another vote.

No Gorman, new Foreman.

Gregory Jackson did try to deal with the situation. He addressed the hostility in the jury room and was mocked in return by Juror 8, who said, "Guess you've never been to a union meeting!" No support for Jackson is noted from the other jurors in response. Anyone could have spoken up and reassured him that they were all working toward the same goal. Apparently, no one did.

Meanwhile, the media pressure was mounting. Mobs outside the courthouse. The intense hatred toward the defendant that had been nurtured along by the victim's family. Death threats against juror Falconer that prompted him to first get a pit bull, then move from the state. Gregory Jackson told the judge he felt threatened, and the judge dropped the ball. He didn't look into it. He knew damn well who was giving Jackson the evil eye. And if he didn't, it was his job to find out what was going on with those people. It was his court and two jurors had already been dismissed. Maybe Jackson, with his knowledge of law, thought surely the judge would not dismiss him, would do something else instead to rectify the situation. Interview the other jurors? Ask probing questions? Since he didn't even bother to ask Justin Falconer any probing questions, or instruct him on further behavior, why would he do anything differently this time? So, he didn't. Rather than investigating, he told Jackson he could fly off into the sunset, which is exactly what Jackson did, and what any thinking person might have done under the intense pressure that was prompting jurors to write later, "I just wanted to get out of there."

Not even a full day of deliberations later, the jury had their desired verdict and finally could go home, just in time for the weekend.

No, Jackson did the best he could do. And he should be regarded as a hero for speaking out clearly to the judge and sending the message that he couldn't be part of what was going down. He didn't quit. The rest of the jury quit on him. They quit listening.

Which is what half of deliberations are. Listening.

They quit deliberating.

They reached the verdict by other means.

My hat's off to Gregory. He tried.

Had they acquitted Peterson, what would have happened to all that blood-lust?

Is that a valid question? Jackson surely thought so. I agree.

Off Topic: Cobra Lily 2

2011-02-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

So far have managed not to kill this plant.
It likes soggy-wet soil, and I keep it in a bowl full of water
so that the humidity drifts upward. Spray it frequently.

Tim went to battle with the bugs and won, but before that happened,
the cobra lily got some bugs to eat, which is what those openings
at the top of the stalks are for.

It has a lot more stalks now than it did before.

This other plant, on the other hand, did not do so well after I replanted it. It was root-bound and needed new soil. I watered it thoroughly on the advice of a friend. I even trimmed back some of the thyme (the other plant in the pot, in the back, is rosemary).

I wish I knew how to keep this plant big and healthy because I sure do like it.

I discovered something I think Laci would have liked, which is that a bush of lavendar or else a pot of thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary or other herbs, sprayed with warm water, and placed on one's night table, makes for a very relaxing and lovely sleep.

"He Was Emotional...He Kept It Together" --Ted Rowlands

2011-02-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

Larry King Live January 28th 2003

TED ROWLANDS: Well, he's a pretty reserved guy. Today he was emotional a few times with us when he was talking about Laci specifically and his unborn son, Conner. For the most part he kept it together.

Actually he addressed it saying that he is forcing himself to keep it together because he says there's a level that you could drop to which you can't get out of and he doesn't want to get to that level.

As you saw in the "Good Morning America" interview he was emotional there especially with his family around him.

....He also confirmed a report. We had heard police found cement at his home and at his warehouse. He says, Yes, I had cement at both spots. I use cement for home construction and other things. So, he said that that's not uncommon. One thing I'd like to add, too, is that Scott Peterson doesn't appear to be like the typical person that maybe has lost his wife and child. But he doesn't appear like the typical guy, either, that could be responsible for this. And you feel that every time you talk to him, including today. You walk away from him and say, Boy, it is hard to fathom that this guy could kill not only his wife but his baby, just you know an 8-month-old baby.

So, you know, as far as appearance, he doesn't fit either one, I don't think.

More Poetic "Justice"

2011-02-03T17:48:00.001-08:00

Source: "Vance Holmes"

JUNE 23

Television "teasers" ran all day. CourtTV's Catherine Crier was going to expose damning evidence police had uncovered about Scott Peterson. The exclusive shocker was a poem Peterson had supposedly composed and recited for Amber Frey.

It was all so titillating and juicy, CTV anchor, Lisa Bloom -- appearing as a guest on the show -- could hardly wait, and urged Crier to hurry up and read Scott's guilty words. Crier cleared her throat and dramatically intoned:

The sun just slipped its note below my door
And I can't hide beneath my sheets
I've read the words before so now I know
The time has come again for me

The talk show host quipped that she did her best to read poetically -- but may have failed, and Lisa Bloom burst into laughter saying it was so poorly written "I don't know if it can be done!"

Bloom, daughter to Amber Frey's lawyer, blasted the text: "Oh boy. You know, I was an English major in college, okay? I spent some time deconstructing poetry. I wouldn't spend a lot of time treating it like this was Shakespeare. I think it is what it is -- it's a love poem and shows he wants to be with her but -- you know -- the guy's not a poet."

Perhaps the only thing worse than CourtTV's anchors laughing and insulting the poem -- and drawing guilty inferences from it -- is the painful fact that the words are actually lyrics from a Norah Jones song. The poem wasn't written by Scott Peterson. It is the poetry of Lee Alexander.

But Catherine Crier's ridiculous show DID manage to deliver Peterson trial-trackers an exclusive and very scary scoop. Crier read the rather frightening analysis of Norah Jones' song that was put forth by a detective from the Modesto Police. Notes from the literary investigation reveal much about the MPD's state of mind:

"I believe the sun represents the light, and the light represents the truth. Though the door may be closed, the light of the sun comes through the small opening under the door and brightens the room. It only takes a little bit of the truth to uncover the deception or wrong-doing found in darkness -- evil. He can't hide beneath the sheet to keep the light from shining in. The truth is too bright for the cover up."

Poetic*Justice: The Case That Rick Built

2011-02-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

From Poetic*Justice:

July 1, 2004

Finally, the continually criticized Peterson West prosecutor managed to generate some good press.

Sun Herald Online
Detective Boosts Peterson Prosecution

Modesto Bee
Distaso counters blow to testimony

San Jose Mercury News
Prosecution tantalizes jury with witness' story

New York Post
Scott's 'Perfect Murder' Fantasy

Fox News
Detective: Peterson Said He'd Sink Body

After days and days of the damaging cross-examination of Modesto Police Detective Brocchini, the DA knew he had to score a knock-out punch on re-direct. Joseph "Rick" Distaso came out swinging and elicited testimony that even dismissed Juror #5 admitted was shocking.

Brocchini said that during a conversation with a friend, Scott Peterson spoke of how he would dispose of a dead body. "He said he would tie a bag around the neck with duct tape," weight the body down and toss it into the ocean and "fish activity would eat away the neck and hands and the body would float up, no fingers, no teeth," making it impossible to identify, Brocchini said.

For the first time since his long-winded opening statement, prosecutor Distaso got the jury's attention.

Just before court broke for the long Fourth of July weekend, jurors found out that the man who phoned police with his incriminating tip recalled the conversation happened in 1995 when the defendant was 21-years-old, that the tip came in AFTER news that Laci Peterson's body had been recovered, and that police did not find the tipster to be the least bit credible.

When court convenes next week, jurors will find out another devastating detail: Detective Brocchini apparently made up that part about the duct tape.

Distaso's devastating testimony may well be cause for a complete dismissal of the case and Judge Delucchi's declaration of a mistrial.

"In a homicide case, the lead detective should be your No. 1 witness. He should be the one to connect the dots. He becomes like a narrator for the jury."
-- Dean Johnson, criminal defense lawyer

Sex, Pies and Video Tape

This is the video,
that mentions meringue,
that Detective Brocchini watched,
but failed to find,
which prompted him
to sign the affidavit, that cited the lie,
that convinced the judge,
that issued the search warrant,
that led to the wire taps,
that uncovered the mistress,
that dated the man
that told Brocchini
he watched Martha Stewart
who made the meringue
that led to the case that Rick built.

like sands through the hourglass...

Moments after meeting Shawn Sibley at a trade show in October 2002, Scott Peterson began to make lewd innuendos and sexual suggestions. The defendant dramatically described himself as a "horny bastard." He insisted he was single, and although he'd had a lot of one night stands with "bimbos" he was now on the prowl for a soulmate.

Sibley, who was engaged at the time, immediately knew the perfect hook-up for the sex starved stranger -- her best friend, Amber Frey.

Weeks later, when Sibley learned the horny bastard was married and confronted him about it, Peterson suddenly declared he had "lost his wife" and sobbed hyterically.

so go the days of the prosecution's case

"A murder trial is not about the morals of married men."
-- Judge Delucchi