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Today's
Stories
January 8, 2004
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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January
8, 2004
Lies, Errors and Tedium
Inside
the DA's Office
By MARK SCARAMELLA
Unfortunately, there aren't many insider accounts
of closed institutions.
Writer Ted Conover wrote about being
a prison guard in "Newjack." Lawrence Wright wrote
about being a reporter for a Saudi Arabian newspaper in the New
Yorker. Ernie Fitzgerald wrote about corruption in Pentagon procurement
in "The High Priests of Waste." Neo-vegetarian Howard
Lyman wrote about his life as a cattleman in "Mad Cowboy."
Jonathan Harr wrote about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of
the country's biggest environmental lawsuit in "A Civil
Action"...
These occasional fascinating accounts
offer a glimpse into how closed institutions work, why and how
they do what they do -- or don't do what they should do.
Last year Sacramento Bee reporter Gary
Delsohn wrote about his year-long experience in the Sacramento
County District Attorney's office in "The
Prosecutors: A Year In The Life of a District Attorney's Office."
Surprisingly, Delsohn got Sacramento
County DA Jan Scully to give him a desk in her sprawling offices
to observe the operation for an entire year with only two conditions:
1. He couldn't write about open cases, and 2. He had to clear
prosecutor quotes with Scully prior to publication. The second
condition wasn't enforced because Delsohn didn't use any potentially
offending quotes about his near-coworkers.
Although we get lots of real and fictional
accounts of the actions of District Attorneys in the popular
media, and we may think we know a little about what DAs do, we
seldom hear what really goes on behind the DA's door. Delsohn's
book promised to fill the gap.
But Delsohn fails to deliver.
He spends too much time on trials, and
not nearly enough on the inner workings of the prosecutor's office;
focuses only on high-profile murder cases; doesn't do enough
case follow-up, failing to note the nature of any appeals, or
of any appellate actions the DA was involved in; spends too much
time quoting prosecutors' on-the-record closing statements and
those of victim families; and is very one-sided in his portrayal
of the prosecutors as uniformly fine, sympathetic upstanding
characters triumphing over the bad guys, detectives' lapses and
defense attorney machinations.
Besides describing some of behind the
scenes negotiations in the Symbionese Liberation Army's 25-year
old Emily Harris et al murder case (at a bank in Carmichael,
a suburb of Sacramento), the book does at least remind us of
some important aspects of the judicial system.
Prosecutors, investigators and cops can
and do routinely lie -- as do criminals, of course. Lies and
personalities have become an important part of a supposedly truth-seeking,
impartial justice system. Cops, prosecutors and investigators
can say things like, "The other guy already told us all
about it." Or, "We have your fingerprints on the murder
weapon." Or, "We have a witnesses who saw you..."
Even when it's not true.
Enormous amounts of resources are expended
in prosecuting obviously guilty people just so that the defendant
can take a shot at a lighter sentence. In one case Delsohn relates,
more than four years and millions of dollars were used to put
away a murdering gang-banger who, along with his teenage associates,
killed a defenseless bread store clerk with a sawed off Mossberg
12-gauge shotgun in the commission of a robbery when the gang
banger got pissed off because the bread store didn't have much
money when they robbed it. The investigation only required following
up on a tip from a former friend of the gang-banger and getting
one of his teenage assistants to testify against the shotgun-wielder
in exchange for a lighter sentence. The only reason for the (costly)
trial was that the murdering scumbag thought he might escape
the death penalty. He did.
Standards of prosecution in DA's offices
are very high. In serious crimes, DAs want a well-documented
and fully researched case before they go to trial. That's not
easy -- it's one of the reasons plea bargains are so common.
Convincing a jury to convict on an initial charge can be much
harder and more expensive than convincing a defendant to plead
to a lesser charge. Because of the Three Strikes Law and the
long sentences nonviolent offenders face under it, many in this
category have no real choice but to exercise their right to a
jury trial, seriously burdening the judicial system and greatly
increasing the cost -- even where there's little question of
guilt. Another reason DA's offices like plea bargains is that
cops and investigators routinely screw up, at least in terms
of prosecuting the case. They don't get enough evidence, screw
up the crime scene, make procedural errors. They miss opportunities
to interrogate suspects before they clam up. And they don't have
to disclose their screw ups to the defense.
Although prosecution standards are high,
the criteria for success is relatively low. Prosecutors consider
plea bargains and ordinary convictions as successes, even if
the resulting sentence looks light to ordinary citizens.
Most alleged perps are pretty stupid.
You'd think suspects in serious cases would at least know by
now not to show up for interviews with seemingly friendly cops
and investigators without a lawyer. Or not to make transparently
disprovable statements on tape that make them sound guilty even
if they're not.
Prosecutors have tremendous discretion
in how they charge cases -- particularly their discretion as
to who will face a possible death sentence. Even in death penalty
cases, the decision to seek the death penalty can be based on
one senior prosecutor's personal desires.
Most legal work is dull and plodding.
But any ordinary follower of the judicial
system who might pick up Delsohn's book already knows these things.
By telling us mostly what we know using
tedious courtroom transcriptions and ignoring the smaller cases,
the errors, the personality conflicts, the working conditions,
the office politics, the incompetence, etc., Delsohn's book becomes
more of a PR job for the DA. (Which may have been Scully's intent
in the first place.)
But you do have to admire the usually
mediaphobic Sacramento DA for even letting Delsohn in. I don't
think our popular local Mendocino DA Norm Vroman, although well-known
for his relative openness, would let me spend a year in his office.
Mark Scaramella
is the managing editor of the Anderson
Valley Advertiser. He can be reached at: themaj@pacific.net
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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