Friday, February 27, 2015

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 27, 2015


If nothing else... check out today's FIRST newsbite.


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2 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/loretta-lynchs-secret-prosecutions-n294666

On November 8, 2014, President Obama nominated Loretta Lynch to succeed Eric Holder as Attorney General.

* ALTHOUGH... OR PERHAPS BECAUSE...

The office headed by the woman poised to become the next attorney general - New York's Brooklyn-based Eastern District - has used an unusual method to keep many of its prosecutions hidden from the public, an NBC News investigation has found.

* MEANING LYNCH HAS ALLOWED SUCH "UNUSUAL" - HIDDEN - METHODS TO BE USED. (ABUSED...???)

* HERE'RE THE STATS:

Federal prosecutors in New York's Brooklyn-based Eastern District pursued cases against secret, unnamed "John Doe" defendants 58 times since Loretta Lynch became head prosecutor in May 2010.

(Only two of the 58 are terrorism cases.)

* YES... ONLY TWO...

(*SIGH*)

Eastern District prosecutors have also sought permission to close the courtroom to the public for 11 different Doe cases during the same period, and judges have granted permission in at least 10 of the cases, as recently as February 12.

* SO MUCH FOR JUDGES STANDING UP FOR THE CONSTITUTION...

Critics are concerned the practice may infringe the Constitution's guarantee of a public trial.

* YA THINK...?!?!

"While pseudonyms may be appropriate in exceptional cases, the courts should always opt for more transparent methods of protecting sensitive information when available," said Lee Rowland, staff attorney of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. "The disproportionate number of John Doe cases in the Eastern District is certainly a cause for concern; complete secrecy about the parties in a case should never be a default option."

* AGAIN... YA THINK...?!?!

None of the nation's 93 other federal district courts has charged more than eight "Does" during the same time period, and the national average is under four.

In the two federal districts with similar pending criminal caseloads of approximately 3,000 cases (Arizona and the Southern District of California) there is only one case involving a "John Doe" defendant.

(*SMIRK*)

The alleged offenses prosecuted in the Brooklyn Doe cases include everything from drug trafficking, violent crimes, fraud and hacking to terrorism.

* WELCOME TO THE STAR CHAMBER, MY FRIENDS!

Two of the federal jurisdictions with the most significant track records of trying terror and organized crime cases do not use the Doe designation as frequently as the Eastern District, and haven't used them for terror cases. Since January 1, 2010 the U.S. Attorney's offices in the Southern District of New York and Eastern District of Virginia have pursued only five John Doe cases combined.

* FIVE...

* COMBINED...

In each of those cases, which were on child pornography, immigration, and narcotics charges, the "John Doe" designation appeared in the docket next to the defendant's alias - meaning an unconfirmed or suspected name or nickname.

* MEANING THE PROSECUTOR WASN'T TRYING TO HIDE THE NAME FROM THE PUBLIC - THE AUTHORITIES SIMPLY WEREN'T SURE OF THE REAL NAMES. (QUITE A DIFFERENT MODUS OPERANDI THAN THE ONE USED BY LYNCH.)

In a recent essay for the New York Review of Books, a federal judge warned about the secrecy that surrounds plea bargaining, and said that such a system "invites arbitrary results."

* "ARBITRARY RESULTS?" THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION...?!?! NAH... (*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*) (*GUFFAW*)

"There is a great irony," wrote Judge Jed Rakoff, "in the fact that legislative measures that were designed to rectify the perceived evils of disparity and arbitrariness in sentencing have empowered prosecutors to preside over a plea-bargaining system that is so secretive and without rules that we do not even know whether or not it operates in an arbitrary manner."

* YEAH... "IRONY." I SUPPOSE THAT'S ONE WORD FOR IT...

(*SIGHING WHILE SHAKING MY HEAD*)

February 27, 2015 at 11:51 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/02/27/february-2015-breaks-hundred-year-old-record/

* AND IN OTHER GLOBAL WARMING NEWS...

February 2015 officially broke the record as Denver’s snowiest February in history on Thursday evening.

February 27, 2015 at 11:52 AM

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