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Recent
Stories
August
1, 2003
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns
Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem
Chris
Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Dan
Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
July 26 / 27, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
July
25, 2003
Francis
A. Boyle
Impeaching Bush
David
Krieger
15 Questions
Harvey
Wasserman
Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah
Steve Dunifer
Seize the Airwaves!
Dan
Bacher
Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River
Kurt Nimmo
Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Stop the Wall!
Hot Stories
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
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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Stop
Prison Rape Edition
August 1, 2003
A
Blow to the Grim Reaper
Ashcroft
Loses Big in Puerto Rico
By ELAINE CASSEL
Attorney General John Ashcroft has been trying
to shove the death penalty down the throats of jurors all over
the United States. He requires prosecutors to ask for it when
they know they can't sell it, or when they have promised a defendant
life instead of the possibility of death in exchange for cooperation.
Ashcroft can do that, you know, as chief law enforcement officer.
But what he cannot do is force juries to swallow the death penalty.
And now, he is 1-19 in cases in which
he insisted it be a sentencing option. This time, he got a resounding
defeat in Puerto Rico-yea, Puerto Rico. What's
Ashcroft doing trying to bring death to Puerto Rico, whose Constitution
forbids it? It is unheard of for a U.S. Attorney General
to meddle in the sentencing affairs of a territory like that.
But no one does arrogance better than Maximum John (well, maybe
his boss, George W., comes pretty close).
As reported in The New York Times, Puerto
Rican jurors not only rejected the death penalty, they acquitted
the defendants. Perhaps jury nullification was at work here--jurors
sending a message to Ashcroft to refrain from trying to subvert
their Constitution and community values and to keep his heavy-handed
madness he calls justice off their island. Indeed, the jurors
sent out a question challenging the federal government's jurisdiction
of the kidnapping-murder charge.
Recall that in the Eastern District of
Alexandria recently, Judge Gerald Lee Bruce threw out a jury
conviction on a murder-kidnapping charge, finding that the government
had brought the specious kidnapping charge in order to acquire
federal jurisdiction--and get the death penalty--in what was,
at best, a state murder charge.
The jury of seven men and five women
cleared the men, Joel Rivera Alejandro and Hector Oscar Acosta
Martinez, of all charges after three days of deliberation. Mr.
Alejandro and Mr. Acosta Martinez had been accused of shooting
to death and dismembering a grocery store owner in February 1998
after kidnapping him and not receiving the $1 million ransom
they demanded. The two men were released from federal custody
after the acquittal, while several dozen of the men's relatives
wept in the courtroom after the verdicts were read.
According to the Times report, William
D. Matthewman, a lawyer for Mr. Acosta Martinez, said last night
that the acquittal was a blow to the Justice Department's attempts
to administer the death penalty even in regions that oppose or
outlaw it for nonfederal trials. "Imposing the death penalty
in Puerto Rico is like pouring oil on one of their beautiful
beaches," Mr. Matthewman said in a phone interview. "It's
unnecessary, and the federal government has been dealt a severe
blow in their attempt to nationalize the death penalty."
Puerto Rico abolished capital punishment
in 1929 and has not had an execution since 1927, when a farm
worker found guilty of beheading his boss with a machete was
hanged. Much of the heavily Catholic population opposes the death
penalty on religious and moral grounds.
There is evidence that support for the
death penalty is eroding all over the in the States. Many reasons
account for this, not the least of which is an increasing awareness
that innocent people must have died, given the high rate of exonerations
based on DNA evidence. More than 100 innocent men have been released
from death row in the past ten years.
President Bush loves the death penalty
so much that he and his now White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales
barely reviewed the files of condemned Texans before they were
executed, a sad tale reported in the July-August issue of Atlantic
Monthly. And recall how Bush mocked Karla Faye Tucker's plea
for mercy during his 2000 presidential campaign.
We cannot expect Bush and Ashcroft to
use common sense or acquire compassion. We can expect that their
arrogance might catch up with them where it matters to their
hard hearts--at the polls.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers
law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend Edition Features for July 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
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