The House ethics committee concludes that misconduct has no consequences:

House Republican leaders failed to protect young pages and interns from sexually suggestive advances by former Rep. Mark Foley and remained "willfully ignorant" of the consequences, an investigative panel of the House ethics committee reported Friday.

No discipline will be forthcoming because "no rules appeared to be broken." What does that say about the need for the next Congress to implement meaningful rules -- starting with a mandatory reporting requirement when members learn about sexually inappropriate behavior?

Leslie Vaughn Prater will be the last person who needlessly dies in police custody if his mother has her way. Prater suffocated as four Chattanooga police officers held him face down on the ground.

Prater negotiated a settlement of her wrongful death lawsuit that helps educate the city's officers.

Loretta Prater, a Southeast Missouri State University administrator, will teach three classes at the Chattanooga police academy about the death of her 37-year-old son, Leslie Vaughn Prater, said Sgt. Tom Layne Wednesday. She said her sessions with police recruits would give them a "sense of how important their role is when they are out there on the street."

The facts surrounding Prater's death aren't pretty.

You may recall that the New Hampshire Republican Party jammed telephone lines used by the state Democrats' "get out the vote" effort on Election Day 2002. The dirty trick sent more than one GOP operative to jail.

New Hampshire Democrats also sued the GOP. Republican lawyers argued that the Dems should recover nothing beyond the cost of renting the phones that the GOP rendered useless. The judge accepted the opposing argument: the Election Day calls were the culimination of seven months of work, seven months that were wasted when the calls couldn't be made. The judge will let the Dems seek the costs they incurred in the seven month get-out-the-vote drive, excluding costs (like signs and office rent) that can't be directly linked to the Republican phone-blocking scheme.

The ruling allows the Democrats to ask for millions of dollars in damages, rather than the $5,000 they spent on telephone rental.

Update: As a reader notes, the case settled soon after this ruling, with a GOP agreement to pay $125,000 to the Democrats and to donate money to two local charities.

Sometimes prosecutors say the worst things about defendants or their counsel during closing argument. Once in a while, an appeals court pays attention.

In a stabbing case that resulted in a second degree murder conviction in Maryland, here's what the prosecutor, then-Assistant State's Attorney Rex Gordon, said in rebuttal after the defense lawyer in closing pointed out discrepancies between the state witness' trial testimony and his prior statement given to police.

"I want you to remember that if any one of you . . . witness a murder and wound up sitting in that witness chair nine or 10 months later, some defense lawyer, somewhere in that trial, would be standing in front of a jury, making the snide and condescending and obnoxious comments about you."

Lynch's objection was overruled, and Gordon continued: "It is just their stock in trade. It is what they do when their client is guilty and there is no defense."

The court's ruling: Gordon's comments attacking defense attorneys as a group were an improper appeal to the prejudices of the jurors. Result: Conviction overturned, new trial ordered.

Herman Wallace has been in solitary confinement in a Louisiana prison since the 1970s. This week, a court commissioner recommended that Wallace's conviction be overturned.

[Commissioner] Morgan presided over a hearing in September where Wallace's lawyer argued that the conviction was tainted because prison officials had failed to inform the defense lawyer that prison authorities had bribed the star witness.

Wallace was convicted of stabbing a guard while serving a sentence at Angola. The Warden bought the testimony of one inmate witness against Wallace by promising him an early release, while another inmate received favors in exchange for testimony. The prosecution didn't tell Wallace's lawyers about the Warden's efforts to influence the witnesses.

The recommendation now goes to District Judge Michael Irwin, who will make the final decision.

Harris County, Virginia has a shortage of functioning law enforcement officers now that Sheriff Frank Cassell and more than a dozen of his deputies have been indicted. Twenty people are charged with a long list of federal crimes that include money laundering, conspiracy to distribute illicit drugs, and racketeering conspiracy.

U.S. Attorney John Brownlee outlined the case and charges at the press conference and called the defendants' alleged behavior "disgraceful corruption." He said many drugs and firearms were stolen from evidence and ended up back in the community that the sheriff's office is supposed to protect. One firearm seized in a raid was turned into evidence but later was somehow stolen and recovered upon execution of a search warrant at a "drug house," Brownlee said.

Among the more intesting allegations: "[Former Sgt. James] Vaught's rental house was used as a place for several officers of the Henry County Sheriff's Office to have extramarital affairs."

Here's the indictment (pdf).

You'll recall the Bush administration's admission that the Education Department secretly paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote No Child Left Behind, and the GAO's conclusion that the Department violated a law that prohibits the government from using covert propoganda to further a political agenda.

As a propogandist, Williams apparently didn't deliver to the administration's satisfaction. Williams agreed to settle the government's claim that he was overpaid.

In the settlement, the Justice Department examined whether Mr. Williams had performed the work promised in his $240,000 contract, signed in 2003 and cited in his reports to the Education Department.

Williams agreed to repay $34,000. The administration is evidently satisified that Williams delivered $206,000 worth of illegal propoganda.

Steven Howards and his son were walking by a Dick Cheney event this summer in Beaver Creek, on their way to a piano lesson. Howards told Cheney he didn't approve of his war policy. When Howards walked back from the lesson, passing the site again, he was arrested. Charges later were dropped.

Colorado First Amendment Lawyer David Lane (think Ward Churchill) sued the secret service agent today, for violating his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The full complaint is here (pdf). Here are the factual recitations:

House Speaker Denny Hastert's staff knew in 2005 that Rep. Mark Foley had had inappropriate e-mail contact with young pages. They say they told the Speaker in the spring of 2006. Hastert defends his inaction by saying he didn't know the contact had sexual, as opposed to just over-friendly tones to it. Yet, it was serious enough for Foley to be warned about it. Saturday, Hastert moved for a criminal probe.

Hastert moved for a criminal probe because his hand was forced by publicity and by other Congressmen refusing to take the fall alone. Had Hastert become aware of the explicit nature (pdf) of the e-mails through the Congressional grapevine without the press finding out, do you really think he would have called for a probe a month before the November elections? Of course not. He would have sat on it and allowed the creep to be re-elected and maintain his committee leadership positions.

There's more that defies credulity regarding Hastert's knowledge. Why was he told in the spring of 2006 but not the fall of 2005? How could John Boehner, Tom Reynolds, Rodney Alexander, the Clerk of the House and others know but not Hastert? Why wasn't a criminal probe launched then? Why wasn't Foley pressured to resign in the Spring of 2006?

by TChris

At least 110 arrests made by nine Chicago police officers won't lead to convictions, as the state's attorneys' office ordered prosecutors to drop the cases. The officers who made the arrests are no longer viewed as credible, with good reason: four of them are charged with "robbing, kidnapping and intimidating drug dealers," and the other five are under investigation.

The memo directs prosecutors to drop cases that may have been tainted by the officers' involvement, including those in which the officers made the arrest, signed a search warrant, gave information from an informant or recovered physical evidence. ... Earlier this month, prosecutors dropped at least 27 "tainted" drug and gun cases after the officers were arrested, including a case against two men who were nabbed last fall when police seized $15 million worth of cocaine, officials said.

by TChris

When an adversarial relationship exists, it's generally unethical for a lawyer to contact an individual represented by another lawyer without that lawyer's permission. It's particularly offensive when a prosecutor goes behind a defense lawyer's back to attempt a plea bargain with the defense lawyer's client. That misstep prompted the Tennessee Supreme Court to suspend temporarily the law license of District Attorney General Bill Gibson, who wrote to murder defendant Christopher Adams, seeking his commitment to plead to a lesser charge, without going through Adams' lawyer.

An interesting comment posted to the "story chat" section of the linked story suggests that the Herald-Citizen, like many newspapers, has been lax in reporting the poor job performance of the district attorneys' office:

If only the Herald-Citizen had been reporting on all the injustice instead of empowering Gibson and eating the pizza he drops by the newsroom on weekends.

Keith Longtin spent 8 months in jail after police interrogated him for 38 hours and got him to falsely confess to murdering his wife. A Prince George County, Va MD. jury has awarded him $6.8 million in damages.

Longtin, now 50, was released from jail only after DNA evidence found in his slain wife was matched with a serial rapist. The sexual offender was later convicted of the murder.

The Circuit Court jury awarded $5.2 million in compensatory damages to Longtin. It also leveled punitive damages of nearly $1.2 million against four county homicide detectives -- one of whom is retired -- who, the jury found, violated Longtin's civil rights.