There’s plenty to mull over in Joe Hagan’s excellent profile of Liz Cheney featured over the weekend in New York magazine. There’s focus on her role as her father’s bulldog, her own political future (dare we whisper, “President Cheney?”), her willingness to aggressively deny reality in defense of her father, Michael Goldfarb’s admission that he has “a little crush on her.” (“It’s hard not to!” he gushes.)

But perhaps the most disturbing bits are not about Cheney at all, but rather about the current state of the Village, and the press that waits upon m’lords and ladies. First, here’s what she’s up to, and here’s her mission:

She has spent nearly every day since her father’s departure from the White House attempting to extricate him from the jaws of infamy by turning current events into a referendum on his policies. Casting herself as his defense lawyer, she has appeared on television 40-odd times in the last year. And she’s conducting the research for a Dick Cheney memoir, a book she persuaded her father to write.

Forty-odd times on TV. Interesting, that. But not nearly as interesting as this part:

When her father has something to say about Obama, the former vice-president takes a break from the book to prepare a political attack, feeding statements to his preferred media conduit, Politico.com.

Yeah, you bet your sweet ass that’s emphasis added. There’s something that should go on the masthead: “Politico: Dick Cheney’s preferred media conduit when launching political attacks against President Obama.” Truth in advertising and all that.

Still, while Politico’s the most obvious go-to outlet for the Cheney Dynasty, it’s clear from reading the article that there’s enough nudge nudge palling around in The Village to make a mockery of the traditional media’s claim to professional objectivity. Politico’s not the only oh-so-cozy Cheney pet (it’s just the favorite!). Consider this:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC pundit who engaged in a particularly testy shouting match on Good Morning America with Liz Cheney over waterboarding, says the networks have allowed her a high degree of control over her appearances. “She had up to that point been completely accustomed to having interviews go her way and ceded on her terms,” he observes. “She has been careful to make sure that the interviews worked that way.”

Or this:

Liz’s friends say she sets the bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men and 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Girl Scout meetings, and is frequently spotted on the sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, and other power players whose kids go to the Country Day School or the Potomac School.

“That’s the bar for “all-American normality?” Palling around with the former head of the DNC and Post reporters between appearances on (40-odd) talk shows that are “ceded” on her own terms? This idea that the national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power they cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, then turn around and hold their feet to the fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who’s ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.

But the Village? Meh. They have their own rules. And cupcakes.

Willie D. Clark’s defense team presented witnesses Friday who said Daniel “Ponytail” Harris was behaving aggressively the morning Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was killed and that the fatal shots may have come from a green sport u…

Since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in the landmark 1976 case of Gregg v Georgia, 1,195 people have been executed in the United States. Texas is often considered the epicenter of the death penalty, accounting for 449 executions. But executions are not evenly distributed across Texas. Harris County – home to Houston – is the true capital of capital punishment. With 112 executions, Harris County has executed about the same number of offenders as all of the other major urban counties in Texas, combined. In fact, if Harris County were a state it would rank second in executions after Texas.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Harris County is also the largest jurisdiction in the nation to use the appointment method of indigent defense – meaning the judge assigns a private defense attorney to the case. Critics have argued that the appointment method is plagued by five problems: (1) flat fee compensation (defense counsel receives a standard fee regardless of the number of hours worked, so each hour of work reduces the rate of compensation and detracts from private clients); (2) the potential for insufficient support services (defense counsel must receive approval from the judge to hire support services such as investigators and experts); (3) a potential conflict of interest for the defense attorney (defense counsel’s personal income depends on remaining in the good graces of the judge to secure future appointments); (4) a potential conflict of interest for the judge (the judge must balance the defense counsel’s requests for support services with the county commissioner’s requests to control the costs of indigent defense; the judge must also consider the possibility that generous spending on indigent defense could hurt his/her chances of re-election); and (5) questionable appointment practices (some evidence suggests that judges occasionally make appointments for inappropriate reasons, such as whether the potential appointee is a friend or campaign contributor).

Despite such serious criticisms, researchers have not answered the most basic questions: Do procedural problems produce differences in case outcomes? Is the district attorney (DA) more likely to seek death against defendants who have appointed counsel? Is the jury more likely to impose death against defendants who have appointed counsel? Put differently, is the appointment method merely procedurally flawed or truly a matter of life and death?

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We’ve mentioned this before — earlier today, in Morning Docket, and last night, on Twitter — but this story merits further discussion. It has been discussed extensively by various news outlets and blogs (links collected below).

The most detailed account comes from the New York Law Journal:

Three judges from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer — took the witness stand Tuesday in the Brooklyn trial of Harold Turner, the New Jersey blogger charged with encouraging his readers to murder the three judges as retribution for their decision upholding a Chicago handgun ban.

Easterbrook told the jury that upon reading Turner’s posts his “principal concern was that somebody would try to come kill me or shoot me or blow me up.”

If “concern” was induced in the bear-like Judge Easterbrook (pictured) — who makes advocates appearing before him wet themselves in fear, and who spends his free time traipsing around the wilds of Alaska, where he has a second home — then clearly the threat was serious.

Additional discussion — including cross-examination highlights, an eyewitness report from an ATL tipster, and tidbits about one of the prosecutors — after the jump.

Chief Judge Easterbrook wasn’t the only judicial celebrity to take the stand — or even, arguably, the biggest. From A.G. Sulzberger — yes, that A.G. Sulzberger — of the New York Times:

His words barely filling the room, the witness timidly held his hand aloft to be sworn in….

“How are you employed?” a lawyer asked.

“I’m a United States circuit judge.”

The witness — Richard A. Posner, one of the most prolific members of the federal judiciary and a judge in the federal appeals court in Chicago — kicked off a highly unusual day in United States District Court in Brooklyn. He and three other sitting judges from the same court in Chicago were prosecution witnesses.

Sulzberger raises the possibility that Judge Posner spoke so quietly out of either fear, since Hal Turner was seated nearby, or awkwardness, since Posner is used to asking the questions in a courtroom (not being asked). But we suspect that Judge Posner was just being his usual soft-spoken self. Check out the podcast of the event we did at U. Chicago with Judge Posner, Judges as Public Figures; he’s not a very loud man.

Considering Judge Posner’s celebrity — he’s one of the few federal judges in America, outside of Supreme Court justices, who has name recognition outside the legal community — this is just plain embarrassing. From the NYLJ:

At one point, before being cut off by [presiding judge Donald] Walter, Posner — the author of more than two dozen books on the law — began to describe the contents of an e-mail he received regarding Turner’s posts, a hearsay violation straight out of the first day of Evidence.

Posner later answered a question long held by many of those familiar with his work: how to pronounce his name. The judge told [defense lawyer Nishay] Sanan that the correct pronunciation of his name is “pose-ner” not “pause-ner.”

Sanan continued to pronounce it “pause-ner” nonetheless.

Perhaps they don’t read much Posner at John Marshall Law School.

The defense’s inept questioning of Chief Judge Easterbrook was even more mortifying:

The cross-examination of Easterbrook, however, proved to be riveting drama and a primer on constitutional law. It also featured a series of stumbles by the defense….

[Defense lawyer Michael] Orozco challenged Easterbrook, 61, on the merits of the decision in National Rifle Association v. Chicago, the opinion that spurred Turner’s alleged threats and which was written by Easterbrook.

After suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court had heard the National Rifle Association’s appeal of the case Tuesday morning, Orozco asked the judge, “If it’s overturned, doesn’t that mean Hal Turner is correct?”

At that point, laughter was heard through the courtroom.p>Judge Easterbrook said no, for two reasons. First, the central issue — whether the Second Amendment applies to the states — is one for the Supreme Court, the judge said. Therefore, a reversal would in fact confirm that the case had been rightly decided.

“Secondly,” Easterbrook, now piqued, said, “What Mr. Turner’s blog post says is that anybody who decides a case incorrectly should be assassinated. That is not the way the system is supposed to work.”

Ouch. Judge Eastebrook may have been occupying the witness stand instead of the judge’s chair, but that was still a benchslap.

Orozco then followed up with another argument regarding the merits of National Rifle Association v. Chicago, citing the supremacy clause.

“No, you simply are not grasping the case,” Easterbrook said, a line he repeated throughout his cross-examination. The judge then went on to give an extended history of the Fourteenth Amendment and its relationship to the Second Amendment, and U.S. Supreme Court precedent regarding both amendments dating back to 1873.

This sounds like the con law version of My Cousin Vinny. Not surprisingly, the testifying judges drew a large crowd — which appreciated the clever quips. From an ATL tipster:

[T]here were E.D.N.Y. judges, law clerks (including Second Circuit clerks), and court personnel in the gallery section of the courtroom while Posner et al. testified. All seemed interested and following closely. The testifying judges were very witty and cool under cross examination.

Perhaps the judges’ performance on the stand will lead to a better result this time around. An earlier trial ended with a mistrial.

P.S. One of the prosecutors handling the case, assistant U.S. attorney William Hogan, is a veteran AUSA — with a bit of a past. Some of his litigation experience was acquired while fighting — successfully, mind you — with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

7th Circuit Judges Testify in Trial Over Blogger’s Web Threats [New York Law Journal via How Appealing]
3 U.S. Judges Testify in a Death Threat Case [New York Times]
Judges testify against shock jock Harold (Hal) Turner [New York Daily News]
Judges testify that they feared for their lives after blog post by North Bergen shock jock Hal Turner [Bergen Record via How Appealing]
Posner, Easterbrook, Bauer, Take Stand Against Radio Shock Jock [WSJ Law Blog]
Role Reversal: Judges Posner And Easterbrook Take Stand Against Blogger Who Threatened To Kill Them [Business Insider / Law Review]
Allegedly Threatened Chicago Judges Cleared to Testify at Brooklyn Retrial [New York Law Journal]

Hal Turner – United States – New Jersey – Supreme Court – Richard Posner

The new Missile Defense Agency logo has bombed in certain circles.

Critics say it looks to much like any number of well-known symbols, including the logo for the Iranian space agency:

The new Pepsi logo:

The Islamic star and crescent sy…

Across the country, public defender offices are underfunded and understaffed, drowning in overwhelming caseloads. Public defenders are dedicated lawyers trying their best to represent their clients in often-impossible circumstances. Even worse, in many areas around the country, there are no public defender systems at all, resulting in a haphazard system of appointing lawyers who may be unprepared, without sufficient resources, and have no relevant experience.

It has been nearly 50 years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright decreeing that there is a constitutional right to a lawyer in criminal cases and that the government must provide one if the defendant cannot afford one. The Court recognized that well-trained and adequately resourced defense lawyers are the best way to determine whether the right person has been arrested for a crime. Yet states and localities are not providing the funds to pay for these lawyers, meaning that poor people are languishing in jail at the taxpayers’ expense with no real opportunity to mount a defense.

While funding for indigent defense has increased since Gideon was decided, funding is woefully inadequate and the current economic crisis confronting many state and local governments is exacerbating the situation tremendously.

The U.S. Department of Justice has just hosted a National Symposium on Indigent Defense, the first of its kind in 10 years. One of the goals of the Symposium was to look at America’s indigent defense systems in each state from top to bottom, and to examine both successful and failed attempts at indigent defense reform. Attendees committed to working together to craft new ideas for successful reforms, while forging alliances and building partnerships to achieve them. We applaud the Department of Justice’s leadership in hosting this Symposium. It is a much-needed effort to spotlight the failings of the nation’s criminal justice system and the crises persisting in state public defense programs.

However, the Symposium is, in our view, only the beginning of the work that must be done to fulfill the promise of Gideon.

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Joe Sudbay has an update on the DADT blogswarm a number of progressive blogs participated in yesterday, spurred by a new post at HuffPo by the Palm Center’s Nathaniel Frank, one of the nation’s leading experts on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Frank writes:

Yet despite the military’s move to relax and soon do away with “don’t ask, don’t tell,” repeal in Congress is in grave peril. This is so even though the much-vaunted super-majority in the senate is not necessary to repeal the current policy. As Sen. Carl Levin, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee explained to his colleague, Sen. Joe Lieberman, an amendment to repeal the policy can be added to the must-pass Defense Authorization bill, which would turn the tables on the “no-to-everything” Republicans: the amendment would require a supermajority not to pass, but to remove, meaning that in order to keep the ban in place, the GOP would have to block the entire Pentagon spending bill, publicly undercutting the military….

So what’s the hold up? President Obama has said he will work with Congress “this year” to lift the ban. (Sen. Levin could put repeal into the Chairman’s mark, but it’s not clear he has the incentive to do so.) But Obama has also said he’d like Congress to take the lead. Sound familiar? In an interview in 2009, Obama finally acknowledged that this very same tactic with healthcare was a mistake: “I, out of an effort to give Congress the ability to do their thing and not step on their toes, probably left too much ambiguity out there, which allowed the opponents of reform to come in and to fill up the airwaves with a lot of nonsense.” Sure enough, despite momentum toward repeal of the gay ban, the airwaves are beginning to fill with balderdash about openly gay service leading to a draft and, horror of horrors, government endorsement of tattoos.

Like the various bloggers who’ve been writing about this, Frank puts the responsibility for influencing Obama on the issue on the HRC, the most influential rights group in the gay community, which he says “has been accused of championing repeal publicly, while privately assuring the White House that it can continue to go slow.”

Another organization is joining in the call to get HRC on board with this effort. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) blogs:

We join the blog swarm’s call for DADT repeal this year. The best way to erase the law from the books in 2010 is for the Obama Administration to include repeal in the defense authorization bill and then for Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to also include repeal of the law in the defense bill he reports out of his committee. Find out what you can do here.

As we have noted before, Congress must repeal DADT this year while the Department of Defense conducts its study. Both can and should happen concurrently. DoD’s study Working Group should not hold up legislative repeal this year, since the study Working Group is not looking at if the law should be repealed but how.

We agree with Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) when he said earlier this month, “A study should not unduly delay taking our last steps toward final action.” Congress must go ahead and do its part to dismantle the law now through the defense authorization bill, and the White House must be pushing that too.

This really is no longer the political hot potato it used to be. Rank and file members of the military have long gotten over having a problem with serving with gays and lesbians, and a solid majority of the American public doesn’t care either. The White House including the repeal in its defense budget is the cleanest, quickest way to do it.

Ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell really isn’t the controversial issue that politicians who are afraid of taking action would have you believe, particularly in the institution that would be most affected, the military itself. That’s not just a liberal blogger’s interpretation. Here’s Admiral Mullen:

AMMAN, Jordan — Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was nearing the end of a 25-minute question and answer session with troops serving here when he raised a topic of his own: “No one’s asked me about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” he said.

As it turned out, none of the two dozen or so men or women who met with Mullen at Marine House in the Jordanian capital Tuesday had any questions on the 17-year-old policy that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military — or Mullen’s public advocacy of its repeal.

Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Darryl E. Robinson, who’s the operations coordinator for defense attache’s office at the U.S. Embassy here, explained why after the session. “The U.S. military was always at the forefront of social change,” he said. “We didn’t wait for laws to change.”

….

After Tuesday’s question-and-answer session, Mullen told McClatchy that although he’s held three town hall sessions with troops since his testimony, not a single service member has asked him about the issue.

At Tuesday’s session, which included not only Marines, but members of the Army and the Air Force, both male and female service members explained why they were nonplussed by the issue: They’d already served with gays and lesbians, they accepted that some kind of change was imminent, and, they said, the nation was too engulfed in two wars for a prolonged debate about it.

That there’s been so little reaction raises questions about how much study the issue needs and whether the Pentagon study is meant to pacify its concerns — or Congress’.

There’s little question at this point the issue is far more political than practical. As Staff Sgt. Peppur Alexander, a 14-year veteran of the Army told McClatchy, “We have lost good soldiers because of that because they wanted to be who they are. It’s sad.” It’s sad, and it’s no longer necessary. The solution is as simple as the White House including the repeal language in the defense budget they send to Congress, because Congress isn’t going to prevent a defense budget–of all things–from passing.

The Republicans have shown that a minority can control Congressional outcomes. The Democrats advance policies. The Republicans, rather than bargaining for something in return,…

Pete King, Kit Bond and Lindsey Graham have all called for John Brennan’s head in recent days — King and Graham have cited Brennan’s defense of the estimated 20 percent recidivism rate at Guantanamo Bay as proof he’s not fit to serve.

King w…

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced that its high-powered airborne laser successfully shot down a ballistic missile during a recent test.

The Airborne Laser Testbed’s in-air destruction of the missile took place on Thursday evening in c…

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," the ban on openly gay service members, should be repealed.

"Last week, during the State of the Union address, the President announced that he will work with Congress this year to repeal the law known as ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,’" Gates said in prepared testimony. "He subsequently directed the Department of Defense to begin preparations necessary for a repeal of the current law and policy.

"I fully support the President’s decisions," Gates continued. "The question is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it. We have received our orders from the Commander in Chief and we are moving out accordingly. However, we also can only take this process so far as the ultimate decision rests with you, the Congress."

Adm. Mullen said, "No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," The New York Times reported.

Mullen added that "allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do."

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