Last month, California Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan ordered the release of convicted child molester Augustin Uribe due to “numerous acts of misconduct” by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Uribe’s conviction was overturned in 2008 after a videotape taken during a physical examination of the alleged victim called into doubt whether she had actually been assaulted. The video was never handed over to defense attorneys. The alleged victim has since recanted her accusation.

Shortly after Judge Bryan’s decision, Santa Clara County DA Dolores Carr put out a press release announcing her office would be boycotting Judge Bryan’s courtroom, a move a San Jose Mercury News editorial called “extreme, highly unusual, and broadly criticized by experts in legal ethics as a direct challenge to the independence of the court.”

Carr, who was elected in 2006 on a platform promising to reform the DA office’s win-at-all-costs mentality, lost sight of that objective rather quickly. I wrote a short piece last July about several related incidents:

In 2007 the San Jose Mercury News revealed that Deputy District Attorney Jaime Stringfield of Santa Clara County, California, had introduced a fake DNA report into evidence in a sex abuse case. In February, responding to the revelation that the district attorney’s office had failed to turn over thousands of videotaped interviews with suspects, many of which contained exculpatory information, the county public defender’s office announced that it would review 1,500 sex abuse cases for possible wrongful convictions. Later that month, a state bar judge suspended Deputy District Attorney Ben Field’s law license for four years based on misconduct in four criminal cases dating back to 1995. And in March, the Mercury News reported that in hundreds of cases, officials at the county crime lab didn’t tell prosecutors or defense attorneys when their experts couldn’t agree on fingerprint matches…

At a February meeting of county prosecutors, Carr vowed that none of her staff would be “thrown under the bus” as a result of the scandals. Immediately after the state bar’s decision to suspend Field’s license—the harshest penalty imposed on a state attorney in 20 years—Carr announced that Field would continue working for her office while he appealed the ruling. She also vowed to help limit the ability of the state bar to punish prosecutors for misconduct.

Since that piece ran, the number of tapes the DA’s office should have turned over to defense attorneys but didn’t has risen to more than 3,300.

I’ve written before about how rarely bad prosecutors are disciplined for their mistakes, even when those mistakes send innocent people to prison. It’s probably not surprising, then, to see some who hold the position come to view that lack of discipline as an entitlement. Carr seems to have lots of invective for the people who want to hold her deupties accountable, but little for the prosecutors who actually broke the rules.

Unfortunately, the political process doesn’t appear capable of holding Carr acountable, either. She’s favored to win reelection this year.

• Virginia college students caught throwing snowballs at an unmarked police car charged with “throwing missiles at occupied vehicles,” a felony. I’m sure terrorism charges are on the way.
• The Mayans are messing with us.
• Lede: “A Torrance police sergeant will not be charged in an off-duty hit-and-run collision, although he admitted he fled because his “judgment was impaired by alcohol,” according to prosecutors.”
• Jessica, Tony, and Kevin get an A+!
• More felony, child porn charges for “sexting” teens.
• Studies find that race, gender of judges have significant impact on rulings.

George Mason University Econ Chair Don Boudreaux summarizes my feelings as well in this letter to the editor of the Washington Post.

Your favorable front-page remembrance of the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha inadvertently testifies to the abysmally low standards to which politicians are held (”John Murtha dies; longtime congressman was master of pork-barrel politics,” Feb. 9).  By your own account, Mr. Murtha was the “King of Pork.”  He was known for skillfully using Congressional procedures to earmark funds for his district – that is, to prompt Uncle Sam to take money from Americans at large and give it to the relatively small number of Pennsylvanians who elect Mr. Murtha to office.

His justification? “I take care of my district.”  Nothing here about spending taxpayer money wisely; nothing about the general welfare; nothing about principles or fiscal responsibility.

If Mr. Murtha on his own had traveled the country picking pockets, robbing banks, and burgling houses, only to bring the booty back to western PA and share it with his friends, he would have been rightly despised as a common criminal.  But because Mr. Murtha joined forces with persons having similarly questionable morals, who together pass off their thievery as “lawmaking,” he’s celebrated in your pages – celebrated for doing, save on a grander scale, exactly what common thieves do.

And I’m sure it’s pure coincidence that many of the recipients of those earmarks just happened to be companies owned by or that employed Murtha’s friends and relatives.

The media loves to venerate politicians when they pass, simply because they were politicians. Doesn’t seem to matter what sort of scoundrels they really were.

We’re getting another 10-20 inches of snow, starting tonight. This is getting a bit ridiculous. At least Fairbanks has the Northern Lights.

So I’m wondering how many people saw the commercial below last night and not only didn’t find it farcical, satirical or horrifying, but were kind of okay with what they were seeing.

Maybe it’s my nutty libertarianism kicking in, but I actually initially thought it was some sort of PSA. Something like, “Do you part now, so it doesn’t have to get to this later.”

My crime column this week looks at that question in light of the 25oth DNA exoneration last week.

A quick roundup of recent stories on law enforcement officials and DWI laws…

• Ten police officers in Westchester County, New York admit to local newspaper that they routinely let other officers off after catching them driving drunk off duty.
• Off-duty, possibly drunk South Carolina officer pulled over after a chase demands “professional courtesy” she says is customarily granted to other officers. She was charged with reckless driving and disorderly conduct, but wasn’t arrested or given a breath test, and was allowed to go home.
• Chicago police officer shown to have faked dozens of DWI arrests won’t face criminal charges.
• Off-duty Massachusetts state police lieutenant crashes into pickup truck, causing the truck to flip several times. Officer admitted drinking earlier in the day and two open beer cans were found in his car. Other officers don’t administer field sobriety test for 2 1/2 hours, after allowing him to talk to his attorney. He was also never given breath or blood tests. He did get a $20 traffic ticket.
• From last year, DWI charges dropped against Nevada DA who caused two crashes within six hours while in California, and tested over the legal limit after the second. He was allowed to plead to reckless driving.

Via Mark Frauenfelder’s Twitter feed, this picture is pretty funny.

Noel St. John, quasi-official photographer of TheAgitator.com, made this very cool time-lapse animation of the D.C.-area’s blizzard this past weekend.

Writing in Politico, Chris Preble of the (right-wing extremist!) Cato Institute and Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network debunk the bipartisan Washington consensus that military spending should always be off-limits to budget freezes. For a proposal so outside the Beltway mainstream, their action plan sounds pretty reasonable:

But ultimately, because our national security rests on our economic health as well as on the strength of our military, a liberal and a libertarian can agree that the Pentagon should no longer get a pass. Congress must stop funding projects to satisfy parochial domestic interests. The Pentagon must stop buying weapons systems that are already outdated, unworkable or both. And the administration must carefully define our vital security interests, reshape our grand strategy to more equitably distribute the burdens of policing the globe and reduce the occasions when our military will be called on to fight.

This one will be tougher to pull off…

For nearly two decades, Republicans and Democrats in Washington have deployed the U.S. military as a police force of first resort. Now is the time for a change.

We might also change the odd policy of not including war spending when calculating the federal budget deficit.

• Last night’s silliest attempt to make political hay of the Super Bowl comes from The Nation’s Katrina vandenHeuvel.
• Up . . . and over.
• South Carolina passes vague statute requiring “subversives” to register with the government.
• Super Bowl Sunday-domestic violence link debunked.
• GOP deficit hawks get dovish when it comes to spending on their favorite projects.
• Two Supreme Court vacancies may be coming.

Alexandria, Virginia.

Kudos to Mississippi State Rep. Bob Evans, who astute readers will also recognize is Cory Maye’s chief counsel.

Evans has introduced a bill (PDF) in the Mississippi legislature explicitly making it legal to videotape or record an on-duty police officer, firefighter, or conservation officer.

Two streets in my neighborhood that lie right next to one another. Photos were taken within seconds of one another. The street on the left is a main road. The street on the right is a service road. The service road is owned by the city, but for all practical purposes, it’s private. All of the parking spaces along the side are the property of the people who live in the houses that line the street. The street is one-way, and it’s only used by the people who own or rent those spaces. Anyone passing through obviously takes the main road. The city will eventually get around to plowing the main road. The city never plows the service road. Less than 24 hours after the blizzard, guess which road is clear, and which is suitable only for four-wheel drive vehicles?

More snow-themed econ here.

MORE: Some of you seem to have missed the point of the post. I’m not criticizing the city for not getting to the main road. It’s only been a day, and we got the largest snowfall in the area’s recorded history. The point is that where people expect the city to send eventually plows, the road is still snowed. Where the city has no history of sending a plow, and isn’t likely to, residents grabbed shovels, and cleared the road in 24 hours.

Got my front door open. Did some shoveling. Took some pictures. Today we have a bright winter sun. It’s beautiful on the snow, if a bit blinding. Hoping to get to Old Town before the Super Bowl this evening to snap some more pics.

On to the links . . .

• This picture should be a poster.
• From the files of great newspaper corrections.
• DEA agent accused of working with informant to frame innocent people is acquitted on all counts. Amazing how trustworthy these informants are when they’re being used against regular people, and how shady they become when they start accusing law enforcement of misconduct.
• New York City police no longer using flash bang grenades. This is a good thing.
• Puppycide in Colorado. I’ve made this point before, but how is that this “vicious” dog never bit or attacked a mailman, a deliver man, or a meter reader?
• Conjure your inner Paul Oakenfold. And waste an afternoon. The thing is pretty great, until it starts to drive you batty.
• Federal agent driving SUV hits blogger for The Daily Caller, breaks his knee. Cops then lie on police report. More here.

Part 1: Daisy loses the ball.

Part 2: Daisy forgets about the ball.

Part 3: Screw you. I finally found it, I’m not giving it back so you can just throw it again.

So I am quite literally snowed in right now. Front door won’t open. It’s been crazy. Photos and videos of puppy snow frolicking forthcoming.

In the meantime….

• Actual sentence from an actual news story: “It’s designed for young girls ages 8 and older, but some say the mysterious product is a “dangerous spiritual game” that opens up anyone, particularly Christians, to attacks on their soul.”
• Because anything that tastes good is obviously an appeal to children.
• Looks like the former DA Texas Gov. Rick Perry appointed to head up the state’s forensics panel is doing all he can to make sure the panel does nothing to help the state’s forensics system.
• Here’s a good cop story: Bozeman, Montana cop buys food for man caught shoplifting school supplies for his kids.
• Time to renew my ACLU membership.
• Gun-free snowball fights. Novel idea!
• Twelve-year-old Queens girl hauled out of school in handcuffs for writing on desk.

Love it when I get a Google alert because something I’ve written was assigned in a college composition or rhetoric class.

This week: Won one, lost one.

Joe Henry’s “Channel,” from his new album Blood From Stars.

This is a beautiful, beautiful song.