Just a quick rave on the John Hiatt/Lyle Lovett show Friday night. Off the top of my head, I’d say Philly’s Kimmel Center is the second best venue in which I’ve seen a show (Joe Henry at Lincoln Center–playing in front of a huge window with a New York City backdrop–was tops).

Hiatt and Lovett make for a musical odd couple. Lovett’s famously polite, well-mannered, and always impeccably dressed. Hiatt’s gruff and surly. Lovett’s articulate and witty. Hiatt, folksy and wry. They complement one another well. I’d never really pictured them touring together, but it makes some sense. Both are masterful storytellers, fantastic musicians, and they’re probably the two most prolific Americana singer-songwriters of the last quarter century. Case in point: We overheard one dimwit say at a bar after the show that he felt ripped off because, “it seems like those guys are just cover artists, singing other people’s songs.” Which is a little like the guy who says he doesn’t like Shakespeare because it’s full of cliches. Hiatt and Lovett wrote all the songs they played Friday night (with one exception, if memory serves). If you’re not a regular fan of either, the songs probably sounded familiar because other people cover them, particularly Hiatt, whose songs have been made hits by Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton and B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Healy, and Bob Dylan.

Anyway, for most of the show the two sat next to one another with acoustic guitars and traded songs and between-songs banter–with a couple of duets thrown in.

I heard my favorite Lyle Lovett song, and my favorite John Hiatt song, so I left happy.

MORE: Apologies to Scott Henson for my brain misfire in calling him Scott Horton.

Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo, who last summer was subjected to a particularly violent mistaken drug raid in which police shot and killed his two black labs, is helping push a new bill in the Maryland legislature that would require every SWAT team in the state to provide to the public “a monthly public report on its activities, including where and when it was deployed and whether an operation resulted in arrests, evidence seizures or injuries.”

This is a terrific first step, and the Maryland legislature needs to pass it. Part of the problem I’ve encountered reporting on this issue is that police departments tend to to be stingy with this sort of information. Even when it’s available, it’s often collected in ways that aren’t usable. Over the last few years, I’ve tried to file open records request for copies search warrants, evidence return sheets, and any other documentation of SWAT-related drug raids in several major cities. In addition to being quoted prohibitive copying and labor fees, I’ve also learned that search warrants and evidence return sheets are usually kept in separate places, making it arduous to match them up once a case has been resolved. In cases where a raid resulted in no charges, the warrants are actually often thrown out. Of course, those are the very cases we want to know about.

The bill Calvo’s pushing would begin to make data about SWAT teams available, so we can assess how often they’re used, in what situations they’re used, and, when they’re used in drug raids, how often they actually find not only illicit drugs, but the high-power weapons proponents say make these sorts of tactics necessary. In the few places this sort of analysis has been done, the results have been less than convincing.

Calvo’s bill would also show how many often Maryland’s SWAT teams hit the wrong home.

It’ll be interesting to see how the state’s police organizations react. Commenters to the Washington Post article who appear to be police officers seem to be miffed at even this small bit of transparency.

A forthcoming study from the National Academy of Sciences is expected to send shockwaves through the criminal justice system.

People who have seen it say it is a sweeping critique of many forensic methods that the police and prosecutors rely on, including fingerprinting, firearms identification and analysis of bite marks, blood spatter, hair and handwriting. The report says such analyses are often handled by poorly trained technicians who then exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court…

Legal experts expect that the report will give ammunition to defense lawyers seeking to discredit forensic procedures and expert witnesses in court. Lawyers could also use the findings in their attempts to overturn convictions based on spurious evidence. Judges are likely to use the findings to raise the bar for admissibility of certain types of forensic evidence and to rein in exaggerated expert testimony.

Law enforcement organizations have tried to derail the report nearly every step of the way. The report’s critique of forensic evidence is much needed, but the proposed solution doesn’t sound promising:

It concludes that Congress should create a federal agency to guarantee the independence of the field, which has been dominated by law enforcement agencies, say forensic professionals, scholars and scientists who have seen review copies of the study.

I wouldn’t mind seeing an agency within the Department of Justice devoted to investigating and prosecuting cases of forensic fraud. If prosecutors are conspiring with or pressuring experts to deny criminal defendants a fair trial, that would be a due process violation and under the Fourteenth Amendment, the federal government would be permitted, or even obligated, to step in. Certainly Mississippi, for example, has neglected its duty to ensure that its citizens accused of violent crimes are given a fair trial.

But setting aside wilful and criminal misconduct by forensic experts, the problems with the forensics system aren’t going to be resolved by creating a new federal bureaucracy. Lack of federal oversight isn’t the problem. According to the New York Times article linked above, for example, the NAS report is particularly critical of the FBI crime lab, long considered the gold standard in forensics, and whose technicians often advised state crime labs on best practices.

The problem with criminal forensics is the government monopoly on courtroom science in criminal trials. In too many states, forensic evidence is sent only to state-owned or state-operated crime labs. There’s no competition, no peer review, and in some cases, crime lab workers either report to or can be pressured by prosecutors when test results don’t confirm preexisting theories about how a crime may have occurred. This sort of bias can creep in unintentionally, or it can be more overt.  But studies show it’s always there. The only way to diminish is to bring competitors into the game, other labs who gain by revealing another lab’s mistakes.

Every other area of science is steered by the peer review process. It’s really unconscionable that criminal forensics—where there’s so much at stake—has existed and evolved so long without it. The fact that so many people have been convicted solely based on pseudo-sciences like bite mark and hair and fiber analysis, for example, ought to scare the hell out of us.

Roger Koppl wrote an excellent paper for the Reason Foundation (pdf) that outlines the problems with criminal forensics, and offers a series of reforms for ensuring that the science jurors hear in the courtroom is actually science. Koppl and I also co-wrote a shorter piece in Slate making essentially the same points. Koppl’s proposals sound radical, but only because we’re so used to the current system. What he’s proposing is really little more than applying basic scientific principles like peer review, blind testing, and repetition to the evidence and opinions currently presented in criminal cases as actual science.

And we need to start treating criminal forensic science like actual science, with all the skepticism and repetitive testing that comes with it. What we don’t need is another layer of government bureaucracy that imposes a series of negotiated, compromised-for standards and practices, then fails to properly enforce them.

I know I’ve picked this one before, but given the events in Chesapeake this week, it seems particularly appropriate. It’s “None of Us Are Free,” by Solomon Burke and the Blind Boys of Alabama.  It’s an incredible song. It’s off of Burke’s amazing Joe Henry-produced comeback, Don’t Give Up on Me, which I’d submit is the soul album of the decade.

The cereal company says,

…Phelps’s behavior—caught on camera and published Sunday in a British tabloid—is “not consistent with the image of Kellogg.”

This would be the same company that for decades has been encouraging children to start the day by inhaling sugar by the spoonful. It’s also the company that still proudly bears the name of the man who advocated yogurt enemas and pouring carbolic acid on the clitoris to prevent women from experiencing sexual pleasure.

Yes, it would be a shame to see a 14-time gold medalist’s bong hit tarnish the company’s image.

As is often the case, the Onion was way out in front on this one.

Get yours here. Wear it ironically.

“Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love!”

–Woody Allen

When I first read that Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff Leon Lott was planning to pursue charges against Michael Phelps, I thought the sheriff’s name looked familiar.

Then I remembered, I wrote about him in the Citings section of our December issue.

In March the sheriff and SWAT team of Richland County, South Carolina, posedfor a photo with an impressive new piece of equipment: an M113A1 armored personnel carrier. The vehicle, which moves on tank-like tracks, features a belt-fed, turreted machine gun that fires .50-caliber rounds.

The sheriff, Leon Lott, obtained the $300,000 vehicle through the 1033 program, named for a 1997 federal law streamlining the Defense Department’s transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments…

Charles Earl Barnett, a U.S. Marines veteran and retired police major who has served on several United Nations and NATO military and peacekeeping missions, says a .50-caliber machine gun is “completely inappropriate” for domestic police work. It “causes mass death and destruction,” Barnett says. “It’s indiscriminate. I can’t think of a possible scenario where it would be appropriate.”

Sheriff Lott has named his new acquisition The Peacemaker, explaining in a press release that the name is fitting because “the bible refers to law enforcement in Matthew 5:9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ ”

Let’s just hope God helps the next kid who lights up at a University of South Carolina frat party.

Police in Howard County, Maryland conducted a nighttime, no-knock raid on the home of Mike Hasenei, whom they apparently suspected of stealing items from two police cars burglarized last month. They found nothing, but they did shoot and kill Hasenei’s Australian cattle dog. The police say the no-knock raid and tactical entry were necessary because Hasenei is a (legal) gun-owner.

Police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn confirmed the raid on Hasenei’s house, noting that police had a search warrant signed by a judge…

Llewellyn confirmed the dog shooting, but said the dog charged police, forcing them to shoot it…

Llewellyn said police had reason to believe a gun was in the residence, which was why they did not knock…

Llewellyn added that when police have reason to believe there might be firearms in a residence, they take precautions to ensure the safety of the officers and anyone inside the house.

“This often includes the use of the tactical team, which is specially trained to deal with potentially dangerous situations,” she said.

Sounds like they need more training.

Hasenei, 39, of the 6600 block of Deep Run Parkway, Elkridge, said he was sleeping shortly after 9 p.m. Jan. 15 when a police tactical team kicked in the door to his house.

He woke up and walked into his living room to find it swarming with officers, he said. When he asked what was going on, he was ordered to get on the ground, and when he asked again, he said, he was knocked to the ground and told he was under arrest.

He wasn’t arrested.

So the police say they used a no-knock and a tactical team to secure the place quickly because they knew Hasenei was a gun owner. Yet Hasenei was able to get up from bed, walk out from his bedroom, and enter his living room before making his first contact with the tactical team. Which shows that all they really succeeded in doing was to provoke a potentially violent confrontation with a guy who at the moment looks to be innocent of any crime.

It’s a good thing he didn’t grab one of his guns on his way out of the bedroom.

My colleague Jacob Sullum notes that while there have been five DEA raids in California since Obama took office, the administration announced yesterday that it does intend to keep Obama’s promise to call them off, but only after he his drug enforcement team is in place.

That’s somewhat encouraging, I guess.  But it still doesn’t make much sense. He could end the raids today with an executive order.

The great civil libertarian Nat Hentoff—one of my personal heroes—was laid off last year after writing a column for Village Voice for 50 years. He has just joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow.

That’s great news for Cato, and great news for libertarianism.

Ten years.

As I understand it, to reach the voluntary manslaughter verdict, the jury had to determine that Frederick was not aware the the people breaking into his home were the police, that he felt he was in some sort of danger, but that he was wrong to feel there enough danger where it was appropriate for him to fire through the door. I’ve read comments even from people sympathetic to Frederick and who oppose the drug war who argue that Frederick should be convicted of something, because he fired through the door, and by his own admission wasn’t certain at what or whom he was shooting.

Putting Virginia law (which as I understand it does not include a Castle Doctrine) aside, here’s my question:  What do you suppose would have happened if Frederick hadn’t fired, but had waited, holding his gun, until the officers were all the way into his home?

I think Ryan Frederick’s attorney James Broccoletti has done his job very well to this point in the case. He’s been aided by an incompetent prosecution, and I wish he had taken the break-in allegations seriously sooner, but all in all, I’ve certainly seen worse in these cases. Broccoletti has an excellent reputation, and getting a manslaughter verdict on a case involving a dead cop and an admitted marijuana grower will only add to that.

That said, I just spoke with an attorney working on a similar case who was floored by this quote from Broccoletti:

“I think it’s a very fair and very rational verdict by the jury. I think it demonstrates that they applied reason, thought and common sense and sound judgment in what was a very emotional case.”

I think I agree (with the attorney I spoke with, not Broccoletti). There are a dozen or more solid reasons to appeal this verdict. I’m having a hard time understanding how Broccoletti’s statement that the verdict is “very fair and very rational” serves his client.

The jury has apparently reached a verdict.

Details to come.

MORE:

Voluntary manslaughter.

Interesting that they did not convict of him of manufacturing marijuana, only of simple possession. Frederick was also facing a charged related to the use of a handgun in the commission of a felony, but the Virginian-Pilot report doesn’t indicate the jury’s decision, there. Voluntary manslaughter is a felony, so I would guess he’ll get time tacked on for the handgun.

The maximum sentence for manslaughter in Virginia is 10 years.  Maximum sentence for simple possession (a misdemeanor) is 12 months.

I had a feeling that the jury would take a “slit the difference” approach once the judge agreed to allow them to consider lesser charges. Looks like that’s what happened.

Bummer.

Like Jacob Sullum, I agree with most of Kathleen Parker’s column on Michael Phelps and marijuana prohibition. But this part, about Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff Leon Lott I think comes up a bit short:

Lott, meanwhile, is threatening action against Phelps because … he has to. Widely respected and admired as a “good guy” who came up through the ranks, Lott is in a jam. Not one to sweat the small stuff, he nevertheless has said that he’ll charge Phelps with a crime if he determines that the 14-time gold-medal winner did, in fact, smoke pot in his county.

The sheriff’s job will be made both easier and tougher by evidence that includes a photograph of Phelps with his face buried in a smoke-filled tube and what Lott has called a “partial confession.” Phelps has said that the photo is legit. The only missing link, apparently, is the exact location of the party.

What’s tough is that Lott probably doesn’t want to press charges because it’s a waste of time and resources. He’s got much bigger fish to fry, but several recent drug-related crimes — including at least two high-profile murders — have captured community attention.

And the law is the law.

Parker gives Lott too much credit. It’s easy to say “the law is the law,” but that ignores the reality that there are far more lawbreakers than there are resources to arrest and charge them all.

So law enforcement officials have all sorts of discretion. It’s precisely because Lott has limited resources and more important crimes to investigate that he could have blown this thing off. The county would likely spend thousands just providing security and logistics for Phelps’ court appearances.

Perhaps I overlooked something, but I’ve followed the case pretty closely, and I haven’t sensed any public pressure in the direction of arresting and charging Phelps. In fact, the first I heard of the idea came yesterday, when Lott himself volunteered the possibility. Even if Lott does arrest Phelps, the local prosecutor would still have the discretion to turn down the case and spend his resources prosecuting crimes that actually affect the public safety.

On the other hand, the spectacle of seeing a world class athlete like Phelps frog-marched in handcuffs, tried, and given a few days in the county jail might do wonders toward enlightening the public to the fact that the most dangerous thing about marijuana doesn’t come from smoking it, but from what the government will to you if it catches you.

Saw this fun page of graffiti scrawled around ancient Pompeii linked in a Reddit comments thread.

No idea how accurate it is. But it’s enjoyable.

If it is real, Pompeii seems to have had a problem with vagrant pooping.

In this passage of John Wilburn’s summary of Paul Ebert’s closing, Ebert is recalling the testimony of an alleged marijuana expert. Ebert’s trying to make the case that Frederick is a big-time pot dealer.

Meinhart says 1 plant produces 1 pound of salable marijuana. 1 pound is 16 ounces, and at $400.00 per ounce is $6400.00 times 10 plants is $64000.00.

Which of course would explain why Ryan Frederick got up at 4am each morning to deliver soft drinks.