Breezewood, PA.

Breezewood, PA.

Thanks again for all your kind emails and comments. The steroids have helped a lot. Harper’s now sleeping, eating, even playing a little with the other dogs. That’s only a temporary thing, though. The tumor is causing her right eye to water, so she now has a permanent tear stain down that side of her face. Looks like she’s gone goth. At this point, it’s just nice that she’s comfortable. Her struggle to breathe, sleep, eat, and drink earlier this week was wrenching. It also always gets me how dogs can pick this stuff up. Daisy usually spends about half her day biting, sitting on, and pawing at Harper. For the last few days, she just lies next to her and grooms her. It’s sweet.

Harper’s been a great companion. Hell, I’ve had her for about 30 percent of my life. The vet says the steroids could conceivably give her another few months. But it seems sort of selfish to keep propping her up for my sake. She’s better, but she’s clearly not herself. So I’ll probably have her put down when I get back to D.C.

For now, I’m headed to Nashville, Tennessee for a couple days. Light to non-existent blogging ’til I get back.

Breezewood, PA.

So in response to the attempted terror attack over Christmas, TSA will apparently adopt a new policy prohibiting passengers from moving during the last hour of a flight. Also, no pillows or blankets during that last hour.

In addition to keeping with its usually tradition of making policy on a reactionary basis, this one wouldn’t even have done anything to prevent the attempt over the weekend. The guy was in his seat when he tried to light the explosive device. And the passenger who confronted him got out of his seat to do it.

Also, if the goal was to bring the plane down from the air, why add restrictions for the last hour of the flight?

Seems to me that what this, Flight 93, and the Richard Reid incident have shown us is that the best line of defense against airplane-based terrorism is us. Alert, aware, informed passengers.

TSA, on the other hand, equates hassle with safety. For all the crap they put us through, this guy still got some sort of explosive material on the plane from Amsterdam. He was stopped by law-abiding passengers. So TSA responds to all of this by . . . announcing plans to hassle law-abiding U.S. passengers even more.

If you’re really cynical, you could make a good argument that they’re really only interested in the appearance of safety. They’ve simply concluded that the more difficult they make your flight, the safer you’ll feel. Never mind if any of the theatrics actually work.

One thing about my job: It tends to help you keep some perspective about your own problems.

It was eight years ago today that police in Prentiss, Mississippi broke into Cory Maye’s home on a drug warrant, putting him in the unimaginable position of having to determine if the armed men who had just kicked open his door were police or criminal intruders there to harm him and his young daughter. He’s been in prison ever since, separated from his kids and the rest of his family. He has spent about half that time on Death Row. It was also eight years ago that the family of Ron Jones needlessly lost a son and brother. Mississippi authorities put an innocent man in prison for life, let the actual target of the drug raid that night go free, and shattered two families.

Anyone think it’s the least bit more difficult to get high in Prentiss today than it was then?

There’s a flicker of light in this story, now. Maybe this time next year I’ll be able to post a photo or two of Cory and his kids enjoying their first Christmas together in nearly a decade.

(NOTE: Link fixed.)

I really like this picture.

It’s been a couple of years since I last posted this. So I give you now the best anti-drug video ever made. Producer, director, writer, star: Radley Balko, age 11.

Merry Christmas all.

….sort of a long story, but I’m currently stranded in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. My car broke down on the Interstate last night. No rental cars in town. My car was towed to a dealer in Frederick about an hour away. Any ideas?

Oh yeah, I have the two dogs with me. And one of them is dying. Harper was diagnosed with a nasal tumor yesterday. She probably has about a week or two left. She’s not doing well.

So yeah. Christmas Eve. And I’m stuck in a cheap roadside motel room watching my dog die. Add a drug-addicted whore and a hangover and I’ve got the opening scene to a Bukowski novel. A really bad one.

MORE: The Enterprise branch in Bedford had a last-minute cancellation. So I should be getting a car shortly.

MORE II: Finally arrived in Indiana. I was able to get a script for some steroids for Harper, which won’t help with the tumor, but seems to have already helped with the inflammation–and with her mood. Hopefully she’ll sleep, now. She hasn’t slept for a few days. I, on the other hand, have had some bourbon. After the last 48 hours I’ve had, that will definitely help me sleep.

Thanks for all the kind wishes, offers to help, and sweet emails about your own dogs, Agitatortots. Y’all are great. Have a terrific holiday.

Economists can be funny!

Who knew?

Just wanted to pass along a kind thank you for the tip jar contributions, wish list purchases, and subscription sign-ups over the last few weeks. I really appreciate the support.

The next two Monday morning polls will be for our annual Worst Prosecutor of the Year Award and a Favorite Prosecutor of the Year Award.

Think over the last year, and make your nominations in the comments. To keep it interesting, prior “Worst” winners Mary Beth Buchanan and Forrest Allgood will be excluded from this year’s, er, “competition.” Dallas County, Texas DA Craig Watkins will also be excluded from the good guys contest. He was this site’s “Prosecutor of the Year” last year.

The awards can be given for a lifetime of work, not just cases brought or decided in 2009.

My crime column this week bids good riddance to Kern County, California District Attorney Ed Jagels, who announced in October that he’s retiring after 26 years on the job . . . and after sending at least 25 innocent people to prison.

Jagels’ career is probably the starkest example to date of how the criminal justice is incapable of holding bad actors accountable.

Fun experiment. But think of what it says about eyewitness testimony.

This column by my colleague Jacob Sullum is a brilliant dissection of Obama’s rhetorical shenanigans.

My friend Gene Healy has on his car about the only bumper sticker I’d consider putting on mine. It says, simply:

They’re Lying

More photos here.

Erick Williamson, the Springfield, Virginia man arrested earlier this year for being naked in his own home was convicted of indecent exposure on Friday. The judge sentenced him to 180 days in jail, but suspended the sentence.

I’m still not sure how the conviction holds up, given that the two alleged witnesses had to actually look into Williamson’s house to see Little Erick and the Williamson Twins. So you now have to make sure no one can see into your home in order to be naked in it? How vigilant must you be?

Also . . . WTF?

Williamson denied standing naked in his doorway or front window and said he had no intent to expose himself to anyone. But [Judge] O’Flaherty wasn’t buying it and likened Williamson to bank robber John Dillinger, who also “thought he was doing nothing wrong when he walked into banks and shot them up.”

First, who the hell still invokes John Dillinger to make a point? Everyone knows that when you want a ridiculously inappropriate “they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, either” analogy, you turn to the death camp guards in Nazi Germany.  Methinks Judge O’Flaherty needs to get the latest Gilbert Outline for Bad Legal Metaphors addendum so as not to date himself in future rulings.

Second . . . seriously, what is wrong with this judge? Not seeing the harm in walking around your own house in the nude is akin to not seeing the harm in armed friggin’ robbery?

Last week, James Bain was released from a Florida prison after serving 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit. DNA testing finally cleared Bain of raping a young boy in 1974.

Bain is the 12th exoneree in Florida since the onset of DNA testing. Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell, who has pursued the phony Florida dog handler cases I’ve written about previously, is calling on the state to set up an innocence commission.

Already, three men convicted with help from a discredited dog handler — who manufactured bogus evidence to connect suspects with crimes — have been exonerated after spending years, even decades, behind bars.

But the dog handler testified in many more cases. And judicial activists are convinced others were wrongfully convicted.

Yet the men who could actually do something about that — Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Brevard-Seminole State Attorney Norm Wolfinger — have refused to conduct an investigation.

Instead, these three career politicians have argued that it’s up to the defendants themselves to prove their own innocence … from behind bars … and without resources.

Then, in cases where the wrongfully convicted are finally freed, they respond: See, the system works!

The lack of shame and humanity is appalling…

“If there’s one thing these guys have in common,” said Centurion Ministries attorney Paul Casteleiro, “it’s that they are all guys nobody will miss.”

They didn’t have the resources to mount vigorous defenses when they were first charged — or knowledgeable attorneys who could combat the tactics, such as jail-house snitches, that are so often used to convict them.

This is a common refrain from state officials and prosecutors. “It isn’t our job to find innocent people in the prisons.” Even in jurisdictions where there’s every reason to believe an unusually high number of innocent people have been convicted. They threw the state’s resources at putting the people behind bars in the first place, but argue it’s the responsibility of the wrongly convicted themselves or cash-strapped non-profit groups like the Innocence Project to bring the cases to the attention of the courts—usually as the same prosecutor offices fight them every step of the way.

It makes what Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins is doing all the more remarkable—and commendable.

Related: The Washington Post has a strong editorial decrying the delayed justice in the case of Donald Gates, also freed last week after serving 27 years for a rape and murder in Washington, D.C. He was convicted due to testimony from a fraudulent FBI crime lab worker and lies from a paid FBI informant. DNA testing showed he didn’t commit the crime.

Politico profiles the former New Mexico governor.

All the anti-war of Ron Paul (drug and overseas), plus he’s pro-immigration and comes off less crankish and has less baggage than Paul. As governor, he vetoed more bills than all other governors combined.

Also, the guy climbs mountains and runs ultra-marathons.

Dan Hayes from Reason.tv was there for the whole thing.

The uniformed officers seemed to have quite a bit more sense about the whole thing than Det. Baylor. Good for them, or the whole situation could have been a lot uglier.