My crime column this week looks at the notable clemency and pardon stories of 2010.

Also, I have a post up at Hit & Run responding to the Economist‘s criticism of my call to abolish drunk driving laws.

An A.P. investigation into the fallout from those meth fighting laws that restrict the sale of cold medication has turned up results that “surprised” law makers and law enforcement officials:

But an Associated Press analysis of federal data reveals that the practice has not only failed to curb the meth trade, which is growing again after a brief decline. It also created a vast and highly lucrative market for profiteers to buy over-the-counter pills and sell them to meth producers at a huge markup.

In just a few years, the lure of such easy money has drawn thousands of new people into the methamphetamine underworld.

“It’s almost like a sub-criminal culture,” said Gary Boggs, an agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration. “You’ll see them with a GPS unit set up in a van with a list of every single pharmacy or retail outlet. They’ll spend the entire week going store to store and buy to the limit.”

Inside their vehicles, the so-called “pill brokers” punch out blister packs into a bucket and even clip coupons, Boggs said.

In some cases, the pill buyers are not interested in meth. They may be homeless people recruited off the street or even college kids seeking weekend beer money, authorities say.

But because of booming demand created in large part by the tracking systems, they can buy a box of pills for $7 to $8 and sell it for $40 or $50.

The tracking systems “invite more people into the criminal activity because the black market price of the product becomes so much more profitable,” said Jason Grellner, a detective in hard-hit Franklin County, Mo., about 40 miles west of St. Louis.

“Where else can you make a 750 percent profit in 45 minutes?” asked Grellner, former president of the Missouri Narcotics Officers Association.

Since tracking laws were enacted beginning in 2006, the number of meth busts nationwide has started climbing again. Some experts say the black market for cold pills contributed to that spike. Other factors are at play, too, such as meth trafficking by Mexican cartels and new methods for making small amounts of meth.

The AP reviewed DEA data spanning nearly a decade, from 2000 to 2009, and conducted interviews with a wide array of police and government officials.

Meth use was also up 34 percent in 2009. So the new laws are inconveniencing law-abiding people who want to treat cold and allergy symptoms, have had either zero or a positive effect on meth use, have lured new people into the meth trade, and have created a bigger market for smuggling meth and meth ingredients into the country from Mexico.

But perhaps we should go easy on the politicians who passed these laws. I mean, it’s not like anyone could possibly have predicted any of this.

“This shouldn’t happen in this country, or anywhere else, but in a free society, we’re going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative.”

– John Green, father of nine-year-old Christina Green, who was killed in Saturday’s Tucson shootings.

After all the partisan, self-serving, asinine commentary of the last two days . . . bless John Green. What remarkable perspective, composure, and clear-thinking in the face of a grief that few of us can imagine. He doesn’t assign blame beyond the person who deserves it. There’s no call for new laws or new restrictions. No, “Who can we fault for not preventing this?” Just obvious grief, fond memories of his daughter, and an understanding that terrible things sometimes happen to good people. It’s enough to restore one’s faith in humanity.

See below for links to each story.

• Blaming Sarah Palin/Crosshairs
• David Frum blames marijuana
• Hillbuzz says Daily Koss was involved.
• Eric Erickson says conservatives are the real victims.
• Rep. James Clyburn says he shouldn’t have to wait in line for TSA.
• Rep. Bob Brady on banning targets and crosshairs.

• College student scrawls Fourth Amendment on his chest, bares his work at TSA checkpoint. He was of course arrested.
• Reason.tv interviews Mary Anastasia O’Grady about Latin America, free trade, and the drug war.
• Police in Canada launch drug raid after mistaking skunk stench for a marijuana grow.
• The Finnish dog that mocked Hitler.
• Jack Shafer: In Defense of Inflamed Rhetoric
• Dick Winters, RIP.

Good grief.

A top House Democrat said the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) should change how members of Congress are screened at airports.

“I really believe that that is the place where we feel the most ill at ease, is going through airports,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who serves as assistant minority leader in the House, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Clyburn called for the Transportation Security Administration, which administers airport security checkpoints, to interact “a little better” with the Capitol Hill Police.

“We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else,” he said. “Well, the fact of the matter is, we are held to a higher standard in so many other areas, and I think we need to take a hard look at exactly how the TSA interact with members of Congress.”

As for “we are held to a higher standard in so many other areas”. . . really?  Name one.

Thanks to the folks at the Show Me Institute, CoMoCitizens, and Keep Columbia Free for obtaining and posting this video and the information surrounding it. It’s footage of another raid carried out by the Columbia, Missouri Police Department.

Like the widely-viewed video released in May, this was a drug raid. Unlike the prior video, it appears that in this case the police found strong evidence that someone in this house was dealing drugs. But I think that actually makes this video particularly important. If we’re going to continue to fight the drug war, America ought to see just how literally the government is taking that war to our homes, streets, and neighborhoods. (Note the presence of children in the home.)

As with the first video, this raid isn’t specific to Columbia PD. It’s typical. It employs the same violent, volatile tactics used 100-150 times per day in this country to serve search warrants for drug crimes. They’re the same tactics that have led government employees to terrorize, injure, and kill dozens of nonviolent drug offenders. Below is video of such a killing. Todd Blair, a meth user, was shot and killed by Utah police during a SWAT raid on his home last year. There’s no evidence he was dealing. He had four dollars in his pocket when he died. When police broke into his home, he confronted them with a golf club. So they shot him in the head and chest.

They’re the same tactics that, last week, caused Framingham, Massachusetts police to shoot and kill 68-year-old Eurie Stamps, an innocent, unarmed man whose only apparent transgression was to have allowed his girlfriend’s son to live with him. And they’re the same tactics that led police in Georgia to shoot and kill Jonathan Ayers, a pastor whose only transgression was to have ministered to a woman the police were investigating for drugs and prostitution. Below is the map I put together for Cato, which I’m certain is not comprehensive, of other completely innocent people killed in drug raids. These are people who weren’t even using, much less dealing. Click here to read their stories.

Of course the drug war is merely one of a number of government policies that result in violence against its own citizens. We’re going to hear a lot of talk in the coming days about putting an end to anti-government rhetoric. I’ve been listening to it all morning on the Sunday talk shows. Let’s get the obvious out of the way, here: Initiating violence against government officials and politicians is wrongheaded, immoral, futile, and counterproductive to any anti-government cause. As is encouraging or praising others who do. I ban anyone who engages in that kind of talk here.

But it’s worth remembering that the government initiates violence against its own citizens every day in this country, citizens who pose no threat or harm to anyone else. The particular policy that leads to the sort of violence you see in these videos is supported by nearly all of the politicians and pundits decrying anti-government rhetoric on the news channels this morning. (It’s also supported by Sarah Palin, many Tea Party leaders, and other figures on the right that politicians and pundits are shaming this weekend.)

I hope Rep. Giffords—and everyone wounded yesterday—makes a full recovery. It’s particularly tragic that she was shot while doing exactly what we want elected officials to do—she was making herself available to the people she serves. And of course we should mourn the people senselessly murdered yesterday, government employees and otherwise: U.S. District Judge John Roll, Dorothy Murray, Dorwin Stoddard, nine-year-old Christina Green, Phyllis Scheck, and Gabe Zimmerman.

That said, I long for the day that our political and media figures get as indignant about innocent Americans killed by their own government—killed in fact, as a direct and foreseeable consequence of official government policy that nearly all of those leaders support—as they are about a government official who was targeted by a clearly sick and deranged young man. What happened this weekend is not, by any means, a reason to shunt anti-government protest, even angry anti-government protest, out of the sphere of acceptable debate. The government still engages in plenty of acts and policies—including one-sided violence against its own citizens—that are well worth our anger, protest, and condemnation.

• Egyptian Muslims offer themselves as human shields to protect Coptic Christians from extremists during a Christmas Eve mass.
• Nashville DUI arrests are down by about 35 percent in 2010 due to funding cutbacks. Effect on drunk driving fatalities: None.
• Here’s another fun Steven Hayne case. Hayne determined a woman died of stab wounds to the face and neck even though the body he examined had no head. Note his explanation, which refers to witness testimony. It’s a good example showing why a medical examiner shouldn’t be given that kind of information before he conducts an autopsy.
• Another state legislature wants to let local cops monitor what prescription drugs you’re taking.
• Harvey Silverglate on the folly of anti-bullying laws. Naming a proposed law after a dead person is a pretty reliable indicator that it’s going to be a crappy law.

I somehow missed this video when it came out last fall. Here is the response from D.C. Metro. Their response is clearly at odds with what I’m seeing in the video, which is a cop tackling a woman as she’s leaving, albeit while getting in a few last words. Looks to me like it’s her disrespect that sets him off.

Groovy.

I’ll be on Fox Business Channel’s FreedomWatch tonight at 8pm and 11pm ET to talk about the Massachusetts drug raid that killed 68-year-old Eurie Stamps.

• Man dies in a house fire caused by police deployment of a flash grenade. It’s not the first time this has happened.
• The last paragraph of this article pretty much sums up my expectations for the new GOP-led House.
• Some crappy headlines this week. So here is a video of a tired puppy.
• Curious to know what Agitator readers think of this story. Should it be a crime to exploit a flaw in slot machines? I’m not convinced it should be.
• While we’re at it, here’s a bit more comments bait. To what degree is a 12-year-old culpable for murder? If you think this kid got what he deserved, at what age would you put the cutoff?
• I’m quoted in this Boston Herald article about this week’s SWAT killing of Eurie Stamps.

• U.S. citizen abducted, tortured in Kuwait, now denied entry back into the U.S., all with no explanation.
• Hey, I’m famous! Not only that, but I’m in the same category as Garfield creator Jim Davis and Bubba the Love Sponge.
• Women laughing while alone with salad vs. men laughing while alone with fruit salad.
• So that’s how it happened.
• Muslim extremists are now infiltrating . . . the Conservative Political Action Conference. Given that CPAC is also being taken over by the gays, I may have to attend this year, if only for the pure spectacle of fundamentalist Muslim/radical homosexual after parties.
• Superhero thwarts carjacking.

Here’s a statement from the Framingham, Massachusetts Police Chief Steven Carl on the botched drug raid I blogged about this morning:

At 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 5, the Framingham Police SWAT Team served a search warrant at 26 Fountain St. in Framingham. During the service of the search warrant Mr. Eurie Stamps was tragically and fatally struck by a bullet which was discharged from a SWAT officer’s rifle. Despite immediate intervention by tactical medics, he died at the scene.

The officer involved has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the District Attorney’s Office’s independent investigation into the justifiability of the shooting.  Our condolences are with Mr. Stamp’s family for the heartbreak they are understandably enduring and we will await the findings of the investigation before taking any additional administrative action.

According to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, the investigation will take three to four weeks and the identity of the Framingham officer who shot Stamps will not be released until the investigation is complete.

Interesting wording. Stamps wasn’t killed by a cop. Rather, Stamps was “fatally struck by a bullet which was discharged from a SWAT officer’s rifle.” I’m also fairly certain that if Mr. Stamps had been the one whose gun discharged a bullet that fatally wounded a SWAT officer, Mr. Stamps’ name would have been released to the public rather quickly. And Carl’s initial statement to the press would have been less ambiguous.

It now seems clear that Stamps wasn’t the target of the raid, and that he wasn’t armed. These raids are dangerous, they’re volatile, and they have a very thin margin for error. I report on a lot of wrong door raids here. But this one shows why they’re an inappropriate use of force to serve warrants for nonviolent crimes even when the police have the right house, and they actually find their suspect with illicit drugs. SWAT tactics are appropriate when you’re using their inherent violence to defuse an already violent situation. When they’re used to serve drug warrants, you’re creating violence where none existed before. The consequences are predictable. People die—cops, drug dealers, people mistaken for drug dealers, and bystanders.

Even if you support the drug war, it isn’t any more difficult to get high in Framingham, Massachussets today than it was last week. So what purpose do the 150 or or so drug raids per day in this country serve, other than to inflict government-sanctioned violence on people suspected of consensual, ultimately political crimes?

If this case plays out like most of those before it, Eurie Stamps’ death won’t change a damn thing. His will be just another body on the growing pile of drug war collateral damage.

Still light on details at the moment, but it looks like we have another innocent man gunned down in a botched drug raid.

The 68-year-old grandfather of 12 who was killed yesterday by a Framingham police SWAT team in an early-morning drug raid was a retired MBTA worker described by shocked neighbors as the “nicest guy in the world.”

Eurie Stamps was not the target of the search warrant, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, and his death at the hands of police is under investigation.

Authorities said Stamps lived at the house with a woman whose son and another man were arrested in the raid on drug charges…

Police wouldn’t say whether the shooting was justified. No weapons were recovered from the home, prosecutors said, and the suspects do not face weapons charges.

After Stamps was shot, police called an ambulance and gave him first aid, authorities said.

Joseph Bush fan, 20, the son of Stamps’ com panion, Norma Bushfan, was arrested outside the house as police initiated the raid. Bushfan allegedly was carrying eight baggies of crack and $400 in cash. Devon Talbert, 20, was arrested in a rear bedroom.

More to come, I’m sure.

More here. Very cool.

I forgot to put up my annual year-end post on libertarian and civil liberties causes worth supporting. But all the groups I’ve mentioned in the past, including the Institute for Justice, the ACLU, EFF, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the National Motorists Association, LEAP, and of course Cato and Reason still do great work. (I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, here.)

But I also want to recommend Students for Liberty, a group that has made remarkable progress over just a few years. I’ve spoken at a number of SFL events and at SFL member chapters around the country (disclosure: a few of those speeches were paid), and they’re really impressive. These students are bright, articulate, passionate, and refreshingly not kooky. They seem to be as interested in the civil liberties side of libertarianism as the economic side. And there’s even a pretty impressive male-female ratio at SFL conferences, a new (and welcome!) thing in libertarianism. They’ve grown incredibly fast over the last few years—which is a much-needed reason for optimism.

Congratulations to Tanya Treadway, who looks to be our runaway winner of the 2010 Worst Prosecutor of the Year award. Treadway joins Forrest Allgood and Mary Beth Buchanan in our hall of infamy.

A few additional comments…

• William Anderson thinks we need a name for the award. He suggests “The Nifong”. That has a nice ring, but given that Nifong is one of the very few prosecutors who was actually punished for his misconduct, I’m not sure it fits. Any other suggestions?
• Anderson also says I should have included among the nominees Christopher Arnt, the guy who prosecuted Tonya Craft. Agreed. Oversight on my part.
• Another reader emailed to ask why I didn’t include Joseph Cassilly, the Maryland prosecutor who pressed for felony charges against Anthony Graber for recording a police officer, despite that Maryland law and every conceivable court ruling says what Graber did was legal. Again, my bad. Definitely should have included Cassilly.
• Finally, though I included Colorado prosecutor Carol Chambers, I seem to have greatly understated her credentials for the award, which include withholding exculpatory evidence in a death penalty case. I apologize to Ms. Chambers for slighting her. Unfortunately, we can’t do the vote again. But there’s always next year!

• California Supreme Court okays warrantless searches of cell phone content.
• I can’t believe this is real.
• Interesting look at the quality (or lack thereof) of public defenders in the U.S.
• Beautifully photographed adventure into the Paris metro system.
• Two girls take 15 seconds to show ridiculousness, wastefulness of the “border wall”.
• Texas man freed by DNA testing after 30 years in prison.
• Virginia DMV Does Not Approve of Hilarious Cannibalism.

• This is a pretty terrible story. What an awful way to die.
• The state of New Jersey wants to steal your gift cards for the government if you don’t use them within two years.
• The year in photographers and videographers who were harassed by the government.
• Chile’s racy coffee shops.
• The toppling of the Saddam statute was a made-for-media event.
• Great single-serving blog that posts out-of-context excerpts from medical journals.
• Prosecutor with rep for being harsh on DWI offenders—you know where this is headed—busted for DWI.
• Finally, here is a monkey, wearing a kimono, photographing a buxom woman in a bikini.

The guy who put Richard Paey in prison is now running for judge. My column this week takes a skeptical look at his qualifications.

Thanks to Mark Draughn for sending me the tip on Andringa’s campaign.

• Nice summary of what we’ve learned from the Wikileaks cables.
• John McWhorter talks frankly about race and ending the drug war. It’s a refreshingly frank and honest piece of writing. And somewhat surprising for the middling The New Republic.
• Woman wins $250,000 settlement after police investigators falsely implicate her in four 1989 murders. The case against her fell apart after a state police boasted about planting her fingerprints during a job interview with the FBI.
• Will Wilkinson responds to Arnold Kling’s charge that libertarians don’t take national defense seriously.
• Scott Greenfield names the best criminal law posts of 2010. Here’s the winner. This post from the L.A. Times on the DOJ’s hostility to pardons is very good, too.

As in years past, the misdeeds that qualify this year’s nominees need only have been reported on or come to light in 2010. They needn’t necessarily have actually transpired in 2010. See each candidate’s qualifications below the poll.

Good luck to all of this year’s worthy contenders!

Tanya Treadway

Bill of misdeeds: See here. Summary: Tried Kansas’ Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife for over-prescribing pain medication. Tried to deny them access to a public defender, while also targeting their assets for forfeiture. During the trial,  attempted to have an unconstitutional gag order imposed on pain patient advocate Siobhan Reynolds. Also tried to gag Schneider’s patients from speaking publicly in his defense. May have asked federal agents to visit the patients’ homes to intimidate them. Finally, launched a grand jury investigation of Reynolds, including a sweeping subpoena that caused her advocacy group, the Pain Relief Network, to fold. Reynolds was forbidden from sharing the contents of the subpoena or any of the briefs related to her challenge of the investigation. It was a blatant, abusive use of the grand jury to silence a critic of the government.

Kenny Hulsof

Bill of misdeeds: See here. Summary: Turned a “tough on crime” record as a prosecutor into three terms in Congress, a GOP nomination for governor of Missouri, and nearly became president of the University of Missouri. Now works in a white shoe law firm as a D.C. lobbyist. Problem is, his “tough on crime” record includes at least two wrongful murder convictions due in large part to his failure to turn over exculpatory evidence. In both cases, Hulshof was excoriated by the judges who pronounced the wrongly convicted men innocent. In 2008, the A.P. found five other cases in which there is considerable evidence that Hulshof engaged in prosecutorial misconduct.

Carol Chambers

Bill of misdeeds: Probably not the most outrageous example on this list, but Chambers deserves strong consideration for at least giving us one of the most entertaining. When DNA testing showed that the evidence taken from a 9-year-old’s underwear didn’t match the mentally disabled man police had arrested for breaking into her room and groping her, Colorado DA Chambers insisted she still had the right guy. She based her opinion on the rather awesome legal argument that . . .  little girls tend to dress kinda’ slutty these days.

Jim Hood

Bill of misdeeds: Mississippi’s Attorney General has been a steadfast defender of disgraced medical examiner Steven Hayne and fraudulent “bite mark expert” Michael West, and has fought any attempt to hold them accountable.  In 2009, Hood gave his okay to a plan by Mississippi’s coroners to bring Hayne back to resume his autopsy business in the state. When the state legislature considered a bill in March that would have effectively barred Hayne again, Hood actively lobbied against it. Hood’s office has fought to prevent Eddie Lee Howard from getting a new trial, arguing that Howard is procedurally barred from raising Michael West as an issue in his post-conviction petitions. West’s long-discredited bite mark expertise is the only physical evidence linking Howard, who is on death row, to the scene of the crime for which he was convicted. And then there’s Hood long and cozy relationship with Mississippi’s unseemlier trial lawyers . . .

Delores Carr

Bill of misdeeds: See here. Summary: Santa Clara County, California’s district attorney ran for the office in 2006 on a platform of ending what she called a “win at all costs” mentality that plagues too many prosecutors. She then spent much of her time in office fighting like hell to cover up and minimize a massive scandal in which her office failed to turn over exculpatory evidence in thousands of sex abuse cases. When the California bar disciplined a member of her staff in 2009 for misconduct in four cases, Carr fought to strip the bar of its power to discipline prosecutors. In February, when a judge released an accused sex offender because Carr’s office failed to turn over a videotape with the alleged victim that called into question whether the assault had ever happened, Carr announced that her office would be boycotting the judge.

Andy Thomas

Bill of Misdeeds: Start here. Summary: During his time as Maricopa County Attorney, Thomas basically served as Joe “America’s Most Thuggish Sheriff” Arpaio’s enabler. Thomas used his office to intimidate political opponents, had a series of questionable convictions, and indicted or investigated county officials, officials in other counties, and even a judge who dared to question him or Arpaio. The good news from last year is that he lost his bid to become Arizona attorney general, and he may soon be disbarred.

Lynn Switzer

Bill of misdeeds: The Texas DA is trying execute convicted murderer Hank Skinner without first testing crime scene DNA evidence that could establish Skinner’s innocence.

Greg Zoeller

Bill of misdeeds: When it was brought to his attention that county prosecutors across the state were routinely and systematically abusing the state’s forfeiture laws by keeping proceeds for themselves, their offices, local police department, and private attorneys instead of sending them to a designated schools fund as required by the state’s constitution, Zoeller, Indiana’s Attorney General and hence its highest-ranking law enforcement official, said it wasn’t his problem. It took an Indiana law firm suing the county prosecutors to finally attract Zoeller’s interest. Unfortunately, he announced that his office would be defending the country prosecutors and their routine, illegal, and probably unconstitutional misuse of forfeiture funds.

Scott Southworth

Bill of misdeeds: After the state of Wisconsin passed the Healthy Youth Act, which instructs public school officials to teach age-appropriate sex education to students, District Attorney Southworth fired off a letter to the schools in his district warning personnel that he could possibly charge them with sex crimes if they complied with the law.

Eleanor Odom

Bill of misdeeds: See here. Summary: During a highly-publicized 2007 trial of two parents accused of murdering one of their children, Odom took the occasion of the dead child’s birthday to . . . pull out a cake, dim the courtroom lights, place and light candles, and lead the prosecution in a ghoulish rendition of Happy Birthday to the dead kid’s ghost. The gimmick not only helped win a conviction, it helped Odom win a regular commentary gig on Nancy Grace’s show. Oh, and she has since thrown her hat in the ring for a judicial opening.

Last month, I wrote a column about the latest developments in Mississippi’s continuing medical examiner saga. In it, I noted that Steven Hayne had set out a letter (PDF) to defense attorneys announcing his availability to testify for them. I don’t know for sure how many times he has testified for the defense in the past, but the people I’ve talked to in Mississippi say it’s less than 10, and likely less than five. (He has testified for the state thousands of times.) But the new law barring him from doing official autopsies for prosecutors doesn’t bar him from testifying for defense attorneys or in civil cases.

And sure enough, the Jackson Free Press reports that Hayne is already finding business.

[O]n Dec. 9, Hinds County Circuit Judge Swan Yerger granted Assistant Public Defender Alison Kelly’s request for an independent autopsy review by Hayne. Kelly represents Darion Givens, 18, who faces murder charges in connection with the June 13 shooting death of his girlfriend, Falisha Miller, a Jim Hill High School student.

In court filings, Kelly argued that a second opinion of Miller’s autopsy is necessary to examine inconsistencies in the first autopsy, conducted by Dr. Thomas Deering. Witnesses reported hearing a gunshot, while Deering’s autopsy suggested that Miller’s shooter had used a silencer. Kelly maintains that Jasper Bell, who is charged as an accessory after the fact, was the shooter.

Kelly said this week that for Givens’ case, Hayne was the “best choice for defending [her] client in the most zealous manner.” While aware of controversy surrounding Hayne, Kelly said that she had not thoroughly investigated criticism of his work. Kelly did not seek out a forensic pathologist from the state medical examiner’s office because she wanted a second opinion on work performed by that office.

“In the state of Mississippi, Dr. Hayne is the only (forensic pathologist) that I know of, other than these people that the state is bringing into Mississippi to do their pathology work,” Kelly said. “I’m limited. I can’t use their pathologists to do my cross-examination of their reports.”

Hayne also recently testified for the defense in a case in Louisiana.

As I noted in the column, perversely, it would actually be good strategy for a defense attorney to hire Hayne. The sheer number of times he has already testified for prosecutors likely make him seem credible to a jury unfamiliar with his history. And in Mississippi in particular, there’s a good chance the prosecutor a defense attorney is opposing has used Hayne in prior cases, meaning he isn’t likely to delve into Hayne’s lack of certification, his impossible workload, or the dubious testimony he has given over the years.

I know that a lot of defense attorneys read this site. I’d be interested in hearing your opinions on the ethical issues in play here.  Defense attorneys in Mississippi and Louisiana by now know, or  at least should know, about his credibility problems. But using him may well also benefit their clients.