If you’re in or around Oxford, Mississippi next Tuesday, I’ll be speaking on a panel at Ole Miss on the Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks cases. The panel will happen after a screening of the documentary Mississippi Innocence.  More details here.

Here’s a trailer for the movie. (In the interest of vanity, I feel compelled to note that there were 65 pounds more of me when I shot that interview than there are today.)

MISSISSIPPI INNOCENCE – Trailer from UM Media Documentary Projects on Vimeo.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood gave an interview to the Jackson Free Press last week. Most of it is the nauseating fluff you usually hear from politicians. Hood also wants to take a more active role in “policing the Internet,” whatever that means. He also wants to make it a felony to witness a felony and not report it. And he wants to do lots of things for the children. And orphans and widows. The man is nothing if not bold.

But here’s the fun part:

Last year, you spoke out against a bill that would require a pathologist in Mississippi to hold an American Board of Pathology certification saying it threatened cases involving Steve Hayne. Can you explain your position?

There has been a misconception, and (JFP managing editor) Ronni Mott did this. … She didn’t listen to what I had told her as well as that other guy who writes for the paper (freelancer and then-Reason magazine columnist Radley Balko). Dr. (Michael) West is someone we have investigated, and I don’t support him in any matter. It’s not that I have supported Steven Hayne in any matter. What I have said are the facts: When I was a DA, he testified against me in criminal cases. I always found him to do a good job. By saying that, they assume I am just supporting him all the way, which is absolutely not true.

I don’t know what Hood means when he ways that he doesn’t support West “in any matter,” but his office most certainly continues to defend convictions won based on West’s testimony. In at least two cases, Eddie Lee Howard and Leigh Stubbs, Hood’s office argued that the defendant was procedurally barred from asking for a new trial because of West, because they’d already challenged his testimony and had been denied. If Hood truly believes West isn’t a credible witness, why is he asking that people convicted due to West’s testimony be kept in prison (or in Howard’s case, on death row) on a technicality?

Hood has also previously mentioned some sort of investigation into West, but his office wouldn’t give me any specifics on what was being investigated, or who was doing the investigating. He has also yet to recommend a single conviction be overturned because it was tainted by West’s testimony. West’s lack of credibility has been common knowledge in the Mississippi legal community for well over a decade. What’s taking so long?

As for Hayne, Hood has also previously made the claim that Hayne often testified for the defense back when Hood was a prosecutor, thus I guess establishing Hayne’s impartiality. I’ve yet to find a single example of this. It may have happened, but it certainly wasn’t common, and was dwarfed by the thousands of times Hayne testified for the state. The last time Hood made this claim, I asked his office for a list of cases where Hayne testified for the defense, against Hood when Hood was a prosecutor.  Hood’s office did not respond to my request.

More from Hood:

As far as the legislation goes, what I was saying was if Dr. Hayne has done all these examinations, and say it was several years before—and you know it takes two or three years sometimes before a case goes to trial—then when he goes to take the witness stand, and the statute passes, they are going to be hammering him with the law. And trying to keep him on and qualified in a murder case that occurred before we passed the law will be difficult. … The second thing about a pathologist is that very seldom do they make or break a case. All they say is the manner of death and cause of death, and that’s about it.

The first part of this graph is clearly incorrect. The law passed, and Hayne is still testifying in those old cases. Thing is, the scenario Hood fears should be happening in Mississippi—and a hell of a lot more. Mississippi should be reviewing every case in which Hayne or West has ever testified. But it isn’t. And the law in question wouldn’t have done anything of the sort. It only made sure someone like Hayne couldn’t do autopsies for the state going forward. Hood is either really dumb, or he knew this, and spread misinformation anyway. Neither scenario speaks particularly well of him.

The last statement in the graph above is also plainly false. It may be the case that the testimony from a competent medical examiner doesn’t usually make or break a case, but Hayne often gave testimony that turned a case, and in a number of cases, that testimony was later found lacking by more credible medical examiners. There are currently three men on death row (two in Mississippi, one in Louisiana) who are there because of critical testimony from Hayne (and in the Louisiana case, also because of West). And Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, both exonerated, would never have been convicted were it not for Hayne’s propensity to find bite marks no other doctor had seen, and for West’s “talent” to then match them to the state’s favored suspect. The state had no other evidence.

• Bo Diddley’s son arrested for occupying plaza named after Bo Diddley.
• The New York Times delves into the new Beavis and Butthead.
• California bans foie gras.
• Jaw-dropper of the day: Texas DA opposes post-conviction DNA testing because an exoneration “overrides what a jury decided.”
• Stunning collection of old photos from Paris.
• Five myths about healthy eating.

• Photos of Nevada’s otherworldly-looking Fly Geyser.
• Florida Innocence Commission recommends videotaping police interrogations. A similar commission in California made the same recommendation a few years ago, a long with corroborating jailhouse informant testimony and double-blind police lineups. Under pressure from the state’s prosecutors, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed all three.
• West Virginia man arrested for recording police.
• DHS refuses to release the phone numbers of its public information officers, calling such a FOIA request a “clearly unwarranted invasion” of their privacy. Bask in the irony.
• For Breaking Bad fans.
• Drug policy vs. homicide rates.
• This isn’t too far removed from how a lot of policies are actually made.
• The bear is expected to hold a press conference today, in which he will publicly apologize and resign from office.

Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner is set to be executed on November 9.

I wrote about Skinner for Slate last year. While the Troy Davis execution was awful because there were significant doubts about Davis’ guilt, and the Willingham execution because there has since been an overwhelming consensus among forensic arson experts that he was convicted with junk science, the outrage in Skinner’s case exceeds both—and that’s despite the fact that Skinner may well be guilty.

Skinner (who has already come within an hour of execution) is about to be executed despite the fact that there is testable DNA from the murder weapon, the rape kit, hairs one of the victims was found clutching, and a jacket left at the crime scene similar to one worn by another possible suspect, all of which has yet to be tested.

And it’s even worse than that. The state started testing on the hairs a decade ago. When preliminary mitochondrial testing came back negative as a match to either Skinner or the victim, the state just decided to stop further testing.

It’s one thing to consider all of the evidence, find it unconvincing, and then proceed with an execution despite strong disagreement from the suspect’s supporters. It’s a whole other level of moral culpability to deliberately remain ignorant about evidence that could definitively establish guilt or innocence.

The testing will at most cost a few thousand dollars. Skinner’s attorneys and a lab and Arizona have already agreed to cover that cost. It would take no longer than a few months. If Skinner is indeed guilty, the tests could have been done, confirmed his guilt, and he’d have been executed years ago.

I have no idea if Hank Skinner is guilty. Neither does the state of Texas. The difference is that I and anyone with a lick of conscience would prefer we find out before the man is put to death.

Seems that Texas officials would just rather not know.

• Egyptian army opens fire on protesting Christians. Here’s a terrifying video.
• Occupy D.C. protesters don’t want to be filmed. I like the line, “This isn’t the South. You can’t just do whatever you want.” Weird and wrong on a number of levels. On the other side, an American Spectator journalist “infiltrates” the protests, then makes a complete ass of himself.
• Laura Bush is right. El Paso is one of the three safest cities in America, and has been for some time.
• ” . . . despite being a $100-billion-a-year company in a rapidly changing industry, Apple never formed a political action committee.” Sadly, this was probably to Apple’s detriment.
• Online gambling and the perils of prohibition.
• More doubts about the FBI’s anthrax investigation.
• Coffee snobs.
• Here’s Glenn Greenwald on how the Obama administration tolerates leaks of highly-classified information when it benefits the Obama administration. Meanwhile, Bradley Manning rots in a cell, still without so much as a trial. I’ve written this before, but I think Manning’s real crime was that he embarrassed politicians.

• Police raid suspected meth lab . . . that turns out to be a guy making his own beer.
• Colorado man makes last-ditch effort to overturn his 145-year sentence for a sex crime his alleged victim says never took place.
• The Milky Way, taken near the North Sea.
• Wisconsin judge says you have no right to drink the milk from your own cow.
• The FTC goes after Four Loko again, this time for packaging the drink in cans that are apparently too large.
• CBS reporter says White House “screamed” at her over Fast & Furious story.
• Speaking of which, the Obama administration apparently thinks it’s fine to sell guns to murderous Mexican drug cartels, but they draw the line at pot-smoking cancer patients.

• This is a good thing. Not the killing, but that it was captured on camera.
• The New Professionalism, Clayton County, Georgia edition.
• A brief history of branding.
• Michael Bloomberg says government’s highest priority is to stop you from making bad decisions. Like, say, voting for Michael Bloomberg.
• Man convicted by Texas DA and Perry forensics commission appointee John Bradley freed after 25 years in prison.
• How the FDA is killing people.

• Jonathan Turley: Obama “prove the most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties.”
• Couple refuses entry to DEA agents who got the wrong house.
• University of Wisconsin-Stout targets faculty member with “threats” for Firefly posters on his door.
• Michigan police chief, five cops charged with using asset forfeiture money to purchase drugs, prostitutes.
• This seems like a bad idea.
• Incredible story of a false confession and wrongful conviction.
• TSA/airport police in Indianapolis seize a breast cancer patient’s medical marijuana. I feel safer.
• Other things that make me feel safer: That we’re about to deport a star student because she was brought to America illegally when she was 20 months old.
• An interview with the great Idris Elba.

That’s the topic of my latest piece for Huffington Post.

• Seattle PD loses 45,000+ dash cam videos.
• More terrifying stories from Mexico.
• Lightning storm at the Grand Canyon.
• The Economist looks at false confessions.
• Photos Tweeted from space.
• Over five years, the federal government paid at least $600 million in entitlements to dead people.

I keep seeing death penalty supporters make arguments similar to this one:

The death penalty is irreversible, and in the case of a miscarriage of justice there can be no reparation to the condemned . . .

There are rejoinders: someone who is wrongly executed cannot ever be compensated, but can someone who was wrongly imprisoned for 10 years ever truly be compensated in any meaningful way? Punishment of the innocent is terrible to contemplate whatever the punishment, and yet society must punish and will always be imperfect.

Everyone who makes this argument should spend 20 minutes with a few people who were convicted of a capital crime, then exonerated and released after a decade or more in prison. I obviously can’t speak for every exoneree, but I’ve spoken to many. And I’d wager a good deal of my next paycheck that every one of them will tell you that (a) they’re pretty darned happy they weren’t executed, and (b) there’s a huge difference between incarcerating an innocent person and executing one.

• Interesting study on power and corruption.
• Libertarianism happens to people: foodie edition.
• Why pro-death penalty and anti-government are incompatible.
• Ugandans beaten, forcibly removed from land to make way for carbon credit forests.
• “Professional courtesy” in Houston. Nice to see the meting out of some discipline, though.
• And here’s another example of a police chief showing some courage.
• Interview with a man who did 18 years for a crime he didn’t commit.

• The state of Georgia executed Troy Davis last night. Here’s a rundown of the witnesses who recanted. I honestly didn’t think they’d go through with it. Which only goes to show that however low your expectations of government may be, they probably aren’t low enough.
• California city is demanding couple purchase a permit to host Bible study sessions.
• The cops who beat University of Maryland student John McKenna have been indicted. This would never have happened were it not for social media and cell phone video.
• Telling stats on marijuana arrests.
• The McGurk Effect.
• Cops in the Kelly Thomas case charged with murder, manslaughter.
• RAND study: No connection between medical pot dispensaries, crime.
• Here’s a delightful shredding of Thomas Friedman.
• Government paternalism and overreaction trumped by government in competence.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is now deliberating the fate of Troy Davis. The A.P. gives us the background of the board’s five members:

Gale Buckner, a former Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent . . . . Robert Keller, the ex-chair of a Georgia prosecutors group . . . James Donald, the former head of the Georgia Department of Corrections, Albert Murray, who led the state’s juvenile justice program, and Terry Barnard, a former Republican state lawmaker.

• I think that if I were a death penalty supporter, I’d be fighting like hell to make sure Troy Davis isn’t executed.
• Write your own caption.
• A police department that gets it. Although you should be able to record someone else’s interaction with cops as well, so long as you aren’t physically interfering.
• Study: People with delusions of grandeur tend to become very successful. Other study: But subtler, reality-based optimism may actually hinder success. This totally explains politics.
• A defense of Lochner.
• The cop who killed former NFL player Deacon Turner in that case with the mysterious non-functioning security camera has shot another man.
• Signs that the DA may back down in the Kelly Thomas beating death.
• Feds spend $3.4 billion on anti-terror program for food supply, have little to show for it.
• Rick Perry vs. the lap dance lobby.

. . . why Rick Perry replaced those members of the Texas Forensics Commission, this ought to put them to rest.

In 2008, the Commission held a meeting to determine what cases to investigate, and decided to look into the complaint raised by the Innocence Project about the conviction of Todd Willingham. According to Bassett, who spoke recently to The Politics Blog, the attorney general of Texas was present at the meeting, and gave his approval to the investigation. But when the Commission hired an independent investigator to examine the arson investigation upon which Willingham’s execution was predicated, Bassett says that he was called into the Governor’s office and “read the riot act” by Perry’s lawyers. “I was told that I did not have jurisdiction to investigate the case, which was odd, since the Attorney General was at the meeting where we decided to go ahead with the investigation.”

Bassett reviewed the law that created the Commission, and decided to go ahead with the investigation despite the Governor’s opposition. A year later, the independent investigator completed his investigation and found that not only did the arson investigators in the Willingham case fail to meet current scientific standards, it failed to meet the standards that were in place at the time the investigation began in 1991. Indeed, the independent investigator concluded that there was no scientific basis for Willingham’s conviction, and in September 2009, Bassett moved to a hold a public hearing about the case. Days before the hearing was convened, he says he received a call from Rick Perry’s spokeswoman. His term had expired, and because he “served at the governor’s pleasure,” he was not being reappointed. “I was told the governor had decided to ‘go in a different direction,’” Bassett says.

The “different direction” amounted to this: the appointment of a Republican prosecutor in the place of Bassett, a Democrat; a procedural review in the place of the public hearing, followed by an investigation of whether the Commission had the power to investigate the Willingham case; and a report by the Attorney General that overruled his office’s original stance and concluded that the Commission had the power to recommend forensic standards in the present but not to investigate whether those standards were violated in the past. In other words, the state of Texas concerned itself with legalisms, but avoided facing the legal question of whether it had put to death an innocent man.

My HuffPost colleague Jason Linkins adds a bit more.

From there, Bassett was replaced with Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley — a political ally of Perry’s. And as I’ve run down here, Bradley distinguished himself mainly by going to great lengths to delay and impede the commission’s investigation of the Willingham execution. Perhaps the most significant move Bradley made was restructuring the commission into subcommittees, one of which (the one he appointed himself to chair) would tackle the Willingham case. By shunting the commission’s work into smaller groups, Bradley managed to evade Texas’ Open Meetings Act — which only applied to meetings for which there was a set quorum of the whole. Craig Beyler, the independent investigator mentioned above, backed Bassett’s contention that the commission’s work had been subverted by political pressure, writing to commission coordinator Leigh Tomlin, “Sadly, the political influence which has been exercised with respect to the commission has compromised the integrity of the enterprise.”

As I’ve written before, the problem here isn’t necessarily that Perry presided over the execution of an innocent man. There wasn’t much he could have done to stop it. The death penalty also isn’t really an issue that much affects a U.S. president. Federal executions are pretty rare.

The problem is that since doubts have been raised about the Willingham case, Perry has done everything in his power to prevent anyone from knowing the truth about what happened. His instinct here has been and is to cover all of this up and to silence critics, and all while professing an unyielding faith that when it comes to executions, the state of Texas always gets it right, all the time

They enthusiastically applaud government executions. And they’re certain government is incompetent, except when it comes to bombing foreigners, torturing Muslims, and killing guilty people, in which cases government is always, 100 percent, how-dare-you-even-ask-questions correct.

• Renton, Washington police just don’t know when to quit.
• Chicago man charged with attempted murder for shooting at police during a drug raid. Ready for this? Jury acquits.
• Wendy McElroy on war, peace, and passport control.
• Headline of the day.
• Hank Skinner once again files for DNA testing.
• Colorado cops fired after beating a man outside a bar, and after video showed they had lied on their police reports about the incident . . . have been reinstated. With back pay. Full video of the incident here.

A few more thoughts on the new GOP front runner and the death penalty and criminal justice reform:

First, conservative columnist Debra Saunders provides the strangest defense of Perry and the death penalty I’ve seen so far. Saunders makes three unconvincing arguments. First, she defends Perry from criticism for the sheer number of executions (234) carried out since he has been in office, noting that states with a tiny percentage of the homicides Texas does execute a higher percentage of convicted killers.  I don’t know that that’s a convincing argument, but it’s also a response to a criticism few are making. The sheer number of executions carried out during Perry’s 11 years in the governor’s mansion may be a criticism of Texas in general, but it isn’t something over which Perry has much control.

Perry is mostly being criticized for trying to prevent an investigation into the execution of a possibly innocent man. I’ve also criticized him for his opposition to post-conviction DNA testing in another death penalty case, that of Hank Skinner. (The Texas Tribune also describes a number of other questionable executions since Perry’s been in office.) Saunders gives the Willingham case all of one paragraph, and doesn’t mention his replacing three members of the state forensics commission with pro-prosecution appointments, just before they were about to begin their investigation. (Perry’s new appointments included one prosecutor who is now accused of misconduct in a DNA exoneration, and who once suggested another prosecutor destroy evidence in order to prevent an innocence claim down the road.) After casually mentioning Willingham, Saunders then weirdly pivots to point out that Perry has commuted three other death sentences.

Saunders second defense of Perry is that Americans overwhelmingly support the death penalty. Which isn’t really a defense at all. I don’t think anyone has argued that the Willingham case could harm Perry in the election. I wish it would. But mostly, I’ve seen quite a bit of lament about the fact that it likely won’t harm him, and could even help him with GOP primary voters. The case against Perry’s actions in the Willingham case is a moral one. And one that calls into question the consistency of his limited-government credentials. Framing the issue in a horse race context ignores the more important question, one I’d like to hear Saunders (who can be pretty thoughtful on criminal justice issues) answer: Was Perry wrong to scuttle the investigation into the Willingham case?

Saunders last point is that if any candidate is likely to face voter backlash over the death penalty, it’s Obama, for his administration’s opposition to Texas’ execution of a Mexican citizen, and for the DEA’s raids of state death chambers that were procuring black-market sodium thiopental for lethal injections. This again is a horse race framing of the issue that ignores the hard questions. If Texas did in fact execute an innocent man, and Perry is trying to prevent the truth about that from coming out, does Saunders find that at all problematic? Does Saunders think Perry is correct to oppose post-conviction DNA testing for Hank Skinner, when such testing could cast serious doubt on his guilt?

Oddly, the criminal justice reform activist Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast actually provides a much more convincing defense of Perry’s record on criminal justice issues. Henson rattles off a long list of reforms Perry has backed and signed into law, and concludes:

So I don’t agree with Perry on every subject, by a longshot, and he’s probably used the threat of the veto to scuttle as much good legislation as actually passed during his time in office. But Perry’s record on criminal justice is more moderate and complex than his fire breathing pronouncements on the death penalty might lead one to expect. If you’re reading this from another state, there’s a good chance your Governor can’t match Perry’s record on criminal-justice reform.

Henson’s list is certainly worth considering, and it’s an important contribution to the discourse about Perry among those of us with an interest in these issues.

Still, while Perry’s record is better than most, I still think his actions in the Willingham case should disqualify him from the White House, for a reason that goes beyond crime and the death penalty: Faced with the prospect that the state of Texas may have done the worst thing a state government can possibly do to one of its citizens, Perry has expressed resolute faith that the government got it right, refused to even consider the strong evidence indicating otherwise, and has spent the years since trying to prevent the public from knowing what happened. Again, this goes beyond capital punishment. When you consider what we’ve seen from the last two administrations on issues like torture, rendition, black sites, state secrets, the innocent detainees in Gitmo, and a host of other issues, Perry’s demonstrated instincts in the Willingham case are disturbing. And they certainly aren’t the instincts you’d hope to find in a guy claiming to run as the limited government candidate.

• Touching video of two Louisiana men who became friends in prison, were both exonerated by DNA testing, now reuniting as free men.
• Related: Federal judge under fire for letting habeas petitions linger for years. One inmate died while waiting. The same judge was removed from another case after an appeals court questioned his impartiality.
• New Jersey cop assaults man recording him.
• National debt jumps $4 trillion under Obama.
• Mother Jones has assembled a database of U.S. terrorism informants and trials of suspected terrorists.
• Missouri teacher says new law banning online contact with students means she can’t communicate online with her own kids.
• Obama administration encourages health care providers to organize, then sues them for doing so.
• New Gallup poll: Hypothetical matchup puts unelectable Ron Paul within two points of Barack Obama.
• More problems for the Fullerton, California, police department.

(CORRECTION: Both Media Matters and Cato’s Dan Mitchell say the CBS article linked above gets it wrong: The 2009 fiscal year was set by the Bush administration, not Obama.)

Good to see this case get some local coverage. Video includes grainy footage from the security camera that Michael West magically enhanced.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood’s defense of Stubbs’ prosecution in this video is so vague, it’s pretty much impossible to address. There was no evidence presented at trial other than West’s bite mark and “video enhancement” testimony that Leigh Stubbs assaulted Kim Williams. (Well, other than the weird prosecution theory that homosexuals are especially prone to biting one another.) I’m told that Hood also took a couple questions about the case last week, and referred to Stubbs’ “dope” convictions in the case as the other evidence of her guilt. So maybe that’s what he’s referring to in this video.

Problem is, not only does that have nothing to do with the alleged assault, there’s also no evidence Stubbs had much of a role in the theft of dope from Williams’ boyfriend. She passed a drug test shortly after her arrest. And witness accounts from the night in question also indicate that Stubbs was sober. There was evidence that Stubbs knew Vance and Williams had stolen the drugs and were ingesting them. And she obviously didn’t report them. But that isn’t the sort of crime for which one gets a 44-year prison sentence, particularly for a first offense.

At the end of this report, the anchor says Hood says his office is looking into at least 20 cases in which West has testified. That’s the first time I’ve heard of any Mississippi state official investigating old West/Hayne cases. So that’s encouraging. But I’ll withhold praise for Hood until/unless he can come up with a single case in which he determines that West’s testimony should invalidate a prosecution. So far, his office has either defended West’s testimony, or argued that defendants whose cases are in post-conviction status are procedurally barred from challenging West’s credibility. As for Hayne, Hood has not only steadfastly defended him, Hood led the fight to overturn Hayne’s termination so he could resume doing autopsies for Mississippi prosecutors.

My HuffPost article on the Stubbs case here.

Back in 2007, the Grits for Breakfast blog noted that Williamson County, Texas, District Attorney John Bradley gave some curious advice on a discussion board to another prosecutor. The other prosecutor was asking about how to construct a plea agreement in a way that would forfeit any future right to DNA testing. Bradley responded, “Innocence, though, has proven to trump most anything.” How unfortunate! He then added:

A better approach might be to get a written agreement that all the evidence can be destroyed after the conviction and sentence. Then, there is nothing to test or retest. Harris County regularly seeks such agreements.

Destroying evidence is an odd way to seek justice, especially given how many “slam dunk” cases and convictions based on false confessions have later been overturned after DNA testing.

I bring this up for a couple reasons. First, because Bradley is the DA involved in the pending DNA exoneration case I linked to this morning. And he’s accused of some pretty serious misconduct. From the article:

New DNA results, combined with evidence that was improperly withheld by Williamson County prosecutors for more than two decades, indicates that an Austin-area man has spent 24 years in jail for a murder he did not commit, a court filing alleged Wednesday.

Michael Morton, now 57, was convicted in the brutal beating death of his wife, Christine Morton, and sentenced to life in prison in 1987.

But a recent court-ordered DNA test, conducted on a blood-stained bandanna over the objections of Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, points instead to an unnamed California felon as the killer, according to court briefs filed by the Innocence Project of New York.

The court filing urged a Williamson County district judge to remove Bradley from the case, saying he cannot be trusted to oversee a reinvestigation of the killing because he has shown “unprofessional” animosity toward Michael Morton and his lawyers.

What’s more, the motion alleges, Bradley worked to keep a key piece of evidence hidden from Morton’s lawyers — a transcript of a police interview that shows the Mortons’ 3-year-old son witnessed his mother’s murder and said the attacker was not his father.

The second reason I bring this up takes us back to Texas Gov. Rick Perry. If you’ll remember, just before the Texas Forensic Science Commission was set to open up an investigation into the Cameron Todd Willingham case, Perry abruptly replaced three of the commissioners with nominees who were more friendly to prosecutors, all of whom opposed reopening the case.

One of the replacements Perry nominated was . . . you guessed it . . . Williamson County, Texas, District Attorney John Bradley.

(Thanks to reader Kevin Spencer and commenter “thefncrow” for the leads.)

• Another DNA exoneration looming in Texas.
• Pun-tastic genius headline at Fark.
• Incarceration and crime rates, Indiana vs. New York.
• Michelle Bachman announces her plans to become the immigrant-bashing candidate. No GOP primary would be complete without one.
• “The police broke my house by mistake, wouldn’t pay to fix.”
• Excellent lede.
• The name of your new band: Anarchist Dog Walking Collective.

Talking about Rick Perry with Alyona Minkovski.