By Jeff Coen and Bob Secter

As courtroom styles go, it is hard to imagine a more stark contrast than the ones that will be on display Tuesday when prosecution and defense lawyers make their opening statements in the federal corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Think Joe Friday versus Chris Rock.

The government case, to be outlined by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton, will likely be ticked off in a straightforward laundry list of alleged misdeeds, with a strong emphasis on the violation of the public trust that prosecutors say Blagojevich committed over and over.

Blagojevich's side, as presented by the often volcanic lawyer Sam Adam Jr., might resemble a passionate plea from a televangelist as much as a legal presentation.

With the preliminaries in the trial all but over after three days of vetting potential jurors, the final panel is set be seated early Tuesday, then the main event will get under way -- with an estimated four months of testimony to follow.

At long last, prosecutors will unveil the full weight of the case against a former governor whose administration came under federal scrutiny not long after his election in 2002. It culminated in the bugging of Blagojevich's campaign office and the tapping of his phones as he allegedly tried to trade official acts for campaign cash and sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

Photo Credit: Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune

Continue reading "Blago on trial: Joe Friday vs. Chris Rock" »

Mark Felt appears on CBS' "Face the Nation" in Washington on Aug. 30, 1976. Felt was the source identified for years only as "Deep Throat" in the Washington Post's reporting on the Watergate scandal. (AP / August 30, 1976)

by Frank James

We're all learning this morning of the death, at age 95, of W. Mark Felt, who as a senior Federal Bureau of Investigation official, served as the shadowy source known as "Deep Throat" to reporter Bob Woodward in his investigation of the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation.

As Johanna Neuman writes in a Los Angeles Times piece:

A controversial figure who was later convicted of authorizing illegal activities in pursuit of members of the radical Weather Underground, Felt died of heart failure Thursday at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., his grandson Rob Jones said.

The reporters continued to keep Felt's name a secret, but in 2005, at the age of 91, Felt told Vanity Fair magazine, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat."

by Frank James

The Bernard Madoff affair in which many wealthy people were allegedly scammed in a Ponzi scheme that may have cost investors $50 billion just gets stranger by the day, doesn't it?

Now it turns out a Securities and Exchange official was hooked up with a Madoff niece. In fact, the former SEC lawyer who served at some point as a "senior inspections and examination official" and Madoff's niece, who was a compliance officer at Madoff's security firm, married last year.

Not that there's any evidence of wrongdoing, mind you. But talk about your cozy relationship between a regulator and the regulated.

Here's how The Wall Street Journal explains it:

In an extraordinary admission that the SEC was aware of numerous red flags raised about Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, but failed to take them seriously enough, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox ordered a review of the agency's oversight of the New York securities-trading and investment-management firm. The review will include whether relationships between SEC officials and Mr. Madoff or his family members had any impact on the agency's oversight.

Mr. Madoff's niece, Shana Madoff, married a former SEC attorney named Eric Swanson last year. Mr. Swanson worked at the SEC for 10 years, including as a senior inspections and examination official, before leaving in 2006. Ms. Madoff is a compliance lawyer at the securities firm.

by Frank James

The U.S. Supreme Court's justices will discuss at their Friday conference tomorrow the Obama's-not-a-natural-born-citizen lawsuit known as Donofrio v. Wells.

As Chicago Tribune reporter James Janega writes:

The suit originally sought to stay the election, and was filed on behalf of Leo Donofrio against New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells.

Legal experts say the appeal has little chance of succeeding, despite appearing on the court's schedule. Legal records show it is only the tip of an iceberg of nationwide efforts seeking to derail Obama's election over accusations that he either wasn't born a U.S. citizen or that he later renounced his citizenship in Indonesia.

In one of those delicious ironies that makes life so interesting, the justice who distributed the case to his colleagues was none other than Clarence Thomas, only the second African American to sit on the high court. I can only assume the justice saw some potentially interesting legal issue in the lawsuit.

by Amanda Erickson

Maryanne Arnow has learned not to cringe at the stares and whispers that follow her whenever she leaves her house.

Arnow, 42 and a resident of Montgomery County in Maryland, was born male. But on her birthday five years ago, she said, she realized she didn't fit in her own skin, and she began transitioning that day. Now living as a woman, she wears make-up and dresses, paints her toenails and worries about how her long hair looks.

She also struggles to pay her bills, because she can't find a job. She said she was fired by the country club where she cooked when her bosses found out she was switching her gender, and now no one will hire her. "Everyone is worried what the other employees will think," she said. "It's just sad."

The lawmakers of Montgomery County, a wealthy and generally liberal enclave outside Washington, D.C., responded to such stories by enacting a measure earlier this year that forbids discrimination based on gender identity. Thirteen states and about 90 municipalities have similar protections, including Illinois, which passed its law in 2005. Chicago has had a similar policy in place since 2002.

What was different in Montgomery County was what happened next. A group called Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government launched a campaign called "Not in My Shower" to repeal the measure through a voter referendum. Last month, a judge ruled that the county must put the question on the ballot in November.

See the complete story here.

by James Oliphant

Lock and load. Here we go again.

Dick Heller, the D.C. security guard who successfully challenged the District's near-total ban on handgun ownership in a case that reached the Supreme Court, filed suit Monday seeking to strike-down the city's re-tailored gun law.

This was no surprise. In fact, District officials such as Mayor Adrian Fenty practically dared Heller, along wiht his lawyers, to do it. Fenty and the city council decided to let the Supreme Court's landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller restrict them as loosely as possible in redrawing the law.

In June, the court ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment granted Americans the right to own a handgun for self-defense in the home. Beyond that, the opinion penned by Justice Antonin Scalia said little about the breadth of the constitutional right.

Still, a close reading of the opinion seemed to suggest that at the very least, D.C. could not prevent a resident from having a handgun at the ready.

The District, however, decided to test how far the courts were going to go. Its re-tooled statute permitted only the ownership of a revolver, and even it must be unloaded, disassembled or trigger-locked in the home unless there is a threat of "immediate harm" in the home.

Officials also vowed to bureaucratize the gun registration process as much as possible, making it time-consuming and paperwork-intensive. (And anyone who has lived in the District can tell you that that usually happens with any D.C. office, regardless of intent.)

Heller is joined in his new federal lawsuit by two other District residents, Absalom F. Jordan, Jr. and Amy McVey. Jordan complains that the registrations procedures are a burden on his constiutional rights, while McVey owns a .22 semiautomatic handgun that remains illegal under D.C. law.

Meanwhile, a bevy of lawsuits have been filed in cities like Chicago, trying to apply the court's Second Amendment ruling to states and municipalities. Because the District is a federal entity, right now the decision is only effective here.

Washington CityPaper has posted the complaint, which you can find here.

This entry was also posted at Writ Large, the Trib's new legal affairs blog. Check it out here.

by Andrew Zajac

Monica Goodling and D. Kyle Sampson (pictured at right), key aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, violated federal law and departmental policy by considering political affiliation and other improper factors in Justice Department hiring decisions, according to another devastating report from DOJ's Inspector General and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, issued this morning.

Today's report offers a much fuller and grimmer picture of hyper-partisanship with DOJ than a report ">report last month harshly critical of politicized appointments in the Attorney General's honors and summer legal intern programs, both elite training grounds for young lawyers.

It describes Goodling (pictured at right), who had several jobs at DOJ, including as its liaison to the White House, frequently assessing applicants for assistant U.S. attorneys slots -- which are civil service posts to be filled without regard to political affiliation -- for Democratic and/or liberal leanings.

Here's a summary of findings: Goodling.doc

by Andrew Zajac

What is it about Democratic Ways and Means Committee chairmen?

The current ethics fix Charles Rangel finds himself in recalls the downfall of Chicago's Dan Rostenkowski, who in 1996 was sentenced to 17 months in prison on various corruption counts including fraud and embezzlement.

Rangel (pictured here) is a long way from being accused of a crime -- he brought his purported peccadillos to the House ethics committee and that may be the end of the story, since the ethics panel is better known for wrist-slapping than for requesting criminal investigations.

Still, there's a similarity here in the larger-than-life personas of the two men and in their roots in corruption-fueled big city machine politics. And in the piddling scale of their transgressions relative to their massive clout.

by Matthew Hay Brown

Growing up in the West African nation of Mali, Alima Traore assumed that girls everywhere had to undergo the procedure.

"In my country, it is usually an old lady" who performs the crude surgery, the 29-year-old woman said in her attorney's office. "They have a traditional knife for it. They cut your intimate parts. This knife is used for many girls."

It wasn't until Traore came to the United States eight years ago that she learned that female genital mutilation has been condemned the world over as a human rights abuse. Now that she's here - she has been living in Maryland since 2000 - she doesn't want to go back.

Traore's fight against deportation - her student visa expired in 2003 - has put her at the center of a growing dispute between rights groups and the Bush administration over whether victims of the practice also known as female circumcision, or female genital cutting, qualify for asylum here.

Read about the debate in today's Baltimore Sun.

In considering her case last fall, the Board of Immigrations Appeals described the "infliction of FGM" as "reprehensible." But the board, a tribunal within the Department of Justice, ruled that Traore does not have a well-founded fear of future persecution if she were to return to Mali, because the damage, though permanent, has already been done.

That interpretation, which now is binding on immigration judges, has drawn criticism from rights advocates, physicians and others, who say it defies federal case law and reverses the board's own reasoning in earlier, similar cases.

A large crane lies in this intersection on Manhattan's Upper East Side after it collapsed Friday, May 30, 2008 in New York City just before first responders arrived. (AP Photo/Seth Holladay)

by Frank James

It's still too early to know what caused today's deadly construction crane collapse in New York City, the second this year.

But it's safe to say this--the accident is likely to increase calls for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to play a more active role in helping to prevent such accidents.

That's what happened following this year's earlier collapse of a crane in Manhattan which killed seven people.

A May 2, 2008 editorial in the Baltimore Sun noted that the deadly accident in March spurred state and local officials into action to retrain their construction inspectors. That wasn't enough, however, said the newspaper which added this:

... The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration should really take the lead in this area to ensure that training for crane operators coincides with changes in the industry. About 80 workers each year die from crane-related incidents, according to OSHA.

It just so happens that OSHA has been working on an update of federal crane safety rules which apparently haven't been revised in more than 30 years despite numerous advances in crane technology--the equipment being more hydraulic and computerized now than they were decades ago, according to this piece from this Seton Alerts for Safety newsletter.

by Andrew Zajac

The Washington-based Secrecy News, a careful observer of government behavior in the capital, has posted this item about the appointment of a pair of federal judges, including James Zagel, of the Northern District of Illinois, to the secret court overseeing government applications for domestic eavesdropping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

INTEL SURVEILLANCE COURT GETS TWO NEW JUDGES

Two new judges were named to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court this week, Secrecy News has learned, one a Clinton appointee and one a Reagan appointee.

Judge Mary A. McLaughlin of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge James B. Zagel of the Northern District of Illinois were appointed to seven year terms on the secret court by the Chief Justice to replace Judge James G. Carr and Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, whose terms expired on May 18.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is responsible for reviewing and approving government applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for domestic electronic surveillance and physical search of suspected foreign intelligence agents or terrorists.

But it does more than that. The Court also reinterprets the terms of the Act in an undisclosed fashion, producing in effect a body of "secret law," a matter discussed at an April 30 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The FISC has in fact issued... legally significant decisions that remain classified and have not been released to the public," observed Judge John D. Bates, a member of the FIS Court, when he denied an ACLU motion for disclosure of portions of those decisions last December.

The appointment of new judges to the FIS Court assumes particular importance today because of a proposal pending in Congress that would refer existing lawsuits alleging illegal warrantless surveillance to the secret FIS Court in what would likely be a severely constrained adjudicative process. The proposal is being considered as an alternative to granting outright immunity to telephone companies that allegedly cooperated with the President's surveillance program.

Judge Mary A. McLaughlin was appointed to the bench in 2000 by President Clinton. She was formerly an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, and a special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on terrorism during the Ruby Ridge hearings in 1995.

Judge James B. Zagel was appointed in 1987 by President Reagan. Judge Zagel is "an intelligent, tough-minded jurist," said the Chicago Council of Lawyers, a public interest association, in a 1991 evaluation. However, "some lawyers are concerned that he will bring a political agenda to bear in certain classes of cases."

The new appointments were confirmed for Secrecy News today by Sheldon L. Snook of the administrative office at the D.C. District Court.

A new appointment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, an appeals court, has not yet been formally announced, he said.
But the Providence Journal (RI) reported on April 14 that Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the 8th District had been named to the Review Court.

An updated roster of the membership of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is here.

"During calendar year 2007, the Government made 2,371 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for authority to conduct electronic surveillance and physical search for foreign intelligence purposes," the Justice Department told Congress in the latest annual report on FISA activity.

Andrew Zajac

The Swamp occasionally hears from viewers who want to note the passing of someone of unusual distinction.

One such message came from Milwaukee attorney Peter Coffey, who called our attention to the Washington Post obituary of James Unger, a revered and remarkably successful debate coach at Georgetown and American universities.

Unger also was a consultant on presidential debates to several media outlets.

Judging from comments made to a debate listserv, Unger was a larger than life figure who commanded respect and love decades after his students graduated. You can read some of the tributes here: Unger posts.doc

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe offered this tribute:

"For most of us during the crucial decade and a half starting in the mid-1970s - the decade in which many of us came of age or settled into our lifetime careers - Jimmy Unger WAS debate, debate as high art, debate as ritual, debate as relentless analysis, debate as bloodless battle. He lived it, breathed it, epitomized it, enjoyed it, perfected it, practiced it, and made it a permanent part of our lives. For all of that, and for the inestimable wit and twinkling wisdom that Jimmy exuded for so many years, we will all owe him a huge and permanent debt. May his memory live forever in and through those of us who cared about him and who were lucky enough to be his friends."

A memorial service is slated for later this afternoon at a Georgetown church.

Andrew Zajac

For decades, the University of Chicago Law School has been a proud beacon of conservative/libertarian thought, a key intellectual breeding ground for the Federalist Society, a proud bulwark against collectivist decision-making and groupthink.

So much so that its motto ought to be: We're not going to save you from yourself!

On second thought, maybe they are.

For the past several weeks the legal blogosphere has been atwitter with discussion about Dean Saul Levmore's ukase shutting off Internet access to law school classrooms.

This is hardly a bolt from the blue. Discussions about getting students off the Web during class has been kicking around law school circles for several years.

Last April, Georgetown Law Prof. David Cole wrote an intelligent Washington Post op ed argument in favor of restricting net access. (Reachable through the link above.)

But you could chalk up his position to being at a Jesuit school. Everyone knows that Jesuits aren't shy about doing something for your own good.

U of C, the midwestern mecca of free markets, was supposed to be different.

by James Oliphant

A Senate subcommittee Tuesday tried to give voice to hundreds of thousands of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other places around the world who have been victims of sexual violence during wartime.

"They're the forgotten women in a forgotten war," Lisa Jackson, a filmmaker who recently completed a documentary about rape victims in the Congo, told the committee. "They're the walking dead."

The Judiciary subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law is chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Tuesday marked the first congressional attempt to hear testimony on the use of rape as a weapon in wartime.

"We have a moral obligation to take action to help these brave survivors," Durbin said.

by James Oliphant

Jay Sekulow may be one of the most influential conservatives in the nation. He's a lawyer for the American Center for Law and Justices, the ACLJ (and yes, the initials are on purpose).

Sekulow's largest claim to fame is that he has become the go-to litigator for the Christian Right and social conservatives on issues such as the Ten Commandments and school prayer. He's parlayed his influence into being part of a small group of advisers to President Bush on the issue of judicial nominations. Sekulow is also a prodigious fund-raiser and regularly exhorts his flock to send money so that he can keep up the good fight in Washington.

Here is a message he sent out today.

I am writing to you today about an imperative matter ... urging immediate action.

It is high time that the Senate Judiciary Committee stops playing partisan politics and starts fulfilling its constitutional responsibility.

Stand with the ACLJ on behalf of justice! Add your name right now to our online PETITION TO GIVE JUDICIAL NOMINEES AN UP-OR-DOWN VOTE and demand for a prompt vote for judicial nominees.

by James Oliphant

In what could be a historic decision, a majority of the Supreme Court Tuesday appeared ready to embrace the view that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to own a gun.

While that conclusion alone could elate many gun-rights supporters, that may not have been the most difficult question in the case argued today before the court.

That question is: If such a constitutional right exist, how may legislatures and city councils limit that right? And the profound disagreements Tuesday among the justices on that question suggest that the answer may come amid some serious shades of grey.

by James Oliphant

NEW YORK - Rachel Ehrenfeld writes about terrorism for a living. But now she is the one who feels targeted.

Her modest midtown Manhattan apartment is filled to the ceiling with books, most having to do with global terror networks and Mideast conflict. Sitting at her desk, she gazes out at the Hudson River. She says she has a hard time placing her work. She says she has been blacklisted. If she travels to England, she fears she will be arrested.

"I feel like a leper," she said.

Ehrenfeld faces a $225,000 judgment obtained in a British court in a libel suit brought by a former banker to the Saudi royal family, billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz. "That's the Damocles sword effect. He's holding it above my head to intimidate me and others," she said.

The source of the trouble is Ehrenfeld's book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It," published by Bonus Books. In it, she named bin Mahfouz as a financier of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Mahfouz responded by suing Ehrenfeld -- not in the U.S., but in England, which is friendlier to libel claims.

Bin Mahfouz maintains Ehrenfeld's statements about him are false and reckless and says she is perpetuating myths that have followed him around the globe, endangering his business affairs.

Read the full story at chicagotribune.com.

by James Oliphant

It's a shooting war, for certain.

Democrats versus Republicans, cities versus states, cops versus cops, scholars versus scholars, and most bizarrely, the Bush administration against itself.

The root of the conflict lies in a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, one as dramatic as any in recent memory.

For the first time in almost 70 years, the court will consider whether the 2nd Amendment grants an individual the right to own a gun. It's a day long awaited by gun-rights activists, and long feared by those who favor gun control.

At issue is Washington, D.C.'s near-total ban on gun ownership, a ban declared unconstitutional last year by a federal appeals court. But the impact of the court's decision could have much greater scope, with Chicago having perhaps more at stake than any other city.

The city's gun ban is similar to Washington's, and opponents of that ban have pledged that Chicago will be their next target if they succeed at the high court.

Whether they will is anyone's guess. The Supreme Court hasn't examined the nature of the 2nd Amendment since 1939. For decades, the conventional wisdom has been that the amendment applies only to the arming of state militias, since it reads, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Read the full story at chicagotribune.com.

Follow this link to read the briefs in the case, including the 67 amici briefs filed.

by James Oliphant

John Bolton, the outspoken former Bush administration official and UN ambassador, is joining Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis as a senior adviser.

Bolton worked as a senior arms-control policymaker in the State Department and became known for his hawk-like views toward Iraq, Iran and North Korea and a belligerant personal style. His nomination as United Nations ambassador in 2005 became a highly charged affair, largely because Bolton had expressed tremendous antipathy toward the U.N.

He was once quoted as saying that "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." Ultimately, he was never confirmed as U.N. ambassador but made a recess appointment by President Bush and again drew criticism for an abrasive manner while in New York.

But Bolton also earned praise for his hardline stances. In 2006, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to expose Iran's alleged program to obtain nuclear weapons. (American intelligence reports have since rebutted Bolton's conclusions.) He left government service in 2006 and joined the American Enterprise Institute as a senior fellow.

Kirkland & Ellis has long been known as a comfortable environment for prominent conservatives. It still employs former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, now the dean of the law school at Pepperdine. And many former and current legal luminaries in the Bush administration worked there at some point in their careers. The current solicitor general of the United States, Paul Clement, was a Kirkland lawyer, as was Brett Kavanaugh, a former White House lawyer who now sits on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Kirkland says that Bolton "will focus on counseling clients on domestic and international issues in complex corporate, litigation, internal investigations, regulatory and competition matters."

by James Oliphant

The calm couldn't last. Almost three years after the Senate confirmed two Supreme Court justices and rescued the judicial filibuster as part of an innovative bipartisan agreement, tensions are again rising over judicial nominations.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) Monday threw down the gauntlet on behalf of Republicans. In a lengthy floor speech, Specter complained that the Democratic majority in the Senate hadn't done enough to advance President Bush's picks for judgeships to the floor. "The conduct of the Senate today is elevating ideology and ego above substance," Specter said.

Specter pointed to statistics that said that during the last two years of President Clinton's term, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed 15 circuit nominees and 57 district court nominees, while since the Democrats took over the Senate in 2005, Bush has been successful in confirming only six circuit court nominees and 34 district court nominees. Specter said a judicial "emergencies" exist, with key federal appellate and district slots remaining vacant for years and slowing litigation to a crawl.

by James Oliphant

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Thursday that it had opened a preliminary investigation into whether retired pitcher Roger Clemens lied during his congressional testimony earlier this month.

Lying under oath before Congress is a federal crime. One of the points of contention, beyond whether Clemens was knowingly injected with steroids and human growth hormone, is whether he did or did not attend a party at ex-outfielder Jose Canseco's house in 1998.

Now, thanks to the Onion, we know why Clemens probably should have avoided Canseco's house altogether (as should every current major leaguer):

MIAMI—Former MLB star and admitted steroid user Jose Canseco extended an informal invitation Monday to over 500 current and former professional baseball players, requesting their presence at his house this coming weekend for his annual steroid party.

"Hey guys, big steroid bash at my place," Canseco said while handing out flyers at a Toronto Blue Jays spring training intrasquad game. "Nothing too fancy, just a bunch of guys, hanging out, taking steroids. Tell your friends."

The party is historically an extravagant affair, usually featuring women in bikinis carrying silver trays of various types of anabolic steroids, four VIP suites upstairs where guests can sample steroids from Canseco's personal collection, a giant 40-foot-tall ice syringe filled with Dianabol, oil paintings of steroids on the walls, a keg of steroids, a disco ball, and a punch bowl spiked with steroids. (read more)

Roger Clemens, then of the Houston Astros, pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals during Game Three of the National League Championship Series in Oct. 2005. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

by James Oliphant

Some key members of Congress are trying to bring down the Rocket.

Wednesday, the chairman and the ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee, Reps. Henry Waxman and Tom Davis, asked the Justice Department to investigate whether pitcher Roger Clemens lied under oath during his appearance before the committee earlier this month.

In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the congressmen say that Clemens statements were at odds with the sworn testimony of his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who said he injected Clemens with steroids, and with his ex-teammate, Andy Pettitte, who said Clemens told him that he had used human growth hormone. (see Waxman's memo)

Perhaps more important, Waxman and Davis told Mukasey that McNamee and Pettitte back each other up:

by James Oliphant

The shipwreck of the Exxon Valdez happened almost 20 years ago. But many Alaskans feel like they live with the lasting damage caused by the oil spill every day.

Today, a civil suit filed by thousands of fishermen and small business owners finally reaches the Supreme Court. Exxon is appealing a $2.5 billion punitive damage award the company views as excessive. It says it has already spent $3.5 billion to clean up Prince William Sound and compensate victims of the spill.

Read more in today's Chicago Tribune. And the Swamp will have a summary of the oral arguments after the court session Wednesday.

Chuck Kennedy/MCT

by James Oliphant

Hello. Your correspondent is jammed into a seat in a House of Representatives office building that the people at Air Tran would envy. A line of onlookers hoping to get a glimpse of today's witness, star pitcher Roger Clemens, runs down the corridor. (One woman is wearing a Yankee jersey and cap, as if she's attending a spring training game.) It's the biggest day on the Hill in a long time. And the Swamp will will be bringing you the play-by-play as it happens. Stay here. (Refresh the page or reload this page often so that you can see the very latest.)

by Aamer Madhani

The Pentagon outlined its plans this morning to seek the death penalty against six terrorist suspects accused of planning, funding and organizing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks--a trial that will undoubtedly refocus attention on the controversial military tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay.

The charges filed against the six, including purported Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are for a litany of crimes of war and include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, terrorism and supporting terrorism. All six are being held at Guantamo Bay, Cuba.

"These charges allege a long term, highly sophisticated, organized plan by al-Qaeda to attack the United States of America," Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the tribunal system, told reporters at news conference at the Pentagon.

Besides Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin 'Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Mohamed al Qahtani are charged as co-conspirators to the most deadly terrorist attack on U.S that left 2,973 people dead. Mohammed, Bin 'Attash, Binalshibh and Ali are also charged with hijacking or hazarding a vessel in connection with the four airplanes that were used in the attack.

Since its opening, Guantanamo has been criticized by some for being little more than an U.S. sanctioned gulag—where the ideals of American jurisprudence have been thrown out. The military tribunal has been criticized for it rules on legal representation for suspects, hearings behind closed doors and Guantanamo has been blasted for allegations of inmate abuse.

But Hartmann said the six accused men would be given the same rights as U.S. troops tried under a military justice system. The military is the process of forwarding to the convening authority for military commissions, Judge Susan Crawford, who can decide to refer some or all of them for trial.

by James Oliphant

Like many Americans, the Swamp has Super Bowl fever, which, according to today's Chicago Tribune, could kill you. So settle down.

Anyway. Those steamrolling New England Patriots apparently believe they are headed for something special. In December, the team filed paperwork to trademark the term "19-0 THE PERFECT SEASON" for use on gear and whatnot.

Teams have been trying to do this sort of thing ever since Pat Riley trademarked "Threepeat" back in his showtime Lakers days. (Hmm. Wonder if those royalties are still coming in?)

We talked to Craig Mende, an intellectual property lawyer in New York, and a Patriots fan. As with all diehard fans, he is horrified that his team would jinx themselves like this.

"I live in New York, but grew up in Boston in the 70s and 80s, so my first thought (as a fan of the '75 and '86 Red Sox and the '85-86 Patriots) is that if I owned the Patriots, I wouldn't want to jinx anything by applying to register THE PERFECT SEASON until (as I hope and expect) the Patriots win the Super Bowl and actually go 19-0," Mende says.

Mende says that the Patriots and their owner, Robert Kraft, have been beaten to the punch. A man in Denver filed to trademark the claim several years ago, when the Broncos were on their way to immortality. And of course, you know the rest:

"The week after he filed, the Broncos lost for the first time that season," Mende says. "So you can see why I'm superstitious."

That same Denver man refiled his trademark application this year before Kraft filed his on behalf of the Patriots. It might be the first time the Patriots have been beaten all year.

Mende, by the way, has first-hand experience in these matters. Last year, he helped beat back an attempt by the National Football League to trademark "The Big Game." Which is why you still hear that phrase on commercials prior to the Super Bowl. No other entity can use "Super Bowl" except for the NFL and the companies it permits to use the mark.

by James Oliphant

The New England Patriots have defeated all comers this season, and the odds have them doing it again to the New York Giants on Sunday.

But their fiercest opponent lies ahead: Sen. Arlen "Mad Dog" Specter. (Note: Nobody really calls him that.)

Specter is peeved about the NFL destroying tapes involved in the Patriots' infamous "spygate" incident earlier this season, when the team was caught taping the New York Jets' sideline and lost a draft pick for it.

And showing that Big Game hyperbole isn't limited to Arizona, Specter told the New York Times that "The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the game. It’s analogous to the C.I.A. destruction of tapes.”

Or not.

Regardless, Specter has been pushing the commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell, to explain why the tapes were destroyed. And so far the NFL hasnt responded. Anyone who has watched the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee knows he hates being ignored. He may call Goodell down to Washington next month to voice his displeasure in person.

By the way, shouldn't Specter's football nickname be "The Galloping Ghost?" But that's taken.

by James Oliphant

With John Edwards out of the presidential race, those who would demonize the plaintiffs’ bar have some spare time on their hands -- enough time, apparently, to watch some television.

And so a pro-business trade group in Washington is wringing its hands over “Eli Stone,” a show that premieres on ABC tonight.

“Eli Stone” concerns a shark-like corporate defense attorney who only cares about two things: money and well, he can’t remember the second thing. But he begins having visions (of pop singer George Michael, for one, someone you usually need to travel to a county fair in the summer to see) which slowly convince him that he was put on this Earth to help others. It sends him off on a spiritual quest – to represent ordinary people against the very corporations he once defended.

(By the way, that’s not as preposterous as you would think. Many refugees of large corporate law firms will joke that they are “recovering” human beings.)

So, if you are keeping score at home, this means: Ordinary people = good, corporations = bad.

by James Oliphant

A day after its release, the Mitchell Report continues to roil baseball – and its legion of fans.

Billed before it was made public as a comprehensive look into the sport's drug culture over the past 10 years, it apparently has raised as many questions as it has answered. Because of that, a counteroffensive has been building since former Sen. George Mitchell's New York press conference Thursday afternoon.

Its critics charge that as a prosecutorial document, the report is flimsy at best, defamatory at worst. That's because Mitchell, who prepared the report with his law firm, DLA Piper, more often that not resorted to bootstrapping his inquiry to ongoing federal investigations, which led to a disproportionate reliance on just a couple of key snitches. One, a former New York Mets clubhouse attendant, Kirk Radomski, and another, Brian McNamee, a former trainer, both cooperated with federal investigators in the hope of receiving leniency. And you know what criminal defense lawyers do with people like that.

by James Oliphant

A federal appeals court Thursday sided with a Kansas woman who believes that God’s hatred of homosexuality requires her to picket funerals for American soldiers holding signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Blew Up the Troops.”

Shirley Phelps-Roper is part of a Topeka, Kan. church that contends God is punishing the United States for permitting homosexuality by killing soldiers. In response to a August 2005 protest by Phelps-Roper and other members of her church at the funeral of Army Spc. Edward Lee Myers in St. Joseph, Mo., the Missouri legislature passed a par of laws that prohibited picketing near a funeral location or procession.

by James Oliphant

Now that the Supreme Court has taken up interpreting the Second Amendment for the first time in almost 70 years, the question now turns to what happens next and how we might expect the justices to rule.

First, start with the text of the Second Amendment itself. Here’s the key passage:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In interpreting this sentence, there’s first a fundamental question to ask: What do those commas mean? Especially that third one. The Washington newspaper Legal Times recently devoted an entire article to this question. In other words, does that last clause somehow restrict the right of “people to keep and bear arms?” And do the breaks in the sentence mean that it should, or shouldn't, be interpreted to apply only to a “well regulated Militia” and not to individual gun owners.

Grammar aside, the justices will be tasked with determining first whether the Second Amendment creates a right to gun ownership and whether that right is a collective one or an individual one, the latter being what gun rights activists have been pressing for.

by James Oliphant

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Washington, D.C.'s strict ban on handguns is constitutional, perhaps setting the stage for an unprecedented public debate on gun rights and adding a volatile issue to the ongoing presidental campaign.

For gun-rights advocates, today is a red-letter day, one they've been waiting for decades.

"I'm on cloud nine," said Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, minutes after the order from the Supreme Court was handed down Tuesday.

Gottlieb has reason to be optimistic. While the modern court hasn't ruled on the scope of the Second Amendment, its conservative majority may be inclined to make an emphatic statement about gun ownership as an individual right. And, as Gottlieb points out, the worst-case scenario -- a statement from the high court denying that such a right exists -- would galvanize the gun lobby and its supporters into furious political action during an election year.

The District of Columbia bans ownership of handguns, even in the home. The justices (the votes of four of which are necessary to decide to hear a case) will review whether such a ban infringes on residents' constitutional rights. The ruling, which likely will come in June, could have a cascade effect on similar bans across America, including one in the city of Chicago.

A federal appeals court in Washington ruled this spring that the District's ban violated the Second Amendment, forcing the city government to appeal the issue to the Supreme Court.

by James Oliphant

It passed for the hottest judicial nomination controversy going, even if it paled in comparison to congressional wars over previous nominees.

But regardless, it's all over now. The Senate confirmed Judge Leslie Southwick this morning to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, by a 59-38 count. Nine Democrats joined a unanimous Republican bloc in approving Southwick.

The vote is a setback for African-American interest groups and other civil rights advocates, which urged Democrats to bounce Southwick, saying he was pro-business and hostile to gay rights. They contended that a federal appeals judge in the Deep South should have an unblemished record on civil rights. But once his nomination cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee (thanks largely to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.), Southwick's confirmation seemed assured.

The White House hailed the vote. "The confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is a victory for America's judicial system and for the citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas," President Bush said in a statement. "Today's bipartisan vote resolves a long-standing judicial emergency and will help ensure that the Fifth Circuit can operate more effectively."

Bush urged the Senate to approve more nominees, saying its inaction had created "unnecessary vacancies" in the federal courts.

Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Joseph Biden (Del.), Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), and Barack Obama (Ill.), all voted against Southwick, as did the other Illinois senator, Dick Durbin

Sen. Barack Obama joined hands with Charlene Drew Jarvis, left, and Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, during his visit as keynote speaker at convocation today. Photo by Chuck Kennedy/MCT

by Mike Dorning

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised today to right "glaring inequities" in the U.S. justice system that he said were exposed by local prosecutors' handling of a racially charged fight among high school students in Jena, La.

"We know these inequities are there," Obama said in a speech at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. " We know they’re wrong. And yet they go largely unnoticed."

The Illinois senator has been accused by some black activists, most notably the Rev. Jesse Jackson, of insufficient passion in his response to the Jena 6 incident. Jackson told a South Carolina newspaper that Obama was "acting like he's white" as he criticized Obama for not participating in the protest march in Jena, La. Jackson later said the remark was taken out of context.

Six black high school students in Jena were charged with attempted murder for a fight with white students after white students hung nooses in a schoolyard tree. The students who hung the nooses—which appeared after black students tried to sit under a shade tree that previously had been used only by white students--were not charged with a crime or expelled from school.

With his speech at Howard, Obama turned to the Jena incident as an object lesson to assert broad structural disparities in the way the criminal justice system treats members of minority groups and offered his vision for addressing them.

by James Oliphant

After a 30-month review of Ohio’s death penalty system, the American Bar Association today called upon the state to temporarily halt executions so the system can be reformed.

A panel of legal experts, working under the auspices of the ABA’s national death penalty project, concluded that the state’s death penalty system is “flawed” due to inadequate procedures to protect defendants. Those inadequacies include the failure to require the preservation of biological evidence for as long as a defendant is on death row, the failure to provide adequate legal services to all capital defendants and death row inmates, racial and geographic disparities in capital sentencing, and the failure to provide sufficient safeguards to protect the rights of capital defendants and death row inmates with mental disabilities.

As a result, the ABA today asked Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to issue a moratorium. A copy of the ABA study can be found here.

"Ohio’s own experts have concluded that the state fails to provide adequate measures to protect defendants. As has happened elsewhere, Ohio has exonerated five inmates who spent years on death row,” said ABA President William H. Neukom in a statement. “The ABA agrees with the team’s view that nobody should be executed until the problems identified by these experts are addressed, and we urge a temporary halt to executions until fairness and accuracy are assured," he said.

Seven years ago, Illinois instituted its own moratorium on executions after 13 wrongfully convicted men were freed from death row. Three years later, then-Gov. George Ryan granted clemency to all 167 inmates facing execution.

There are 184 prisoners on death row in Ohio. You can find more information about them here.

by James Oliphant

An interesting case out of Philadelphia illustrates another twist in the national debate on teenage sex, abortion rights and contraception.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia today affirmed a lower court dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a teenage girl and her parents, who argued that the city’s health department violated her constitutional rights by providing her with “morning after” pills.

The girl, who was 16 at the time, went to the health center, fearing that she could be pregnant. Prodded by a friend, she asked for the “morning after” pill. The health care worker gave her four tablets of Nordette, an approved emergency contraceptive. Later at home, the girl took the second set of pills and vomited, leading her parents to discover what she had done.

The parents brought suit, alleging that the city of Philadelphia had violated their constitutional rights of parental guidance by not notifying them about the pills. The girl also claimed that her constitutional rights of bodily integrity and religious freedom were violated by the health care worker.

A federal district court dismissed all of the constitutional claims, and today, a three-judge panel of the court of appeals agreed, saying parents had no constitutional right to be notified about their minor child’s contraception decision. A key passage of the decision is here:

Here, Melissa, on her own initiative, visited a public health clinic, a facility that, unlike a public school, does not require attendance or exercise authority over its visitors. She then made a choice about whether she should contact her parents before taking the pills she had requested. No one familiar with adolescents will be surprised that she instead consulted a peer. That friend advised her to request emergency contraception, which she did. It is equally unsurprising that she did so without pausing to consult or advise her parents. The Constitution does not require governmental involvement in that decision, and Plaintiffs have failed to plead facts that would establish that the Center inserted itself into Melissa’s decision by preventing Melissa from consulting her parents.

We'll see if the parents are still angry enough to take it up to U.S. Supreme Court.

by James Oliphant

A study released today by Vanderbilt University and funded by the Department of Justice reveals in stark numbers how much progress conservatives have made in reducing the number of successful habeas appeals.

Habeas corpus petitions allow a prisoner to challenge a state court conviction on constitutional grounds. According to the report, federal courts now grant habeas relief to state prisoners in one of every 300 non-capital cases.

Prior to the rewrite a decade ago of the federal statute that allows habeas claims, that number was closer to one in 100. And, the report says, one in every five claims is being tossed because prisoners missed a filing deadline.

by James Oliphant

The American Bar Association wrapped up its annual meeting in San Francisco this week with its policymaking body taking stands against the Bush administration on a number of issues.

The ABA’s House of Delegates passed a resolution that urges Congress to override the president’s executive order in July that alters the government’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment and interrogation of detainees. That highly controversial order didn’t specify which interrogation procedures used by the CIA to ferret information from terrorism suspects had been invalidated.

The delegates criticized the frequent use of the so-called “state secrets” privilege by the government in court cases across the nation, which often leads to dismissals once cited. The privilege protects any information related to national security from being disclosed in litigation. The ABA says use of the privilege has increased dramatically since the Sept. 11 attacks.