Linkfest: Sunday Updates
SPECIAL UPDATE AND REMINDER: Today, September 28, is “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” the day when various theocrat clerics intend to knowingly and wilfully violate the Internal Revenue Code’s proscription on tax-exempt institutions endorsing political candidates. The professional bigots at the Alliance Defense Fund openly and notoriously hope to goad the I.R.S. into revoking, or at least investigating, the tax-exempt status of one or more of the churches in the hope of crafting a test case to challenge the rule — which, recall, does not censor speech or abridge religious conduct and applies to all tax-exempt organizations and not just churches. Most recent post here.
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Time to clean out the aggregator —
ITEM: The NYPD lieutenant who ordered the tasering of a naked man on a elevated platform, causing him to fall 10 feet to his death, has been stripped of his gun and badge. The commander of the unit has been demoted, a new commander appointed and the entire NYPD emergency services unit ordered to undergo remedial training. The uncomplicated alternative of restricting Taser deployment exclusively to an alternative to the use of deadly force remains unconsidered. Previous post with video here.
ITEM: A grand jury has, at least thus far, declined to indict the alleged “Palin hacker” for violating the Republican vice presidential nominee’s email privacy. I cited the Palin email incident as a possible example of the distinction, as it applies to jury nullification, between an unjust law and an unjust prosecution.
ITEM: The House ethics committee has voted to commence a formal investigation into Ways and Means chairman Charlie Rangel for various misconduct issues. Rangel, still pretending to be a “selfless public servant,” continues to refuse to step down, even temporarily, from his powerful position. Most recent post here.
ITEM: A federal district judge has ruled that a male transgendered high school student may sue his school for denying him admission to his prom when he arrived wearing a dress. The student, K.K. Logan, alleges that the school authorities violated his First Amendment right to non-disruptive expressive conduct. An interesting fact in the case is that a female student was allowed to attend the event wearing a tuxedo. Logan vs. Gary Comm. School Corp.; previous post here.
ITEM: Lost in the headlines about the proposed $700 billion subprime mortgage-backed bailout was a major report that the FDIC may also face a taxpayer bailout of as a much as $150 billion given the entity’s disclosure that it maintains a (“secret”) list of 117 banks facing insolvency. I have long followed (one example here) the weakening financial status of another government guarantor repeatedly presented to taxpayers as “self-financing” — until it isn’t and needs a bailout: the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Filed under: Updates
Kip, as a former federal prosecutor and current defense attorney, I have to say I think you are misconstruing the Wired story about the grand jury investigation of the Palin email hacker. The fact that the grand jury has not returned an indictment does not mean they have declined to do so. In fact, that is almost certainly not the case.
Federal grand juries do not decide by themselves when to pull the trigger and indict. They evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence only when the federal prosecutors ask them to. They only have the chance to give the thumbs up or thumbs down when the prosecutors present them with a proposed indictment and ask them to vote on it. Until that happens, the prosecutors are just using them as an investigative tool — a method of compelling and recording sworn testimony.
Prosecutors routinely use an investigative grand jury for years (let alone a couple of weeks) to put together an investigation before seeking an indictment.
Had the grand jury been presented with an indictment this past week and refused to indict, Department of Justice rules require the prosecutors to get very senior-level approval to re-present the case. (IIRC, it requires a sign-off by a Deputy Attorney General). N0-bill responses by a federal grand jury are extraordinarily rare — I only know of one here in Los Angeles in the last 15 years, for instance.
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