Published July 30, 2010
| FoxNews.com
The investigative panel of bipartisan lawmakers looking at alleged violations of Houserules by New York Rep. Charlie Rangel recommended a "reprimand" for the longtime lawmaker, Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, a member of the panel, said Friday. A reprimand is the most lenient of the three, formal modes of discipline in the House. The other two are censure and expulsion. A Congressional Research Service report indicates that "reprimand expressly involves a lesser level of disapproval of a Member than that of Censure, and is thus a less severe reubuke by the institution." Under a reprimand, a lawmaker must stand in the well of the House and be reprimanded by the speaker. Rangel is facing 13 allegations of violations relating to his tax filings for properties he owns in the Dominican Republic and the use of four rent-controlled apartments in pricey New York City. If there is no settlement, the case goes to another ethics committee panel that will likely hold a public "trial" in September against the 20-term lawmaker. The four-member panel that recommended a reprimand is composed of Reps. Green, Jo Ann Bonner, R-Ky., Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Bobby Scott, D-Va., who were first named to the investigative subcommittee in August 2008. Already a handful of Democrats has called for Rangel to resign, most recently Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky. If Rangel were to be reprimanded, he would have to stand in the well of the House and listen to his punishment being meted out by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The full House would likely have to vote to reprimand Rangel. Reprimands have been used occasionally in the past. The House voted to reprimand Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., 408-18 in 1990 for using his office to "fix" parking tickets for Steve Goble, a male prostitute who used Frank's home. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was reprimanded and fined in 1997 for his ethics transgressions The House did not reprimand Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., for his shout "You lie" at President Obama last near. But the House did vote to "disapprove" of his actions. Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents -- including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.
The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues.
The ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law at 12:01 a.m. Thursday and protesters were planning a large demonstrations to speak out against the measure. At least one group planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them their immigration status.
READ JUDGE BOLTON'S RULING HERE (PDF)
The volume of the protests will be likely be turned down a few notches because of the ruling by Bolton, a Clinton appointee who suddenly became a crucial figure in the immigration debate when she was assigned the seven lawsuits filed against the Arizona law.
Lawyers for the state contend the law was a constitutionally sound attempt by Arizona -- the busiest illegal gateway into the country -- to assist federal immigration agents and lessen border woes such as the heavy costs for educating, jailing and providing health care for illegal immigrants.
The opponents argued the law will lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration law and distract local police from fighting more serious crimes. The U.S. Justice Department, civil rights groups and a Phoenix police officer had asked the judge for an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced.
"There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law)," Bolton ruled. "By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a 'distinct, unusual and extraordinary' burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose."
The law was signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in April and immediately revived the national debate on immigration, making it a hot-button issue in the midterm elections.
The injured man, in his 20s, was taken to a hospital with a minor cut, said San Diego Police Officer David Stafford. The attacker, also in his 20s, was arrested and booked for assault with a deadly weapon, he said.
The incident took place in the San Diego Convention Center while fans were waiting for a panel featuring actor Seth Rogen discussing the science-fiction comedy "Paul."
"The room was very crowded and the males argued over one male sitting too close to the other," Stafford said.
The suspect was later seen being led away in handcuffs. He had on a blue "Harry Potter" T-shirt.
The panel was delayed for about 30 minutes while attendees were shown a series of movie trailers. "Well, there is a crowd issue. It's gotten really crowded. And if anything, an incident like this points to the need for more space," convention-goer Zennie Abraham told iReport -- the CNN website that allows people to submit pictures and videos.
"Should Comic-Con be in San Diego? I think so, but San Diego's got to make more space for it. It's become too big and I didn't think anything like this could happen because it's a chill event but it did happen."
Comic-Con, the annual gathering of self-proclaimed fanboys and fangirls, began Thursday and concludes Sunday. Aside from the stabbing, the convention has proceeded without incident so far, Stafford said.
By the CNN Wire Staff
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, 13 years after a fire killed his three daughters. Prosecutors argued that Willingham deliberately set the 1991 blaze -- but three reviews of the evidence by outside experts have found the fire should not have been ruled arson.
The last of those reports was ordered by the Texas Forensic Sciences Commission, which has been looking into Willingham's execution since 2008. But a September 2009 shake-up by Texas Gov. Rick Perry has kept that panel fromreviewing the report, and the commission's new chairman has ordered a review of its operating rules. Critics say that may kill the probe.
"They are attempting permanently to keep the investigation from continuing and moving on, and I do believe it's because they don't like the direction the evidence is leading," Willingham's cousin, Pat Cox, said Thursday.
The Forensic Science Commission's chairman is now John Bradley, an Austin-area district attorney with a reputation as a staunch supporter of the death penalty. Bradley has pledged to state lawmakers that the Willingham investigation "absolutely" will continue -- but said the panel needs better rules to guide its work, and could not say when the Willingham issue would move forward.
Thursday, he told CNN that the concerns of Willingham's supporters are based on "a lot of misinformation."
"I think that's being used very much as a side issue to politicize, through some New York lawyers, the work of the commission," Bradley said. "The commission has been very clear that the commission is going to address the merits of the Willingham case."
The panel meets again Friday in Houston, and one of the items on its agenda is a legal opinion arguing that the panel has "relatively narrow investigative jurisdiction." The unsigned memorandum argues that the commission's mandate covers only cases on which a state-accredited forensic laboratory worked.
But because Texas started accrediting crime labs in 2003, Cox and others who have backed his family say that would mean cases such as Willingham's and that of another inmate, Ernest Willis, would be dropped. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, who pushed for the commission's creation, calls the opinion flawed.
The Forensic Sciences Commission "was operating within the language and intent of the law when it determined that it had jurisdiction to investigate the case the first time in August 2008," Ellis said in a written statement to CNN.
"Frankly, I am surprised that the commission is even questioning whether or not it has jurisdiction, since it unanimously decided -- with the attorney general's representative in the room -- to review the cases over two years ago."
Ellis, a Houston Democrat, serves as the chairman of the board of The Innocence Project -- the "New York lawyers" that have supported efforts by Willingham's stepmother and cousins to clear his name. The group advocates for prisoners it says are wrongly convicted, and Ellis said the commission's work "is too important to be bogged down in political bickering."
"Texans need the FSC to perform its work in a timely manner, so the public can once again have confidence in forensic evidence and confidence that the truly guilty are behind bars and the innocent are free," he said.
But Bradley said the commission has never decided to apply the logic of the legal opinion to the case on Friday's agenda.Bradley was named the panel's chairman two days before the Forensic Sciences Commission was to hear from Craig Beyler, a Maryland-based fire science expert. Beyler concluded the arson finding at the heart of the Willingham case "could not be sustained," either by current standards or those in place at the time.
The Innocence Project requested the investigation after a report it commissioned reached the same conclusion. Death-penalty opponents say an impartial review of Willingham's case could lead to the unprecedented admission that the state executed an innocent man.
Barry Scheck, co-director of Innocence Project, and Ellis plan brief the press in Houston after the hearing is over.
Perry, who signed off on Willingham's execution, is up for re-election in November, and his critics have accused him of trying to short-circuit the review. Perry has said he remains confident of the condemned man's guilt, and police in the town of Corsicana, where the fire occurred, say other evidence beyond the arson testimony Beyler criticized supports the prosecution.
Cox, a retired nurse in Ardmore, Oklahoma, told CNN that spiking the commission's investigation would be a "blatant miscarriage of justice."
"The reasonable people of this country and the state of Texas can see through what this is," she said.
Published July 22, 2010
| Associated Press
PHOENIX -- A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday from lawyers for the governor, the U.S. government and civil rights groups over whether Arizona's new law requiring police to run checks on immigration status should take effect in a week. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton will consider a request by the U.S. Justice Department to block enforcement of the law. She also will hear arguments in a challenge by civil rights groups over whether the law should be put on hold and whether that lawsuit should be thrown out of court. The judge has said she wasn't making any promises on whether she would make those rulings before the law takes effect on July 29. The law requires officers, while enforcing other laws, to check a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally. It also bans people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day-labor services on streets and prohibits illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places. Since Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure into law on April 23, it has inspired rallies in Arizona and elsewhere by advocates on both sides of the immigration debate. Some opponents have advocated a tourism boycott of Arizona. It also led an unknown number of illegal immigrants to leave Arizona for other U.S. states or their home countries and prompted seven challenges by the Justice Department, civil rights groups, two Arizona police officers, a Latino clergy group and a researcher from Washington. Justice Department lawyers contend that local police shouldn't be allowed to enforce the law because, in part, it's already disrupting the United States' relations with Mexico and other countries. Attorneys for Brewer argue that the federal government based its challenge on misconceptions of what the law would do and that Washington's inadequate immigration enforcement has left the state with heavy costs for educating, incarcerating and providing health care for illegal immigrants. In the challenge by civil rights groups, Brewer and other officials said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the groups don't allege a real threat of harm from enforcing the new law and instead base their claims on speculation. The civil rights groups said their clients will suffer imminent harm, such as a social service organization that will have to divert resources from its programs to instead assist those affected by the new law.
Chicago, Illinois (CNN) -- Testimony in the federal corruption trial of Rod Blagojevich wrapped up Wednesday without the ousted Illinois governor taking the stand in his own defense.
After months of professing his innocence in impromptu news conferences, on Twitter and even on Donald Trump's show "Celebrity Apprentice," Blagojevich's testimony had been highly anticipated. But his lawyers rested their case Wednesday morning, and closing arguments are set to begin Monday.
"It is my decision, on the advice of my attorneys, not to testify in this case," Blagojevich announced in court.
The two-term Democrat was removed from office in January 2009 amid accusations that he had attempted to sell the U.S. Senate seat that had been occupied by Barack Obama before he became president. In one conversation recorded by federal agents, he told an aide, "I've got this thing and it's [expletive] golden. I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing."
His brother, Robert Blagojevich, testified Tuesday that the governor was "trying to politically work something to his benefit" in handling the appointment -- but was thinking in terms of political horse-trading, not corruption.
"It didn't seem out of the ordinary, because Obama was taking a lot of people from Illinois with him to D.C.," said Robert Blagojevich, who raised money for his brother. He said the governor "was interested in the idea of being the head of Health and Human Services."
But prosecutors argued that Blagojevich and his inner circle engaged in a near-constant conspiracy of extortion and kickbacks after his 2002 election.
