Best Defense on Court TV

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April 30, 2007
Justice for Some
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For more on theSpector trial, visitCourtTVNews.com
Posted at 5:01 PM inThe Last Word,Trials |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
April 26, 2007
Jack Valenti
Tonight we have lost a great American.
I just received word that Jack Valenti, former White House aide and film industry lobbyist, has passed away.  He was eighty-five.
I first met Jack when I applied for aWhite House Fellowship, an elusive goal for someone so young (I was just 27).  I confided to Jack and his beautiful wife, Mary Margaret, my concern that I might be too young to make the cut.  He gave a knowing nod and told me of his own insecurities during his early years of service in the Johnson Administration. "Have faith," he said, referring to the President‘s Commission which would decide which candidates to recommend for appointment.  "These folks know what they‘re doing."
Later that year, I became the youngest White House Fellow in the first class appointed by President Clinton.  Jack had faith in me, before I had faith in myself.
And that‘s the purpose of the White House Fellows program:  To give young Americans first-hand experience with the process of governing and a sense of personal investment in the leadership of society.
America produces a great number of skilled professionals, but too few of them return the favor with statesmanlike leadership or guidance in public affairs. If the Colonies could produce Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin and others of great talent, we should be able to do the same.
Jack Valenti believed the raw material is still there. That is why, for so many years, he supported our program.  Prompted by the suggestion ofJohn Gardner, then President of the Carnegie Corporation, President Johnson‘s intent was to draw individuals of promise to Washington for one year of personal involvement in the process of government.
Continue reading "Jack Valenti" »
Posted at 8:31 PM inFirst Amendment,Heroes,Obits,On the Big Screen,White House Fellows |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
Price of Injustice
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For more on theExonerated, visit the Innocence Projectonline.
Posted at 4:31 PM inThe Last Word |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
April 25, 2007
The Spector Spectacle
Ready, set, go!
Right now, in a California courtroom, thePhil Spector trial is getting ready to go.
Of course, we do live trials every day here on Court TV, but People v. Spector will be the first celebrity trial televised in Los Angeles since theO.J. Simpson case way back in 1995. Judge Fidler is presently instructing the jury.  With the camera rolling, he is reminding the jury -- and America -- about the presumption of innocence.
Judge Fidler is one judge who understands that public scrutiny is a good thing for our system of justice. That‘s why he did the right thing by the press and the public in this case, even though his colleagues on the California bench have chosen, for more than a decade, to rule otherwise.
Of course, Spector is good for Court TV. He‘s an oddball, and that draws attention. But, for us, it is not just about ratings. Live trials are what we do on Court TV News. Celebrity or no celebrity.  Oddball or no oddball. First and foremost, we are advocates for access -- that is, for your right to see what happens in America‘s courts. So yes, we will air the Spector case, gavel-to-gavel -- thanks to a judge who is not afraid to let viewers judge for themselves.
JFlo
Posted at 3:01 PM inTrials |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
Innocence Project Gala
I go to a lot of events.  And I have not been to an event as spectacular, poignant, meaningful or spirited as theInnocent Project Gala I attended last night in a very long time.  It was a magnificent affair, complete with red carpet, at the imposing and elegantGotham Hall.
The honorees:200 innocent people, exonerated since 1989, based upon post-conviction DNA testing, their portraits proudly displayed throughout the room, all present in spirit, many in person.
In attendance to honor them
The beautiful actress and activist,Judy Collins, who appeared in Bob Balaban‘s The Exonerated, and who last night led the room in a soulful rendition of Amazing Grace, to start the program;John Grisham, the author of too many best selling novels to name but most recently of the non-fiction work, The Innocent Man, about exonoreeRon Williamson; Matt Blank, Chairman and CEO ofShowtime, who won an award for his networks support of the brilliant Showtime documentaryAfter Innocence; The filmmakers Jessica Sanders and Mark Simon and of course,Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, co-founders of the Innocence Project, their incomparable staff and the students who staff the cases and fight with the wrongly accused for their freedom.
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Posted at 6:02 AM inDefenders,Duke,Exonerated,On The Town |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
April 24, 2007
Barry Scheck‘s Best Defense
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For more on the exonerated and the Innocece Project‘s new initiative, "200 Exonerated, Too Many Wrongfully Convicted," visit the Innocence Projectonline.  For more on the Best Defense "Exonerated" series, seeExonerated, Explained.
Posted at 2:28 PM inDefenders,Exonerated |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
David Halberstam
Journalist David Halberstam died Monday in a car crash near San Francisco.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning author was 73 years-old.
Reporters of my generation, and many of my generation who are not reporters, grew upon on David Halberstam.  When he was a young reporter in Vietnam for The New York Times Halberstam challenged the military for its misleading, overly encouraging accounts of the war.  That he was right now seems obvious.  At the time it took tremedous courage. His book The Best and The Brightest told the story of how policymakers for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson walked the country into the quagmire that has come to define our collective childhood.
Given the current state of our foreign policy in the Middle East and the untimely death of a man always willing to ask the hard questions that need to be asked for democracy to thrive here at home, The Best and The Brightest, deserves rereading now.  Those who call themselves journalists will take important lessons from the text and subtext.  Those who call themselves citizens will too.
JFlo
For more on Halberstam, his life and death, read contributor Andrew Cohen‘spersonal reflections and recommendations of Halberstam‘s work.
Posted at 12:56 PM inFourth Estate |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
April 23, 2007
Update: The Baker‘s Dozen
Back to a story that caught my attention back in January and has held it ever since:
A member of a the Yale University choral group,The Baker‘s Dozen, has filed a civil lawsuit against five men in connection with the San Francisco New Year‘s Eve party turned melee.
Sharyar Aziz sustained a fractured jaw and nerve and tooth damage in what the lawsuit calls to as a "senseless and premeditated attack carried out by a gang of thugs."
But the San Francisco DA, Kamala Harris, has not charged anyone for beating Aziz.
Now, to be fair, formal charges have been brought against Richard Aicardi and Brian Dwyer, both 19, in the beatings of two other Baker‘s Dozen singers.  Harris has said there isn‘t enough evidence to charge any other suspects.  Because, she says, Aziz wasn‘t able to make an identification.
But isn‘t this the same DAs office that argues before juries daily that circumstantial evidence is all it needs for a conviction?  She knows as well as anyone that a DA needs only circumstantial evidence to charge someone with a crime.
Without a criminal prosecution in his case, Aziz is using his civil lawsuit to name three other young men in the incident -- twenty-year-old Marino Peradotto  and Aicardi‘s twenty-year-old twin brothers, Michael and James Aicardi.  By the way, Aziz‘s lawyer is Jim Hammer (of Court TVDog Mauling fame)
Peradotto is now a marine working overseas.
Continue reading "Update: The Baker‘s Dozen" »
Posted at 9:08 PM inBaker‘s Dozen,Bay Area Buzz,Defenders |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
200 Hundred Exonerated Today
Today marks the 200th exoneration of an innocent person based on post-conviction DNA testing. Jerry Miller, was convicted of rape, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery – crimes he did not commit.  Monday, a Chicago judge threw out those convictions after DNA testing cleared him.  Mr. Miller, who had no prior criminal record, spent 25 years in prison.
An innocent person wrongly accused is the worst result imaginable in a criminal justice system premised on the presumption of innocence. Yet, not one state provides an absolute right to post-conviction DNA testing; and of the more than thirty-five states that do permit post-conviction DNA testing, most are in need of a comprehensive reform of their laws to ensure that the systemic causes of wrongful convictions are cured, the innocent do not languish in prison, that the guilty do not go unpunished.
We need only look to the exonerated for the causes of wrongful conviction – causes that are easy to identify and simpler still to remedy.
Continue reading "200 Hundred Exonerated Today" »
Posted at 6:10 PM inExonerated |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
April 20, 2007
Steve Capus
It‘s not every day we get a story like this. We went over it for seven and a half hours. We didn‘t rush it on the air. We weren‘t promoting it. We weren‘t trumpeting it all day. It was extraordinary, and that‘s how we treated it.
Steve Capus, President of NBC News, in the New York Times defending the network‘s decision to air the material sent to NBC by Virgnia Tech shooter.
Posted at 3:50 PM inQuotables |Permalink |Email |Digg it |del.icio.us
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