JUDGE DENIES DEPUTY UNION REQUEST TO STOP RELEASES FROM OC JAIL

Okay, Superior Court Judge Steven Perk has declined to buckle under to the OC Deputies’ union’s law suit asking for a temporary restraining order to keep the OC sheriff from letting any more inmates out from the jail early in response the the state’s corrections reform law that kicked in Jan 1. But the judge said he would revisit the thoroughly bollixed up issue in mid March. For her part, the OC Sheriff has been applying the law retroactively, even though anybody with a grasp of logic who read the law could see that this was not its intention—as California Attorney General Jerry Brown has stated with admirable succinctness.

As should be evident by now, I’m for the parole revisions and the new provisions that allow prisoners—both in prison and in jails—to earn a few days or weeks off their sentences by engaging in productive and rehabilitative programs. Such programs are statistically likely to decrease inmates likelihood of reoffending,. And, by the way, the amount shaved off their sentences is comparatively minimal.

But I do not see any reason why we have to start dumping people out of jails by the hundreds, freaking everyone out, when the law says to do no such thing. If for no other reason, its a lousy PR move.

Here’s what Jerry wrote on the retroactivity issue.. It’s a little long to paste the best of it here, so you’ll have to click through.

To make matters more bizarre, some of the crafters of the law are saying that they never meant it to apply to jails. (Well, Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, if you didn’t want your law—good ol’ SB 3X 18 —to apply to jails, then it might have been wiser not to have written into it the words, “This bill would also revise the time credits for certain prisoners confined or committed to a county jail or other specified facilities, as provided.”

The Wave has an informative take on the quarrel.

And the LA Times Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton have more of the details on the judge’s decision:

A judge on Thursday denied a request by the union representing Orange County deputies to end the early release of jail inmates but signaled that the decision would not be the last word on the issue, setting a hearing for further arguments next month.

In turning down the bid to temporarily block the releases, Superior Court Judge Steven Perk noted that Sheriff Sandra Hutchens has the final say in choosing how to address the new state law that went into effect Jan. 25.

The judge set a hearing for March 12 on arguments for a preliminary injunction.

The law reformulated good behavior credits for state prison inmates, accelerating their release. But it also has caused confusion among local law enforcement officials, many of whom have been advised by county counsels to release inmates early, an interpretation that was backed up this week by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.

SPEAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION: THE SUPREMES WILL HEAR A 2ND AMENDMENT HAND GUN BAN CASE NEXT MONTH

The Wall Street Journal has this in Friday’s paper about the upcomng case the Supreme court will hear regarding the ban on handguns in Chicago and Oark Park, Ills.

The WSJ reports that the case has brought together a surprising mix of allies on the left and the right. Not a bad thing.

(Now if we could just have a similar left/right collaboration in Congress Over something. Anything.)

NATIONAL ENQUIRER OFFICIALLY IN THE RUNNING FOR PULITZER

As well they should be. Yes, there are ethical issues caused by their policy of paying sources. But they should still be in the running for their reporting on John Edwards. Speaking personally, I don’t think they deserve to win. But I do believe they should be shortlisted.

The Huffington Post (which is getting WAY too celebrity driven of late) has the story:

The Pulitzer Prize Board has officially accepted The National Enquirer’s submissions for breaking the John Edwards scandal, according to sources close to the Board. In a historic move, the Pulitzer Board conceded that the self-proclaimed tabloid is qualified to compete with mainstream news outlets for journalism’s most prestigious prize. The Enquirer is in the running for the Pulitzer in two categories: “Investigative Reporting” and “National News Reporting” for The National Enquirer staff.

[SNIP]

Before The Enquirer submitted its nomination, the Pulitzer’s long-time administrator Sig Gissler attempted to pre-empt this campaign by telling reporters that the tabloid is not eligible due to various technicalities. Gissler, however, showed great humility and fairness by reading The Enquirer’s submission and admitting that the paper is eligible to compete. Gissler has given The National Enquirer the legitimacy it long deserved for breaking a political scandal of national significance.

The National Enquirer single-handedly broke the stories about Edwards’ affair with a campaign staffer, their out-of-wedlock child, the expensive cover-up and the federal grand jury investigation of possible misappropriation of campaign funds. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the other reporters covering Edwards’ campaign did little if anything to follow up on the published stories in The Enquirer.

My dear Mr. O’Keefe,

Your message explaining why you will miss your scheduled interview with us has, I believe, demonstrated yet another reason why we feel you cannot help but benefit from obtaining our Master’s Degree in Journalism. While we admire your go-getter spirit (love the pimp outfit you used for the ACORN sting), we feel sure your native talents would shine brighter if burnished by the rigorous kind of critical thinking we encourage.

For instance, regarding this most recent unpleasantness, had you been matriculating through our program, our professors would have uniformly advised you against (allegedly) committing a felony that carries with it a 10-year prison jolt. We understand that you were after what certainly sounded like an intriguing story. But our profs would have brainstormed with you to find another route to getting the information you sought. (See, for example, our 2-credit FOIA Lab.)

Speaking personally, I always firmly advise my students not to do anything that will get them either arrested or shot at. And, if unsure about the aforementioned, I tell them to simply avoid acts that will stand in the way of their future Supreme Court confirmations. And really, as I’m sure you now agree, those are handy little, easy-to-remember rules to fall back on in a pinch….

From CBS:

O’Keefe and three others — including the son of an acting U.S. Attorney, are accused of trying to manipulate the phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans. According to an release from the United States Attorney’s Office, witnesses say O’Keefe was in Landrieu’s office when two co-conspirators came in “dressed in blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light green fluorescent vest, a tool belt and a construction-style hard hat” and pretended to be there to repair the phones. (Here’s the affidavit.)

O’Keefe allegedly filmed the men handling the main reception-area phone in the senator’s office with a cell-phone camera. The faux-repairmen, who are believed to have been attempting to tap the phones, then asked for access to the telephone closet to work on the main telephone system; asked for identification after being directed there, they said they had left their credentials in their vehicle.

The four men — O’Keefe, the two fake telephone repairman, and another alleged co-conspirator — are now “charged in a criminal complaint with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, announced the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.” They could face up to ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

In the spring of 2005, the LA Times published a piece by Matt Lait and Scott Glover, in which they pulled apart the pieces of a murder case from 1983 in which a then-17-year old young man named Bruce Lisker was convicted of the beating and stabbing death of his mother, Dorka Lisker, in a bloody scene at the family’s Sherman Oaks home. Lisker was tried and convicted as an adult, and sentenced to life in prison in 1985.

Initial doubts about the case had come to light when an LAPD Internal Affairs sergeant named Jim Gavin responded to an ethics complaint about the main officer on the Lisker case, Det. Andrew Monsue. The more Gavin looked into things, the more he began to believe that what he was looking at was no simple misstatement by an officer, but a rush to judgment in a murder investigation that might have the wrong person in prison.

However, his bosses at IA, then headed by Michael Berkow, thought Gavin was overstepping his bounds and told him to cease and desist.

He mostly did so—but handed over some of what he’d found to Lisker’s lawyer.

By weird coincidence, I talked to Gavin in 2004 during the period he was investigating the Lisker matter. I had called him for an unrelated reason, but he mentioned he had this other case that troubled him. At the time, I was involved in a year long newspaper series and (foolishly) reasoned that I couldn’t take on another big story, so didn’t press him on the Lisker issue.

But Glover and Lait heard about the case through their own sources and did take it on—and they brought it all the way home.

The result was a truly excellent work of reporting and writing accomplished by the team over 7 months. Glover and Lait’s work is a large part of what may allow Bruce Lisker to walk out of prison after 24 years..

Here’s the link to the original story. (It is really, really worth reading.)

And here’s what happened today, as reported by the LA Times.

A federal judge on Friday overturned the conviction of a San Fernando Valley man serving a life prison sentence for the 1983 murder of his mother, ruling that he must either be retried or set free.

U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips concluded that Bruce Lisker, 44, was convicted on “false evidence” and that his attorney — now a court commissioner — failed to adequately represent him.

The judge’s findings mirrored those of a seven-month Times investigation published in 2005, which raised questions about key elements of the prosecution’s case against Lisker and exposed the LAPD’s investigation into the slaying of his 66-year-old mother as sloppy and incomplete.

It is unclear whether or not the district attorney will appeal, refile….or just let it go.

Read the rest here.

Here’s the LA Times.

Here’s the NY Times.

And my smart pal Kevin Roderick already has a full, link-filled chronology of Lee and Ling’s ordeal up on LA Observed.

This is wonderful news!

Good slideshow at Huff Post.

(Is it me, or does Lil’ Kim look bizarrely ‘shopped, as my techie son would put it, into all but one of the photos? Oh, nevermind. Go, Bill!!!)

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WEDNESDAY EARLY A.M. UPDATE:

It is about 3 a.m. Wednesday. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are scheduled to arrive at Hangar 25 at the Bob Hope Airport in about an hour.

This morning’s New York Times details how both Clintons—Hillary and Bill—had a role in the women’s release.

They also say that, out of a list of possible negotiators, that the Koreans picked Bill. Clinton had been slated to go to North Korea before the end of his own presidency, but other international issues pressed, and he never made it. Therefore this trip was looked on as a sort of completion of that interrupted presidential visit.

According to the Washington Post, Bill was not the Obama administration’s first choice for the job.

North Korea rejected the administration’s first choice for the trip — former vice president Al Gore, who co-founded the television channel that employs the journalists — and Bill Clinton left the United States only after North Korea provided assurances that the reporters would be released, the sources said.

The WaPo also had an interesting insight about how the White House managed to give the trip a sort of back door official status, which would please the North Koreans, while simultaneously truthfully denying that the trip had official status.

No government officials appeared to be aboard Clinton’s plane, but the nature of the delegation gave the mission a quasi-official status. It included John Podesta, Clinton’s White House chief of staff, who served as chief of Obama’s transition team and is president of the Center for American Progress. Also seen in photos released by the Korean media were David Straub, a former head of the Korea desk at the State Department who is now at Stanford University; longtime Clinton aide Douglas J. Band; and Justin Cooper, who has worked with the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Listen. Whatever worked. I think we’re all just glad that our local girls are nearly home. (And will be home by the time most of you wake up, have your coffee, and read this.)

Statements made by Lee and Ling’s very relieved and happy family members are posted at Lauraandeuna.com

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Photo by Zhang Binyang/Xinhua, via Reuters

Ugly Secret: They never were free

If it were up to me, trucks and solo drivers would be banned from all L.A. freeways during rush hour. Carpools would not be two people; they would be a driver and at least two passengers. Buses would be free for all. Fares would be low for light-rail and subways. We would be happy to pay higher taxes because the 20,000 premature deaths blamed every year on air pollution would drop.

Believe it or not, we’re headed there–slowly, and in very small steps. For the next couple weeks, the public will be weighing in on a congestion pricing program that will allow solo drivers to pay to drive in carpool lanes on stretches of the I-110 and I-10. Ladies and gentlemen, you can deal with it. The revolution has not begun.

Of course, foes abound. I suspect that L.A. Times’ columnist Tim Rutten represents the thinking of many people as he tried to tear apart the plan this week. He was not particularly well-informed and chose either to ignore important elements that address low-income drivers, public transit, the environment and health benefits, or maybe he didn’t read the entire plan. But fully weigh his views, particularly his demeaning example of a fictional mom working downtown who is rushing to care for her sick child at a Westside daycare. Here’s his column.

Make sure you read this overwrought line about the poor mom:

A society that can rationalize the imposition of such pain doesn’t need to worry over how to define equity; it needs to worry about its soul.

Note to Rutten: Rework the soul scold after doing some research on ultrafine particle pollution and learning how millions of microscopic specks that can fit on a nailhead find their way into lungs, hearts and brains of Los Angeles residents. These particles contribute to the respiratory ills that sicken and kill thousands every year. No society can allow this to continue.

Rutten’s screed got the attention of the public affairs department at Metro. Score one for Marc Littman and Rick Jager. They posted a response to Rutten’s shallow and misleading arguments on Metro’s Web site today.

They shot down his arguments by addressing the full range of alternatives offered by the program:

This program provides the single mother with additional choices, some of which may be preferable to her. Through the $200 million in transit improvements along with the creation of the ExpressLanes, one new choice would be to take better and more reliable transit to avoid the highway traffic. Another choice based on the program would be to enter the toll lanes and save essential time. That choice could be made easier if she uses credits that she has built up by using transit, an element we’re including in the program specifically for lower-income commuters.

Mr. Rutten seems to suggest single moms will have difficulty making decisions when facing traffic congestion. Single moms respond every day to changing circumstances and choices that are far more complex. Traffic doesn’t have to be like the weather. We may not be able to transform it altogether, but we can have choices to make it better — for everyone. That’s the point of this program.

Pick a side, any side, and show up at a public hearing, starting Saturday. Here’s the schedule.

Four-year-old Roberto Lopez is the latest symbol of a dying newspaper. The little boy was shot and killed as he walked with his sister to a community center near their Angelino Heights home around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Where did the Los Angeles Times play the story? Page B3 in my edition. It should, at least, have been the dominant story on the cover of the California section and knocked off a timeless feature about a fire-gutted Montecito monastery’s efforts to rebuild.

Instead, we get a short story, with no photo of the boy. No interviews with family, friends or neighbors. No neighborhood scene. Times’ editors should have followed the example of LAPD’s Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger, who told their reporter: “We’re throwing everything we have at this investigation.”

I’m so over blaming Sam Zell for every shortcoming of our once stronger daily; rarely great, just stronger. Reporters and photographers out to save their jobs from impending layoffs should have carpooled to the scene and produced an in-depth series of stories and hoisted them on their editors in time for today’s paper. Too bad a tipster couldn’t have phoned in an erroneous report of a celebrity spotted in the neighborhood. Maybe the sleepyheads on Spring Street will recover in time for Thursday’s paper. To its credit, the paper’s Web site shows some progress on the story, with video from Tribune’s KTLA. Still, it seems like their overdosing on sedatives in the Times newsroom again.

The criminal enterprise known as L.A. Unified, which should be overseen by a panel of federal judges, took steps to can 2,300 teachers if the nightmarish budget comes true. Where did the story run? Page B-4.

The Times should run front-page stories every day on the latest news of the budget debacle. Include email addresses, home phone numbers and home addresses of every GOP legislator who refuses to act responsibly and raise taxes. (OK, I hear you on the home addresses.) Interview the constitutents of these backward-thinking lawmakers to see if these cavemen really represent their views.

Even the governor, who continues to steal transit money, is calling for tax hikes. The same governor who would have billions more to spend today had he not slashed the car tax upon taking office in 2003.

Forgive me, L.A. Times, for suggesting you step up your game. You probably think what I’m calling for sounds like advocacy journalism and would force you to surrender your objectivity, an outdated term that only provides an excuse for your failure to inform a community about the meaning of events and issues.

Tell me, what’s your objective view of a bankrupt state that fails to meet the needs of its young and its most needy residents?

And what does your objectivity say about the sad end of 4-year-old Roberto’s life? How are we to cope when you don’t tell us more about him, our city, our struggles and our future?

While you think about it, leave a red rose on Roberto’s shrine. It’s OK to mourn while you ponder questions for Chief Bratton and the mayor.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Last night was the Grammys.

But, more importantly, it was also the night of the PEN USA Literary Awards, an event when writers and editors from all over Southern California show up at the Beverly Hills Hotel wearing slightly rumpled dress-up clothes and looking deeply startled to be away from their computers.

(I include myself among the rumpled and startled. And, in truth, most people looked quite snazzy; it was more of a metaphorical rumpledness. I did, however, talk to two different—very stellar—writer friends who confessed that they had each changed clothes in the car. It’s not that we don’t care about such sartorial matters, it’s just that we have other things on our minds.)

As is usual, a pile of awards were given to a bunch of fabulously talented and deserving people (whom you can find listed here). And lots of literary types got up and said inspiring and articulate things.

But there were two moments in the night that stood out for me.

THE FIRST MOMENT was when PEN’s International Freedom to Write Award. was given to U Win Tin, the 79-year-old Burmese journalist/poet who has been imprisoned for 19 years for his writing. He was finally released 42 days ago.

U Win Tin was jailed by the military junta in Myanmar (which, as you’ll remember, is what Burma is now called) simply for his peaceful opposition to the generals. It seems he had the bad sense to write about the need for human rights and freedom of expression, and to work (legally) for the country’s other main political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) The NLD, incidently, won 82% of seats in general elections in 1990. (The generals didn’t like the election results so started locking people up.) U Win Tin was Myanmar’s longest serving prisoner of conscience

THE SECOND MOMENT was less dramatic, but in some ways more satisfying. It occurred when my friend Jesse Katz won PEN’s 2008 Literary Journalism award for his article for LA Magazine about the Jordan High School academic decathlon team.

The story, titled “The Test of Their Lives,” is not about a Cinderella team from the inner city who wins the local competition against impossible odds. The usual suspects won the LAUSD championship that year—namely El Camino High School in the West San Fernando Valley. And not only did El Camino win the LAUSD trophy. They won the state championship and then went on to win the national championship—as they have many other years. (When neighboring Taft High School isn’t winning it.)

In other words, for the Crenshaw Aca Deca team, it’s like trying to get fired-up to play your heart out at college basketball, all the while knowing that the Lakers are in your regional league.

Jesse spent six months shadowing the team and wrote a terrific piece about the Crenshaw kids who, with none of the advantages of the El Camino and Taft teams, competed with great heart and intelligence. They didn’t win. But they excelled. They shone. They held their own.

Last night Jesse brought one of he decathlon team members with him to the dinner, a tall, good-looking kid named Lance Mossett who was one of the main characters in the article When Jesse got up to accept the award, he introduced Lance to the crowd. It seems that Lance, who was one of the junior Aca Deca team members when Jesse was writing about the group, is now the team captain. He is also in the midst of applying for colleges.

“And Lance,” Jessie said into the mic, but staring at the kid, “I understand this award comes with a check……which I’ll sign over to you as soon as you get a letter of acceptance from college.”

The room exploded with applause.

The check is for a $1000 —-not a fortune in today’s world of high priced tuition, even for state schools. But, while a generous gesture, it wasn’t really about the money. It was about expressing pride and faith in a great kid.

I spoke to Lance during the dinner, at which time (as you’ll see above) he flashed his trillion-dollar grin, and said he was applying to Pitzer and Lewis and Clark colleges. Judging by what I saw last night, and what I know about Lance from Jesse’s article, any college would be foolish not to take this guy.

Tomorrow we can go back to talking about the usual sobering news stories. Today, however, I figure we can all take a breath and simply bask in last night’s good news.

The LA Times has a welcome editorial that calls for openness and transparency in the trial of three men accused of being part of a plot to murder Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a remarkable woman whose death on October 7 2006, shocked writers and others across the world. (The shooter, captured on videotape, has never been caught.)

Here’s the backstory on Anna and the murder of this woman whom many called the conscience of Russia.

(Short take in posting today as I’m drowning in deadlines, but the stories below were too….uh….memorable to miss.)

In the Creepy Newspaper Management Tricks derby, it seems there is always a brand new contender.

This week we have two winners:

1. THE NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

According to Editor & Publisher, after the Newark Star-Ledger offered buyouts last month to 151 of its news staff—-including Pulitzer-winning photographer Matt Rainey—it followed up that strategy by moving two of its veteran journalists to jobs in…..the mail room.

Reporter Jason Jett and Assistant Deputy Photo Editor Mitchell Seidel have been filing, sorting, and delivering mail for more than a week, according to sources.

2. THE LONGMONT TIMES-CALL

On the same day Newark story was reported, the news broke that the northern Colorado-located Longmont Times-Call sent around an internal e-mail inviting members of the news staff to work as…..valets at a private Christmas party for the Lehman family, the generous people own the paper. (The staff was not invited tothe Lehman’s party.)

Two reporters have taken the Lehman’s up on the offer.

3. LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. TypePad, the blogging software people, is offering a bailout for laid-off journalists.

Here’s what WIRED has to say about the….uh…proposed bailout:

Six Apart [the company that owns Typepad] has announced that it is offering free pro accounts on TypePad to journalists and professional bloggers who recently lost their jobs.

A pro account differs from a basic in that it allows multiple authors and blogs as well as more storage and control over the design.

The Journalist Bailout Program is limited time only and also includes a spot in the Six Apart Media advertising program, promotion on Blogs.com and other information and advice in how to succeed in online journalism.

It’s no $700 billion, that’s for sure, but is a nice little perk for freelancers and out-of-work journalists.

It is beyond heartbreaking that the LA Times, in its ever-diminishing wisdom, has decided to put the publication of the Homicide Report “on hiatus.” As most of you know, The Homicide report is the LA Times blog that was started by Jill Leovy nearly two years ago because she felt that someone needed to take note of every single homicide in Los Angeles. She nominated herself as that someone. Her editors, to their great credit, went along with Jill’s idea.

The Homicide Report quickly became one of the Times’ most read online features. More than any other continuing section in the paper it humanized the city through— of all things—the lens of its violent deaths. For families of those murdered, the Homicide Report was a validation, a guarantee that a loved one didn’t die unnoticed.

Almost from the beginning, comments began to appear under each one of her stories about the dead. The comments came from the victims’ family, from friends, from neighbors. Those commenting told stories, offered condolences, shared grief. Through Jill’s efforts, where there had been no public notice at all, suddenly there was community.

For these reasons, the report became of enormous value and comfort to many of the Los Angeles neighborhoods that are often, shall we say, less than well-served by Los Angeles media in general, and by the LA Times in particular.

The Times pulled Jill off the Homicide Report once the site’s first year was finished, but other good reporters, like Richard Winton, filled in.

Then with all the election fever, the Homicide Report fell to 17th among LA Times most read blogs. But rather than wait to see if its popularity came back up again after the election madness settled down, the Times unplugged it.

It was a sad and shameful decision.

But, hey, we get it. We really do. When the LA Times powers-that-be assessed the Homicide Report purely on a short-term cost/benefit basis—-they concluded that local death just wasn’t delivering the right bang for the buck.