Over the last two days the media and blogosphere has formed opinions, speculated, crucified, harrangued and harrassed Mark Cuban on the basis of one sided Securities And Exchange Commission(SEC) spin.  During that time,  Jeffrey Norris, the SEC attorney, who had the contentious “Loose Change” email exchange with Mark while his employer investigated allegatons of insider trading has been able to hide under his desk. He has been able to slink home every night relatively free from any type of media exposure.  That is all over. The emails between SEC attorney Jeffrey Norris and Mark Cuban have been made public.  It is time to enter the email “no spin zone”.   It is time for Jeff’s integrity, ethics and propriety of actions to be put under the same microsope.  Here is the pdf link to the full text of the email exchanges between Jeffery Norris and Mark Cuban.  The emails speak for themselves. Come to your own conclusions about the integrity of Mr. Norris and his office in general.

Former United States Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have been re-sentenced after  partially successful appeals of their convictions.  Ironically both received substantially the same sentences received after being convicted two years ago in the non-fatal shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, an admitted, and now convicted, drug smuggler.  Ramos will  spend 11 years and 1 day in federal prison.  His former partner, Compean was re-sentenced to his  original 12-year sentence, 10 years on a charge of using a weapon in the commission of a felony and another two for assault and other charges.  There has been a national outcry at their convictions and the harsh federal inflexibility of their sentences.  Prior to their arrests and convictions, both former agents worked the dangerous and desolate Mexican drug corridor. How did these two soldiers in the battle against Mexican drug lords and illegal immigration make the journey from defending our borders to defending and subsequently losing their freedom?

Approximately 2 1/2 years ago Compean and Ramos were on patrol  in the barren Texas tundra southeast of El Paso.  They shot at an illegal alien as he was fleeing back to the Mexican border.  Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, a Mexican national was  in the process of smuggling approximately a million dollars worth of marijuana into the U.S.  Testimony showed that the agents fired 15 bullets at a the unarmed Davila who was fleeing on foot toward the border. He was hit once in the buttocks and survived. Compean and Ramos were convicted by a jury of violating the civil rights of Davila when they shot him and then tampering with evidence by picking up shell casings from the shooting. The ex-agents stated that deadly force was justified because Davila had a gun.  No gun was ever found. In exchange for his testimony against the former agents, Davila was granted immunity from prosecution by the U.S. government with regards to his attempt to smuggle nearly 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States on the day he was shot

There is no dispute that Davila is a drug dealing scumbag.  He was later convicted of drug smuggling in an unrelated prosecution.  There is no dispute that he was smuggling drugs when shot. He was offered immunity on those charges in exchange for his testimony against the agents.  Should Davila’s status as a drug smuggler and illegal alien have any bearing on the propriety of the agent’s actions?

I dispute that doing a dangerous public job and even being in a position of having to make tough split second decisions with less than perfect information puts law enforcement above the laws they are sworn to uphold. They are well trained in when they can and can not use deadly force.  Our body of laws puts the general population at a higher standard when dealing with law enforcement.  We in return get the expectation of safe discourse of mind and body when we interact with a law enforcement officer even in the commission of a crime.  Part of that is the expectation that we will not be shot at simply because we flee, unarmed in fear of apprehension in committing a non-violent offense.  This is not about drug smuggling, illegal immigration, or the patriotism of these agents.  It is about their attempt to seriously injure/kill a person who did not present a deadly threat.  Even more importantly, apart from any sympathy we have for two men doing a dangerous thankless job, it is about the attempt to cover-up their actions. Should these officers be pardoned by the outgoing President Bush or the incoming President Elect Obama?  Nearly 400,000 people have signed a petition demanding a presidential pardon for the agents. There are several bills to pardon them pending in Congress.  One lawmaker stated:

“The federal government was on the wrong side in this case. This drug dealer was not just bringing in a little bit of marijuana,” Poe said. “Our federal government goes to Mexico, finds this drug dealer, gives him immunity … they’re [Ramos and Compean] being punished basically, for doing what they’re supposed to do.”

I do not believe they should be pardoned.  They lied to federal investigators. No free-passes for law enforcement cover-ups.  End of story.  This is worse than the crime itself.  It impugns all of law enforcement and the justice system.  Nothing that is said can ever be trusted.  To pardon them would send the message that our law enforcement officers have carte-blanche to lie, cheat and steal to achieve a desired judicial result.

Should their sentences be commuted?  The proper thing to do would be for either President Bush or President-elect Obama(when he gets in office) to communte the sentences to what they would get for the cover-up of the offense, and a concurrent time served sentence for the other convictions.   That would leave them as convicted felons no longer able to hold any type of law enforcement positions.  The cover-up mandates that they never again be allowed to wear a badge in furtherance of the public trust.  That is the price of the high standard to which we hold those who wear badges and carry guns to protect us. There is a price for mistakes in the face of accountability , it sucks but unless you are two years old, it is the world we live in.

What to do with the Arizona 8 year old charged with murdering his father Vincent Romero along with one of Romero’s co-workers, Timothy Romans.  The child(his name is legally protected as a juvenile) appeared in court today charged with both murders. He admitted that he killed his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39.  Both men were found dead in Romero’s home. Police said that the boy had confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber weapon. No motive was give nor has one been uncovered to date.  There is allegedly evidence that the child, who had been taught to shoot guns by his father, had methodically planned and “thought out” the murders.  A stunned town and law enforcement community is grasping for ways to understand this act with nothing concrete to grasp on to.  Was the boy abused?   Was there evidence of mental instability?  Give us something to hold on to that will make us feel good about ending(metaphorically) the life of a child that plays with Transformers and watches Ninja Turtles.

So what do we do?  What we do is let the justice run its course to determine the child’s fate.  But which justice system?  The adult system that could send the 8 year old to prison for the rest of his very long life or the juvenile justice system which would cap his sentence out when he reaches 18 years old. It comes down to a simple choice.  When discussing this child’s fate do we want to talk about the past or his future.  If we try him as an adult we are only concerned with the past. We are only concerned with the crimes he committed and the punishment to be inflicted.  If we try him as a juvenile we are concerned about whether he has a future even the face of the futures he took away from his father  and the other victim.

I could say that this would make a great Law and Order espisode but this scenario has already been played out in several different episodes of my favorite television show.  Hard nosed Manhattan District Attorney Jack McCoy would demand the child be tried as an adult and spend the rest of his very long life in Attica prison general population where he would no doubt come out with a “lifetime” criminal label and the in-house training of a true societal predator. Released on society with all the prison skills and true brutal intentions he did not possess when he went in.   Is that what we want for this child?  Is that what he deserves for the  two  murders if convicted as an adult?  Not a decision I envy for the real life District Attorney.  The local police department wants this child charged and tried as an adult.  While I do not agree, I certainly understand the knee-jerk emotional reaction of those at the heart of the investigation. Those who witnessed first hand the brutality and collateral damage of the crime.  With each grieving family contact, crime scene photo, blood stain and fact learned about what a good people the victims were, the age of the “perp” fades into the bright red  of simple payback.

No one would disagree that if this kid is tried as an adult and  convicted his life is over.  We might as well just lethal injection him up right now because by doing so we will be saving on two different levels.  We will save the state millions of dollars to house a life whose potential to contribute to society will have been snuffed out by the correctional system.  We will have saved countless future victims of the this child’s future criminal life because make no mistake , that is the only life that will be left of him when ever he is finally paroled.  That is not to say that his life is not over regardless of under which system he is tried.  10 years in the Arizona juvenile system may not offer any more hope for a non-violent future.  How do you impose the criminal consequences of an act on a child who does not even understand crime or consequences?

You know where I stand.  Try the kid as a juvenile. If found responsbile(the equvialent of an adult guilty) use the maxium time allowed to figure out what went wrong with this child and whether it can be fixed in the 10 or so years he will be incarcerted. What more can you do without completley throwing this childs life away?  I am not diminsihing the lives taken and the necessity that there be accountability.  I just see no benefit to anyone in adding this child to the scrap heap of societal revenge when there is so much more at stake including every other person this child comes into contact with in his lifetime.  If Vicent Romero or Timothy Romans could speak from the grave about this child’s fate, I wonder what they would say…

The Supreme Court has said no but oddly enough the  former  Alaska high school student Joseph Frederick who offered Jesus up a toke during a school sanctioned Olympics rally  will be $45,000  richer for it. The money no doubt to be used for some prime Mexican sensimillia for further offerings.  The school district will pay Frederick $45,000. In exchange Frederick will drop remaining claims not heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.  The settlement also calls for the district to spend as much as $5,000 to hire a neutral constitutional law expert to chair a forum on student speech at his former high school.

The United States Supreme Court initially agreed to take the case after Frederick, a Juneau, Alaska high was suspended for ten days for allegedly “disrupting” an off-campus school sanctioned rally by unfurling a 14-foot-long banner that read:

“BONG HITS FOR JESUS”

Frederick was suspended in 2002 after he unfurled the banner just outside school grounds as the Olympic torch relay moved through the Alaskan capitol, headed for the Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Frederick was not on school grounds when he put up the banner; he was standing on a public sidewalk. He was asked to take the sign down and refused. He was then suspended for ten days. He appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who agreed that his First Amendment rights were infringed upon. The 9th Circuit found that the banner did not disrupt the educational mission of the school, as it was on a public sidewalk and therefore, was considered protected free speech. The school district appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The school’s position was that it was a school-sponsored event in which the students were dismissed from class, and therefore, he should be bound by the same rules as if he were in the classroom. Ken Star, famous for checking into former President Bill Clinton’s “cigar collection,” represented the school district. (Mr. Star was the independent prosecutor in the Lewinsky “affair.”)

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the school district upholding their right to suspend Morse. The justices ruled that Frederick’s free speech rights were not violated by his suspension over what the majority’s written opinion called a “sophomoric” banner.   In writing for the majority Chief Justice John Roberts stated:

“It was reasonable for (the principal) to conclude that the banner promoted illegal drug use– and that failing to act would send a powerful message to the students in her charge,” (Opinion)

Roberts also stated that while the court has limited student free speech rights in the past, young people do not give up all their First Amendment rights when they enter a school sending a strong signal that this case is limited to its facts. The Supreme Court ruling while taking the school district off the hook under the United States Constitution did not put an end to the controversy.  There was still litigation pending in the appellate court to determine whether Fredrick’s rights were violated under the Free Speech Provision of the Alaska Constitution. The settlement puts that to rest as well.  There very well could have been a different result under the Alaska Constitution which much to Sarah Palin’s chagrin reads differently than the U.S Constitution.

“Every person may freely speak, write, and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right.”

I frankly called this one wrong when the case first hit the news. I would have bet the mortgage that even a conservative court  was going to come down on the side of the student.  Public sidewalk. Not a voluntary membership school-sponsored event such as football, band, etc., which are privileges. The school did not offer students the opportunity not to take the day off from school.  In my opinion once the student left school grounds, he was “Joe Q. Bong-hitter” and was free to put up any sign he wanted as long as it did not cause an “educational disruption,” incite others to violence, or break some constitutional man-made law. The “center right” Supreme Court did not agree with me holding that a banner “promoting drug use” did disrupt the educational mission.  I did not see the banner as promoting drug use.

How would the landscape of such cases change under the Barrack Obama presidency with as many as 3 new appointments to the Supreme Court?   There is no doubt that if President-elect Obama gets the right people on the bench we will have a much more activist court.  It will  drive the Federalists crazy.  When you throw out terms such as “economic justice” it leaves little doubt that Constitutional definitions and context are fair game for radical change. Every provision of the Constitutional will be looked at in context of who is invoking it and the justice sought as compared to what it actually says. This will be especially interesting in the free speech and right to privacy areas. Would a new left leaning court find the principal’s interpretations and actions reasonable?  What does that mean for the next student offer up some “religious smoke”?  What if the sign had said “HOOKA HITS FOR JESUS!“  Jesus is probably getting high right now at the thought of it…