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From LA Times

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Police hunt for left-handed bandit in South Los Angeles

Los Angeles Police Department detectives are asking for the public's help in identifying an armed man who has robbed more than a dozen sandwich and retail shops in South Los Angeles.

The man, whom authorities have dubbed the “Left-Handed Eyeglass Bandit,” typically walks in the front door of a business, draws a small-caliber revolver with his left hand and demands money from the clerk. The robberies have all taken place in the last three weeks.

Police described the robber as an African American man in his 30s, who is 5 feet 10 and weighs between 160 and 190 pounds. He wears eyeglasses and dresses casually. He may be driving a 1990s four-door dark blue or black car with a hard-shell tire cover on the trunk.

The robberies occurred between Oct. 21 and Monday and included at least three Subway sandwich shops and three Metro PCS stores.

Anyone with information is asked to call 77th Street Division detectives at (213) 473-4862. After-hours or on weekends, calls may be directed to a 24-hour, toll-free number at (877) LAPD-24-7 (527-3247).

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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LAPD asks for public's help in search for suspect in woman's brutal atta

[See the attached file]

The Los Angeles Police Department put out an urgent public plea as they searched for a man accused of raping, torturing and pouring acid on the face of a woman during a Halloween night attack.

Police identified the suspect as Miguel Angel Herrera, and officials said the attack occurred at his home in South Los Angeles. The victim, whose name was not released, was Herrera's girlfriend.

LAPD Capt. Art Miller said Herrera and the victim had some type of dispute before Herrera allegedly raped her, punched her, stabbed her, whipped her with an electrical cord and poured battery acid on her "to teach her a lesson."

The woman managed to escape from his home. Her condition was not immediately known.

Miller said Herrera, 30, apparently became upset when the woman arrived late to his house. After she got away, he followed her in his car. But she made it to the home of relatives who took her to the Newton Division police station, where she reported the attack.

Herrera was last seen driving a 2005 red Nissan Titan. Miller said anyone who comes in contact with Herrera should call 911.

"Help us find this guy and put him in jail," he told reporters at an 11 a.m. news conference.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/lapd-seeking-suspect-who-raped-tortured-and-poured-acid-on-the-face-of-girlfriend.html#more

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Border Patrol seizes 27 pounds of cocaine from car in Temecula

Agents from the U.S. Border Patrol seized 27 pounds of cocaine during a vehicle stop on Interstate 15 in Te mecula, authorities said today. 

A gents were patrolling the interstate near a Border Patrol checkpoint about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday when they stopped a northbound Toyota Corolla.

With the aid of a drug-sniffing dog, agents found 10 bundles of the drug inside the dashboard, the agency said. The cocaine has a street value of more than $270,000 and was turned over to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The driver, a 30-year-old woman and U.S. citizen, was arrested on suspicion of cocaine smuggling, according to the Border Patrol.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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L.A. law group offers to help needy vets battle bureaucracy

Backlash over report showing big drop in L.A.'s homeless population

The homeless providers have written op-ed articles, public letters, blog postings and tweets — all taking issue with the census, conducted over three days in January, which showed the number of homeless people in the region had dropped 68,808 in 2007 to 42,694.

The change shown in the report, by the  Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority , seems puzzling to some because it comes in the midst of a recession, when people across the region have lost their homes.

“I wouldn't call it a criticism of the count,” said David Snow, executive director of Upward Bound House , a Santa Monica-based agency that focuses on homeless families and low-income seniors. “I would say there was surprise and shock at the numbers. 

"They seem so contradictory to what we as service providers are seeing from the front lines.” Of particular issue, said several homeless providers, was a part of the survey that said the number of homeless family members was down from 16,000 in 2007 to about 5,000 this year.

“We've been describing an overwhelming tsunami of families” seeking services, said Andy Bales, president of Union Rescue Mission . “There's no way that anybody who works with families would agree with [those numbers]. ... I was expecting a recant of those published numbers by now, but apparently they are going to dig in and hold on to that.”

The census was conducted in January by more than 3,000 volunteers. It was overseen by demographers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .

Counts were conducted in randomly selected census tracts, which included what the authority considered “hot-spot” and “non-hot-spot” areas. In addition, 16 cities conducted complete counts of all the tracts within their boundaries. In all, homeless people were counted in 754 of the 2,054 census tracts in the county, said Michael Arnold, executive director of the Homeless Services Authority.

In addition, the group did inventories of each shelter in the counted areas, on the same night that volunteers were out on the street, and made more than 28,000 phone calls to track populations that might not be counted in the street count — people living in unconverted garages. Arnold defended the count – noting that, despite the outcry, no one has found problems with the way the count was conducted.

“Really, it's a very small number of agencies who have raised a cry, and most of them are family providers. ... I think a lot of their hue and cry is anecdotally based, not data based. They are spreading disinformation.” Since the criticism by the homeless providers, Arnold and the demographers have gone back over the numbers, he said.

But in every instance, the numbers track, he said. Arnold said that on the night of the count, family emergency shelters were 91% occupied, and family transitional housing programs were 77% full. Indeed, a drop in the population of homeless people in Los Angeles could make fundraising more difficult for some homeless providers, especially those who rely on public acknowledgment of the homeless problem as a key part of their appeals.

Snow said that donations to his organization have not flagged since the Homeless Services Authority report came out. But, he said, he worried that the report promotes a perception that homelessness has been solved -- and that, in the midst of an already difficult economic climate, “we'll start seeing a reallocation of already diminished resources.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/backlash-over-report-showing-big-drop-in-las-homeless-population.html#more

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Death penalty is considered a boon by some California inmates

Given the state moratorium on executions and an appeals process that can last for decades, inmates can expect to live a long time, and with privileges other prisoners lack.

By Carol J. Williams

November 11, 2009

White supremacist gang hit man Billy Joe Johnson got what he asked for from the Orange County jury that convicted him of first-degree murder last month: a death sentence.

It wasn't remorse for his crimes or a desire for atonement that drove him to ask for execution; it was the expectation that conditions on death row would be more comfortable than in other maximum-security prisons and that any date with the executioner would be decades away if it came at all.

Although executions are carried out with comparative speed in states such as Virginia, where Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad was put to death Tuesday night, capital punishment in California has become so bogged down by legal challenges as to be a nearly empty threat, say experts on both sides of the issue.

"This is a dramatic reaffirmation of what we've already known for some time, that capital punishment in California takes way too long," Kent Scheidegger, legal director for the law-and-order Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, said of Johnson's bet that he will live a long life on death row. "This guy certainly feels like it's worth the risk."

Statistics suggest that Johnson may be correct in his calculations.

California has the nation's largest death row population, with 685 sentenced to die by lethal injection. Yet only 13 executions have been carried out since capital punishment resumed in 1977 and none of the condemned have been put to death since a moratorium was imposed nearly four years ago. Five times as many death row inmates -- 71 -- have died over that same period of natural causes, suicide or inside violence.

Though death row inmates at San Quentin State Prison are far from coddled, they live in single cells that are slightly larger than the two-bunk, maximum-security confines elsewhere, they have better access to telephones and they have "contact visits" in plexiglass booths by themselves rather than in communal halls as in other institutions. They have about the only private accommodations in the state's 33-prison network, which is crammed with 160,000-plus convicts.

Death row prisoners are served breakfast and dinner in their cells, can usually mingle with others in the outdoor exercise yards while eating their sack lunches, and have exclusive control over the television, CD player or other diversions in their cells.

"Death row inmates probably have the most liberal telephone privileges of anyone in state custody," said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, explaining that they need ready access to their attorneys and can often make calls from their cells over a phone that can be rolled along the cellblock.

The condemned wear the same jeans and chambray-shirt prison garb, eat the same food as prepared in other prisons and enjoy the same access to mail-order and canteen goods paid for by their families, as long as they maintain good behavior, Thornton said.

Those on death row are also allowed more personal property inside their cells, to accommodate their voluminous legal documents without infringing on the 6 cubic feet of snacks and entertainment devices allowed each prisoner, said Lt. Sam Robinson, spokesman for San Quentin.

"It's not that he thinks conditions will be better; they are better," Johnson's attorney, Michael Molfetta, said of his client's request for death row. Johnson, 46, figures that he will be close to 70 by the time his appeals are exhausted, Molfetta said, "and he says he doesn't care to live beyond that."

Johnson was convicted last month of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the March 2002 killing of former gang associate Scott Miller. Johnson, a "shot caller" in the white supremacist Public Enemy Number One gang, was found guilty of orchestrating Miller's execution-style murder for having revealed gang secrets in a television interview.

On Oct. 29, Johnson's jury decided that he should be sentenced to death. Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel is expected to impose the execution order when he formally sentences Johnson on Nov. 23.

As an "L-WOPP," a prisoner sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, Johnson could have been sent to any maximum-security facility in the state, where other Level IV offenders share an 8-foot-by-10-foot cell, a sink and a toilet. Gang leaders are often sent to the special housing unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, where they live in isolation with few of the comforts allowed elsewhere.

It costs the state about $49,000 a year to house each prisoner, according to corrections department statistics. Thornton said her department has never put a figure on the cost for "more staff-intensive" death row housing, but a state commission of experts last year estimated that the additional security and legal spending for capital inmates costs taxpayers $138,000 per death row prisoner each year.

Legal analysts say Johnson's request for a death sentence highlights how delays in executions could undermine any deterrent effect of California's death penalty.

"If you accept the premise that the death penalty is about retribution, about punishing someone for intolerable acts, you might argue that it is completely inappropriate to grant someone's request to have a death penalty imposed because it is more suitable or convenient for him," said Kara Dansky, executive director of the Criminal Justice Center at Stanford University. "It does seem to weaken the position of those who say the death penalty is a justified mode of punishment."

Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor now teaching criminal law at Loyola Law School, said Johnson is probably correct in gauging that he'll be better off on death row.

"We have a perverse system, given that we have a death row but we don't really have executions," she said. Convicts seeking death sentences "don't really feel like they are making life-and-death decisions."

Executions have been on hold in California for almost four years, following a federal judge's orders for review and reform of lethal injection procedures. Those orders came after concerns were raised that some of those executed by the three-shot sequence might not have been rendered unconscious by the first injection. That could expose the condemned inmate to pain from the final shot that would be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in 2006, when he ordered the state to correct the alleged deficiencies.

New protocols were proposed earlier this year but are pending approval by corrections officials still sorting through thousands of comments and challenges, and are facing at least another year of procedural hurdles ahead of Fogel's review.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deathrow11-2009nov11,0,7404644,print.story

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San Francisco board overrides mayor's veto of sanctuary expansion

It upholds an ordinance barring local authorities from turning juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless guilty of a felony.

By Maria L. La Ganga

November 11, 2009

Reporting from San Francisco

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to override a recent veto by Mayor Gavin Newsom and expand the city's controversial sanctuary policy.

The board was greeted by raucous applause after it voted 8 to 3 to uphold a recent ordinance that would bar local authorities from handing juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless they have been found guilty of a felony.

The board's action Tuesday was the latest volley in a fight over the responsibility of local government to enforce federal immigration law.

Twenty years ago, San Francisco enacted a "city of refuge ordinance" that barred city money from being used to enforce immigration law and prohibited authorities from stopping people based solely on their immigration status or country of origin.

Authorities did, however, hand adults over to federal officials if they had been arrested on felony charges and their immigration status was in question.

But in 2008, after published reports that the ordinance was actually protecting young undocumented offenders from deportation, Newsom changed the policy. He required that undocumented juveniles be treated like adults and referred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they were simply charged with a felony.

In reaction, Supervisor David Campos sponsored the ordinance to shore up the sanctuary policy. It passed Oct. 27 and was promptly vetoed by Newsom.

San Francisco is not the only big city in America with policies that prohibit law enforcement agents from inquiring about the immigration status of victims, witnesses or suspects, said Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law.

Los Angeles and New York also have such policies, said Johnson, who specializes in immigration law.

In fact, before the San Francisco supervisors voted to override Newsom's veto, Campos read from a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece by then-Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton recounting how an undocumented immigrant cooperated with police officers after witnessing a murder.

"Because the witness was not afraid to contact the police," Campos said, reading from Bratton's article, "an accused murderer was taken off the streets, and we are all a little bit safer."

But Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard said that regardless of Tuesday's vote, San Francisco's policy would not change because the action by the supervisors went against federal law. According to the U.S. Code, local governments are not allowed to prohibit officials from reporting information about anyone's immigration status to the federal government.

"The supervisors knew that this amendment was unenforceable," Ballard said, "and yet they plowed ahead with it in order to make a political statement."

Shortly after the vote, City Atty. Dennis Herrera wrote to the U.S. attorney's office asking for assurances that San Francisco law enforcement officers would not be prosecuted on federal criminal charges if they comply with the change in the sanctuary policy upheld by the supervisors.

If no such assurances are forthcoming, Herrera wrote, he would consider going to U.S. District Court to seek a ruling on whether the amendment to the sanctuary ordinance is allowed under federal law.

U.S. Atty. Joseph P. Russoniello said in an interview Tuesday that "we don't and can never make assurances to anyone that we would not prosecute a case. It depends on all the evidence and whether we can obtain a conviction."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sf-sanctuary11-2009nov11,0,2707877,print.story

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Fort Hood suspect's contact with cleric spelled trouble, experts say

Yemeni American Anwar al Awlaki's radical take on Islam has been connected to homegrown terrorist plots. Experts say their e-mails should have prompted a full investigation.

By Sebastian Rotella and Josh Meyer

November 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington

The radical cleric contacted by accused Ft. Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has such unmistakable connections to past terrorist plots that his e-mail exchanges with the American should have triggered an all-out investigation, a number of officials and experts now believe.

Anwar al Awlaki is an extremist whose sermons have helped radicalize terrorists from Atlanta to New Jersey to London, including cases in which the U.S. military was targeted. A well-spoken Yemeni American, Awlaki has emerged as the leading ideologue for a homegrown generation of young militants who conspire over the Internet.

The fact that Hasan -- the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, a week ago -- exchanged e-mails with Awlaki in Yemen should have raised grave concern, U.S. officials said.

As the lead agency on two anti-terrorism task forces that reviewed the e-mails, the FBI should have pursued a "full field" investigation, said one counter-terrorism official who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing. That would have allowed agents to interview Hasan's friends and colleagues and take other steps that might have detected suspicious behavior.

"What possible conversations could you have with Awlaki that could not be red flags?" the official said, adding that the e-mails should have triggered a more aggressive investigation by law enforcement, intelligence and military officials.

Lawmakers have called for inquiries on the handling of the case. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that the contacts between Hasan and the cleric "should have set off red flags regardless of the content."

In response, senior federal law enforcement officials said that they did not have legal justification to pursue a formal investigation because the 10 to 20 e-mail exchanges between Hasan and Awlaki over the last year were not deemed to be violent or threatening.

Awlaki has left a well-documented trail of influence in a string of recent terrorism cases in North America and Europe.

His ideas apparently drove five young men convicted last year of planning a shooting spree against soldiers at Ft. Dix, N.J. In a wiretapped conversation, Eljvir Duka, 23, exulted about an Awlaki sermon that is revered by militants, according to court documents.

"It's a lecture by Imam Anwar . . . brother, I want everyone to hear about it," said Duka, an ethnic Albanian immigrant from Macedonia. "Because he gives it to you raw and uncut. I don't give a damn what everybody says. This is Islam; this is the truth right here."

In cases that also resulted in convictions, London extremists transcribed Awlaki lectures while plotting bombings, and an Atlanta man who filmed potential terrorism targets -- including Washington landmarks and U.S. military bases -- praised the cleric during his trial this summer.

Awlaki's extremist materials also were found in the possession of accused accomplices of the suicide bombers who hit London's transport system in 2005, said Evan Kohlmann, an independent anti-terrorism consultant who served as an expert witness in their trial.

And Canadians now on trial on suspicion of plotting to attack their Parliament received recordings of the cleric's sermons by e-mail from a Briton in Manchester who recruited for Pakistani training camps, according to court documents.

Nonetheless, the FBI has said that investigators decided that Hasan's e-mail exchanges with Awlaki were a legitimate part of the psychiatrist's academic research.

"How is it that the FBI didn't say, even if this looks religious, even if it seems innocuous, something is very wrong?" asked Kohlmann, who also served as an expert witness in the Ft. Dix and Atlanta cases and in the trial of the Briton linked to the Canadian case. "This person is not a mainstream cleric. Why was Hasan focusing on him? Why did he view him as a legitimate source of information?"

A central question, according to experts, is whether authorities decided to pursue their preliminary inquiry into Hasan as a criminal case or a terrorism tip.

Hasan's communications with Awlaki appear to have been intercepted by the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on e-mails and phone calls around the world, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official.

But the official said that the investigation may have stalled if the FBI handled it as a criminal matter.

"If you view it as a cop thing, you're caught up in reasonable doubt, probable cause and all those things that don't play on the intel side as strongly," said the former official, who requested anonymity when discussing intelligence matters. "If you play it on the cop side, you're less prone to connect dots because of the higher predicate requirements."

The investigative lapse also may reflect a lack of knowledge of the extremist underworld, combined with a well-meaning reluctance to question religious expression, according to anti-terrorism experts.

"It seems that the American investigators had difficulties detecting signs of worrisome conduct," Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a veteran French anti-terrorism judge, said in a telephone interview. "It may also be that, because of the respect for religion, and the excesses by the U.S. services in recent years, that today there's a tendency to be too prudent -- perhaps less vigilant."

Experts compare Awlaki's stature in the global extremist subculture to the notoriety of two London-based clerics: Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza al Masri.

Qatada, a Jordanian, and Masri, an Egyptian, rose to prominence in the late 1990s, radicalizing scores of militants and helping build Al Qaeda networks across Europe and the Muslim world. Qatada has been jailed pending deportation to Jordan; Hamza was convicted on terrorism charges in 2006.

Unlike the ideologues who instruct young followers to fight only in armed conflicts in Muslim lands, Awlaki appeals to fanatical militants because he preaches all-out global holy war, Kohlmann said.

"Hasan was looking at some of the exact same materials that many homegrown terrorists were looking at," he said. "Awlaki is preaching to a very narrow-minded group of people. A minority of a minority of a minority. . . . He says jihad is where you make it. Even if you are one man, living in a Western nation, it's your obligation to wage jihad."

Investigators said that Hasan and Awlaki did not appear to be close, although Hasan worshiped at the mosque in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki was an imam in 2001. Awlaki went to London in 2002 and moved to Yemen in 2004.

Hasan appeared to be familiar with Awlaki's political views and religious teachings, which the imam updates frequently on his website, investigators said.

In recent years, Hasan expressed opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spoke out against what he saw as inherent conflicts for U.S. Muslim troops fighting in Muslim nations.

An Awlaki posting from July appears to track closely with Hasan's views. Titled "Fighting Against Government Armies in the Muslim World," it was translated and released Wednesday by Kohlmann.

Awlaki wrote that the armies of the U.S. and its Western allies were "the defenders of apostasy in the Muslim world. They fight against Sharia [Islamic law] and kill the Muslims who attempt to bring it back."

Fighting those armies is therefore justified, Awlaki wrote, according to the translation.

Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico in 1971, has been on the U.S. radar screen for a decade or more.

FBI agents and other counter-terrorism officials have tried to interrogate him since he moved to Yemen. Awlaki was arrested by Yemeni authorities in 2006 and released in late 2007, according to news reports there.

In February, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III traveled to Yemen to argue for cooperation and access to some suspected Al Qaeda militants and influential supporters such as Awlaki, federal law enforcement officials said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-awlaki12-2009nov12,0,4504962,print.story

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Hasan's attorney says his goal is a fair trial

John Galligan, a retired Army colonel who is defending the suspected Ft. Hood gunman, has been involved in other high-profile military cases.

Cox Newspapers

November 12, 2009

Belton, Texas

For days, retired Army Col. John Galligan tracked each wrenching update about the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, the place where he had spent the final months of a 30-year military career.

As a former military lawyer, he ran through his mind the legal issues in a possible case against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the man accused in the shootings, including whether Hasan could get a fair trial there.

Then, the phone rang at his limestone office on this town's main street: Hasan's family wanted to hire him.

Within 24 hours, Galligan was introducing himself to the soldier whose picture he had seen in newspapers and on national television.

"Anytime anyone wants me to help a soldier, I'm pleased," said Galligan, 61, who operates a private practice in Belton, about 16 miles east of Ft. Hood. "It's an extension of my service. Soldiers defend us, and I think it is only proper we defend them."

On Tuesday, the day after he went public as Hasan's attorney, Galligan was at the Bell County Courthouse handling state felony cases, which make up about half his business. He attended the sentencing of a man already convicted of sexual assault and prepared for a trial next week for another suspect on the same charge.

In between, Galligan was bombarded by reporters who showed up at his office and with calls from friends and strangers.

Fellow defense attorneys, he said, support him in his quest to make sure Hasan's rights are protected as a military investigation into the massacre continues. But others questioned how he could have accepted a case involving the man accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens on a U.S. military post.

Galligan said he has a standard answer for similar questions when he represents suspected rapists and child molesters. He said it applies to Hasan as well. "My goal is to ensure that the defendant receives a fair trial," Galligan said.

The lawyer would not comment on his conversation with Hasan, other than to say that the two talked for about 30 minutes. However, he did say that one of his first actions afterward was to notify investigators that Hasan had an attorney and would not be answering questions.

Galligan said he has requested that a military-appointed lawyer work with him.

"John, he is one who believes in the Constitution," said Joe Trevino Jr., president of the Belton Concerned Community Alliance and a friend of Galligan's. "People are justified in their sadness and anger, but with John, our American justice system is still the place that guarantees citizens have the right to legal representation.

"People should be proud there are people like John who can ensure his rights are intact," Trevino said.

Hasan has not been formally charged in the mass shooting -- a fact Galligan repeatedly pointed out -- even though Ft. Hood officials have identified him as the lone gunman.

Military legal experts have said that prosecutors probably will seek the death penalty against Hasan; Galligan said he has never tried a case in which the defendant faced execution.

According to his website, Galligan was a career military lawyer who served in the Army's litigation division and was named circuit judge at Ft. Hood in 1997.

In private practice, he has been involved in other high-profile military cases.

Four years ago, he represented Army Capt. Shawn L. Martin, who was accused of terrorizing an Iraqi town's residents with threats, a pistol and a baseball bat. In a trial at Ft. Carson, Colo., Martin was convicted of three counts of assault on Iraqis but acquitted on charges stemming from an alleged assault of one of his soldiers.

More recently, Galligan was the attorney for Ft. Hood Master Sgt. Terry Peggins amid allegations that he lied about when he last spoke to a soldier, Sgt. Lawrence Sprader, who died during a training exercise.

Prosecutors decided that Peggins would not face a court-martial, but he received a letter of reprimand over the incident.

On the night he met Hasan, Galligan said, he tried to detach himself from everything he'd heard about his newest client. He wanted to focus only on facts.

"You need to approach a person in a case almost as if you can't see their face -- their rank, their history," Galligan said.

He said he was more nervous about what Hasan thought of him, a feeling he said he almost always has after such first-time meetings.

"I hope they trust me, [that] they know that I'm in it for them, and that I'm going to do the right thing," Galligan said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-fort-hood-lawyer12-2009nov12,0,6296181,print.story

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Hasan's supervising doctors questioned his fitness for service

Doctors who oversaw Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's medical training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had discussed concerns about his proselytizing and other behavior, a Pentagon official says.

By Tom Hamburger

November 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington

Doctors supervising Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's medical training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center frequently discussed concerns about the Muslim psychiatrist's behavior, including his aggressive proselytizing of patients, a Defense Department official said Wednesday.

The problems led the doctors to question Hasan's fitness for military service, but no action was taken in the months before he was transferred from Washington to Ft. Hood, Texas, where he is suspected of opening fire last week on military and civilian personnel, killing 13 and wounding dozens.

The Pentagon official, who is familiar with Hasan's record as a medical resident, said his behavior was discussed during monthly meetings of top training officials at Walter Reed and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the review sessions, said Hasan's name often came up because of his sometimes aggressive and argumentative behavior.

Although he once was known as a promising psychiatrist, Hasan's reputation deteriorated as complaints about his behavior emerged from patients and colleagues, the official said.

Supervisors of the residency program received complaints about Hasan's preaching about Islam to patients, the official said, adding that Hasan was reprimanded and told that his job was to treat patients, not indoctrinate them about religion.

Relatives have said Hasan became more religious after the death of his parents, who were Muslims but not observant. His parents died in Virginia in 1998 and 2001.

Rafik Ismail Hamad, an uncle who lives in the West Bank, said he noticed the change when Hasan visited last year. He said his nephew urged him to accompany him to pray at a mosque.

Supervisors also were concerned with Hasan's chronic failure to show up for physical fitness training, in which military officers' weight and conditioning are reviewed, the official said.

Citing other sources, National Public Radio reported Wednesday that supervisors at one point questioned whether Hasan was psychotic or whether he was mentally fit to be an Army psychiatrist.

The network quoted an unidentified official who worked closely with the review committee as saying: "Put it this way. Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."

The Defense Department official familiar with the proceedings said he was not aware that had been expressed in the review meetings and did not recall Hasan being described as psychotic.

The Washington Post, citing a Walter Reed staff member, reported that Hasan's supervisors tried to turn his preoccupation with religion and war into something productive by ordering him to attend a university lecture series on Islam, the Middle East and terrorism.

The psychiatric staff at Walter Reed did not discuss kicking him out of the service, the staff member told the Post.

And an Army official told the newspaper that Hasan did not formally seek to leave the military as a conscientious objector or for any other reason.

Hasan's aunt has said that he tried to leave the military.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-hasan12-2009nov12,0,3808196,print.story

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From the Associated Press

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Mo. cops hunt for child abuse clues hidden in jars

The property, about 30 miles east of Kansas City , was once owned by two of five family members arrested Tuesday.

"There has been an indication that there are body or bodies in numerous locations," said Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh, although he would not say whose bodies they might be.

The five family members are charged with several felonies, including forcible sodomy, rape with a child younger than 12 and use of a child in a sexual performance. The allegations, which include bestiality, forcing children into fake marriages with relatives and making an 11-year-old have an abortion, date from 1988 to 1995.

Three of the five men are lay ministers in the Community of Christ church whose licenses have been suspended, church spokeswoman Linda L. Booth said.

Alumbaugh pleaded for the public's help, saying investigators "believe that there are other victims out there" and that the public can provide more information.

Cpl. Bill Lowe of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said a 26-year-old woman came forward to investigators in mid-August with the allegations. A probable cause statement released by the Lafayette County prosecutor's office says five other siblings of the woman have accused all five men of abuse, but it's unclear whether all the siblings were claiming to be victims.

Lowe said the woman told investigators that she and her siblings had buried glass jars around the property that were filled with messages "about what was happening to them" when they were younger. The woman said she had "suppressed many of the memories of abuse perpetrated on her" and her siblings, according to the probable cause statement.

Sgt. Collin Stosberg of the Highway Patrol said the adults told the children to write down their bad memories.

"That was what they were told. Write these memories down, put them in a jar and bury it and the memories would go away," Stosberg said. "It was a way for them to cope."

The woman who came forward also claimed some of the men forced her to have sex with a dog and to watch as her brother was abused.

"She became pregnant and was made to have an abortion at age 11 1/2. She doesn't remember any sexual abuse after that date," the probable cause statement said.

The suspects were identified as Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., 77, of Independence , and his sons, Burrell Edward Mohler Jr., 53, also of Independence; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48, of Columbia; Roland Neil Mohler, 47, of Bates City ; and David A. Mohler , 52, of Lamoni, Iowa .

All five were being held in the Lafayette County jail on cash bonds ranging from $30,000 to $75,000. It was not clear if they had attorneys.

The Associated Press is not revealing the relationship between the siblings and the suspects to avoid identifying the alleged victims of sexual assault.

Deborah Burris, who has lived across the street from Burrell Mohler Sr. for several years, described the suspect as a friendly, helpful neighbor. Burris said she occasionally saw Burrell Mohler Sr. walking around the neighborhood but he had appeared frail lately.

Booth, the church spokeswoman, said none of the Mohlers served in leadership roles in the congregations they attended "nor did they serve as volunteer youth workers, teach children or youth church school, or work with children or youth."

"The church takes seriously the allegations that have been made and suspended the priesthood licenses of three lay ministers: Burrell Mohler Sr., David Mohler and Jared Mohler," the church said in a statement.

Booth said one of the men, whom she refused to identify, had been registered to work with children but that license has been terminated.

The Community of Christ , headquartered in Independence, split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1860 and was known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints until 2001. It has about 250,000 members worldwide.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/ap_on_re_us/us_family_sex_crimes/print

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From the Daily News

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Rapist-child molester set to live in Topanga Canyon

SANTA ANA - It was unclear Wednesday morning whether a convicted rapist and child molester was released from a state mental hospital to relocate to Topanga Canyon.

Frederick Davison, 40, was scheduled to be released from Coalinga State Hospital Tuesday night after a judge rejected the Orange County District Attorney's Office's lawsuit to keep him locked up in a secure environment.

A security officer at Coalinga State Hospital this morning said he could not confirm Davison's release.

Davison is scheduled to live with a former girlfriend and her boyfriend in Topanga Canyon, authorities said. He will be required to register as a sex offender within five days of release and be listed on the Megan's Law Web site.

The Orange County District Attorney's office still believes Davison poses a danger to the community, spokeswoman Farrah Emani said.

Davison raped a 21-year-old student after meeting her on a sidewalk outside a restaurant in Huntington Beach in 1992.

He offered her a cigarette and then a ride in his new car. When Davison drove to a vacant lot, she asked to be taken back to the restaurant. She had to struggle with him for 45 minutes while he tried to rape her. He forced her to orally copulate him, Emani said.

Eleven months later, Davison sexually touched a 9-year-old neighbor's girl's buttock and rubbed her bare back. When the child left the room, Davison sexually assaulted her 12-year-old sister by taking her hand and rubbing it against his penis which was outside his clothing. He then tried to unbutton her pants, but she ran out of the room. The girls later told their mother about the assaults.

An Orange County jury later convicted Davison of one felony count of forcible rape. He was sentenced to 13 years in state prison for the Huntington Beach rape. Davison then pleaded guilty in Los Angeles County to a felony count of lewd acts on a child. For that crime, he was sentenced to eight years in state prison, his sentence to be served concurrently with the Orange County rape sentence.

Under today's laws, Davison could not have served the two sentences concurrently.

The law was changed in 1994, making rape crimes a one-strike case and any such crime committed after that date would have exposed him to a mandatory 25 years to life sentence.

Orange County authorities wanted Davison to be forced to remain in a state mental facility because he was convicted of a sexually violent offense and had a mental disorder likely to cause him to re-offend unless he was held in custody.

After Davison was released from prison in 2002, the Orange County District Attorney's Office asked the courts to declare him a danger to society under the sexually violence laws. He was placed at Coalinga State Mental Hospital in 2005.

Authorities decided three years later, Davison did not have a current diagnosable mental disorder that would allow the state to keep him in a mental hospital.

The District Attorney's Office argued otherwise, claiming he had a preoccupation with sex; was violent toward former girlfriends; stalked a former girlfriend and lacked the ability to follow rules under parole supervision.

However, Judge David Thompson ruled there was insufficient evidence for the case to proceed, setting the stage for Davison's release.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_13762270

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From the Washington Times

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November 12, 2009

Houston sheriffs round up thousands of illegals

Peter Barnes, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

HOUSTON | While Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix gets all the media attention for his crackdown on illegal immigrants, eight deputies in an unremarkable office at the Harris County Jail are posting similar numbers for deportation -- and doing so without controversy.

Working two per shift, the deputies refer roughly 1,000 suspected illegal immigrants to federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities every month, helping to make the Southern District of Texas by far the busiest in the nation for illegal-immigration prosecutions.

Since joining a federal program in August 2008 that trains local law authorities to enforce immigration law, the sheriff's office has turned up high-level gang members, a suspect wanted for murder in Mexico, and illegal immigrants from countries around the world, Lt. Michael Lindsay said.

Harris County frequently refers more cases in a given month than any other local police agency in the program, he said.

But what makes the Harris County program stand apart is a routine that insulates it from the accusations of profiling that have drawn prominent criticism to programs like that run by Sheriff Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Unlike in Maricopa County, Harris County authorities do not run street sweeps in search of illegal immigrants. But they do question everybody booked into the jail about their immigration status.

"We ask everybody, right off the bat, 'Are you legally in the country?' " said Lt. Lindsay, who oversees the team that conducts the questioning. "It doesn't matter what country you're from. It doesn't matter your religion. It doesn't matter the color of your skin. We make everybody go through it."

Fingerprints from all inmates accused of felonies or serious misdemeanors are forwarded automatically to ICE's data center, which can identify matches to prints from immigrants who have had prior dealings with law enforcement.

Jail officers specially trained to determine immigration status can question and check the fingerprints of anyone suspected of a lesser crime.

Those who are still suspected of illegal immigration are referred to ICE agents working on site who can ask the county to turn over inmates to the agency upon their release from jail.

Referrals that ICE pursues are prosecuted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. According to a Syracuse University study based on federal records, the Houston-based court handled nearly 23,000 immigration prosecutions in the first nine months of fiscal 2009 - by far the most of any district court in the country and a projected increase of 22 percent over last year.

The sheriff's office was the first in the country to use the Secure Communities program, which gives local law enforcement access to immigration databases. A news conference with Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is scheduled for Thursday to mark that program's first year.

Despite the even-handed approach, Harris County's program has its critics, some of whom testified to the Harris County Commission before the program was renewed last month. They argued that it too often targets perpetrators of petty misdemeanors, causing undue hardship on families and discouraging immigrants from reporting crimes.

"I see this every day," said Silvia Mintz, an immigration lawyer speaking for the immigrant rights group Pastors in Action. Ms. Mintz said the policy looks good on paper, but in practice "they can decide to arrest you if you don't have a driver's license, if you have a taillight not working."

But the sheriff's office maintains that its approach provides an important law enforcement tool. The jail inmates "would not come to our attention if they had not broken the law or been accused of breaking the law," Lt. Lindsay said.

Sheriff's officials said only 7 percent of the inmates referred to ICE were arrested on suspicion of low-level misdemeanors, and officers emphasized that federal officials determine which cases go on to deportation hearings.

"They are prioritized, and our resources are going to be used or directed at those level-one cases," ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said.

He said he did not have an estimate of how many deportation cases arise from misdemeanors. "As our resources permit, we will take into custody those lower-level criminals," he said.

Programs like the one in Harris County are based on a section 287(g) of a 1996 law that sought to enlist local police to help identify illegal immigrants suspected of major crimes like murder or drug smuggling.

Each department negotiated its agreement with the federal government separately, and the program drew criticism from Hispanic groups when police in some areas used it to question and arrest immigrants for minor infractions.

In January, congressional researchers at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that many of the agreements didn't outline ICE's role in overseeing the program or how it should be used. At least four of the 29 agencies reviewed by GAO had used 287(g) authority in cases such as speeding tickets.

Many Hispanic and immigrant groups urged the Obama administration to end the program. Instead, ICE renegotiated its agreement with local police departments, emphasizing major crimes, increasing oversight and requiring compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws. If all the new agreements are signed, the program will expand to include 67 local law enforcement agencies.

Six agencies withdrew, and the Houston Police Department decided not to participate. Instead, the city is considering a program called Secure Communities, also used by Harris County. It gives police access to ICE databases to help identify foreign-born criminals and work with ICE, but it does not give officers the authority to enforce immigration laws.

The decision not to use 287(g) for patrol officers by both of Houston's biggest police departments stands in contrast to agencies using the program that have drawn the most attention, most notably Phoenix.

There, Sheriff Arpaio has elicited protests and lawsuits for sweeps in Hispanic neighborhoods that resulted in immigration referrals for scores of people arrested on misdemeanor charges. His department has referred about 34,000 illegal-immigration cases to ICE in the past three years, a number comparable to the Harris County Jail's figure of 1,000 per month.

Sheriff Garcia, who describes himself as the "proud product of an immigrant family," supports 287(g) but argues its application outside the jail would make Houston's sizable immigrant population fearful of police and reluctant to report crimes.

"Immigration enforcement in the field would undermine the enforcement of Texas law," he said at the commissioners meeting.

Before the hearing to extend the jail's agreement with ICE, a handful of demonstrators for and against the program shouted slogans across the street from the county offices.

In the packed Commissioners Court room, 287(g) supporters noted the injuries and deaths of Houston police shot by illegal immigrants and the murder trials of four suspects, three of whom were in the country illegally, in the death of a prominent local doctor.

Those testifying in opposition emphasized the potential for racial profiling and the hardship on immigrant families. Both groups cited their desire for national, comprehensive immigration reform, but it was supporters like computer consultant Larry Youngblood who seemed more in line with the commissioners, who quickly approved the agreement by a 4-1 vote.

"Why would anyone complain the feds are not doing their job and then turn around and not give them the help they need?" Mr. Youngblood said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/12/team-of-8-deputies-quietly-rounds-up-illegals//print/

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From the Wall Street Journal

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• NOVEMBER 12, 2009

  U.S. Commission to Assess Mandatory Sentences

  By GARY FIELDS

  WASHINGTON -- Congress has ordered the panel that advises judges on prison terms to conduct a review of mandatory-minimum sentences, a move that could lead to a dramatic rethinking of how the U.S. incarcerates its criminals.

  The review is a little-noticed element of the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law last month by President Barack Obama. The defense-spending bill calls on the commission to perform several tasks, including an examination of the impact of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws and alternatives to the practice.

  Congress in the 1980s began passing mandatory-minimum laws, which dictate the minimum sentence a judge must hand out for a particular crime. Among the results were longer sentences, increased prison populations and ballooning budgets.

  Amid cost concerns in recent years, states have tried to reverse the trend. At least 26 states have cut corrections spending recently and at least 17 are closing prisons or reducing their inmate populations, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit that studies sentencing and criminal-justice policies.

  The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which advises judges on all other sentences, has now been charged with issuing recommendations on mandatory minimums. Any final change in sentencing law would have to come from Congress.

  "It's going to be a massive undertaking," said the new chairman of the Sentencing Commission, William Sessions III.

  Mr. Sessions, who is also the chief federal judge in Vermont, said the review would include everything from determining the effects of minimums on the size of the prison population, to spending and the social impact of the policies. "In my view," he said, "it's a very open-ended request."

  The inmate population in federal prisons has risen from 24,000 in 1980 to 209,000 as of Nov. 5. Over the same period, the federal Bureau of Prisons staff has grown from 10,000 to about 36,000 employees.

  The commission has pushed for changes in mandatory minimums, such as ending the disparity in sentencing for crimes involving crack-cocaine and powder cocaine. Several proposals are pending in Congress to address the crack-cocaine issue. But the commission has not done a full-scale examination of federal sentencing laws since 1991. At the time, there were only 60 mandatory-minimum laws on the books. Now there are about 170.

  According to a limited review released by the commission in July, most mandatory-minimum cases in 2008 concerned drugs or weapons crimes. The review found that 21,023 offenders were convicted of crimes that could have triggered the mandatory-minimum sentence. Many got more lenient sentences for a variety of reasons, including cooperation with authorities.

  The commission will examine the effects of mandatory minimums on plea agreements. Critics of the system say the threat of such sentences is used to coerce plea bargains.

  Members of the commission have been traveling the country to meet with judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Many have pressed the commission to provide alternatives to imprisonment for nonviolent, low-level drug defendants.

  James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest law-enforcement labor organization, said officers believed it was appropriate to review the system. But he said it shouldn't happen "in a way that will result in criminals not being held accountable."

  Mary Price, vice president and general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said it was too early to tell where the review might lead.

  "Certainly from FAMM's perspective, as much information as the commission can provide on the operation and impact of mandatory minimums can only help us better understand and advocate for their elimination."

  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125798793160144461.html#printMode

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