Should we be surprised that the brainless conservative activists who have been strategically planted in sensitive positions throughout the government would make decisions like this?

It sounds like we are about to have preordained or faux trials for 6 Guantanamo prisoners.  And it just doesn't sound like American justice to me.

I don't hold disdain for Edwards because he is a trial lawyer.  I respect trial lawyers as an important part of our democracy; they are our last recourse against the gov't the huge corporations, etc., etc.  Trial lawyers fight important battles for the American People everyday.  Having said that, I've got a little problem with some of Edwards lawsuits and their implication for women's health.    

I'm not a lawyer. Thank god. The hours would wipe me out (though the pay would be nice).

So when I read this article about a San Francisco appeals court upholding an Alameda County prosecutor's decision to toss two jurors for being members of "two notoriously liberal professions"...

...I don't quite know what to say, other than "this is bullshit."

The details:

I want everyone to donate a few dollars to The Warrior Fund.

The Chicago Reader is an alternative weekly. I just got another letter published there. It was in response to a column by the media analist "Hot Type" (Michael Miner) on the Chicago Tribune's weak response to the bill cancling the right of habeas corpus. Miner attributed this to the general weakness of the Trib.

My text, and further comments after the jump.

Just as bad, however, is the utter sham of the pretrial procedures for those who do eventually get charged.  Rather than explain it in a narrative, I have called upon my almost 25 years of trial practice to give a practical demonstration.

What follows is a hypothetical pretrial court conference before the Military Judge:

See below the fold..

I think we NEED to have our resident lawyers weigh in on the exact language here.

THe problem I can see, at this point, is the way this bill provides certain proper protections...and then puts them at the discretion of the executive branch.

The reason? Plamegate is crappy entertainment compared to your average celebrity trial. And in our branded, Disneyfied, entertainment-driven, shut-up-and-dance crap culture, "not entertaining" means "not newsworthy."

To show how non-newsworthy Plamegate is, I've rated it using the Dumpster Index, a four-pronged measure of the likely entertainment value--ahem, I mean newsworthiness--of a criminal case. (I couldn't help using "four-pronged." It's a consequence of going to law school where, by osmosis, you learn awful phrases like that. But if you catch me using "inextricably intertwined" on this site, you have every right to recommend that I be banned. Forever.)