Coakley is more focused on prosecuting drugs than on a progressive reform of drug laws. Coakley recently lost a case in the US Supreme Court where she wanted to be able to use drug evidence without allowing the 6th amendment right to confront the witness. Scalia (!!!) wrote the majority opinion against her position.
It’s hard to believe Massachusetts has an Attorney General who is to the right of Scalia and Thomas, but it’s true: Here’s a link to the Syllabus of the case, MELENDEZ-DIAZ v. MASSACHUSETTS.
And now she wants to be a Senator?!
Please share widely!
is that Coakley is a bit of an zealot when it comes to law and order. And she sometimes forgets suspects may not be guilty of the crime with which they have been charged.
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p>For example, why did Coakley arrest Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky if she knew they had no intent to commit the crime of “placing a hoax device to incite panic”?
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p>They were clearly earning some money as part of an advertising campaign. And once Coakley figured out she couldn’t prove intent – not just because she lacked evidence but because all the evidence pointed to the fact they had zero intent to cause panic, their intent was clearly enterprise, not terrorism…Why then didn’t she release them and apologize rather than make them apologize and do 1.5 and 2 weeks public service each?
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p>This is hardly a miscarriage of justice but it suck nonetheless.
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p>Do you want a senator who will use the power of her office against you even though she understands that she misunderstood the situation and rather than remedy it appropriately, uses the power to save face?
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p>Take Shanley: He was convicted on the testimony of one alleged victim and no corroboration. The alleged victim claimed “traumatic amnesia” which is not justified by the science. Shanley recently won an appeal. No date is set. Reason Magazine on traumatic amnesia:
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p>The whole theory of traumatic amnesia is at best unproven, at worst quackery. Richard McNally, a Harvard University psychologist and the author of Remembering Trauma, says that people forget and recover nontraumatic memories all the time, but when an experience is truly traumatic, they “seldom if ever” forget it, though they may manage not to think about it. “No one has blocked out Auschwitz,” he says. In a 2002 paper, three psychiatrists surveyed 77 studies of trauma survivors and found not a single reported case of traumatic amnesia. Moreover, McNally says, “the more repeated an event is, the less likely you are to forget that class of event.”
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p>I think she would be a good advocate for women’s reproductive rights. Yesterday on Hardball she said go after the Hyde Amendment.
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p>I think she a strong progressive, a law and order zealot and an inexperienced legislator.
…but she certainly wasn’t a zealot when the person was Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It’s hard to understand how the AG saw enough of the money and email trail to know to charge Vitale with the lobbing and campaign law violations, but not enough to bring any charges against Dimasi with the alleged corruption that is now being prosecuted by the feds. Or maybe Mr. Melendes-Diaz couldn’t afford as good of a lawyer as Mr. Speaker?
to describe this case in terms of “left” and “right.” Joining Scalia’s opinion were “liberal” Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, and “conservative” Justice Thomas; dissenting were “conservative” Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy and Alito, and “liberal” Justice Breyer. This case is one of a line of criminal procedure cases that have made some very strange bedfellows on the Supreme Court — in all of these cases, both the majority and the dissenting opinions have generally had some “liberal” and some “conservative” Justices signing on.
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p>Furthermore, it’s not like Coakley was an outlier on this. Thirty-five states (ALABAMA, ALASKA, ARIZONA, ARKANSAS, COLORADO, CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, HAWAII, IDAHO, INDIANA, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, NEVADA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW JERSEY, NEW MEXICO, NORTH CAROLINA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, RHODE ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA, TENNESSEE, UTAH, VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON, WYOMING) plus D.C. signed on to an amicus brief backing her position. (Sorry about the caps — copied and pasted the list from the actual brief.)
if you want something to be irked about, try this.
Coakley went for murder, without allowing the option for manslaughter. My understanding is that murder requires intent to cause death, whereas manslaughter does not. I never thought that the defendant intended to cause the death of the baby in her care. Fortunately Judge Zobel intervened.
This must be assumed as the O’Reilly campaign has begun its attacks. Yes, the same campaign that questioned Kerry’s military service. Hmm.
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p>Martha Coakley has proven progressive credentials and has not sat around playing it safe, but fought hard for Massachusetts and those not always afforded government protect, homeowners, the environment, and equal rights. Martha has been proactive and effective practicing Obama’s philosophy of if it doesn’t work – try something else, if it does work – do more.
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p>With Martha Coakley we will have a tenacious fighter advocating for the issues we hold dear.
As far as I know O’Reilly hasn’t made a decision yet.
O’Reilly also has a career as an attorney. Perhaps supporters could discuss the highlights of his legal practice.
Calling opponents to the right of Scalia doesn’t offer much hope of a thoughtful debate if O’Reilly does run.
I’m on O’Reilly’s email list and have not received any campaign email from him this cycle except for the one I posted as a diary a couple days ago. I was literally asking what attacks you were refering to since I have not heard or read O’Reilly attacking Coakley. Of course, I’ve been in DC lately, so maybe I’m missing something.
…I haven’t made a decision as to whom to support in this race and probably won’t for sure until the filing deadline has passed so I know who all the candidates are.
Sue,
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p>I sent you an email, yesterday, as I was alerted to this thread. I hope you received it.
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p>As I stated in the email, as of today, there is no O’Reilly campaign and I am going to make my decision by Thursday of this week.
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p>While I respect your enthusiasm for your candidate, any assumptions on your part are way off base. First, Professor d’Errico, who has taught law for approximately 30 years, has a right to express his opinions. He is a Yale Law School graduate and has been involved with civil liberties, and particularly Native American Rights, for decades.
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p>Secondly, it is true that Professor d’Errico is a long time and close friend and supported me in the last election. To set the record straight, I was alerted to this thread AFTER it was posted.
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p>Ed O’Reilly
C’mon Ed, derrico has a history on this site of attacking someone you are campaigning against (just review his continuing attacks on John Kerry). Now, all of a sudden, he has anti-Coakley postings popping up. And surprise! Ed is talking about running.
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p>Sue hit it right on the nose.
Some folks can’t seem to get their heads around ideas, so they just focus on personalities. That’s what gives blogs such a bad name.
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p>I did support Ed last time; I will support him this time, if he decides to run. These facts are not ideas to be discussed.
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p>The positions of the candidates, whoever they may be, is worthy of discussion; in fact, must be discussed. The rest of it is just gossip.
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p>I guess we’ll see how much BMG can provide discussion instead of gossip. It will depend on the posters.
I wish you well in your endeavors and possible campaign. It is great to see Democrats bringing different points of view and experiences forward for thoughtful debate. The speeches and posts from you and your campaign supporters on the Iraq War, health care and equality did help shape the debate, and public opinion. We all gained from this.
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p>There has also been some un-productive mudslinging. While you have had time to criticize my characterization of some of the negativity as, “unbelievable” and “way off base,” your longtime friend, supporter and former campaign Treasurer has written:
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p>And
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p>I haven’t seen any indication that you have been outraged or attempted to reduce or mollify the type of statements that led me to post concern about attack campaigning.
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p>Have I just missed it? I hope so. Those types of statements are inflammatory, offensive and un-productive.
so according to your campaign philosopy, Coakley should now come out and be outraged that you attacked Ed O’reilly.
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p>Setting some ridiculous standards…don’t ya think.
In my book, and probably in the book of a majority of Massachusetts voters.
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p>Try again.
… that may be true. In this case, his majority opinion protected the 6th amendment right to confront your accuser. I’ll take Scalia on that one.