Why the mistakes at the Ted Stevens' trial?

After conducting the three Anchorage trials with intimidating precision, the Prosecution seems to have been uncharacteristically sloppy when they got to DC. We heard things like this from the Washington Post:

Prosecutors seriously bungled evidence and witnesses but Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial will proceed as planned, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

There are a number of significant changes between last year's trials and this trial: a different judge, a different venue, a different chief of the prosecution, and a different defense attorney, this one with a team. I've only taken in the trial through the news reports and blogs, but here are some hypotheses that ought to be explored further by those on the scene.

1. The Judge. Judge Sedwick in Anchorage was always very calm, and even when he admonished attorneys, he showed, at his worst, only annoyance. The Anchorage based prosecutors have worked with him often over the years. My reaction to the judge during the trials was that he was scrupulously fair and reasonable, but that was based on my novice court observer perspective. Looking back, he was an Alaskan judge who voiced clear concern for the people of Alaska given the corruption of their legislators and when discussing the sentencing guidelines, he weighed the violation of the people's trust heavily against the defendants.

Judge Sullivan, from the news reports, has been much more demonstrative in voicing his displeasure with the prosecution. Is he legitimately giving them less slack than did Sedwick? Does he just enjoy wielding his power? Is he making sure that if there is an appeal, that he can't be accused of favoring the prosecution? I have no idea, I'm just trying to spin out the possibilities.

2. Venue. Having the trial in DC means that the jury's knowledge of and relationship with the defendant is much different from an Anchorage jury's would be. The racial make up of the jury - predominantly black - could make a difference. The prosecutors would appear to think so since they added a new chief of the prosecution - a black woman - and the defense has a black attorney too. And the judge is black. While this may or may not impact the trial (I used the assumption that it would by whites as a lead into a discussion of race and the presidential election in a previous post) in general, it doesn't seem to have a direct relationship to the question of the prosecution's reported bungling.

3 Chief of the prosecution. The team in Anchorage seemed to know everything (about the case, about the procedures, etc.) and to be ready for any contingency. Was there something about the new head of the prosecution that affected the way the case was run? She hadn't been visibly involved with the previous trials and now was the lead. Were there disagreements among the team members and this is causing loss of the laser like focus they seemed to have in Anchorage? Again, this is simply speculation, not based on any hard evidence, but just looking at what has changed.

4. Defense attorney, this one with a team. Brendan Sullivan is characterized as one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country and one of the most expensive. Is it just that the prosecution is up against a better attorney this time? Or that they are up against a much bigger team of attorneys with far more resources than the previous legal defense teams? That there is more of a level playing field this time?

Another, more disturbing thought is the possibility that someone on the defense team has intentionally botched things up. Given the Justice Department's various breaches during this Administration - from using partisan political tests of applicants to firing attorneys for not pursuing politically motivated investigations and everything in-between - one cannot rule this out totally. Again, this is merely speculation, as I try to map out the possible explanations for why what seemed like a well oiled legal machine was found to have sand in its gears for this trial.

Ultimately, we may never know, which of these, or which combination of these, led to the actions that raised the judge's ire. And it may not even matter. The jury will get this case Monday or Tuesday. We should have a verdict by the end of next week if not sooner. If Stevens is found guilty, it won't matter to the public. But I would hope the prosecution, which still has some indictments up its sleeve, will figure it out, if they haven't already.

Happy Go Lucky Day

The sky was still very blue when I ran around the Santa Monica Airport this morning (instead of down to the beach.) Just before I'd left, the doorbell rang and two people were there to get my mom to vote for Proposition 9[8], the proposition that is attempting to overthrow the California Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage in California. I was agitated just thinking these people were at the door. When my mother said she agreed it was terrible to teach gay marriage to 2nd graders (that's what a political ad that keeps playing on the television asserts) I lost it completely. "You believe that bullshit?" They left. Fortunately, when I explained what the proposition wanted to do, my mom said she was opposed to it. But I still really needed to run.
By the time I saw this sign amongst someone's Halloween decorations - yes the people around here get excited about Halloween - I'd forgotten all about it, but was pleased to see the sign.
In the afternoon we went to the movies at Pico and Westwood. I hate parking garages, and this one was bumper-to-bumper both ways when I drove in.

Where's the Happy-Go-Lucky part, you're asking. Well, that was the name of the movie. My mom still likes movies, but she can't keep up with subtitles any more. This one seemed to get good reviews and was supposed to be an upbeat movie.

It is and it isn't. All the reviews focus on Sally Hawkin's performance. It is outstanding, but so are a number of other actors. There isn't much of a story. It's like a dozen scenes edited together. We hang out with Poppy and her friends for a couple of days in and around London. There are teachers - primary school, Flamenco (worth it alone), and driving (another incredible performance.) And there's a perfect performance by a six or seven year old kid. Everyone is outstanding. And the opening credits are shown around Poppy riding her bike.
Then dinner next door at Jaipur Indian restaurant. Just the name of the place was enough to pull me in, but they were so busy and brusque, that I figured they were not interested in knowing that'd I'd been to Jaipur. The food was ok, but not special. But it's nice to have a mom who's willing to eat strange food.

Self Realization Fellowship takes me back many years

I went to the Lake Shrine as a child and young adult. I never thought about the religious significance of it back then. It was just a beautiful walk with these somewhat unlikely decorations. Yesterday, when I called B, he surprised me when he asked me to show him something in LA. He lives in Anchorage, but his daughters - and more important his grandson - live in LA now. So he and J are here for the winter. But I haven't lived in LA for thirty years. But I remembered this place and no, they hadn't been here. So today we went.

The monarch butterflies are arriving. There's more explanation at Best-California-Beach:

Millions of Monarchs travel every year from the colder regions of North America to warmer sites where they can safely overwinter. They fly, en masse, as high as 10,000 feet, returning to the same groves as preceding generations.

Monarch butterflies usually only live for about six weeks, but the migrating generation can live for up to eight months. So Monarch butterflies manage to travel thousands of miles to arrive at a destination they've never been to before.

This windmill was on the site when the meditation group bought the property in the 1950's. There's a meditation chapel inside.



















And this Indian arch is across the lake from the windmill.















There are many, many, many flowers in the garden around the lake. Here's a rose.















On the hill above the garden is a Hindu temple. This was not here when we left LA 30 some years ago.


The orchid was in the temple.




From the Self-Realization Fellowship we drove up Sunset past the school I worked at while I was a student at UCLA. It was a great time. I had morning classes. Rode my Honda 50 down Sunset to the school where I worked noon duty on the playground, then rode the rest of the way - past the self-realization center - to the beach to play volley ball and body surf. Then back up to the school for after school playground, then back to UCLA, along a Sunset that had a lot less traffic than it does today.

No one had eaten much today, so we stopped at an upscale supermarket (we were in Pacific Palisades, so everything is upscale) where we got focaccia sandwiches cooked in the oven.








While waiting for the sandwiches to cook I wandered around the market. Here are some olives.








And, of course, I can't fail to notice the salmon. This is for formerly frozen salmon. This was the most expensive. They had some other wild salmon for as low as $15 a pound.




Then on the way home, B said we were relatively close to their daughter's place, so we took a small detour and visited her for a few minutes while the baby was napping.

It's Hot in LA

Trying to pull back on the computer stuff and spend more time with my mom and doing some other writing. But old friends are also distractions. It's been hot these two days - high 80's to low 90s. But a lot drier than Thailand. Today and yesterday mornings I ran down to Venice Beach - pretty much a straight shot from my mom's house - about 2 miles each way.

I got a surprise yesterday as a pod (?) of dolphins passed by just off shore (but not that close for my 3X optical zoom). And then I ran past what I thought was the house of an old friend of mine from boy scouts - it was for sale. The neighbor was out so I confirmed with her it was the right house. She was lots of fun - she's on the video.


Some friends are coming over to pick me up now, so I'll post this and add the other pictures later.

Pictures are of yesterday and today. They were just setting up the booths on the boardwalk at Venice Beach.

And some freeway pictures from going out to the valley for dinner with other relatives. It wasn't that much warmer there than at the beach.

October 17 pm update: Added pictures:

Venice Beach Promenade - just setting up - looking South at Rose.

Venice Promenade looking North at Rose.

The Promenade is on Ocean Front Walk.

These pictures are on the back of a building at the intersection of what streets? Answer at the bottom.

Switching from the Santa Monica Freeway east to the San Diego Freeway north about 3:30pm. I know these freeways have numbers now, but I remember when they didn't exist. When they were built they were given real names, not just numbers. Going down to the beach was great, but driving out to the Valley reminded me why I'm living in Anchorage.



Would you believe Lincoln and Rose?

Anchorage to LA

A trip LA to visit my mom has been waiting for a good time and cheap seats. I finally pulled out the mileage and got tickets, but the 10,000 mile legs were scarce (more 20,000 mile ones) so I'm in LA already. The cloud cover was heavy leaving Anchorage, but just out of Anchorage (minutes out) you could see glimpses of land and sky through the clouds at once. Here was a cloudy view of mountains flying out.

Then above the clouds, and really looked just like this. Flat white cloud out to the blue. I had a three hour layover in Seattle, but when I checked on the gate, I saw there were two earlier flights to LA. So I spent an hour in Seattle, saw enough of the debate to realize it was the same content from the previous ones. It was interesting to see it on CNN and watch the lines with the male (green) and female (yellow) real time reactions of Ohio undecided voters. Actually it was bizarre. I imagine they have to actually do something, but how could you keep dialing your reaction as you watch? But it did seem to go up when someone said no taxes.



I was expecting to see smoke and maybe fires flying into LA, but it was very clear. And comparatively warm. Low 70s at 10pm felt a bit warm after low 30s.

Good to see my mom. Good to be unconnected most of the day.

Peter's Sushi Fire "Undetermined After Investigation"

I got a copy of the Incident Report on the fire at Peter's Sushi Spot today. I've never seen one before, but after I posted pictures of the burnt restaurant last July and the cleared lot in August, I thought I should ask to see the report. But it wasn't ready then. It is now. For those of you who just want the gist, here's the conclusion:

CONCLUSION: Based on the fire scene examination and statements of the firefighters and witnesses we believe the area of origin is under the floor at the area near the SE corner of the office. We were unable to locate the point of origin so we were not able to identify the ignition source. The official fire cause classification will be pending until the lab results are received.[p. 15]

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: On 10/13/08 I received lab results from the State of Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory for the items submitted for accelerant testing on 7/21/08. The testing did not detect any ignitable liquids in the samples.

Since the lab results did not detect any ignitable liquids the fire will be classified as "Undetermined after Investigation.[p.15]

The cover page is ... terse. Actually, I like that, just facts.
Then there are a bunch of narratives from the different firefighters at the scene. These are also terse and lots of jargon. The first one says:

CAD Master Incident Number 20082310000022268 Jurisdiction Incident #: 2310020080018069 Primary Jurisdiction Inc. #: 2310020080018069 [p. 2]

Whatever that means. The next one is mostly in English:

Assigned RIC by command along with E-1. Pulled 2 1/2" line and set up on C side for extinguishment.

Then:

Upon arrival E1 was assigned to RIC duties. EO1 did a walk around he [sic] building and opened the door on the C side of the structure. There was light brown smoke coming from the D side of the building and a light amount of smoke coming from the C side. The B side had no visible smoke. There was heavy brown smoke mixed with steam coming from the point of attack door on the A side. E14 was assigned to RIC. EO1 took RC duties for the B/C corner and E14 had RIC for the A/D corner. After Command ordered the evacuation of the building E01 was replaced from RIC duties by R04. E01 made a brief entry into the building before being ordered out by B division. E01 then set up a monitor on the C side and remained there until being put in-service.[pp. 2-3]

I'm not sure what the letters mean. The restaurant was on B street and C street is on the other side, but A and D don't fit. There are no pictures or diagrams attached to the copy I got. On page 10 it does say:

EXTERIOR:
a. (East) - Extensive fire damage with wall collapse.
b. (South) -Extensive fire damage from door and windows.
c. (West) - Extensive fire damage with wall collapse.
d. (North)- Fire damage from exterior openings
e. (Roof) - Complete collapse [p. 10]

Are these letters (a-e) related to the ones back on page 3?

There are about 18 more "narratives." Some a little longer, most done on July 12, but others scattered until July 22.

The most interesting part was the:

INTERVIEW with [redacted] [redacted] said that he, his wife, and the head waitress left the building at approximately 2330 hours. He said they did a final walk-through to ensure all the appliances were turned off and the doors were locked. [redacted] said he did not notice any unfamiliar odors, such as something burning, when he left. He said there were no electrical or mechanical problems at the restaurant. [redacted] said a fire department inspector had conducted an inspection prior to the 4th of July weekend and the hood and duct systems had been cleaned prior to the investigation.

[redacted] said he has owned the restaurant for approximately 2 1/2 years and the only electrical or mechanical problems he has had occurred during the initial remodeling. He said a HVAC unit had caught fire and damaged a portion of the roof and attic approximately two weeks prior to opening the restaurant.


[redacted] said he has had employee problems and he is currently involved in a law suit filed by two former employees. He said the court recently ruled in his favor but there was still some issues being litigated. He did not believe the former employees would be responsible for the fire..


[redacted] said some employees did smoke near the east side employee entrance, but they usually smoke near the garage door or along the outside north wall of the garage. [redacted] said they usually extinguished the cigarettes in various buckets filled with water.


[redacted] said he had recently received two offers to purchase the property. One was from Alaska USA Federal Credit Union (AKUSA FCU) and a second was from a private investor who wanted to keep the structure as a restaurant.

Then,

INVESTIGATION CONTINUED: I instructed [redacted] to contact his insurance company and we discussed what would be needed to secure the property for the pending origin and cause investigation.

A short time later I was approached by [redacted] from AKUSA FCU, who is the insurance broker for [redacted]. We discussed what would be needed for the pending origin and cause investigation, and he confirmed AKUSA FCU had made an offer to purchase the property. However, AKUSA FCU had been out bid by the private investor who wanted to keep the structure as a restaurant.
[redacted]said he was meeting the private investor on Monday to discuss his
[redacted] previous profits, etc. [redacted] said the property was not advertised to sell, he was just made offers from people interested in the property.

[redacted] did not know how the fire might have started.

Then there is a section called ORIGIN AND CAUSE INVESTIGATION. Here are some excerpts:

From Day 1 July 15:

An examination of fire movement and intensity patterns indicated the area of origin was under the floor at an area near the SE corner of the office. The patterns indicate the fire moved upwards through the exterior deck, which created a hole; and upwards through the east wall of the office and then into the attic area. At that point the fire moved through-out the attic space, which eventually caused the roof to collapse.

"Accelerant Detection K-9" Jodi seemed to think there was something suspicious.

Proceeded to "employee entrance" on the east side of structure. Structure sustained major damage - with roof collapsed. Proceeded to search deck/entry area which faced east. K9 first alerted on burned edge of rubber matting adjacent to an appx 3 foot hole furned [sic] through to the crawlspace. K-9 then alerted on burned edge of hole on the deck. Investigators secured water from crawlspace below the deck. K-9 alerted on water from crawlspace. K-9 alerted on charred wood from structural members in crawlspace. All alert areas were marked and photographed. All alert area samples were secured as evidence and placed into evicence [sic] containers.

As I said at the beginning, this is the first fire incident report I've ever seen. These are just bits and pieces of the report. The whole report is 16 pages long. Since I really know nothing about this, I'll just leave it at this - with the parts I found interesting excerpted - and leave it for others to figure out what it all means.

Aravind Adiga Wins Booker Prize

I listed the Booker Prize Finalists September 10. From the Booker Prize website:

Now in its 40th year, the prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The Man Booker judges are selected from the country's finest critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent excellence of the prize. The winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000 and both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a worldwide readership plus a dramatic increase in book sales.

Today Aravind Adiga was announced as the winner for "The White Tiger."

From the BBC:

The chairman of the judges, former politician Michael Portillo, said: "In many ways it was the perfect novel."

The White Tiger, a tale of two Indias, tells the story of Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller in the heartlands, one of the "faceless" poor left behind by the country's recent economic boom.

It charts his journey from working in a teashop to entrepreneurial success.

Announcing the winner at a ceremony in London, Mr Portillo said: "My criteria were 'Does it knock my socks off?' and this one did ... the others impressed me ... this one knocked my socks off."

You can watch a brief video with the winner on the BBC site.

Sarah Barracuda

Local Anchorage artist, Mariano Gonzales, shared his latest creation with me. Part of me wants to enjoy this privately and not add this to the political free for all going on. But Sarah has been proud of her barracuda nickname and I suspect that she'll want to frame this one.

Disclosure time: Mariano is teaching the computer art class I'm taking and I asked him if I could post the fish.

Who is that Masked Man?

I sort of got mentioned in the Bangkok Post today. There's a story about Somprasong Mang-ana, headmaster of a school in a remote rural Thailand village. (From an Alaskan perspective it isn't all that remote, since you can drive to it, but that's a lot of other stories.) Here's the reference:

Somprasong himself knows first-hand of the perils of being poor and lacking in opportunities. While growing up in the northern province of Kamphaeng Phet in the 1960s, he studied English thanks to a Peace Corps volunteer.

I'm the English teacher. I posted about Somprasong when we visited Umphang in 2007. He's done incredible things with this school and is the Northern Thailand teacher of the year. This is the sort of thing that makes teaching so worthwhile.

The story begins this way:

Rare dedication

English in the hills of Tak at the Umphang Wittayakom School

Story by NIKI THONGBORISUTE

It is the daily roll call in one of Thailand's most remote schools. Khaiwan stands in front of her fellow students and announces:

"There are 15 in our dorm, but today there are 14 because Lata has gone home. Thank you. Please sit down."

This is not a translation. The shy 16-year-old has just stood in front of 325 of her classmates and spoken in English.

Yes, that's right. Daily roll call in the remote school is in English, which is not bad considering these are students whose first language isn't even Thai. In fact, 11 dialects are represented at the school, and the students come from all 26 hill tribe communities in the region.

Niki contacted me because she saw my posts on Somprasong - blogging has its rewards too. For the full story go to the Bangkok Post.

DELTA Meeting - Working to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence

I spent the afternoon at a steering committee meeting for DELTA. Don't ask about the acronym, the group is working on developing a plan for prevention of intimate partner violence (IPV). The link takes you to a post on a previous meeting, and it has links to earlier ones even. The project is funded by the National Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Alaska is one of 14 states to have such a grant.

Coming up with a state plan on something like this feels a bit presumptuous, but actually, I'm the only member who isn't closely involved in the field of IPV. I'm supposed to be contributing with my public administration expertise. For the last two years we've been trying to inventory how the state tracks intimate partner violence and what ways people and agencies are trying to prevent it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the CDC is strongly interested in prevention rather than intervention. (Intervention being defined as reaction by authorities AFTER IPV.)

We're also trying to document what programs exist, where, and how one determines whether they are effective. A current buzzword in the field is "evidence-based programs" meaning that there are studies to test whether things work not so that money is spent on the most effective programs. As a guiding principle, that's great, but there are many obstacles. What works in Philadelphia may not work in rural Alaska. If you strictly follow the idea of evidence-based programs, you could never have a new program because there'd be no evidence that it will work. And measuring what hasn't happened (we're about prevention) is also tricky. Statistics has lots of sophisticated techniques for doing all this, but collecting sensitive data about people in small communities can increase risks for people as well. It's all pretty tricky, but there is so much to do. So we have to do what we can. Like most things, the more you learn about things, the more complex it gets.


But what little data there are tend to focus on incidents of IPV and there is little funding for prevention and measuring it is also elusive. We've worked hard over the last two years to let others in the field know what we're doing, mostly by talking about it with people members meet professionally who are in the field one way or another and through putting on workshops at professional conferences of people who are in positions to do prevention work (community health people, social workers, teachers, law enforcement,etc.)

[While the chart might look messy, making it helped us communicate our different understandings of the root causes of the problems and to focus on the areas and levels that would be most fruitful. And someone has transcribed it all so we can see it neatly.]


I continue to be impressed with the professionalism, knowledge, enthusiasm, and dedication of the other steering committee members. We're hoping to have a draft plan ready in January 2009. The idea is to have done a significant amount of work, but not have it so far along that it is a done deal when people get to look at it. We know that, despite our efforts, there are people who should be involved but haven't been. We just don't know who they are.



We'll have plenty of time next year to move it along to something the state can adopt to minimize the incidence of IPV through prevention rather than deal with victims and perpetrators AFTER things have gone wrong. Some of the committee members are working with people dealing with prevention of other health and social problems (alcohol and drug abuse for example) since there is considerable overlap.

We'll meet again tomorrow morning.