Judge's Decision Feathers His Own Nest

When BP's shortcuts caused an oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama made what I think was a good decision to impose a moratorium on deep-water off-shore drilling. Now that it's months later and the damaged BP rig is still pouring millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, Obama's moratorium looks even more like the right decision.

But a Louisiana company, Hornbeck Offshore Services, didn't like the moratorium and sued to have the decision overturned in court. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman agreed with the drilling company and ruled that the moratorium was illegal. He said the moratorium was "arbitrary and capricious" and would have an "immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country."

You may be asking yourself why the judge would make such a questionable decision in the midst of the current oil disaster. I know I was. But it begins to make some sense when you look at the judge's financial holdings. The judge owns stock in at least 21 different energy companies, including Halliburton and Transocean. He also owns stock in J.P. Morgan Chase (which holds 28.3% of BP's stock). Here are the other companies that the judge holds stock in:

BlackRock
Ocean Energy
NGP Capital Resources
Quicksilver Resources
Hercules Offshore
Provident Energy
Peabody Energy
PenGrowth Energy
RPC Inc
Atlas Energy Resources
Parker Drilling
TXCO Resources
EV Energy Partners
Rowan Companies
BPZ Resources
El Paso Corp
KBR Inc
Chesapeake Energy
ATP Oil & Gas

This judge obviously had no business making any decision in this case. He should have recused himself from the case. If he had decided in favor of the government, he would have suffered financially from his energy holdings. By deciding for the drilling company, he protects the oil investments that he has and his own financial well-being. How can we trust that he made a fair and impartial decision in this case? Answer -- we can't!

Fortunately, the White House is appealing this ridiculous decision to the 5th Court of Appeals (and the Sierra Club is joining in the appeal). But it is questionable whether they will get a fair hearing there either. Just last month, in a case against energy and chemical companies, so many of the 5th Court Appeals judges recused themselves for ties to these companies that there weren't enough judges left to hear the case.

Are there any judges left out there that aren't owned by the oil companies?

A.B.A. Group Supports Freeze On Executions

The American Bar Association believes there are serious problems with how the states handle death penalty cases, and these problems affect the fairness of trials and death penalty verdicts.

The ABA's Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project conducted a review of how the death penalty operates in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennslyvania and Tennessee. They found several problems, including:

* Spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence.

* Misidentification by eyewitnesses.

* False confessions from defendants.

* Racial disparities that make death sentences more likely when victims are white.

Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the group, said, "After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed. The death penalty system is rife with irregularity."

The problem is not whether the death penalty is right or wrong. The problem is that our system of justice cannot guarantee fairness. This fundamental problem with fairness makes the rightness or wrongness of the death penalty a moot point. Even if the death penalty can be justified on moral grounds, that justification can only exist in a fair system.

Perhaps one day we can have the debate over whether the death penalty is right or wrong, but that day is a long way off. Right now, we must have a moratorium on the death penalty until we can guarantee the fairness of our system.

Without a fair system, we are sure to execute some innocent people. The execution of even one innocent person is an unforgivable and morally reprehensible act. It cannot be defended.