Looking for a long-term commitment in covering a complicated local crime story? As the skeptics say, “Good luck with that!” So it’s well worth noting that both Columbia, Mo., daily newspapers have weighed in recently on the long-term, multiple-part commitment by CBS’ “48 Hours” in covering the 2001 murder case of Columbia Tribune sports editor and popular University of Missouri Journalism School alum Kent Heitholt.
Beef Products Inc., the South Dakota-based company suing ABC News for defamation, has asked that the case be returned to South Dakota state court and out of federal jurisdiction. The Jan. 17 article by Reuters, headlined “BPI wants ABC ‘pink slime’ defamation case back in state court,” reports that “BPI’s attorneys argued that a state court is the proper forum because the case also involves two related companies: BPI Technology Inc. and Freezing Machines Inc. that do business in South Dakota and are incorporated in Delaware. BPI and the two other entities are all owned by Eldon and Regina Roth.”
Bob Hoemeke was every journalist’s favorite lawyer. He tried to get information into the newspaper instead of keeping out. Hoemeke, the most prominent media lawyer in Missouri during the last decades of the last century, died Nov. 28 of the effects of Parkinson’s disease. He was 77.
The conviction of former Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich on 17 federal criminal counts on Monday is not surprising in light of the high percentage of convictions that federal prosecutors win in retrials of white-collar crimes after they have a chance to streamline complicated cases to appeal to juries.
A jury found Blagojevich guilty of 17 counts of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery, extortion conspiracy and bribery conspiracy. He was acquitted on one bribery charge, and the jury deadlocked on two counts of attempted extortion.
Justice Samuel Alito didn’t direct his remarks at the press when he spoke to a ballroom full of lawyers in St. Louis. But it was clearly the press he had in mind when he described the misconceptions that people have about the Supreme Court.
Alito even singled out for criticism the star Supreme Court reporter of the past generation, Linda Greenhouse, who writes a column about the court in her retirement from the New York Times. He noted that Greenhouse had wondered in her column about “topsy-turvy world” Supreme Court where business had not won as high a percentage of cases this term as in the past.
“Maybe the law has something to do with it,” said Alito with some sarcasm. “Maybe the text has something to do with it. I know that is a radical thought.”