Hamilton County Judge Denies Charlie White's Motion For Post-Conviction Relief Based On Ineffective Counsel

Hamilton County Superior Court Judge Daniel Pfleging issued an order on December 23, two days before Christmas, denying former Secretary of State Charlie White's petition for post-conviction relief based on ineffective counsel he argues that he received from Carl Brizzi, who failed to put on a defense during a jury trial in 2012 that found him guilty on six of seven vote fraud-related charges special prosecutors brought against him. Judge Pfleging had earlier denied a number of arguments White had made for a new trial, which remain ripe for review at the appellate court level, in addition to the ineffective counsel argument. Those include the following:

• The fact that the state brought criminal charges against him to remove him from office instead of a quo warranto action;
• The fact that White was a de facto elected official the state could not have charged him with theft for drawing his salary as a duly-elected town council member in Fishers;
• Jurors were provided an erroneous legal definition of "residency" for voting purposes in determining whether he had improperly registered and voted in the wrong precinct in a single election;
• Jurors were provided erroneous jury instructions when the trial judge allowed a statute dealing with vote fraud that was clearly written to apply only in the plural to be applied singularly to convict White.
• The judge erred in allowing White to be convicted twice for the same offense rather than merging the offenses into a single offense as required by law; and
• White's equal protection rights were denied when he was convicted of a novel interpretation of Indiana's voter fraud laws that essentially created a class of one crime upon which the law was applied to him to obtain felony convictions that would force his removal him from office. 

The Indiana Law Blog has provided a copy of Judge Pfleging's Order, which you can view here. The Order essentially rubber stamps the views of special prosecutors Dan Sigler and John Dowd with respect to White's allegations that Brizzi provided ineffective counsel during his trial. Most objective legal observers agree that Brizz's representation of White during the trial was a total farce. Judge Pfleging saw no prejudice resulting from Brizzi's decision during voir dire to ask jurors if they agreed jury nullification was appropriate in a case involving a charges for which a prosecutor rarely, if ever, prosecutes a person for a technical violation of the law, implying to prospective jurors that White had violated the laws for which he had been charged. Pfleging reasoned that Brizzi didn't argue the inappropriate defense during the trial once the jurors were seated or during closing argument.

Brizzi refused to put on a defense because he believed that the state had failed to prove any of the charges against White. White claimed that Brizzi sprung that defense strategy on him at the last minute without discussing it with him. Super Bowl weekend in Indianapolis was also fast approaching at that point, although I'm sure that Brizzi's desire to take part in the big party downtown had nothing to do with his decision not to put on a case. Jurors in the case couldn't be put up at a hotel for sequestration because all area hotel rooms were booked up with out-of-town visitors attending the Super Bowl game Sunday night. They were instructed to continue deliberating into the wee hours of that weekend's Saturday after the case went to the jury shortly after mid-day on Friday, an instruction with which the trial court judge indicated the jurors did not object.

Brizzi mistakenly believed that all of the documentary evidence to which the parties had stipulated prior to trial that White had intended to offer to prove that he resided for voting registration purposes at his ex-wife's home at the time he registered to vote and cast a single ballot in one election using that registered voting address had actually been tendered at trial even though he never tendered any of the evidence during trial. In finding that Brizzi did not provide ineffective counsel, Judge Pfleging's findings of fact in his Order makes no mention of that glaring omission on Brizzi's part. Judge Pfleging's order draws negative inferences about virtually every potential witness Brizzi failed to call, including those who testified at the state Recount Commission hearing on White's behalf, which concluded that White had not violated Indiana's vote fraud statutes for purposes of qualifying as a candidate for office in 2010. In castigating White's expert GPS witness, the Order makes no issue of the substance of what his testimony would have been, which if offered, would have tended to prove White primarily resided at his ex-wife's home during the time in question. It should be pointed out that Judge Pfleging's daughter works at the same law firm that is defending Brizzi in the malpractice lawsuit White has filed against his former trial counsel. Judge Pfleging offered to recuse himself from hearing White's post-conviction relief petition due to the appearance of a conflict of interest but White's attorney waived his recusal offer.

White is going forward with his appeal to the Court of Appeals. That prospect should make many Republican and Democratic officials across the state of Indiana very uneasy if the convictions against White stand. Dozens and dozens of elected officials and candidates have handled their voting registration and balloting in the past based upon the same laws and court opinions upon which White relied but which this lone trial court in Hamilton County rejected in toto. White stands alone as the only candidate for office in the state's modern history to which a harsh, exacting residency standard has been applied for voting purposes. If the Charlie White standard had been applied to Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, both would have faced multiple felony charges. In order to uphold the convictions against White, the appeals court will have to stand Indiana residency and vote fraud laws on their head, which in my opinion is precisely what these over zealous special prosecutors and the trial court permitted to happen in that courtroom in Hamilton County nearly two years ago.

UPDATE: WISH-TV's political reporter Jim Shella proves once again why he's nothing but a stooge for the corrupt insiders who run this state. Here's his take on the denial of White's PCR motion:

Former Secretary of State Charlie White has lost his bid for a new trial.  A Hamilton County judge rejected his argument that Carl Brizzi was incompetent as a defense attorney.

Let’s review:

White lied to voters about where he lived and where he voted.  He was convicted of voter fraud.  He was thrown out of office.

He blamed Brizzi.  He paid another attorney to pursue post conviction relief.  He lost.

Now Charlie White says he will appeal his conviction.

That’s a small government Republican tying up our court system with frivolous pleadings.

Did I mention that White has a law degree of his own?

Wouldn’t his time be better spent finding a new career?

This is the same reporter who personally attacked those who questioned the legality of Richard Lugar registering to vote and repeatedly casting a vote from a home in Indianapolis which he had sold nearly 36 years earlier. Yet he thinks it's perfectly normal for a candidate between homes and marriages to be charged and convicted of multiple felonies for casting a single ballot in a single election using his ex-wife's home as his residence.

Brizzi's Decision Not To Put On Defense In Charlie White Case Based On His Doubts About Wife's Testimony

Arguments by the attorney representing former Secretary of State Charlie White in his petition for post-conviction relief resumed today in Hamilton Superior Court Judge Daniel Pfleging's courtroom with testimony from White's trial attorney, Carl Brizzi. In February, 2012, White was forced to give up his office after a jury found him guilty on six of seven vote fraud-related charges arising out of prosecutors' claims that he voted illegally once by casting a vote in the 2010 primary election in a precinct in which he didn't reside. White's attorney, Andrea Ciobanu, is arguing that White received ineffective counsel from Brizzi, the former Marion Co. Prosecutor. Ciobanu blames Brizzi's failure to put on a defense in the case by calling any witnesses as the main reason jurors found him guilty. For the first time today, we got a better picture of Brizzi's claimed rationale for closing his case without offering any witnesses or evidence in defense of his client.

Previously, Brizzi has maintained in public interviews that his strategy not to put on a defense was based on his belief that the prosecution had not met its burden in proving any of the charges against him, a tactic he says caught prosecutors off guard. Today, he told Judge Pfleging during his testimony that he had never made any firm decision until what, if any, witnesses he would call until the prosecution neared the end of its case against his client. Brizzi claimed that during a late-night meeting with White and his wife, Michelle White, that he began to question the truthfulness of the testimony that she had previously provided to the Indiana Recount Commission, where she testified that she and her husband did not reside together in the condominium he purchased a few months before their marriage until the couple tied the knot Memorial Day weekend after the May primary. Michelle testified that White spent much of his time on the road campaigning for Secretary of State, but that he slept in the basement of his ex-wife's home until they were married. White's ex-wife, Nicole Mills, buttressed her testimony during the Recount Commission proceedings.

Brizzi acknowledged that he had represented Michelle White during the Recount Commission as her pro bono counsel when she testified in support of her husband. During a tough late-night grilling of her during the trial, Brizzi claims that in an agitated and emotional state Michelle claimed Charlie didn't really "live there, live there" in reference to Nicole's home, which Brizzi characterized as a "confession" or "recantation" of her Recount Commission testimony. At that moment, Brizzi says his trial strategy began to change. He says that he came to the conclusion that the rules of professional conduct would not have allowed him to offer testimony from Michelle that he said he believed would be untruthful. When asked why he argued to jurors in his closing argument that White resided at his ex-wife's home during the time in question if he didn't believe Michelle, he responded that it was his duty to argue his client's case as best as he could to the jury.

Ciobanu questioned Brizzi's judgment for not spending any time prepping any of the witnesses he had listed on his final witness list prior to trial and questioned whether he ever had any intention of calling witnesses. Brizzi explained that it was not necessary for him to sit down and interview all potential witnesses prior to trial. He said that he typically speaks to witnesses shortly before or at the time of the trial.

At the beginning of his testimony, special prosecutor Dan Sigler, Sr. strenuously objected to any attempts by White's attorney to impeach Brizzi's testimony with testimony he gave last week in the civil case White has filed against Brizzi for legal malpractice. Sigler complained that White's attorney circumvented a deposition of Brizzi in the post-conviction relief proceeding by filing a civil lawsuit against him and deposing him in that matter instead without notice to him. Ciobanu shot back that Sigler had been made aware of the deposition and had been afforded the opportunity to attend the deposition but chose not to attend it. Judge Pflefging overruled Sigler's objection and permitted Brizzi to be examined on matters discussed in the deposition that were relevant to whether he had provided ineffective counsel.

One by one, Brizzi dismissed the value of calling witnesses. After dismissing Michelle's testimony as untrustworthy, he said he didn't want to call White's ex-wife, Nicole, because he believed that she was too corporate-like in her answers and jurors would wonder why she testified if White's wife didn't testify. He said that White's mother was "too emotional" to be an effective witness. He had ethical concerns that an expert witness that Brizzi says was retained by White and his father without his consultation, Ryan Harmon, a former Indiana State Police sergeant, would not be credible. Harmon was prepared to offer testimony based on his analysis of GPS data gathered from White's cell phone records that he said would prove that White spent most nights at his ex-wife's home during the period in question when he wasn't traveling throughout the state.

Brizzi said that he was concerned about information Sigler had shared with him before trial about a phone conversation that he said Harmon had recorded with a State Police investigator, whom had been relied upon by the prosecution, and whom Harmon had supposedly accused of being selected to conduct White's investigation as a favor to the governor and Sigler. According to the allegation, the State Police investigator was using the prosecution to angle for a promotion within the department. Brizzi said that the concerns shared with him by Sigler raised ethical challenges in offering him as a credible witness. He said that he concluded that Harmon's testimony would not be needed after he was satisfied that he had adequately discredited the expert testimony offered by the prosecution, a Sprint employee. Ciobanu pointed out that the prosecution had not identified Sprint employee Ray Clark as an expert witness until right before trial. Brizzi admitted that the late disclosure had initially caused him concern, and that he briefly considered seeking a continuance but that after he saw the evidence that he intended to offer and based upon his prior conversations with Harmon he said that he was comfortable with the state being allowed to offer the surprise, last-minute witness to their case.

Following a recess in this morning's testimony, Judge Pfleging had an admonition to everyone involved in the case whose emotions were running high. It was not immediately clear what had prompted the call for a side bar between the prosecution, White's attorney and Brizzi's attorney during a break that prompted the admonition from the judge. One court room observer saw an exchange occur during a break in today's proceeding between Brizzi and Harmon during which the witness claims that Brizzi was overheard to say that Harmon had better watch his back. Harmon, who had been seated in the courtroom at the beginning of today's proceeding, was asked to leave due to a separation of witness order issued by the judge.

Ciobanu also questioned Brizzi about whether he had considered seeking a continuance in the case due to his mother's failing health at the time of the trial and the distraction it was causing him. Brizzi acknowledged that a health care worker at St. Vincent's where his mother was being treated had made emergency calls to him about his mother near the time of the trial, but he said he later dismissed the health care worker as being a "chicken little" because he would find his mother doing fine when he rushed to be by her side after receiving a call from her. Brizzi's mother passed away this past May.

Brizzi's most critical testimony was about White himself being called as a witness. Brizzi said that after working for months prior to trial for hundreds of hours with White he concluded that he would do more harm for his case by testifying in his defense. Calling him as a witness would have been a "disaster" Brizzi claimed, although White did previously testify in his own behalf during his Recount Commission hearing without disastrous consequences. Brizzi criticized White for being too emotional and worked up with the prosecution team, claiming that White inappropriately stared down the prosecutors when they were in the same room and showed too much of an inclination to want to get into a fight with them. Brizzi had also suggested that the amount of money being spent on the case was of concern to his client, although Ciobanu needled him about incurring the added expense of renting office space across the street from the Hamilton Co. Courthouse for a three-month period for a trial that lasted only a few days especially for White's case.

White's attorney criticized Brizzi for relying upon jury nullification as a jury strategy, a characterization challenged by Sigler, who claimed there was nothing in the record to support a jury nullification strategy. Brizzi, however, conceded that during voir dire he had asked potential jurors whether they were sympathetic to the argument that it would be unfair to prosecute someone for a technical violation of the law that few people were prosecuted for breaking. As an example, Brizzi mentioned the example of prosecuting someone for betting small wagers while playing poker, which is technically illegal gambling. Ciobanu believes that Brizzi poisoned the jury pool from the outset by suggesting to them his belief that his client had broken a law that most people are never prosecuted for breaking. Ciobanu noted that the prosecution struck potential jurors who answered sympathetically to the question posed to them by Brizzi.

Perhaps the most damning admission from Brizzi during his testimony this morning came when he admitted that he mistakenly believed that evidence to which the prosecution and defense had stipulated prior to trial would be admissible had never been formerly tendered by him as evidence for the jury to consider. That included documentary evidence White offered to prove that he resided at the home of his ex-wife for the brief period during which he had abandoned the apartment in which he had been residing following his previous divorce but before he said that he moved into the condominium he purchased for him and Michelle to reside following their marriage. White claims that he did not immediately move into the condominium with Michelle because of her young children from a prior marriage who were residing there with her. Brizzi dismissed the significance of the omission, claiming the evidence broke both ways in that some of it could have been used by the prosecution to prove he had actually resided at the condominium. Nonetheless, the same evidence had been offered at his Recount Commission, which determined that he satisfied residency for voting purposes based upon the standards set out in statute and as interpreted in prior Supreme Court decisions.

There were also lengthy discussions during Brizz's testimony about instructions made to the jury. Brizzi agreed that he had worked with Jerry Bonnet, general counsel for the Secretary of State's office, prior to trial on jury instructions. He acknowledged that the instructions given to the jury did not include instructions Ciobanu argued were critical to allowing the jury to properly apply the law to the facts. Sigler contended those were issues decided by the judge and not left up to Brizzi alone, and that those issues had been preserved for White's appeal. Ciobanu faulted Brizzi for not arguing to the jury the correct legal standard for establishing residency for voting purposes and for not moving for a directed verdict if he believed that the prosecution's evidence did not support a conviction. Brizzi defended his actions, noting that he had filed motions prior to court based on those legal arguments, which were rejected by the trial court judge. This afternoon, White's attorney offered testimony from family members, including his ex-wife and mother, who believed they were going to be called as witnesses but were never called to testify by Brizzi during the trial.

UPDATED: After reviewing the tweeting by some of the mainstream media reporters who covered today's hearing, it only confirms my view that these reporters come to a story with preconceived notions and an agenda that heavily taints their reporting on all matters concerning Charlie White. Once these people have decided they don't like you because the establishment folks to whom they suck up tell them you're an outcast and must be treated as such, they will not report anything about you accurately or fairly. This is the sad state of affairs where we find ourselves with today's journalists. There is little distinction between fact reporters and opinion commentators. These people are incapable of discerning real corruption from fabricated outrage. This is why it's possible for a President today to commit crimes far worse than President Nixon imagined committing on his darkest days in office and not cause today's reporters who are supposed to represent the top news organizations in the country to even bat an eye.

Judge Nation Recuses Himself From Charlie White Case After White's Attorney Filed Explosive Motion For Change Of Judge

The saga of the already bizarre Charlie White vote fraud case has taken yet another very odd twist. Hamilton Superior Court Judge Steve Nation, who presided over the jury trial which found White guilty on six of seven charges brought against him by a special prosecutor, has withdrawn from hearing a petition filed by White's attorney seeking post-conviction relief after White's attorney filed a motion for change of judge leveling explosive allegations. Attached to the motion was an affidavit signed by White in which he laid out a detailed history of his relationship with Judge Nation, accusing him of extreme prejudice against him and questioning his ability to be impartial in deciding any matters pertaining to his case.

White's affidavit alleges that Nation had spoken to him on several occasions about a vacancy on the state's Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice Ted Boehm that would eventually be filled by Boone Circuit Court Judge Steven David. White alleges that he personally communicated to Nation that Gov. Daniels had someone else in mind for the opening before the judicial nominating commission had even met to consider applicants, and that White knew the successful choice would be David, before the finalists were named to fill Justice Boehm's vacancy in 2010. "[B]ased on . . . Nation's . . . political relationship and comments . . . and nonverbal communications in addition to other facts in this affidavit, I do not believe I can get a fair hearing on my Petition for Post-Conviction Relief or any other matters coming before this Court and I am requesting a change of judge," White stated in his affidavit. White alleges that when he was initially appointed a public defender to handle his appeal, Larry Hansen, Judge Nation said to Hansen that he was "surprised" Hansen "would want to represent me."

White traces bad blood between himself and a political faction in Hamilton County allied with Judge Nation after he defeated Leann Walker Murray for the post of Hamilton Co. GOP Chairman in 2005. White quotes Nation as remarking to a political ally of White's election, "The kid's in charge now," a remark White took as being derogatory. "Usually members from the old guard republican faction this Court is known to be associated would call me 'the kid' if I engaged in political activity that they did not like," White writes. White claims that Nation's judicial aspirations were the source of his bias and prejudice against him.

Star Makes Light Of Daniels' Residency Problem

I may sound like a broken record by this point, but Charlie White was right when he said Indiana's residency laws were being applied to him differently than other politicians. I'll continue to repeat it as long as his convictions on charges that he violated the state's voter residency laws because he registered to vote at his ex-wife's home for a short period while in between homes continue to stand. I observed an AP report the other day which discussed the question of whether Gov. Mitch Daniels would actually move into the president's home on Purdue University's campus once he become its new president next year since he never resided in the governor's residence as required by law, although the article ignored the law-breaking aspect of the issue. During the debate over Charlie White's residency woes, the Indianapolis Star led the state's media in news reporting and editorializing condemning his actions and calling for his removal from office. An item in today's "Behind Closed Doors" column making light of Daniels' claim that he will reside on the Purdue campus is a testament to the paper's deference to Gov. Daniels' more serious disregard of the state's residency laws:

Daniels said Thursday that once he's president of Purdue University in January, he'll live in the president's mansion.

Though it may depend on what the meaning of "live" is.

After all, in October 2005, Daniels told reporters that after a home show allowing tours of the renovated governor's residence on Meridian Street in Indianapolis was completed the following spring, he and the first lady would "take up residence here."

Asked by a reporter what that meant, Daniels mocked the question.

"It's a common English phrase," Daniels said. "It means 'move in.' "

Which the Daniels never did.

In fact, they eventually moved into a home they built in Carmel.

The issue had dogged Daniels since shortly after he became governor in 2004. People, including in the Butler-Tarkington and Meridian-Kessler neighborhoods that are so proud of having the governor as a neighbor were disappointed. Other people took it as sign that the governor felt the fancy home just wasn't good enough for him.

And since the Constitution requires the governor to live in the state capital, his Hamilton County home didn't fit the bill.

So we'll be waiting to see. Will the Danielses "live" in Lafayette? Does that mean "move in?"

Or does that mean "a nice place to visit?"

Ironically, it was the Star that first raised the issue about the constitutional requirement when word leaked out that Daniels was building a new home in Carmel. I'm not sure why the item claims the issue has dogged Daniels. The newspaper certainly hasn't dogged Daniels like it did White. It dropped the issue almost as quickly as it raised it. After moving into the Carmel home, Daniels switched his voter registration from his former home in Marion County to the governor's residence, even though he resided in his new home in Carmel, a fact the Star has never reported. If you're Charlie White, you should lose your office and go to jail. If you're Mitch Daniels, it's just an item to make light of in the Sunday political gossip column.

What New Election Law Will Judge Rosenberg Make Up Today?

Who needs the Indiana Election Code and years of Indiana election law precedent when you have Judge Louis Rosenberg? The trailblazing judge has been making up new election law at an unprecedented pace in his quest to ensure the installation of the Democrats big-time losing candidate for secretary of state, Vop Osili, to that position despite his overwhelming repudiation by Indiana voters in the 2010 election. The Democrats first waited until after the election to challenge White's election after he won in a landslide victory over Osili. No problem said Rosenberg, choosing to ignore the Supreme Court's recent precedent in Burke v. Bennett where the state's high court ruled that Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett could not be removed from office despite the fact that he was ineligible to be a candidate for Terre Haute mayor because his candidacy was prohibited by the Little Hatch Act. After Bennett's election, the statute no longer disqualified him the court held. By waiting until after the election to raise the issue, the Supreme Court said the losing Democratic candidate lost his right to challenge Bennett's election. Rosenberg simply decided the case didn't apply to Charlie White's election.

Republicans then argued that even if you accepted the Democrats' contention that White was not "legally" registered to vote at the time he was nominated by the Republicans, since even the Democrats concede White was a legally registered voter at the time of the November, 2010 election, White should be deemed eligible based on his status at the time of his election. Rosenberg decided that he shouldn't have been on the ballot in the first place because he was not legally registered to vote at the time of his nomination by the Republican Party. As the Supreme Court has instructed us in the Bayh and Evrard cases, liberally applied voter intent is paramount in determining a person's residence for voting purposes. Essentially, a person's stated intention with any supporting evidence of intent concerning that stated intention will always prevail under the standards applied by our Supreme Court. White had supporting testimony of both his wife and ex-wife, a driver's license, mail and other evidence to support his intent. Again, Rosenberg decided the law means something entirely different. Despite a unanimous finding of the Recount Commission, including a respected former Democratic judge, who actually heard the testimony of multiple witnesses and received evidence supporting that intent unlike the judge, Rosenberg declared White didn't have intent to reside either where he claimed to reside prior to his nomination or at the time of his nomination to be "legally" registered to vote in Indiana. In other words, he was simply a man without a legal residence who could not at the time have cast a legal vote in Indiana despite the fact that he has resided in the same county within a couple mile radius his entire adult life. Applying the Rosenberg standard to voters casting votes in any given election, it would mean tens of thousands of voters every election could be denied the right to vote based on the arbitrary decision of an election board of where it and not you determined was your residence at the time.

Any person who has worked as an election judge, clerk or inspector at an Indiana election knows that under no circumstances would a voter in White's situation have been deemed an "illegally" registered voter as the law has been applied prior to Judge Rosenberg's ruling. White would have been permitted to vote period. Anyone who says otherwise is simply lying. Go back and review the archived video of the Marion County Election Board meetings when the board considers all the challenges precinct election boards made in past elections held in this county. In almost every case, the election board overruled any objections to a disputed vote cast in that election. I've come to the conclusion after watching those meetings that it's almost a waste of time to challenge a person's vote having served as an election judge in multiple elections. The election boards almost always resolve any doubts in favor of the voter regardless of the substance of the challenge. What we have seen take place in this Charlie White saga is a judge turning well-established election law on its head at every turn to reach the outcome he desires, which is to install as the winner of the secretary of state's race a candidate of his political party who received only 38% of the vote. That's not even taking up the issue of whether Judge Rosenberg should have been sitting in judgment of White given his daughter's public role in advocating and publishing a legal analysis declaring her opinion that White was ineligible to hold the vote before the Democrats even filed their initial complaint against White.

The Attorney General and White have both declared their intention to appeal Judge Rosenberg's unprecedented rulings in this case to a higher court, which ultimately will be decided by the Supreme Court. The Democrats want White tossed from office and Osili installed now while White challenges the outcome, which would be an unprecedented move and contrary to the Burke v. Bennett decision, but precedent has not stood in the way of this judge making contrary rulings in the past so anything is possible. Rosenberg has said he will rule this morning whether his party's chosen candidate or the people's chosen candidate will serve in the secretary of state's office while this case makes its way through the appeals process.

Make no mistake about it. If Vop Osili is installed as secretary of state, this race was stolen lock, stock and barrel by a judge who simply decided that he had the right to make up the law as he went along to make the candidate of his party's choice the winner. The fact that leaders of both parties, lawyers learned in the law and organizations like the ACLU who are suppose to fight to ensure that the rule of law still has meaning have not been screaming at the top of the their lungs about this outrage that is playing out in the Marion Co. Circuit Court should alarm everyone who holds dear their precious right to vote. What this case means is that your votes simply don't count. If a judge of the opposite political party decides his party's candidate and not the people's chosen candidate should hold that office, he can simply twist the law any way he likes to make your opponent the winner. We are seeing an Attorney General of this country who refuses to prosecute gang members who threatened voters with physical violence to prevent them from voting in the 2008 election, who at the same time is declaring a South Carolina Voter ID law essentially identical to an Indiana law that has been in effect for years and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court as violating the Voting Rights Act. Yes, Eric Holder is actually arguing that requiring a voter to prove his identity at the polls is tantamount to imposing a poll tax despite the Supreme Court's affirmation of Indiana's Voter ID law, a law since adopted by many other states. We are seeing our most precious right taken away from us as the public yawns and tunes in to learn the latest news about Kim Kardashian or Tim Tebow.

UPDATE: Judge Rosenberg may have gone up to the edge of the cliff, but he had enough doubt about his trailblazing electionmlaw-making to step back and not take the jump of making good on his order to remove White from office and install Osili to that office immediately. Judge Rosenberg wisely issued a stay of his order this morning until it is properly reviewed and decided by a higher court. Unless the Supreme Court decides to oveturn decades of law, Charlie White wins this case hands down, but you would never have a clue of the strong legal ground upon which White's defense rests by the biased, opinionated news reports fed to us on a daily basis by the local news media. Here's a copy of Judge Rosenberg's order here. Note that the Order is dated yesterday but was not released until today. Similarly, Judge Rosenberg held up the release of his Order determining that White should be removed from office a full day so that it was released the day before the start of the Christmas holiday weekend.