We received this email today from Amy Robertson, a civil rights lawyer in Denver:

I hope you have the opportunity to read "Lost in the Jihad - the Dropped Case Against John Walker Lindh," by Jane Mayer, in the March 10 New Yorker. It includes an almost unbelievable account of Justice Department efforts to keep Lindh from having an attorney, including ignoring the advice of its own ethics office, withholding and hiding emails conveying that advice, and then persecuting the young ethics office lawyer who spoke up about her emails. What is perhaps most interesting is Mayer's point that DOJ fuck-ups ultimately made the case much harder to prosecute than it would have been if they had acted properly.

Here's what Slate (March 3) had to say about Mayer's piece:

The New Yorker, March 10 --Why didn't John Walker Lindh ever go to trial? A piece describes how the Justice Department's case against him disintegrated: The defense was prepared to argue that the FBI agent who extracted Lindh's confession ignored advice that such an interrogation would be illegal. Justice eventually dropped nine of the original 10 charges and settled for a 20-year sentence. Though it contends that Lindh could be innocent, the story is sharpest when detailing the ditherings of the criminal justice system post-9/11.

Truthout has posted an interview with Jane Mayer about her Lindh article, also appearing in the March 10 New Yorker, accessible here.