Tag: Martha Coakley

Update 9:30 pm: AP calls the race for Brown. 84% in, Brown with 53%. Post-mortem thread here.

Update: 9:19 pm: 1435 of 2168 precincts reporting - 66% of vote -- Brown still 53%, Martha 46%. CNN's 9:15 story. 9:21 pm: 1494 of 2168 precincts reporting - 69% of vote, Brown still at 53%. Do we call the race for Brown yet?

Update: 9:07 pm ET: Brown's lead widens to 53% with 57% of the vote in. (1234 of 2168 precincts reporting.) Coakely's got a good lead in Boston, Lynn, and Lexington.

Update 9:04 pm ET: 52% of the votes are in, including some from the eastern part of the state. Brown is still ahead 52% to 47%. (1119 of 2168 precincts reporting.)

Update 8:52pm ET: More than 1/3 of 2168 precincts are in, 38% of vote is in. Still Brown 52%, Martha 47%. But it's the Western part of the state coming in, not Boston, where Martha should do better.

Update 8:35 pm ET: 192 precincts, 9% of vote in: Brown 52%, Coakley 47%.

Update 8:29 pm ET: 146 precincts in (7%), Brown 51%, Martha 48%. CNN pundits are already doing a post-mortem for the Dems. They think Brown will win. [More...]

This is for all the volunteer campaign workers of both candidates in Mass., trying to get out the vote for their candidate.

While BTD wants Coakely to win, I want Coakely to lose. She's too big a risk. The thought of another career prosecutor bent on the old law and order, crime warrior model, is a bigger threat to me than the possibility of losing the House version of the Health care bill. I'm resigned to the health care bill -- a bill that after all the compromising, bears little resemblance to what we progressives initially envisioned. I am not resigned to a Senator who will arrive in DC with alliances already formed with crime bill pushers like DiFi, Joe Biden, and every victims rights group in the nation. How long till we see a crime bill co-sponsored by Coakely and Jeff Sessions? [More...]

If Martha Coakley loses the U.S. Senate race in Massacussetts, can she delay the certification of the results and Scott Brown's taking office by asking for a recount? If Scott Brown loses, can he do the same to her?

If that happens, wouldn't the election's result on the health care vote be nil? As far as I can tell (and I am not an elections attorney) the Massachussetts statute provides (ALM GL ch. 54, § 116):[More...]

Ezra Klein:

I'm fairly optimistic that health-care reform will pass, even if Martha Coakley loses to Scott Brown in Massachusetts. It certainly can pass, as the House could simply approve the Senate bill unchanged and then make modifications through the reconciliation process.

This news article in the Wall St. Journal makes the same points. Jonathan Chait at TNR has three options for the health care bill if Coakley loses.

Jake Tapper and Jonathan Karl at ABC agree. Either the House passes the Senate version so this election won't matter, or they use reconciliation.

The sky is not falling, despite the suggestion to the contrary by the influential Dems runnng to MA this weekend to stump for Coakely. [More...]

The Massachussetts Supreme Court today upheld the child sex assault conviction of defrocked Roman Catholic priest Paul M. Shanley. Shanley was prosecuted by Martha Coakley based on repressed memory evidence. Not only was the conviction upheld, but the Court officially validated the dubious evidence considered by many to be junk science.

"In sum, the judge's finding that the lack of scientific testing did not make unreliable the theory that an individual may experience dissociative amnesia was supported in the record, not only by expert testimony but by a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature,'' Justice Robert Cordy wrote for the SJC.

As amicus brief author R. Christopher Barden, a psychologist and attorney.one of the amicus brief authorspsychologist says: [More...]

At Politico, Radley Balko summarizes Martha Coakley's prosecutorial over-reaching during her career and the threat she poses to those who care about criminal justice reform.

As a member of the Senate, not only would Coakley be creating new federal criminal laws; given her record as a prosecutor, there’s a good chance she’d serve on committees with oversight over the Justice Department and the judiciary. She’d also be casting votes to confirm or deny federal judicial appointments. Advocates for criminal justice reform should be wary. Coakley may share Kennedy’s opposition to the death penalty, but her record as a prosecutor leaves plenty of doubt about her commitment to justice.

I hope if you live in Massachussetts, you don't vote for Martha Coakley. My prior posts on why she should not be Senator are here and here.

Can't say I didn't warn you about Martha Coakley. The latest: a Bait and switch. During her campaign to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy, she said she wouldn't support a bill with restrictions on abortion.

Today, she announced her support for the health care bill with its restrictions on abortion funding.

Coakley then:

Coakley’s stand was a major point of debate during the campaign; several of her opponents criticized her for being willing to sink the overall health care bill over a single issue, but she insisted that there were some things on which she would not compromise.

[More...]

I'm not happy about this, but here it is. Mass. Attorney General and former state prosecutor Martha Coakley won today's Democratic primary election to replace Sen. Edward Kennedy.

I've never thought Martha Coakley would make a good U.S. Senator. I'm even more convinced now that she has signed her name to a brief restricting death penalty appeals, while claiming to be against the death penalty.

The case, which comes as Coakley is battling for votes in the Democratic Senate primary, involves a convicted murderer from Alabama who has appealed his case to the Supreme Court, on the grounds that his state-assigned lawyer failed to introduce crucial evidence that he is mentally retarded.

“There’s no way this kid should be killed,’’ said Stephen B. Bright, president and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, an organization that opposes the death penalty. “It’s old-fashioned Southern states’ rights. I was shocked to see that she and the state of Massachusetts had joined that brief.’’

Coakley-speak:

“This, from our point of view, is unrelated to a death penalty or any of the issues around that,’’ Coakley said. “A real concern was that we get a clear determination from the Supreme Court on what is the standard of review of a federal court looking at a state court decision.’’

How is limiting the appeal rights of a mentally retarded person sentenced to die not about the death penalty? AEDPA, which the brief addresses, is the infamously unfair "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act."[More...]