Sibel Edmonds gets Judge Walton replaced on her case!

This just from Luke Ryland on his wotisitgood4.com blog and it hasn't been reported to the news just yet.

The new judge is Rosemary Collyer. I did a little research and found three cases where she seemed to favor helping out those to expose secretive practices of the government, etc. Might be useful for others to study her more to see what Sibel's prospects might be of avoiding the State Secrets privilege being used against her in the future.

Read more about this at:

http://wotisitgood4.blogspot.com/2006/06/sibels-new-judge.html#comments

Wishing Sibel all the good luck in the world to hopefully finally get through the judicial roadblocks!

Well, here's one, debunking the CIA/FBI incompetence myth re 9-11.
To bad so few people listen.

Sibel Edmonds and other Whistleblowers Group
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=344

I hope the new judge will be less protective of the Bush administration's attempts to cover up its illegalities and incompetence, and more protective of our democracy. Sibel deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor for her tenacity in fighting to be heard.

Judge Walton seems to be focused in sticking to the lying by Scooter Libby rather than allowing all the smokescreens that Scooter's attorneys are attempting to enter in the defense. Judge Walton seems to be doing an excellent job in the Scooter Libby case.

Perhaps there is a very good reason that Judge Walton hasn't allowed Sibel Edmonds to speak out yet. Maybe there is similar evidence in the Scooter Libby case and Sibel Edmonds case? I'm all for whistleblowers to speak out for the truth, but if Sibel Edmonds were to speak now, maybe it would do damage to both of the cases?

Judge Walton could have a personal bias with whistleblowers in general but still be completely objective when dealing with perjury and obstruction charges.

Sometimes a judge's replacement can be be an unexpected surprise.

in that he doesn't believe that classified info should be revealed publicly. And while that viewpoint has worked against the whistleblower case, it has also done so in the Libby case. The real difference is our viewpoint, for we think there is a discernible difference between those who try to expose government wrongdoing and those who expose the identity of an undercover agent as a retaliatory act.

*shadow government*

Keep in mind that his ENTIRE financial history was recently redacted. That was one of the reasons that Sibel Edmonds filed her appeal for a recusal. A good read on how Walton and other judges have been assigned to hers and other cases is Chris Deliso's article a while back, right before Walton was assigned to Libby's case.

http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=8340

Deliso shows well how the selection process that assigned Walton to Sibel Edmonds wasn't as "random" as it was made to appear.

Also note that pretty much all of the cases where the State Secrets privilege was used to halt them in their tracks were civil lawsuits by whistleblowers and other litigants. Libby's case was a criminal case and not a civil case. Ann Beeson, an ACLU lawyer for Sibel Edmonds, noted in a CSPAN special "Supreme Court Preview" broadcast last fall noted that judges like Walton might have trouble applying the State Secrets privilege on criminal cases to dismiss them, as there are other more recent laws that were crafted to replace the state secrets privilege for criminal cases, that might have to be used instead of this "privilege". Those laws haven't been used on civil cases, which left open the legal loophole that Bushco keeps having judges use to dismiss civil cases instead of actual law. You might recall with the Libby case that it appeared that they were trying initially to jockey around to find other means of dismissing that case too, but not with the State Secrets privilege, probably for that reason.

It will be interesting to see, given both Walton's and Collyer's different histories, how Collyer will approach Sibel's appeal with regards to the application of State Secrets Privilege. One thing we might want to do is to check Collyer's financial history, just to ensure that there isn't any redaction later we might miss of something important like might be in Walton's history that is currently hidden.

Was not happy with the way he treated the Edmonds case, but cannot fault any of his rulings regarding Libby.

*shadow government*

It does put Judge Walton in a different light. Perhaps reassigning Sibel's case to Judge Collyer will be to her advantage.

Great, great news!

nt

Thanks for posting.

:patriot:

:patriot:

oh that sibel will actually get her day(s) in court.....

Thanks calipendence
:thumbsup:

She was appointed by Bush. So I don't know what that means. But she has gone agaist the Bush-grain. Which can never be a bad thing.


I thought Walton was pretty fair, from my limited knowledge of his Libby trial, as little as I know. But if Sibel wanted him recused and he refused to do so, then this is probably for the best.

Judge Collyer seems to be more geared towards "the people", being a labor oriented judge, if that means anything to anyone here. I just did a quick search and found this-

http://acuf.org/issues/issue47/051102news.asp

There seem to be complaints that she has hampered Chertoff's ability to "run" Homeland Security, due to her concerns toward employee type of benefits. Read it. I may be off track on my assessment.



And another, which only came up under a Google CACHE-



Bush Judge Says 'No' to Bush Labor Rules

When the Bush Administration implemented the creation of the Homeland Security Department, before they had even named a Director they had declared that there would be a policy against HS employees having to join a union. In the event that those employees did insist on joining the union, the government reserved the unilateral right to set the terms of the bargaining and employment policies without regard to either the civil service union or labor law. On Friday, a Federal judge named by Bush, Rosemary Collyer, departed from this Bush-approved script.

Washington — A federal court has struck down personnel rules adopted by the Department of Homeland Security, saying they violate the rights and protections given to employees by Congress.

In a ruling Friday night, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer said the rules did not “ensure collective bargaining” as required by the law that created the department. The rules were to take effect Monday.

Employee rights were a huge political issue in debates over creation of the department, which consolidated 22 federal agencies with almost 180,000 employees in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.

Collyer, who was appointed by President Bush, said the 2002 law gave federal officials “extraordinary authority” to develop a personnel system without regard to many of the constraints normally imposed by Civil Service laws. But, she said, the Bush administration exceeded even the “broad authority” granted by Congress.

“A system of ‘collective bargaining’ that permits the unilateral repudiation of agreements by one party is not collective bargaining at all,” she ruled.

Imagine. A Republican judge making a decision based on law instead of ideology. What a refreshing change! Look for Ms Collyer to be attacked by the Noise Machine as an ‘activist’ and a ‘tool of the most radical elements in our society’.

I know the gals get giddy for Fitzy, but Sibel gets a strong SuperHero vote from me.

:loveya:

But then being Armenian isn't too different from Turkish. My dad is fluent in Turkish.