Law on the Edge

War criminal Donald Rumsfeld managed to escape justice once again as Germany declines to prosecute the madman:

KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's federal prosecutor Thursday rejected calls to investigate allegations that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was guilty of war crimes over the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal.

The U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and four Iraqis who say they were abused by American soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison had filed a criminal complaint with German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm in November.

They were seeking to take advantage of a 2002 German law allowing for the prosecution of human rights abuses and war crimes regardless of the where they occur.

So much for universal jurisdiction. In celebration, the jackbooted thugs over at LGF fantasized about various retaliation strategies that the US could have visited upon Germany, had the peaceful "Old European" nation actually arrested Rumsfeld. Our favorite is setting fire to the Reichstag. Gets'em every time.

But I'm sure Germany won't have any time to fret over the loss of Rumsfeld as they pursue charges against the war criminals in the Iraqi insurgency and the genocidal Sudanese government. Stop laughing.

Meanwhile, super defense-attorney-to-the-terrorists Lynne Stewart was convicted of "aiding terrorism". Note Reuters' he said/she said take on the case, giving critics equal time in the first graf:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer aided terrorism by helping a client send messages to militant followers, a federal jury found on Thursday in a case critics said stemmed from Bush administration efforts to discourage the defense of accused terrorists.

Lynne Stewart, 65, long a defender of the poor and unpopular, was convicted of helping her imprisoned client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, to contact followers in Egypt with messages that could have ended a cease-fire there and ignited violence.

Abdel-Rahman was found guilty in 1995 of conspiring to attack U.S. targets, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was serving a life term when the crimes charged against Stewart occurred.

Stewart was convicted of all five counts against her, including two terrorism charges that combined carry a maximum 15-year prison term. All five counts combined carry a maximum term of 30 years, but it is unlikely she will be sentenced to such a lengthy term.

Hey Lynne, I'm poor and unpopular. Defend me!

"I hope this case will be a wake-up call to all citizens of this country," Stewart said. "You can't lock up the lawyers. You can't tell lawyers how to do their job."

Can't lock up the lawyers? That's a play from the Eric Cartman defense book: "I am above the law!" We're sure that the citizens of this country will be delighted to wake up to the fact that lawyers can't be told how to do their job.

Finally, fabulous prosecutor-to-the-stars Patterico has again succeeded in getting the L.A. Times to correct a story, this time on a sponge (oh, and some Christian):

Responding to my recent complaint, the L.A. Times today runs the following correction:

SpongeBob — An editorial Saturday about children’s literature and cartoons erroneously stated that James Dobson of Focus on the Family declared that SpongeBob SquarePants is a homosexual sponge. Instead, in a speech last month, Dobson criticized as pro-homosexual a tolerance video featuring SpongeBob, Big Bird and others.

This was no trivial error. It formed the basis of the entire editorial, which mocked Dobson by snidely citing other “examples” of children’s characters who must be gay – like Bert and Ernie ("longtime roommates, but who really buys those twin beds?"), the Pied Piper (an “obvious pedophile"), and Peppermint Patty ("another one with evident gender issues"). These examples made sense only if Dobson had really claimed that SpongeBob was gay – a claim that Dobson never made.

The L.A. Times is fairer to terrorists than it is to Christian conservatives, but then again who isn't? One thing we're sure of is that that damn sponge is gayer than a glory hole.