Soldier's Lawyer Known for "Humanizing" Clients

By Gene Johnson and Phuong Le

Seattle - A day before the public learned the name of the soldier accused of methodically slaughtering 16 civilians in Afghanistan, his lawyer called a news conference and sketched a different portrait of Robert Bales: that of a loving father and devoted husband who had been traumatized by a comrade's injury and sent into combat one too many times.

The move was classic John Henry Browne. The charming, sometimes brash, media-savvy defense attorney had yet to even meet his client and was already attempting to shape public perceptions.

"His best work is not in a court of law, but really in a court of public opinion. He's a master at humanizing his client, and that's an important role," said Dan Satterberg, chief prosecutor in Seattle's King County, where Browne is based. "He is accessible and quotable. And he loves to talk to the media. He doesn't waste any time getting a positive portrayal of his client."

Six-foot-6 and seven times married, with a penchant for long, white scarves, Browne cuts a flamboyant figure in Seattle legal circles and has represented some notorious criminals, including serial killer Ted Bundy and the teenage thief known as the Barefoot Bandit.

Browne, 65, has obtained remarkable results for some of his clients, but his aggressive courtroom style can also rub prosecutors and judges the wrong way. In a drug case last summer, a mistrial was declared after he questioned the judge's competence in open court and a juror was overheard saying he wanted to punch the lawyer in the nose.

His new client, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a 38-year-old Army sniper from Washington state, could be charged as early as this week in the March 11 shooting rampage, a crime that has strained relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan and threatened to alter the course of the war.

Browne met with Bales for the first time Monday, conferring with him behind bars at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. While any trial is months away, some wonder whether the lawyer's sometimes abrasive behavior will sit well with the more formal culture of a military court, in which the jury consists entirely of soldiers.

By his own count, Browne has appeared in military court only three times in a career of more than four decades.

"He pushes prosecutors and judges, and his success is partially due to that," said John Wolfe, who worked for Browne in the 1970s. "His zealousness can cause people to make mistakes." But he added: "I fully expect he's going to adapt his style to the decorum required in a military trial."

Allen Ressler, a Seattle attorney who went to American University Law School with Browne and was his law partner years ago, put it this way: "He's not always the most pleasant human being in the world, but he knows what he needs to do to get results."

Browne has been known to turn around in court and roll his eyes if he dislikes what he is hearing from the judge. In the drug case that ended in a mistrial, he simply refused to continue participating because he disagreed with several rulings. He sat down and did the same thing in a 1979 murder case.

"He makes harsh statements sometimes, statements some people feel might be disrespectful," Wolfe said. "If he thinks a judge is out of line, he'll say, 'You're out of line.' He is passionate about his defense work, and when he thinks it's appropriate, he'll call a spade a spade."

Though friendly with reporters, Browne can at times be prickly with them, and isn't above calling one a "pest" for telephoning too often.

Several colleagues say that he clearly enjoys the publicity from big cases but that his real motivation lies deeper, in a belief in his clients and their right to a fair trial.

"John has always had high-profile cases because he's really good," said Anne Bremner, a Seattle lawyer who was Browne's fifth wife. "But often in high-profile cases, they can be a platform for important discussions on broad issues. Being part of that public discussion and potential institutional changes is important to him."

Most recently, Browne represented Colton Harris-Moore, the Barefoot Bandit who stole airplanes, boats and cars during a two-year run from the law. By painting a picture of the thief as someone who had been neglected as a boy, Browne and his co-counsel persuaded a judge to give Harris-Moore a prison term at the low end of the sentencing range — seven years.

Browne was so persuasive the judge called the defendant "a triumph of the human spirit" simply because Harris-Moore grew up to be a thief rather than, say, a serial killer.

One of Browne's biggest cases involved Washington state's worst mass murder, the slaying of 13 people at a Seattle gambling club in 1983. At the end of the trial, Browne had the mother of his client, Benjamin Ng, bow to the jurors and ask them to spare his son from execution, recalled Bremner. Ng was sentenced to life in prison.

In the 1970s, Browne came to represent Bundy when he was under investigation for killings in Washington state. Bundy ultimately confessed to dozens of murders around the country and was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989.

A Tennessee native, Browne graduated from the University of Denver, then got his law degree in 1971. He worked as an assistant attorney general in Olympia, Wash., and then as chief trial attorney in the public defender's office in Seattle before entering private practice.

He has benefited from the assistance of a series of sharp associate lawyers, most recently Emma Scanlan, who has handled many of the nuts and bolts of their cases while leaving the public pronouncements to him.

So far, Browne is doing a good job countering the portrait of Bales that has emerged in leaks from anonymous U.S. officials, said Dan Conway, a former Marine and a military lawyer. But talking so much about his client — for example, saying that Bales remembers little about the attack — is risky, Conway said.

Military investigators have sole access to witnesses in Afghanistan and can start collecting evidence to contradict Browne's suggestion that the shootings may have been what psychiatrists call a dissociative event.

"You want to humanize your client, but you don't want to give away the whole playbook," Conway said

Activists Sue to Stop illing of Pacific Northwest Sea Lions

By Teresa Carson

United States - Wildlife activists sued on Monday to stop the killing of sea lions that have been eating endangered Columbia River salmon, seeking a reprieve for the animals a day before three Pacific Northwest states are authorized to begin executing them.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., follows last week's decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service to sanction the limited killing of California sea lions.

The Humane Society of the United States, Wild Fish Conservancy and two individual plaintiffs are seeking an injunction barring the authorization from taking effect on Tuesday.

The hungry sea lions swim 140 miles upstream and cluster at the Bonneville Dam, on the border between Oregon and Washington state, to eat salmon and steelhead trout as the fish head up the Columbia River to spawn. That is seen by the states as a threat to the recovery of the fish.

But animal rights activists argue that the sea lions are unfairly blamed for low fish stocks and charge that fishing, hatchery practices, hydroelectric dam barriers, and environmental degradation pose a far greater risk.

"Federal law allows the killing of sea lions only in very limited circumstances, when the agency proves they are having a significant negative impact on salmon," Jonathan Lovvorn, Humane Society senior vice president, said in a written statement.

"The National Marine Fisheries Service's decision to kill hundreds of native marine mammals to reduce salmon losses by a couple of percentage points at best, while simultaneously authorizing much larger man-made sources of endangered salmon mortality, is both outrageous and patently illegal."

Brian Gorman, spokesman in the Seattle office of the National Marine Fisheries Service, called the legal challenge "not unexpected."

"Now, it is up to the court to respond," Gorman said.

Wildlife activists have battled the fisheries service in court for several years over the controversial practice of killing sea lions to protect stocks of Columbia River basin Chinook salmon.

The sea lions are guarded under the Marine Mammals Protection Act and the suit charges the fisheries service's order violates those laws.

Under Thursday's order, the states can kill only sea lions known to have eaten salmon and are limited to 92 animals per year.

The sea lions can be killed only if zoos or aquariums don't want them. Since 2008, the states have killed 28 sea lions and 10 have been sent to zoos or aquariums.

The Federal permission was set to run from March 20 to May of 2016.

The Bonneville Dam is the first hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River, which divides Washington and Oregon.

Cancer Costs Hit Young and Poor Hardest: Study

Washington - In a new survey, colon cancer patients younger than 50 and those with low incomes or unemployed were most likely to experience severe financial hardships as a result of the treatments meant to save their lives.

The study of Washington state residents who underwent colon cancer treatment found that compared with older people, patients under age 50 had more than 50-times greater chances of selling or refinancing their homes, having their income drop 20 percent or more, going into debt or having to borrow money from friends and family to meet expenses.

Patients with household incomes below $30,000 were about eight times more likely to face those financial problems than those who were better off.

"I think most oncologists have heard these stories where people are spending a lot on their treatments," said Dr. Veena Shankaran, the study's lead author and an oncologist at the University of Washington. "These anecdotes are things we always hear in clinics and I wanted to get a broader sense of what's going on."

The study also found that most patients didn't discuss the cost of their treatments with their doctors, and some even skipped or refused treatment because of the price tag.

To gauge the financial impact of cancer treatment, Shankaran and her colleagues sent a survey to 555 adults living in various parts of Washington State and diagnosed with advanced colon cancer between 2008 and 2010.

The questionnaire asked about the participants' financial situation, whether or not they had insurance and about their treatments

Of the 284 people who responded, 104 reported at least one serious financial hardship related to their cancer treatment.

Shankaran told Reuters Health that they did not go into this analysis with any specific expectations. But, she added, "To have nearly 40 percent of patients have these major financial changes was quite surprising to us."

They speculate that those groups have less savings and other resources to fall back on when copayments and denied reimbursement claims start adding up.

Another 27 percent of the survey respondents described lesser financial impacts, including having to sell stocks or withdraw from savings or retirement accounts, or experiencing a drop in income of less than 20 percent.

The researchers found a small number of the respondents who skipped or refused treatment because of costs -- about five percent and seven percent, respectively.

In an accompanying editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cathy Bradley, a health policy researcher at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, in Richmond, says there are several ways for the health care system to avoid financial hardships brought on by cancer treatments.

One long-term strategy would be to invest in prevention, she writes. For immediate action, she says Medicare should be able to negotiate cancer drug prices or pay for the least costly alternative if the outcome is known to be about the same.

Other than that, Bradley says doctors should talk to their patients about costs and how much the patient would be expected to pay.

"They need to understand how much this is going to cost them and their families. They need to make an informed decision," Bradley told Reuters Health.

In her commentary, Bradley notes that eight-weeks of chemotherapy can exceed $30,000.

From their survey, Shankaran and her colleagues found only 42 percent of patients recalled talking about costs with their doctors.

"I think there are a lot of barriers," she said. "People may be embarrassed and they think the doctors shouldn't have to worry about this."

She added that patients may even think doctors might change their treatment recommendation if they mention costs.

"You wished they would have said something, because there are things we can do," Shankaran said.
Bradley believes the problem should be addressed through policy.

"I think this is a policy question, and the individual is caught in the middle… and I don't think there is much they can do about it."

However, Shankaran said, most oncologists have a financial counselor available in their offices and there are also resources available online.

US Appeals Court Allows Wolf Hunts

By Matthew Brown

Billings, Montana - A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit from conservation groups that want to block wolf hunting and trapping that have killed more than 500 of the predators across the Northern Rockies in recent months.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Congress had the right to intervene when it stripped protections from wolves last spring.

Lawmakers stepped in after court rulings kept wolves on the endangered list for years after they reached recovery goals. Wildlife advocates claimed in their lawsuit that Congress violated the Constitution's separation of powers by interfering with the courts.

But in an opinion authored by Judge Mary Schroeder, the court said Congress was within its rights. 

Schroder wrote that lawmakers changed the Endangered Species Act to deal with Northern Rockies wolves, and did not directly interfere with the court's prerogative to decide when the law is being followed.

The amendment marked the first time Congress has forcibly removed a species' endangered status. It was tacked onto a federal budget bill by Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

"This case has made it clear that those who persist in trying to manage wildlife through the courts, in spite of all scientific evidence that this species has recovered, no longer have a defensible position," Simpson said Wednesday.

Michael Robinson with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that sued to restore protections, said a Supreme Court appeal was possible but no decision had been made.

"We're very disappointed and very saddened," Robinson said. "Hundreds of wolves have been hunted and trapped and snared, and they are essential to their ecosystem."

He called the congressional budget bill rider that lifted protections "undemocratic" and said that it set a precedent for future political meddling with imperiled wildlife.

Wolves once thrived across North America but were exterminated across most of the continental U.S. by the 1930s, through government sponsored poisoning and bounty programs.

They were put on the endangered list in 1974. Over the last two decades, state and federal agencies have spent more than $100 million on wolf restoration programs across the country.

The Northern Rockies is now home to more than 1,700 wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and expanding populations in portions of eastern Oregon and Washington. That figure is up slightly from 2010, although Wyoming and Idaho saw slight declines.

In the Northern Rockies wolf hunting is allowed in Montana and Idaho and could resume in Wyoming this fall.

Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin also are considering wolf seasons after protections for wolves were lifted in the upper Great Lakes in December.

Wisconsin's legislature on Wednesday approved a measure to establish a hunting and trapping season that would run from mid-October through the end of February. It still has to be approved by the governor.

There more than 4,400 of the animals in the Great Lakes and a struggling population of several dozen wolves in the Desert Southwest. Alaska, where the animals never went on the endangered list, has an estimated 10,000 wolves.

In parts of Montana, ranchers and local officials frustrated with continuing attacks on livestock have proposed bounties for hunters that kill wolves. Montana wildlife officials said they will consider ways to expand hunting after 166 wolves were killed this season, short of the state's 220-wolf quota.

Idaho allows trapping. Its 10-month wolf season runs until June and has claimed 353 wolves so far.

Prior lawsuits resulted first in the animals' reintroduction to the Northern Rockies and then later kept them on the endangered list for a decade after the species reached recovery goal of 300 wolves in three states.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is monitoring the hunts. But agency officials have said they have no plans to intervene because the states have pledged to manage wolves responsibly.

Federal officials have pledged to step in to restore endangered species protections if wolf numbers drop to less than 100 animals in either Montana or Idaho.

Even without hunting, wolves are shot regularly in the region in response to livestock attacks. Since their reintroduction, more than 1,600 wolves have been shot by government wildlife agents or ranchers.

CDC Launching Graphic Anti-Smoking Ad Campaign

Atlanta - Tobacco taxes and smoking bans haven't budged the U.S. smoking rate in years. Now the government is trying to shock smokers into quitting with a graphic nationwide advertising campaign.

The billboards and print, radio and TV ads show people whose smoking resulted in heart surgery, a tracheotomy, lost limbs or paralysis. The $54 million campaign is the largest and starkest anti-smoking push by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its first national advertising effort.

The agency is hoping the spots, which begin Monday, will persuade as many as 50,000 Americans to stop smoking.

"This is incredibly important. It's not every day we release something that will save thousands of lives," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a telephone interview.

That bold prediction is based on earlier research that found aggressive anti-smoking campaigns using hard-hitting images sometimes led to decreases in smoking. After decades of decline, the U.S. smoking rate has stalled at about 20 percent in recent years.

Advocates say it's important to jolt a weary public that has been listening to government warnings about the dangers of smoking for nearly 50 years.

"There is an urgent need for this media campaign," Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement.

The CDC was set to announce the three-month campaign on Thursday.

One of the print ads features Shawn Wright from Washington state who had a tracheotomy after being diagnosed with head and neck cancer four years ago. The ad shows the 50-year-old shaving, his razor moving down toward a red gaping hole at the base of his neck that he uses to speak and breathe.

An advertising firm, Arnold Worldwide, found Wright and about a dozen others who developed cancer or other health problems after smoking for the ads.

Federal health agencies have gradually embraced graphic anti-smoking imagery. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved nine images to be displayed on cigarette packages. Among them were a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat, and a diseased mouth with what appear to be cancerous lesions.

Last month, a federal judge blocked the requirement that tobacco companies put the images on their packages, saying it was unconstitutional.

Graphic ads are meant to create an image so striking that smokers and would-be smokers will think of it whenever they have an urge to buy a pack of cigarettes, said Glenn Leshner, a University of Missouri researcher who has studied the effectiveness of anti-smoking ads.

Leshner and his colleagues found that some ads are so disturbing that people reacted by turning away from the message rather than listening. So while spots can shock viewers into paying attention, they also have to encourage people that quitting is possible, he said.

The CDC campaign includes information on a national quit line and offers advice on how to kick the habit, CDC officials said.

Odd Stories: Facebook 'Friend' Offer Exposes Man's Other Wife

Seattle - A corrections officer is facing bigamy charges after authorities said a Washington woman using Facebook discovered that she and a potential "friend" were married to him at the same time.

According to charging documents filed Thursday, Alan L. O'Neill married a woman in 2001, moved out in 2009, changed his name and remarried without divorcing her. The first wife first noticed O'Neill had moved on to another woman when Facebook suggested the friendship connection to wife No. 2 under the "People You May Know" feature.

"Wife No. 1 went to wife No. 2's page and saw a picture of her and her husband with a wedding cake," Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist told The Associated Press.

Wife No. 1 then called the defendant's mother.

"An hour later the defendant arrived at (Wife No. 1's) apartment, and she asked him several times if they were divorced," court records show. "The defendant said, `No, we are still married.'"

Neither O'Neill nor his first wife had filed for divorce, according to charging documents. The name change came in December, and later that month he married his second wife.

O'Neill allegedly told wife No. 1 not to tell anybody about his dual marriages, that he would fix it, the documents state. But wife No. 1 alerted authorities.

"Facebook is now a place where people discover things about each other they end up reporting to law enforcement," Lindquist said.

Athima Chansanchai, a freelance journalist who writes about social media, said Facebook over the years has played a role in both creating relationships and destroying them.

"It's just the latest vessel by which people can stray if they want to," she said.

O'Neill, 41, was previously known as Alan Fulk. He has worked as a Pierce County corrections officer for five years, sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.

He was placed on administrative leave after prosecutors charged him Thursday. He could face up to a year in jail if convicted.

O'Neill and his first wife had issues that went back to 2009. In 2010, his first wife was arrested after an altercation with the woman who later became the second wife.

A Facebook message to wife No. 1 was not immediately returned. There was no immediate phone number available for O'Neill and his second wife.

Lindquist said it's unclear why O'Neill and wife No. 1 didn't go through the divorce.

"Every few years we see one of these (bigamy) cases," he added.

O'Neill is free, but due in court later this month, which is standard procedure for non-violent crimes, Lindquist said.

"About the only danger he would pose is marrying a third woman," he said.

Washington State May Soon Legalize Gay Marriage

Washington - Washington state may soon be the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage, joining New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the move toward granting marriage equality across the country.

In the past Washington had two other laws, a domestic partnership one passed in 2007, and another granting same-sex couples “everything but marriage” in 2009. This however comes as a significant win for movement motivated to giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.

Governor Chris Gregoire in the past expressed her support for the law, which was opposed by people like Ken Huterson, Antioch's Bible Church pastor.

"You are saying as a committee and a Legislature that you know better than God," he said. Opponents' only argument against it seems to be that it “goes against traditional marriage and the Bible,” the standard argument.

Four Republicans, two in the House and two in the Senate, are likely to face the wrath of their more religious conservative base. The National Organization for Marriage stated they will spend approximately 250-thousand dollars against each Republican who dares to vote in favor of the new law. However, it seems that may not matter for much longer.

A University of Washington poll, conducted in October of last year, shows a five-year jump in support for gay marriage from 30 percent to 43 percent. Twenty-two percent say they are in favor of giving the same rights to same-sex couples but not calling it marriage.

When asked about the possibility of voting for a referendum which would repeal the new law, 55 percent said they wouldn't vote for it (47 percent of them saying they are strongly in support of it) while 38 percent said they'd vote for the referendum.

If the bill is passed it would go into effect starting in June.

Secretive Tylenol Recall Kills Child

Ellensburg, Washington - Due to what's being called a “stealth recall” the company Johnson and Johnson may be responsible for the death of a two-year-old.

Daniel and Kathy Moore are suing the company after the July 2010 death of their son. River Moore died after consuming tainted Children's Tylenol that fatally damaged his liver after he coughed up blood. The couple claims the company quietly purchased the bottles instead of issuing a recall to the public.

The family's lawyer, Joseph Messa, said "extensive testing done on River before and after his death ruled out viruses or other conditions as the cause."

Proof of the company's plot rests with several internal email between the executives of McNeil Consumer Healthcare, one of the other companies named in the suit. One of them praises the secretive plan's success, stating “This was a major win for us as it limits the press that will be seen.”

The lawsuit states “Defendant Johnson & Johnson, a Fortune 50 Company with $60 billion in annual sales, knew of defects, impurities and contamination in the children's drugs and, yet, embarked on a ‘phantom’ or ‘stealth’ recall of these drugs to hide these problems so the general public, ignorant of the dangers, would continue buying and administering these brand name drugs to their children.”

Some of the other companies named in the suit are Costco, three Johnson and Johnson subsidiaries, consumer health business head Collen Goggins,and the retailers and distributors of the medication.  The charges are of recklessness, negligence, breach of warranty, infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy amongst others. 

Johnson and Johnson contest, saying their actions were a precautionary measure and the potential for serious medical events is remote" but consumers who purchased the products should discontinue use.

Washington Governor Pushes for Same-Sex Marriage

Olympia, Washington – Governor Chris Gregoire let her support for gay marriage be known today and hopefully will put the state on the path to becoming the seventh state in the country to grant full same-sex rights.

In a press conference she held Wednesday afternoon, she said "It is time in Washington state for marriage equality. It is time, it's the right thing to do."

Although the state's Democrats hold most of the power in both of the state's chambers, the certainty of it passing is still shaky, as several on the more conservative side if the party are on the Republicans' side.

Not always a supporter for gay marriage, Gregoire brought the issue to the forefront when she signed a bill that grants domestic partnership equaling marriage as long as it didn't violate federal law. The bill passed, but narrowly.

"Our gay and lesbian families face the same hurdles as heterosexual families-making ends meet, choosing what school to send their kids to, finding someone to grow old with, standing in front of friends and family and making a lifetime commitment. For all couples, a state marriage license is very important. It gives them the right to enter into a marriage contract in which their legal interests, and those of their children if any, are protected by well-established civil law," she said. Gay marriage supporters, of course, applauded her move.

Zach Silk, campaign manager for Washington United for Marriage – a group with gay rights, civil liberties, labor activists, and religious leaders amongst their members – said the group is supporting the effort.

Just a month previous Gregoire joined with Rhode Island's governor Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, in asking the Drug Enforcement Administration to permit doctors to prescribe medical marijuana.

E-verify.Com to Be Forced on Businesses

Washington – The verification system known as “E-verify”, known for it's “please fear everything and rely on us” commercials, will be forced to onto businesses to combat illegal immigration. From presidential candidates like Mitt Romney to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to the American Meat Institute, high profile industries and people in the business section are pushing for the bill, named H.R. 2164.

The name of other promoters of the verification system, which does background checks and more, can befound at this link.

Israel, UK, United States Considering Attack on Iran

Washington – When asked Wednesday about rumors that Israel is seeking support for an attack against Iran press secretary Jay Carney said “I’m not going to respond to that kind of speculation.”

Carney was asked after a report in Haaretz earlier in the day cited an Israeli official who said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to gain support for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.

England is also preparing itself to attack, with British officials saying according to The Guardian "that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government."

However there is opposition to the idea within the Israeli government.  Some of them include Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor, Strategic Affairs Minister and Netanyahu confidant Moshe Yaalon, and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.  Others are army chief Benny Gantz, head of Israel's intelligence agency Tamir Pardo, the chief of military intelligence Aviv Kochavi, and the head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency Yoram Cohen.  Recently-retired head of Mossad Meir Dagan publicly advised against attacking Iran, saying it would be stupid and risks causing a region-wide war.

The Israeli people are nearly split on the issue. In a poll, which asked Jews and Arabs where they stand on the issue, 41% say they're opposed to an attack against Iran while 39% support it. 20% are undecided.