A Call For Larry Craig To Stand Up For Defendants (Cue The Crickets)

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post writes this great editorial today on why Larry Craig should speak out for those that are coerced to confess.

I'll hold my breath......

Some quotes from the editorial entitled "When a person is arrested and coerced to confess"

"Having been arrested in a Minneapolis airport men's room, having been compelled (or so he says) into a false confession, having been roundly ridiculed and ostracized by many of his colleagues -- et tu, McCain? -- he has neither the gumption nor the integrity nor the wit to question some of his former positions that made him, without a doubt, a law-and-order conservative par excellence. Craig wasn't exposed as gay. He was exposed as uneducable."

"Along with almost everyone else outside the Republican Senate Caucus -- when the door opens the blast of toxic hypocrisy is enough to deck the average person."

"....why doesn't he say he learned something from the incident? Maybe he wants to reconsider his votes in favor of restricting death-penalty appeals because he now knows that the cops can arrest the wrong person and get him to confess. Look, it happened to him."

"....surely if a three-term U.S. senator can be pressured into confessing to a crime that he insists he did not commit, then something similar can happen to a rattled, undereducated kid who thinks the deck is stacked and is promised a reduced sentence."

"Craig and others who voted to restrict penalty appeals and for mandatory sentences and for one penalty for crack and another for cocaine ought to ponder what happened to him -- what he said happened and what actually might have happened."

Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense attorney in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court. To learn more about Brian and his firm, Tannebaum Weiss, please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com