Defendants

Remember the great crackdown? On Feb. 19, U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese charged into Philadelphia, walked along 8th and Butler Streets with Mayor Goode, and declared before blazing TV lights that a great victory had been won in the war against drugs He was here to announce one of the biggest drug "sweeps" in the city's history, a 12-month police effort that netted from 800 to 1,000 arrests, and seemed to hold out to the besieged residents of...

Philadelphia suffers from the highest per-capita fugitive rate in the country, with 47,000 defendants on the streets having skipped bail, as The Inquirer reported last year. There is a cheap, practical way to deal with this problem that has not been widely discussed: The city's judges should try in absentia all defendants who are freed on bail and deliberately fail to appear in court. Most of the defendants who have thumbed their noses at the system figured that, rather than appear, testify, and face cross-examination, they had better odds of beating the rap if they simply didn't show up. Despite Philadelphia's abysmal conviction rate, they were right.

Eugene Milano, who was to go on trial for murder yesterday with Nicodemo Scarfo and seven others, has said he wants to cooperate with authorities, law enforcement officials said yesterday. As a result, the Scarfo trial was postponed at least until today, and defense attorneys said the defection might lead them to ask for selection of a new jury - meaning an additional delay. Milano apparently telephoned authorities from prison on Tuesday. Scarfo, the other co-defendants and the defense attorneys - including Milano's own attorney - learned of his decision yesterday just minutes before opening statements were to begin in Common Pleas Court.

Testimony in the murder trial of two Mount Airy men has lived up to the prosecutor's early billing that the evidence would be unusual and often hard to believe. A Mount Holly, N.J., jury considering murder charges against Dwayne Wright, 21, and James Clausell, 22, both of Temple Road near Upsal Street, has heard that: Edward Atwood, 37, of Willingboro, N.J., was ordered killed in 1984 because he filed a minor complaint against a neighbor for not cleaning up his dog's mess.

The welcome decision by the Philadelphia courts to dramatically boost the fees paid to lawyers appointed to represent indigent defendants facing the death penalty strikes a long-overdue blow for justice. As long as Pennsylvania maintains what Supreme Court Justice Harold Andrew Blackmun famously called "the machinery of death," the state cannot afford to scrimp on fairness. Yet, for decades, the legal representation provided the poor in capital cases has been called into question by the courts themselves.

Consider for a moment how the mighty have fallen. Reputed crime boss John Stanfa, who is supposed to wield such power over gangland slayings, a multimillion-dollar illegal gambling empire, and other illicit activities, can't get a razor in jail. His acting underboss, Frank Martines, sporting six days of growth on his face, can't get clean underwear. Nor can the other six mob guys on trial get basic toiletries or towels to take a shower. Martines' lawyer, Brian McMonagle, called it "cruel and unusual punishment" yesterday before U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter, who is hearing the federal murder-racketeering trial.

Witness intimidation has pervaded the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial of two men charged with a racially tinged double murder in the Tacony section in 2007. Now, a brother of one of the defendants has been arrested in connection with the intimidation. Michael Drummond, 24, allegedly threatened a witness last week in the hallway of the city's Criminal Justice Center. Charged Saturday, he remains in custody, with bail set at $250,000, pending a Dec. 29 hearing. Gerald Drummond, 26, and Robert McDowell, 28, both white, face possible death sentences if convicted of first-degree murder in the July 13, 2007, slayings of Damien Holloway, 27, a black landscaper, and his friend and worker Timothy Clark, 15, who was white.

The defense and prosecution flip-flopped last week, when one of the defendants accused of killing Port Richmond teenager Sean Daily took the witness stand and became what one law enforcement observer called "a prosecutor's dream. " The damage wasn't in what James "Bebe" Martinez said about himself and the six other defendants so much as what his presence on the stand allowed Assistant District Attorney Michael McGovern to say about the slaying of Daily. McGovern was able to recapitulate three weeks of evidence he had presented earlier.

The scene was the Montgomery County Courthouse, but it could have been a Perry Mason rerun. An Upper Merion Township man was waiting Tuesday in the hallway of the courthouse in Norristown to testify on his cousin's behalf in a rape trial when the teary-eyed complaining witness, 34, saw him and identified him as the second man who raped her. "She just walked over to me, pointed to him and said, 'That's the other guy,' " said state Trooper Robert...

In a speech laced with emotion and indignation, the man who headed the elite police drug unit called Five Squad portrayed himself yesterday as an aggressive foe of drug dealers and denied ever stealing money seized during police raids. "I was a captain in the Philadelphia Police Department. I would never do anything to disgrace my name," declared John Wilson at the start of his 20- minute address to a U.S. District Court jury. "I always did the right thing. " His statement - sandwiched between opening addresses by co-defendants James Cattalo and Richard Jumper - came on the first day of their racketeering retrial.

ISTANBUL - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday it was his "duty" to order riot police to evict activists occupying an Istanbul park that became a center of defiance against his rule, even as the government crackdown continued across town with tear gas fired at protesters trying to regroup. In a thunderous speech to hundreds of thousands of supporters in western Istanbul, Erdogan also railed against foreign media coverage of the unrest amid criticism over his government's handling of the protests that left his international image battered, and exposed deep rifts within Turkish society.

WASHINGTON - Current and former top U.S. officials yesterday defended the government's collection of phone and Internet data following new revelations about the secret surveillance programs, saying the operations were essential in disrupting terrorist plots and did not infringe on Americans' civil liberties. In interviews on Sunday talk shows, guests ranging from White House chief of staff Denis McDonough to former Vice President Dick Cheney and former CIA and National Security Agency head Michael Hayden said the government's reliance on data collection from both Americans and foreign nationals was constitutional and carefully overseen by executive, legislative and court authorities.

WASHINGTON - Current and former top U.S. officials on Sunday defended the government's collection of phone and Internet data following new revelations about the secret surveillance programs, saying the operations were essential in disrupting terrorist plots and did not infringe on Americans' civil liberties. In interviews on Sunday talk shows, guests including White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and former CIA and National Security Agency head Michael Hayden said the government's reliance on data collection from Americans and foreign nationals was constitutional and carefully overseen by executive, legislative, and court authorities.

CAYO COCO, Cuba - After Cuban scientists studied the effects of climate change on this island's 3,500 miles of coastline, their discoveries were so alarming that officials didn't share the results with the public to avoid causing panic. The scientists projected that rising sea levels would seriously damage 122 Cuban towns or even wipe them off the map. Beaches would be submerged, they found, while freshwater sources would be tainted and croplands rendered infertile. In all, seawater would penetrate up to 1.2 miles inland in low-lying areas, as oceans rose nearly three feet by 2100.

A ninth survivor of the Salvation Army thrift store tragedy, Betty Brown, has filed a notice in Common Pleas Court that she will seek damages for the accident. Bernard Smalley Sr., her attorney, filed a writ of summons Thursday naming as defendants the contractor and owner of the building at 2136-38 Market St. During demolition on June 5, a wall of the four-story structure collapsed onto the thrift store, killing six people and injuring 13. Brown, of Philadelphia, is in her 80s, Smalley said.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the Washington Redskins nickname is a "unifying force that stands for strength, courage, pride and respect. " Goodell was responding to a letter from 10 members of Congress who want the name changed because it is offensive to many Native Americans. He cited the nickname's origins and polls that support its popularity. Goodell wrote that he understands the feelings surrounding it are complex and could change, but he also pointed out fan pride in the team's heritage.

SIXTEEN EDUCATION advocates who were arrested in March for blocking auditorium doorways during a raucous protest at School District headquarters were acquitted yesterday. Municipal Judge T. Francis Shields granted a judgment of acquittal at the request of four defense attorneys after hearing attorney arguments and testimony from police Lt. Joseph O'Brien, the trial's only witness. In issuing his order Shields said he believed the protesters "went a little too far" but still concurred with defense attorneys that O'Brien had failed to identify any of the 16 defendants as those who blocked the three doorways into the School Reform Commission meeting.

The Daily News covers the Open: Check out PhillyDailyNews.com's U.S. Open page for our coverage of the tournament at Merion .   DEFENDING U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson fell in love when he was 19 years old. He did not fall in love in a traditional sense, though. "When I played in '05, I instantly fell in love with this golf course," Simpson said of Merion Golf Club. "I grew up on a short golf course and I felt like too many courses nowadays come with a standard [7,500]

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Friday defended the government's collection of data on the phone records of millions of Americans, saying that it was a modest encroachment on privacy and one he thinks is both lawful and justified in order to identify terrorists plotting to attack the United States. Obama emphasized that the government does not collect information on individual callers or eavesdrop on Americans' conversations without a warrant. He said he would welcome a debate on the classified surveillance effort as well as the previously secret workings of a second program that gathers the e-mails and other digital content of targeted foreigners outside the United States from major American Internet companies.