Prosecution

Deliberations began Friday in the second murder trial of Ricky Kyle, the Texas son of a wealthy television executive shot to death three years ago as he searched for a prowler in his Bel-Air mansion. Kyle insists that he fired in self-defense when his millionaire father began shooting as they searched the darkened estate for a burglar, but the prosecution charges that a father-son rift involving drugs and greed led to premeditated murder.

Delivering a blistering attack on prosecution witnesses, Ricky Kyle's defense attorney asked a Los Angeles Superior Court jury Tuesday to acquit Kyle of his father's murder and "not to follow the rabbit trail put out by the prosecution." Ending his three-day summation, attorney Michael P. Gibson ridiculed prosecution theories about the July, 1983, shooting death of multimillionaire Henry Harrison Kyle.

Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old Internet genius, was eulogized on Tuesday as a person who wanted to make the world better but was hounded into killing himself by harsh government policies. Swartz was “killed by the government,” his father, Robert Swartz, said at the service at Central Avenue Synagogue in Highland Park, Ill., according to the Chicago Sun-Times . “He was killed by the government, and MIT betrayed all of its basic principles,” he said. Facing the possibility of a long prison sentence if convicted of charges that he illegally downloaded millions of academic journal articles, Swartz hanged himself in his New York apartment Friday.

A federal appeals court has revived the manslaughter prosecution of four Blackwater security guards who were charged after a 2007 bloodbath that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. That horrific act of violence occurred in Baghdad on Sept. 16, 2007. When a car bomb exploded near a meeting between Iraqi officials and a U.S. diplomat, a team from the security contractor blocked traffic at a crowded city square in order to get the diplomat to safety. Suddenly, shots were fired.

Obviously Stephany Yablow ["Keating Prosecution Seen as a Waste of $3 Billion," Letters, Oct. 8, Business], questioning the Keating prosecution, did not hear anguished testimony from the many victims of Keating's scam. Testimony, under oath, heard by the Los Angeles County special grand jury. The evidence was more than overwhelming against Keating. Twenty-five jury members (including myself) agreed unanimously and voted to indict. Only an unscrupulous scoundrel would prey on the elderly and defenseless.

Former Nazi death camp guard Martin Bartesch cannot be prosecuted for shooting an inmate in 1943 because it took place more than 30 years ago, a provincial court ruled Tuesday. Bartesch, who admits fatally shooting a Jewish prisoner trying to escape from the Mathausen camp near Linz, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship and deported to Austria last May. The court said that Austria's statute of limitation prevents prosecution in this case.

Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide last week at age 26, leaves behind quite a legacy for someone so young. He was an Internet activist dedicated to promoting the free flow of information online, which made him a hero to many. His most recent milestone was the launch of Demand Progress, a grass-roots lobbying group that helped defeat the Hollywood-backed anti-piracy bills known by the acronyms SOPA and PIPA. His eagerness to "liberate" information that others had locked behind pay walls,however, contributed to his undoing.

In "The Spin She's In" (Commentary, June 11), regarding the prosecution of Martha Stewart, Michael P. Malloy states, "Under our system of civil and criminal law, we are held responsible for what we do, not who we are." How, then, does Malloy explain that Kenneth Lay, a good friend of President Bush, has escaped prosecution for encouraging his employees to buy Enron stock, even as he used his insider knowledge to sell off his own shares? More important, how does he explain how Bush himself was not prosecuted for using insider knowledge to sell off his Harken Energy stock before prices fell?

The March 2 article, "Penn Defense Could Rank With County's Most Costly" by staff writer Glenn F. Bunting, comparing Sagon Penn's defense costs with the salary of a deputy district attorney presents a distorted picture of the financial cost to the taxpayer for this tragedy. Mr. Bunting failed to include the cost of the police investigation, reports of which are given to the D.A. for use in prosecution, and the expenses of the D.A.'s office in investigation, retained experts, other lawyers, and staff personnel contributing to the prosecution effort.