The total bill for an independent investigation into a campus cover-up of a student's murder at Eastern Michigan University is nearly $450,000, the lead investigator confirmed Thursday. The financial fallout of the botched handling of information in the dorm room rape and slaying of 22-year-old Laura Dickinson could hit nearly $1.5 million when the costs of the independent probe, severance agreements and anticipated federal fines are totaled.

EMU officials have not said how the those costs could affect the university's budget. But Regent Jim Stapleton said Thursday that the cost of the law firm's report was justified.

"I really don't know how you can put a pricetag on the safety of students," Stapleton said. "The report has shown where we need to improve and how we can go about the business of making our campus safer."

The Board of Regents commissioned the Butzel Long law firm to investigate what occurred in the wake of student Laura Dickinson's death last December. In a nearly 600-page report, Butzel Long laid blame on several administrators for failing to warn the public about the suspicious nature of Dickinson's death, despite significant evidence that pointed to homicide.

That report, and a U.S. Department of Education investigation, led to the firing this week of EMU President John Fallon and the forced retirements of Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Vick and Public Safety Director Cindy Hall. EMU has agreed to pay out about $542,000 in severance and contract agreements with Fallon, Vick and Hall.

The Department of Education cited EMU for seven Clery Act violations - which one expert said could lead to as much as $412,500 in fines - but a decision on the penalties isn't expected for nearly 60 days.

Rich Hewlett, a partner in Detroit-based Butzel Long, said the probe involved 1,831 total hours work, amounting to about $430,000 in attorney fees and $19,000 in administrative and clerical costs.

The law firm's report, released June 8, faulted EMU for a variety of systemic administrative failures - including lax reporting of crime statistics, inadequate disclosure of campus security policies and failure to update its daily crime log.
Despite the probe's findings, Butzel Long said it could not conclude that EMU officials were acting out a desire to protect the university's reputation.

The firm's team of four lawyers conducted 80 interviews and reviewed more than 1,000 pages of documents, Hewlett said.

Butzel Long investigators also worked on EMU's behalf during the Department of Education probe, Hewlett said.

Hewlett would not say if it was the largest probe the firm had done, but said the public nature of the case and the level of detail in the report were noteworthy.
Stapleton said EMU interviewed three law firms before selecting Butzel Long for the job.

Stapleton said the law firm will help EMU analyze new policies as they are developed, and will also review the university's response to the government's report, which is due by Aug. 3.

So far this year, the governor's campaign has paid Winston and Strawn more than $163,000.

The campaign reported raising 374,000 & $352 in the first six months of this year, while spending $767,000 & $551. That left 283,000 & $782 in cash.

Blagojevich campaign spokesman Doug Scofield declined to release details about the legal work performed by Winston and Strawn but said the campaign uses the firm for all its legal work.

The campaign has paid legal fees to Winston and Strawn since 2003.

The amounts increased significantly after a federal investigation was launched into administration hiring practices.

The Sony Electronics Corporation "removed" a class action lawsuit from California state court to federal district court on Tuesday. The lawsuit concerns defects to Sony's "Trinitron" televisions. Sony refuted the complaint but admitted that the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.

"Removal" is a legal term allowing a defendant to move a case from state court to federal court if it believes (and defends a challenge from the plaintiff) that federal court is the correct venue in which to try the suit.

The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 requires that all class actions involving damages exceeding $5 million be brought in federal district courts rather than state courts. In this case, Sony is arguing that because the damages sought will likely exceed $5 million dollars, federal court, rather than state court, is the proper venue.

"Counsel for a detainee has a 'need to know' the classified information relating to his client's case," the appeals court ruled. "The government may withhold from counsel, but not from the court, certain highly sensitive information."

The appeals court decision is likely to be considered by the Supreme Court as it decides whether detainees should have greater access to U.S. civilian courts.

When detainees are brought before military CSRTs, they are not allowed to have lawyers with them and the Pentagon decides what evidence to put forward. Unlike in criminal trials, there is no obligation for the government to turn over evidence that the defendant might be innocent. If the military reviewers determine a prisoner is an enemy combatant, he can challenge that designation in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

During that appeal, government attorneys argued, federal judges have the authority only to review the evidence the Pentagon had chosen to put forward during the CSRT hearing.

Without all the information, the appeals court said, deciding whether the military reviewers acted appropriately would be like trying to figure out the value of a fraction without knowing both numbers.

"The court has resoundingly rejected the government's effort to control the record and to limit an investigation into the truth," said attorney Sabin Willett, who argued the case.

Washington, D.C., attorney David Remes said, however, that the court's decision "will turn out to be a prescription for endless litigation in these cases."

"The court said that its review goes beyond the information presented to the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, but the court never explains how it can determine what that information might be," said Remes, who represents 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Remes also said that "it's clear from the decision that the review under the Detainee Treatment Act falls short of constitutionally required habeas corpus review." The Supreme Court will soon consider whether detainees have the right to challenge their detention in federal courts. That right was stripped away by the most recent terrorism law.

Remes said the ruling contains restrictions that "will seriously cripple the lawyer-client relationship." Under the decision, detainees and their lawyers must limit communications to events leading up to a detainee's capture and the conduct of CSRT proceedings relating to the detainee.

Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney involved in other detainee cases, said Friday's court ruling is only a minor improvement in a seriously flawed process.

"It's definitely better than what the government had proposed but it still doesn't provide for a meaningful process," Hafetz said.

The Justice Department argues that the detainees are being afforded more rights than required by law. The government argues that it cannot bring the detainee cases in civilian courts without jeopardizing national security.

Friday's unanimous decision was issued by Judges Douglas Ginsburg, Judith Rogers and Karen Lecraft Henderson. Rogers is a Clinton appointee. Ginsburg, the chief judge of the appeals court, is a Reagan appointee. Henderon was appointed by President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush.

The justices are considering two appeals in the case.

Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker is appealing a Monroe County Superior Court judge's decision to reduce Wilson's felony conviction to a misdemeanor and free him from prison. Baker said the judge overstepped his authority when he granted Wilson's motion last month.

Following the Monroe County judge's decision, Wilson's attorneys requested he be released on bond pending Baker's appeal, but on June 27, the trial court in Douglas County denied the request. Wilson's attorneys have appealed that decision.

B.J. Bernstein, Wilson's attorney, addressed the bond issue first at Friday's hearing, arguing for 10 minutes that her client should be granted bond while his case is under appeal.

"Every day that a defendant spends in jail is a precious day in their life," Bernstein told the justices. Bernstein said that in the past 10 days, "two clients of mine died in prison."

Bernstein argued that the trial court, in refusing bond, improperly applied the criminal appeal bond statute when it should have applied the habeas bond statute, since the Monroe County judge had ruled on a writ of habeas corpus, determining that Wilson had the right to make a claim of cruel and unusual punishment.

However, Douglas County District Attorney David McDade, the original prosecutor on Wilson's case, countered in his time before the justices that state law is clear that "no appeal bond shall be granted to any person who is convicted of a list of crimes, and aggravated child molestation is included in that list."

"It's not vague. It's not gray. It's not subject to interpretation," McDade said. "It is the plain letter of the law that applies in this case."

In its appeal of the reduction of the felony conviction to a misdemeanor, the state has argued that the ruling could open the door for many other sexual criminals to have their sentences reduced.

Wilson's attorneys argued that such fears are invalid and do not justify maintaining such a harsh sentence for consensual teen sex.

Video cameras and still photographers lined the walls well before the arguments began. Outside, satellite trucks and Georgia State Patrol cars were parked all along the street, and security was high. Officers were posted all around the building and on the floor where the Supreme Court meets.

Former state Rep. Matthew Towery, the author of the 1995 law Wilson was charged with violating, submitted a friend of the court brief supporting his release.

"The General Assembly never intended for the Child Protection Act's harsh felony sentences designed to punish adults who prey on children to be used to punish consensual sexual acts between teenagers close in age," Towery's brief said.

The state Legislature in 2006 changed the law, making oral sex between teens close in age a misdemeanor. The state Court of Appeals ruled that the new law could not be applied retroactively and the state Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

Bernstein argued in her legal brief that the move by state lawmakers to change the law marked a "tectonic shift in how Georgia views voluntary consensual teen sex and its punishment."

"The new reality is that teen sexual experimentation is commonplace in an era where the media bombards teens with sexual imagery," she wrote.

Bernstein said it is extremely rare in Georgia for lawmakers to pass legislation softening punishment, especially for an emotionally charged crime like child molestation.

But the state countered that it is well established that criminals are subject to the penalty that is in place when they violate the law. To begin to apply legislative changes retroactively would invite chaos and have a far-reaching effect throughout the criminal justice system, Baker argued.

A 1991 law and court consent decree ordered that those suffering from diseases that are newly considered to be service-related could have their cases reconsidered and their back benefits paid. The VA, however, contended this didn't apply to diseases deemed service-related after the law's 2002 original sunset date.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco disagreed in 2005, and the appeals court affirmed his judgment Thursday with some harsh words for the VA.

"Three different Congresses in three different decades have enacted legislation signed by three different presidents, designed to ensure the payment of such benefits to veterans afflicted with Agent Orange-related ailments," Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for himself and circuit judges John Noonan and Milan Smith. "What is difficult for us to comprehend is why the Department of Veterans Affairs, having entered into a settlement agreement and agreed to a consent order some 16 years ago, continues to resist its implementation so vigorously, as well as to resist equally vigorously the payment of desperately needed benefits to Vietnam War veterans who fought for their country and suffered grievous injury as a result of our government's own conduct."

The still-suffering veterans deserve better care than they're getting, he added. "We would hope that this litigation will now end, that our government will now respect the legal obligations it undertook in the Consent Decree some 16 years ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled."

VA spokeswoman Laurie Tranter said the department won't comment until it more fully reviews the ruling.

Vietnam Veterans of America was one of the plaintiffs, and Rick Weidman, the group's executive director for policy and government affairs, called Thursday's ruling "a great victory for veterans."

"The court ... clearly is as incredulous as we are at the breathtaking attitude on the part of the VA in continuing to refuse to carry out the consent decree that they agreed to," Weidman said. "It's time for the VA to move forward and carry out the consent decree tout de suite, as soon as possible, with no further delay, no further nonsense."

If it doesn't, he said, the courts should hold individual VA officials in contempt of court and punish them with fines or jail time.