KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE 
Battle lines are being drawn by parties on either side of the judicial selection reform debate, reports The Albany Times Union. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal from the ruling of Eastern District Judge John Gleeson, who last year struck down New York’s partisan-driven convention system of electing state Supreme Court justices. This week, the City of New York joined the New York State Bar Association, the New York City Bar Association, and the Fund for Modern Courts in filing a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging that the existing convention system be eliminated. "This brief represents the consensus, among the city of New York and three of the leading bar associations and institutions in the state, that the current means of selecting state Supreme Court justices is unconstitutional and desperately needs to be reformed," said New York City Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo. Viewing primary elections as politically-driven money pits open to corruption, the four parties want to amend New York’s constitution and institute a merit-based appointment system for state court judges. –J.S.

EXXON'S JEDI MIND TRICKS 
Elsewhere, The New York Sun reports on a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo against Exxon Mobile Corp., demanding that it clean up a 17 million gallon oil spill in Brooklyn’s Newtown Creek that the AG is calling "one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation's history." Though the Coast Guard discovered the spill in 1978 and blamed it on a single industrial explosion, possibly in 1950, ExxonMobil spokesman William Wood says the spill is the result of 150 years of operations on the creek by a variety of refineries. Brooklyn City Councilman Davie Yassky said Cuomo is "riding to the rescue like the cavalry," and disputed Exxon’s remark that there’s no evidence of a public health risk near the creek. "When you've left 17 million gallons of oil under the ground, the burden of proof is on Exxon to show there isn't health damage," he said. "There's been no serious research to show there is health damage, but that's because it's an expensive project no one has been willing to undertake." –J.S.

ALBERT GONZALEZ V. THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT
The New York Times reports that federal prosecutors filed an appeal on Monday soon after Southern District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed charges against 13 of 16 KPMG accounting firm employees who allegedly engaged in conspiracy, tax evasion and fraud. (Kaplan said prosecutors violated the defendant’s constitutional rights by pressuring KPMG not to pay their legal bills.) Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal editorial offers a sobering critique of such an appeal, nothing that Kaplan's decision invalidated the Justice Department's entire method of conducting corporate prosecutions. “The government had a duty to respect the rights of citizens suspected of a crime, and it disregarded that duty. In doing so, it surrendered the legitimacy that undergirds its right to try people for crimes in this case… For these 13 defendants, this process has already lasted two years. Rather than dragging them through another year or more of appeals, Mr. Gonzales should send a message about due process to other prosecutors by closing down the case.” –J.S.

ELIMINATE SPYWARE!
And from The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, a case that demonstrates the oddities of an obsessive “child protecting” officer of the law. Monroe County sheriff's investigator R. Michael Hildreth was found guilty of using spyware to eavesdrop on the computer of a neighbor he thought was a danger to young girls in their neighborhood. But in papers filed recently, Hildreth is asking Wayne County Court Judge Stephen R. Sirkin to reconsider the verdict. He claims the prosecution never proved that he intercepted any communication from his neighbor's computer. –J.S.

PEARL WIDOW SUES 23 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS, BANK
AM New York reports that Mariane Pearl filed a suit in Brooklyn federal court yesterday against the suspected terrorists who killed her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Pearl invoked federal law provisions allowing victims of terrorism in her suit against 23 defendants allegedly involved in the abduction and brutal beheading death of her husband in 2002. She also filed suit against Habib Bank Ltd., one of Pakistan’s largest banks with a branch in midtown Manhattan, for aiding and abetting terrorism by handling large trusts linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. "I am looking for the truth of what happened to Daniel, for our family, our friends and the public record," Mariane Pearl said in a statement. "This process allows us to delve deeper into the investigation, and to bring accountability and punishment to those involved with his kidnapping, torture and murder." –H.B.

FOR CRIMINALS, ONE MORE REASON TO STOP SMOKING...
New York City’s new $290 million forensic laboratory is expected to increase the city’s use of DNA investigations by sevenfold, according to The New York Sun. Mayor Bloomberg touted the 340,000-square-foot building as a major tool to expand the use of DNA evidence to criminal investigations such as burglaries, as well as its existing use in homicides and sexual crimes. Bloomberg said, “A single strand of hair, the sweat from the brim of a baseball hat, the saliva on a cigarette butt - with the advent of forensic DNA testing, these pieces of evidence can all yield valuable clues and help detectives solve crimes and put criminals away.”  –H.B.