Hurricane Katrina

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that five New Orleans police officers are entitled to a new trial after being convicted of shooting six unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Frontline's Sarah Moughty and Sarah Childress report. The unarmed group of civilians was searching for food and medicine.

A new trial was granted because federal prosecutors violated the fair trial rights of the police officers by writing negative comments online about the police officers. The Fifth Circuit upheld that ruling.

The federal government is liable for some of the flooding damage from Hurricane Katrina because of failures in the hurricane protection system, the New York Times' John Schwartz reports. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Susan G. Braden found that a canal built by the Army Corps of Engineers led to flooding in the New Orleans area, and that private plaintiffs and the St. Bernard Parish government can recover under the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. The amount of the liability will be determined through mediation.

One of the most notorious incidents of lawlessness the wake of Hurricane Katrina was the alleged murder of two men on a New Orleans bridge by police officers who arrived with guns blazing and who then allegedly covered up the killings. Now the convictions have been thrown out, in part, because of online comments federal prosecutors made on news articles on the New Orleans Times-Picayune web site, that paper reported. The judge in the case said in a 129-page order, according to the paper, "The government's actions, and initial lack of candor and credibility thereafter, is like scar tissue that will long evidence infidelity to the principles of ethics, professionalism, and basic fairness and common sense necessary to every criminal prosecution, wherever it should occur in this country."