XPost: az.swusrgrp, alt.fan.letterman, alt.fan.howard-stern   
   From: joe-hyman@attackwatch.com   
      
   (CNN) -- For the first time in well over a decade -- and months   
   since a federal judge overturned her murder conviction -- Debra   
   Milke is free.   
      
   A short time after the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office   
   indicated she would be leaving, video showed someone who   
   appeared to be Milke being driven away Friday from the Lower   
   Buckeye Jail in Phoenix. Sheriff's office spokesman Brandon   
   Jones subsequently confirmed that Milke had been released.   
      
   Even though she's no longer behind bars -- leaving the jail   
   without addressing reporters -- Milke's legal ordeal may not be   
   over.   
      
   Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said in March that his office   
   would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court the judge's decision to   
   toss her conviction and the death sentence that went with it.   
      
   Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' Chief Judge Alex Kozinski   
   ruled this spring that Milke did not receive a fair trial.   
      
   Milke still faces charges and was released on bond pending the   
   possibility of a retrial.   
      
   Milke's legal team will at some point address the media about   
   their client's release, though it's not known when, said one of   
   the lawyers, Lori Voepel.   
      
   Horne's office referred requests for comment to the Maricopa   
   County Attorney's Office, which is now handling the matter. The   
   prosecutor's office is not discussing the case, its spokesman   
   Jerry Cobb said Friday.   
      
   A jury convicted Milke of murder, conspiracy to commit murder,   
   child abuse and kidnapping on October 12, 1990, less than a year   
   after her 4-year-old son was found dead. She was sentenced to   
   death a few months later.   
      
   A day after seeing Santa Claus at a mall, young Christopher   
   Milke asked his mother if he could go again. That was the plan,   
   she said, when the boy got into the car with Milke's roommate,   
   James Styers.   
      
   Styers picked up a friend, "but instead of heading to the mall,   
   the two men drove the boy out of town to a secluded ravine,   
   where Styers shot Christopher three times in the head,"   
   according to Kozinski's summary of the case. Styers was   
   convicted of first-degree murder in the boy's killing and   
   sentenced to death.   
      
   During her trial, "no ... witnesses or direct evidence (linked)   
   Milke to the crime" other than Phoenix police Detective Armando   
   Saldate Jr., according to Kozinski.   
      
   The detective questioned Milke -- an interrogation that wasn't   
   recorded or seen by anyone else -- and later said she had   
   confessed to her role in the murder conspiracy, saying it was a   
   "bad judgment call."   
      
   But Milke offered a vastly different view of the interrogation   
   and denied that she had admitted to any role in a murder plot.   
      
   "The judge and jury believed Saldate," Kozinski wrote in his   
   March ruling overturning Milke's murder conviction. "But they   
   didn't know about Saldate's long history of lying under oath and   
   other misconduct."   
      
   The judge explained that he had made his decision because   
   prosecutors did not disclose the "history of misconduct" of its   
   key witness.   
      
   The defense and the jury did not know that previous judges had   
   tossed out four confessions or indictments because Saldate had   
   lied under oath, among other issues.   
      
   Horne, the Arizona attorney general, has argued Milke should   
   remain on death row, given his understanding of what happened.   
      
   "After dressing him up and telling him he was going to the mall   
   to see Santa Claus, Milke was convicted of sending her young son   
   off to be shot, execution style, in a desert wash," he said.   
      
   http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/06/justice/arizona-milke-release/   
      
            
      
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