November 3, 2005

David Pogue column on Research in Motion's new BlackBerry 8700c cellphone/e-mail device, which retails for $300; photo (M)

''BASTA! Enough!'' urges an e-mailing friend, who is being granted anonymity because she shared her plaint in a personal message. (Her identity will, however, be disclosed to an editor upon request.) This friend went on to recommend an end to the latest journalism beat (Babes in Medialand), and a return to business as usual -- or as it used to be usual.

Woman who was raped 32 years ago must now relive horror of her ordeal at trial of man traced through his DNA; first trial of Fletcher Anderson Worrell in rape of Kathleen Ham in Manhattan ended with hung jury in 1974; he has now been conclusively matched to assault by DNA, forcing Ham to revisit attack, retrace arc of her damaged life, with years of insomnia and self-rebuke; DNA has also tied Worrell as suspect to at least 24 other rapes in New Jersey and Maryland, all of them committed after rape of Ham; he jumped bail in 1976; Ham recalls crime and first trial and her brutal cross-examination by Worrell's defense attorney; photos (M)

It's 11:30 on a Thursday night, early by this city's party clocks, and already a substantial line has formed in front of Marquee, one of Manhattan's hottest nightclubs. There are men done up in blazers and designer denim, women in sparkly cleavage-baring tops. Their sad, familiar fate is preordained: For every person who makes it past the velvet rope, dozens will be rejected. Surveying the growing crowd, Rich Thomas, Marquee's venerable doorman, says without a hint of remorse, ''Most of these people waiting in line are not likely to get in.''

Judge Samuel A Alito Jr, who heard several hundreds cases over 15 years on US Court of Appeals, dissented slightly more often than typical appeals court judge, with his dissenting opinions almost always more conservative than majority's; his dissents in more than 60 cases often took issue with decisions siding with criminal defendants, prisoners and immigrants; his dissents frequently voted in favor of government and corporations, deferring to what he calls good faith judgments of police officers, prosecutors, prison wardens, trial judges and juries; he appears particularly reluctant to order new trials over what he calls harmless errors in presentation of evidence or in jury instructions; Alito, who was appointed to appeals court by first Pres Bush, dissented in 26 cases in which both other judges were also appointed by Republicans, and in 4 cases in which both were appointed by Democrats (M)