"quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

- "Who will guard the guards?" wrote the Roman poet Juvenal. Citing numlerous instances of CEO robbing the public coffers with huge payoffs to self after losing billions of shareholder $$$, so also asks William Lerach, Plaintiff's lawyer and shareholder advocate, here, as he prepares to go to jail to serve a one year sentence for boldly stepping over the line in his advocacy, as he put it:

in my zeal to stand up against this kind of corporate greed over the years, I stepped over the line. It turns out that the legal system is a lot tougher on shareholder lawyers than it appears to be on Wall Street executives.

Criminal Justice Reform Could Go All The Way

WHAT: WHEN: WHERE: WHO:	Policy & Media Briefing on Release of Unlocking America November 19, 9:30-11a.m. National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW 13th Floor, Washington, D.C. Moderated discussion with nationally syndicated columnist Clarence Page. Panelists to include:
			James Austin, President, JFA Institute Devon Brown, Director, Washington, D.C. Department of Corrections Marc Mauer, Executive Director, The Sentencing Project Dr. Fred Osher, Director, Center for Behavioral Health, Justice, & Public Policy, University of Maryland Dr. Michael Pinard, University of Maryland, School of Law Christy Visher, Research Associate, Urban Institute

Catching Up to Child Porn in Scotus

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared open Tuesday (10/30) to arguments that a law intended to criminalize the advertising of purported child pornography is constitutional and would not cover promotions of Lolita and American Beauty, as challengers say.

The 2003 law arises from Congress' effort to staunch the demand for child pornography and save the children exploited in the creation of the illegal materials. It makes it a crime — punishable by at least five years in prison — to advertise, promote or solicit materials purported to depict children engaging in sex acts.

A federal appeals court last year struck down the ban as overly broad in violation of the First Amendment free-speech guarantee. The court said the law could cover fake or non-existent porn offerings.

A lawyer for Michael Williams, a Florida man convicted under the law, says it could threaten the marketing of movies depicting adolescent sex. The National Coalition Against Censorship and other free-speech groups are backing him.

The Justice Department counters that the law targets solicitations that fuel the child porn market and would not cover ads about mainstream movies.

As the justices pummeled both sides with questions, they seemed torn on the reach of the law. Overall, the comments, particularly from swing-vote Justice Anthony Kennedy, suggested they may reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and uphold the law.

By Joan Biskupic

USA TODAY

Baze: Is Three Drug Cocktail Unconstitutional?

Here's how the New York Times has put the question:

The central question of Baze is: Does the Eighth Amendment bar an execution method that creates an unnecessary risk of pain and suffering, or does it merely protect inmates against the wanton infliction of pain and suffering?

If it’s the former, then the three-drug cocktail is probably unconstitutional, because states would not have a compelling reason to continue to use it. But if it’s the latter, then states could probably stick with the old deathly recipe, as long as someone on the execution team had the fortitude, after administering the first drug, to shake the inmate or look in his eyes, or otherwise make a passing attempt to see if the anesthetic took.

Crow's Nest

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Counsel for the Defense (Yes, We don't just shoot em first)

GOVERNMENT MOVES TO DISMISS KHADR APPEAL

In what can only be described as the latest ironic twist in the sad and strange tale of military commissions, Administration lawyers today filed a motion to dismiss Omar Khadr’s appeal from a special military appeals court decision allowing military commission proceedings to resume at Guantanamo Bay. Administration lawyers argue, in effect, that the Secretary of Defense lacked the authority to issue a military commission rule giving the defense the same ability as the government to seek review of military appeals court decisions.

The rule in question is part of the so-called Manual for Military Commissions, a set of procedures for military commissions issued by the Secretary of Defense in January of this year. The Manual implements the controversial Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA). The government’s filing appears to be an effort to hit the “delete” button on language in Rule for Military Commission 908(c)(3), which gives the defense a coequal right to seek review of decisions by the Court of Military Commission Review. Significantly, the MCA required the Secretary to report the rules to Congress for its review prior to commencement of commission proceedings. The Administration filing could be viewed, in effect, as an attempt to change those rules without proper notification of Congress.

Moreover, the government’s position is particularly ironic in light of positions taken before the Court of Military Commission Review in this very case. There, the government argued that the Secretary of Defense had broad authority to issue rules implementing the MCA and another federal statute giving the Secretary the power to delegate his responsibilities to subordinate DoD officials.

The position reflected in the government’s filing is, to say the least, odd coming from an Administration that has arguably made the most expansive claims for executive power in U.S. history. Indeed, the Administration has contended that the President can vary the meaning of federal statutes through so-called “signing statements,” and can ignore federal statutes that, in the Administration’s view, infringe on the President’s powers as Commander-in-Chief. Yet, in the Administration’s view, the responsible executive branch official in this case apparently lacks the authority to interpret the MCA in a way to make the commissions process slightly fairer to the accused. One wonders how they can even make the argument with a straight face.

Mukasey for AG -- NOT

Mukasey's weaseling on water-boarding was unworthy of him. Perhaps feeling pressure from his White House sponsors, he cast himself last week as little more than Torture Boy in long pants. His refusal to call water-boarding torture delighted the White House. His suggestion that he really wasn't familiar with the particulars of the technique was laughable. By now, no literate American adult is unfamiliar with this charming form of interrogation by near-drowning, which makes the claim even more absurd coming from a retired New York federal judge whose main claim to fame is presiding over difficult terrorism trials. Mukasey's response that "if water-boarding is torture, torture is not constitutional" was a transparent evasion. And the entire exchange throws a more sinister light on his borrowed quip that the infamous Gonzales-sponsored torture memo "was worse than a sin, it was a mistake. It was unnecessary." One now fears that Mukasey doesn't so much disagree with the substance of that memo, as he thinks that writing it down was a political error.

ouch. Read more from Prof. Bowman at Slate.

October - November News

Z

The Legal Monthly

Vol. 2 No. 8 Read Z the Blog at http://zlegaltimes.blogspot.com/ Oct/Nov. '07

The Uniquely Gregarious Source Of Legal News And “Divers” Contrary Information

Contents

The Costs of Justice

First Take TNR

JEC Rap Sheet

Dworkin: “The Supreme Court Phalanx”

Scotus Focus

A Prediction

A Cute, if Sardonic, Irony

Human Rights Watch Report

Sentencing

Retroactivity

Oral argument

Sex Offender Residency Restrictions

Mailbag

Read the rest at the Newsletter site.

Change or No Change? Big Money and Moray Hinge on This

Supreme Court’s agreement on Sept. 25 in Baze v Rees to rule on the constitutionality of the lethal injection method, and the Court’s order on Wednesday to postpone a scheduled execution in Virginia (Emmett v. Johnson).

Read the rest Here

Where's the Good Life Gone?

Hmmm. Here's Judith Warner at NYT:

newest set of poll results showing Clinton’s surprising levels of popularity among lower- and middle-class women, white moderate women, even black voters, was another story this week, based on a new set of data from the I.R.S.

It showed that America’s most wealthy earn an even greater share of the nation’s income than they did in 2000, at the peak of the tech boom. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, the Wall Street Journal reported, earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005 (the latest date for which these data are available), up from the high of 20.8 percent they’d reached in the bull market of 2000. The bottom 50 percent of people earned 12.8 percent of all income, compared with 13 percent in 2000. And the median tax filer’s income fell 2 percent when adjusted for inflation (to about $31,000) between 2000 and 2005.

More and more people are being priced out of a middle class existence.

More Key Points

* The United States has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world. While the United States currently incarcerates 750 inmates per 100,000 persons, the world average rate is 166 per 100,000 persons. Russia, the country with the second highest incarceration rate, imprisons 624 per 100,000 persons. Compared to its democratic, advanced market economy counterparts, the United States has more people in prison by several orders of magnitude. Although crime rates have decreased since 1990, the rate of imprisonment has continued to increase.

* Growth in the prison population is due to changing policy, not increased crime. Many criminal justice experts have found that the increase in the incarceration rate is the product of changes in penal policy and practice, not changes in crime rates. Changes in sentencing, both in terms of time served and the range of offenses meriting incarceration, underlie the growth in the prison population.

* Changes in drug policy have had the single greatest impact on criminal justice policy. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 created mandatory minimum sentences for possession of specific amounts of cocaine. The Act instituted a 100-to-1 differential in the treatment of powder and crack cocaine, treating possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine the same as possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine. Crack cocaine is typically consumed by the poor, while powder cocaine, a significantly more expensive drug, is consumed by wealthier users. Mandatory minimum sentences for low-level crack-cocaine users are comparable (and harsher in certain cases) to sentences for major drug dealers.

* The composition of prison admissions has also shifted toward less serious offenses, characterized by parole violations and drug offenses. In 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession and one out of five were for sales. The crime history for three-quarters of drug offenders in state prisons involved non-violent or drug offenses.

* The prison system has a disproportionate impact on minority communities. African Americans, who make-up 12.4 percent of the population, represent more than half of all prison inmates, compared to one-third twenty years ago. Although African Americans constitute 14 percent of regular drug users, they are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses, and 56 percent of persons in state prisons for drug crimes. African Americans serve nearly as much time in federal prisons for drug offenses as whites do for violent crimes.

* The U.S. prison system has enormous economic costs associated with prison construction and operation, productivity losses, and wage effects. In 2006, states spent an estimated $2 billion on prison construction, three times the amount they were spending fifteen years earlier. The combined expenditures of local governments, state governments, and the federal government for law enforcement and corrections total over $200 billion annually. In addition to these costs, the incarceration rate has significant costs associated with the productivity of both prisoners and ex-offenders. The economic output of prisoners is mostly lost to society while they are imprisoned. Negative productivity effects continue after release. This wage penalty grows with time, as previous imprisonment can reduce the wage growth of young men by some 30 percent.

* Prisons are housing many of the nation’s mentally ill. Prisons are absorbing the cost of housing the nation’s mentally ill. The number of mentally ill in prison is nearly five times the number in inpatient mental hospitals. Large numbers of mentally ill inmates, as well as inmates with HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis also raise serious questions regarding the costs and distribution of health care resources.

* The United States faces enormous problems of offender reentry and recidivism. The number of ex-offenders reentering their communities has increased fourfold in the past two decades. On average, however, two out of every three released prisoners will be rearrested and one in two will return to prison within three years of release.

The Costs of Justice, American Style

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE ECONOMIC COSTS OF SURGE IN U.S. PRISON
POPULATION AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Hearing on Costs of Mass Incarceration Called by VA Sen. Webb in Light of 500 Percent Increase in Prison Populations In Last 30 Years Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) will hold a Joint Economic Committee (JEC) hearing to explore the economic consequences and causes of and solutions to the steep increase of the U.S. prison population. The hearing entitled, “Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?” is scheduled for Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 10:00am in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building. The United States has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners,despite having only 5 percent of the world’s population. The JEC will examine why the United States has such a disproportionate share of the world’s prison population, as well as ways to address this issue that responsibly balance public safety and the high social and economic costs of imprisonment.

Expert witnesses have been asked to discuss the costs of maintaining a large prison system; the long-term labor market and social consequences of mass incarceration; whether the increase in the prison population correlates with decreases in crime; and what alternative sentencing strategies and post-prison re-entry programs have been most successful at reducing incarceration rates in states and local communities.
WHAT: Joint Economic Committee Hearing:

“Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?”
WHEN: Thursday, October 4, 2007 – 10:00am
WHERE: 216 Hart Senate Office Building
Witnesses (as of September 27):

• Dr. Glenn Loury, Economics and Social Sciences Professor, Brown University
• Dr. Bruce Western, Director Inequality and Social Policy Program, Harvard University
• Alphonso Albert, Executive Director, Second Chances
• Michael Jacobson, Executive Director, Vera Institute for Justice
The Joint Economic Committee, established under the Employment Act of 1946, was created by Congress to review
economic conditions and to analyze the effectiveness of economic policy.
www.jec.senate.gov
# # #

Dworkin On the Court

Not last nor least, here's Ronald Dworkin (beating - not bleating) about the bleeding Supreme Court:
(appearing here)

The Supreme Court Phalanx

By Ronald Dworkin

Anthony Kennedy
(click for larger image)

1.

The revolution that many commentators predicted when President Bush appointed two ultra-right-wing Supreme Court justices is proceeding with breathtaking impatience, and it is a revolution Jacobin in its disdain for tradition and precedent. Bush's choices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, have joined the two previously most right-wing justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in an unbreakable phalanx bent on remaking constitutional law by overruling, most often by stealth, the central constitutional doctrines that generations of past justices, conservative as well as liberal, had constructed.

These doctrines aimed at reducing racial isolation and division, recapturing democracy from big money, establishing reasonable dimensions for freedom of conscience and speech, protecting a woman's right to abortion while recognizing social concerns about how that right is exercised, and establishing a criminal process that is fair as well as effective. The rush of 5–4 decisions at the end of the Court's term undermined the principled base of much of this carefully established doctrine. As Justice Stephen Breyer declared, in a rare lament from the bench, "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much."

It would be a mistake to suppose that this right-wing phalanx is guided in its zeal by some very conservative judicial or political ideology of principle. It seems guided by no judicial or political principle at all, but only by partisan, cultural, and perhaps religious allegiance. It urges judicial restraint and deference to legislatures when these bodies pass measures that political conservatives favor, like bans on particular medical techniques in abortion. But the right-wing coalition abandons restraint when it strikes down legislation that conservatives oppose, like regulations on political advertising and modest school district programs to further racial integration in public education. It claims to celebrate free speech when it declares that Congress cannot prevent rich corporations and unions from evading restrictions on political contributions. But it subordinates free speech to other policies when it holds that schools can punish students for displaying ambiguous but not disruptive slogans at school events. Lawyers have long been fond of saying, quoting Mr. Dooley, that the Supreme Court follows the election returns.^[1] These four justices seem to follow Fox News instead.

---

---

They need a fifth vote to win the day in particular cases, and they most often persuade Justice Anthony Kennedy to join them. Kennedy has taken Sandra Day O'Connor's place as the swing vote on the Court. Twenty-four cases—a third of the Court's decisions—were decided by 5–4 votes last term, nineteen of them on a strict ideological division. Kennedy voted on the winning side in all twenty-four of them. He joined with the right-wing justices in thirteen of the ideological cases; he voted against them and with the four more liberal justices—John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg, and Breyer— in the remaining six cases, including four death penalty appeals from Texas. He showed deplorable partisanship when he voted with the majority in the Court's intellectually disreputable 2000 decision to elect Bush president.^[2] He wrote a poor and insensitive majority opinion this year in the Court's so-called partial-birth abortion case. (I discussed his opinion in these pages earlier this year.)^[3]

But in 1992 Kennedy joined O'Connor and Souter in the key opinion upholding abortion rights in principle and providing a firmer constitutional basis for them,^[4] and in 2003 he wrote a strong opinion for a 6–3 majority, relying on that earlier abortion decision, ruling that states cannot make homosexual acts criminal.^[5] He therefore offers hope—slim, but real—of some moderating influence on the Jacobins; lawyers who argue important cases before the Court in the next few years will presumably frame their arguments to convince him.

2.

These are strong claims about the revolutionary character and poor legal quality of many of the Court's 5–4 decisions, and it is necessary to review these decisions with some care, in the remainder of this essay, to explain and defend those claims. The most important decision was the Court's 5–4 ruling striking down school student assignment plans adopted by Seattle and Louisville. . . . ****

N.b. Commentary to follow

Front and Center at the Supreme Court

A 2006 law, passed by Congress and signed by Mr Bush prohibits Guantanamo Bay detainees from challenging their confinement in federal courts and states their cases can only be heard by military commissions, not civilian courts.

This term, Supreme Court justices will decide whether in doing so, the law has violated the constitutional requirement to provide habeas corpus - a procedure under which someone who holds a prisoner is required to show reason why to a court - to prisoners in the US.

The US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that habeas corpus does not apply to foreign nationals being held at Guantanamo Bay because it is not US soil.

Professor AE Dick Howard, of the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Guantanamo cases would be "front and centre" of the new session.

Laura Smith-Spark
BBC News, Washington

Nb. If the detainees "win" is that a conserative or liberal outcome? Hint: is the Constitutional right to habeas corpus a conservative or liberal notion? Hint 2: Is supporting tyranny conservative or liberal?

Check these for more previews: Adler

Wittes: "it made fools of those of us who believe in it as something more elevated: an institution that aspires to rule based on principle. It was depressing, and the most depressing part is that sinking feeling that the justices will do the same thing again beginning today."

A Prediction by Tom Goldstein

Direct and unalloyed from Scotusblog:

Because the public's interest in the Court is notoriously weak and its memory short, the relevant question in deciding whether the Court can be a mobilizing force in the 2008 election for ideological groups is therefore not "how were cases decided in OT2006" (the focus of commentary so far), but instead "how will OT2007's cases be decided?" And I think that the existing and anticipated docket strongly suggests that, during OT2007, the outcomes of the highest-profile cases will be perceived as quite liberal.

As a consequence, I think it is exceptionally unlikely that next Term will end as this one did, with front-page stories and reports leading the evening news describing the Court as profoundly conservative, with laudatory commentary by the right and howls of protest from the left. Instead, we will see (mistaken) talk of the "surprising" tack by the Court back to the left and (among the legal glitterati) the "good Kennedy, bad Kennedy" phenomenon in which his ideological views seemingly oscillate dramatically from Term to Term. In fact, this commentary will be wrong: the Justices and their views will be exactly the same come June 2008; it is the cases that will be different.

Equally or more important when considering the potential electoral consequences of the Term, the leading cases will be ones in which the more liberal position is distinctly - even profoundly - unpopular with conservatives, creating the prospect that the Court will serve as a rallying cry to mobilize the electorate. Even if the left ultimately does not win all of the five most significant cases of this Supreme Court Term, that wing of the Court will carry the banner for accused terrorists, crack dealers, child pornographers, child rapists, and those who want to forbid gun possession.

First, consider the existing docket. The most prominent decision, by far, will come in the cases brought by detainees held at Guantanamo Bay as accused terrorists (see, for example, Lyle's post here). The conventional wisdom is that the detainees will win. I agree.

***
The next-highest-profile case involves the crack-powder disparity in sentencing (Kimbrough v. United States) discussed in this post by Lyle. This is something of a "throwback" case; crack is not as prominent an issue as it once was. Nonetheless, it is one with which the public is familiar. The particular question presented is whether, in the wake of the holding of Booker v. United States (opinion here) that the Sentencing Guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory, district judges can refuse to follow the crack Sentencing Guideline (which imposes a 100:1 ratio to cocaine sentences by weight) on the ground that they disagree with the policy judgment underlying it. I think that the government is overwhelmingly likely to lose.
***

A third significant and publicly accessible case involves the constitutionality of a particular federal regulation of child pornography (United States v. Williams) (Lyle's post here). The PROTECT Act makes it a crime to distribute something in a manner that shows you believe, or causes someone else to believe, it constitutes child pornography. The case is a successor to Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (opinion here), which invalidated as overbroad in violation of the First Amendment a prior statutory provision making it a crime to possess images that "appear to be" or "convey the impression" that they are child pornography. The new statute focused on the act of pandering the material, rather than its possession. A panel of the court of appeals held that the Supreme Court would not find the change significant enough to save the statute. I agree, though the question is difficult and likely to be close. The Free Speech Coalition majority was fairly sweeping on this point (the Court divided seven to two). In particular, Justice Kennedy's opinion for the five-Justice majority (himself and the left) indicated that this type of fix would be insufficient because it would still make unlawful the distribution of material that is not in fact pornographic.

So, in the three most significant cases of the Term granted thus far, the position of the Court's more liberal members will be (in the caricature that comes with much popular reporting on the Court) that accused terrorists deserve more rights, crack dealers deserve lighter sentences, and the First Amendment protects would-be distributors of child porn.

But Tom, in Ditech's words "people are smart" -- I think we're beginning to see through the right-wing "conservative philosophy" yoyo bullshit, don't you? The argument is that people are stupid. I respectfully disagree.

A Cute, if Sardonic, Irony

RATS in robes

sardonic "Like sarcastic, but more in order to cause amusement than insult"

I know, relative to the other Supremes, Roberts is comparatively young, but at 52 years, "young man" seemed a stretch. But like everything else with the Supremes, it's all relative, right? Relative conservatives, relative liberals, relative moderates, relative reactionaries? Well, no -- the latter are pretty clear, the RATS of this court: Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia -- they're sure to surprise people, if only by how far they'll go to bat for a Republican president. I have no doubt that, should the Democrats actually win the White House in 2008, the RATS will work hard to oppose that new president; they know which party they represent. Rehnquist certainly set that mold for them, and Roberts will follow it. Their creed:

concentrated Republican executive power good,

unchecked corporate power good,

environmental law/regulation bad,

human rights bad,

property rights good,

free speech bad,

economic speech good (e.g., being able to pay for the privilege of said "free" speech, like campaign donors)

That's a pretty reliable barometer of their approach, and I doubt they'll stray from the script much, unless a Democrat wins in '08, then they might oppose concentrated, unchecked executive Democratic power. But we'll see; they might, in principle, maintain that in hopes that the GOP is able to seize power again.

-- Slackie Onassis
Hat tip: How Appealing/Salon

The Crow's Nest

A new report from Human Rights Watch on laws, registries and restrictions for sex offenders:

Laws aimed at people convicted of sex offenses may not protect children from sex crimes but do lead to harassment, ostracism and even violence against former offenders, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch urges the reform of state and federal registration and community notification laws, and the elimination of residency restrictions, because they violate basic rights of former offenders. The 146-page report, “No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the United States,” is the first comprehensive study of US sex offender policies, their public safety impact, and the effect they have on former offenders and their families. During two years of investigation for this report, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted over 200 interviews with victims of sexual violence and their relatives, former offenders, law enforcement and government officials, treatment providers, researchers, and child safety advocates.

Here, at my newsletter, read more on that: (Source: Citybeat.com)

Just as Ohio has toughened its sex offender registration system, evidence is building that registration causes more problems than it solves.

There is no empirical evidence that proves sex offender registries do what they're supposed to do -- keep children safe. The U.S. Justice Department is now commissioning and funding studies looking at the effectiveness of registries, Singleton says. But the evidence so far is troubling, according to Jill S. Levenson, southern regional coordinator for the Center for Offender Rehabilitation and Education and a board member of the Ohio Chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. "There is a growing body of research that documents what we call collateral consequences of registration and notification; in other words, the kind of unintended consequences of these laws that disrupt stability and interfere with the ability of these offenders to reintegrate and create law-abiding constructive lives for themselves," Levenson says. "Criminals who are placed back in the community need jobs, and they need a place to live. People aren't very sympathetic to that. But the reality is that we know that the factors that are ... associated with a good community adjustment and less recidivism in the future -- desistance from crime -- are stability in housing, social support and employment. These laws contradict what the research tells us about the environmental conditions that lead to the desistance of crime.

Also missing from the law is a mandate to educate the public -- practical information to help people avoid and survive any kind of attack or information to help eliminate myths and misconceptions about sex offenders.

"Sex offenses and sex offenders fall into a really broad range," Levenson says. "Everybody who is convicted of drunk driving is not an alcoholic. Everyone who is convicted of a sex offense is not a sexual predator."

Retroactivity: A Good Thing? But Don't Ask Martha. And A Sidenote on National Security Policy

Links to briefs in Danforth v. Minnesota (06-8273) -- a case examining state courts' authority to expand retroactivity of Supreme Court criminal procedure rulings -- which is scheduled for argument on October 31:

Click here to read the petitioner's brief, filed by the Minnesota Public Defender's office, and here to read the respondent's brief.

Click here and here for amicus briefs from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in support of the petitioner; here for an amicus brief from Alaska and ten other states in support of the respondent; and here for an amicus brief from Kansas in support of neither party. Hat tip to Doug, at S, L & P.

Source: SCOTUSBLOG

Here, also at SCOTUSBLOG, read about how the revelation of our program of kidnapping and torture presents a "grave risk of injury to national security" (quote from the government's brief in opposition for writ in the Supreme Court: El-Masri v. Tenet, 437 F.Supp.2d 530, 541 (E.D.Va.2006) and El-Masri v. U.S., 479 F.3d 296 (4th Cir., 2007)).

I should think so. If true, and even if not, the allegation alone, rumor only perhaps, presents untold harm to the reputation and moral standing of the United States among the community of nations.

Cover that up, and bring lots of dirt to do it with. That's mud, as in "dragging through the mud" -- as in the reputation of the former AG, whose worst day was "better" than his own father's best day. I'm so glad I'm not his dad. Aren't you?

Sentence in Fourth Circuit Affirmed

Here's the Fourth Cir. affirming over dissent by Judge Gregory the lower court's denial of motion to withdraw plea after having conditionally accepted same pending receipt of presentencing report, and challenge to the 120 month sentence for possession of firearm. United States v. Battle (Sep 5). And,

Retroactive restrictions are unfair and violate the Constitution. Hat tip -- nationalsosen@yahoogroups.com

- this link is just in from Ohio (district court presumably): (AP, WDTN - Dayton) - and more on that here.

A federal judge in Akron has ruled in favor a sex offender in a residency case.

Lane Mikaloff filed a lawsuit after he was ordered out of his home because he lives too close to a school.

Connecticut Criminal Sanctions Strong Enough

Three members of a prominent Cheshire, Conn., family were slain in their home in July after being held hostage for hours. The gruesome murders, and the arrests of two career criminals out on parole for the crime, have left Connecticut residents justifiably outraged. More than 42,000 people have signed an online petition advocating that their state pass a “three strikes and you’re out” law to force judges to impose lengthy sentences on criminals convicted of three felonies. That is the wrong solution, for Connecticut or any state. Source: New York Times