If you believe in justice, the best news you are likely to hear today is this:

The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, the Douglas County teenager who has been serving a controversial 10-year sentence for consensual oral sex. The court's 4-3 decision upholds a Monroe County judge's ruling that the sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment under both the Georgia and U.S. constitutions.

Wilson was caught in a bind because he was sentenced under a law (later changed) that imposed a ten year mandatory minimum for having consensual oral sex with a minor, even though she was only two years younger than Wilson, who was 17 at the time. Wilson's ordeal is chronicled in these TalkLeft posts.

The Georgia Supremes made the decision bullet-proof by concluding that the sentence was cruel and unusual under the Georgia Constitution. Even if Georgia were to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the federal constitutional holding, the independent state constitutional holding will continue to protect Wilson.

Wilson should be released from prison soon. He will presumably need to be resentenced, but the court will no longer be bound by the 10 year mandatory minimum, and should be guided by the Georgia legislature's recent determination that the crime shouldn't be punished by more than a year in jail -- a sentence that Wilson has finished serving.

Update: (TL): The court's opinion is here (pdf.)

A state court trial judge has has refused to grant Michael Skakel a new trial based on new evidence presented at a hearing last summer showing he did not kill Martha Moxley.

Karazin found that the 2003 interview of Skakel's Brunswick School classmate, Gitano "Tony" Bryant, in which Bryant told a private investigator that his friends Adolph Hasbrouck and Burt Tinsley confessed to killing Moxley, was not believable. Bryant is a cousin of NBA star Kobe Bryant.

The judge said no other witnesses at the 2002 trial or the hearing placed Bryant or the other two youths in Belle Haven on the night of the murder and physical evidence did not bear out Bryant's claim that the two boys had described dragging her by the hair.

"The testimony of Bryant is absent any genuine corroboration," Karazin wrote. "It lacks credibility and therefore would not produce a different result at a new trial."

The defense will appeal the decision. And file another suit challenging the conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

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Happy Birthday to Hillary Clinton who turns 60 today.

She celebrated last night at a party in New York. Elvis Costello and the Wallflowers provided the music, Billy Crystal was M.C. The event raised $1.5 million.

The latest AP poll numbers make a good birthday present for her. Among Democrats:

• Hillary Rodham Clinton, 43 percent
• Barack Obama, 22 percent
• John Edwards, 14 percent
• Bill Richardson, 6 percent

My latest defense of anonymous blogging:

A few days ago, on [Comment is Free], Daphna Baram wrote in favour of stripping the anonymity from website commentators, arguing:

We are being made to believe that the defamation is a price we have to pay, especially those of us who write on contentious topics, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or anything to do with feminism. [. . .] There's nothing democratic about a state of affairs where people put themselves and their opinions on a public platform only to be confronted by a hooded, faceless crowd, often armed with rotten eggs and over-ripe tomatoes.

Is her objection to the facelessness or the rotten eggs? Like Garance Franke-Ruta before her, Baram arrives at a solution to speech she deems offensive - eliminate anonymity. She does not accept that anonymity provides a safeguard to free speech on the web. Her evidence for her assertion? Well, none. Instead, Baram ignores the history of pseudononymous writing, from the ancients to the modern American examples of Poor Richard, Publius, Mark Twain and Atrios.

. . . In the end, Baram's proposal would shut out the thousands of voices out there that comment anonymously for the same reason I tried to. I think a few harsh words directed at us by some idiots is a small price to pay for allowing these voices to be heard.

Go throw a few tomatoes and rotten eggs at me if you are so inclined.

If one were to believe Kevin Drum and Publius, our Democratic Presidential candidates are committing political suicide. Publius writes:

On funding, I agree it's different b/c they could block it themselves. But understand that (no matter how distasteful this argument sounds) it would be instant, generation-long political suicide to block war funding cold turkey. i don't like it either - but the american people have a strong, excessive nationalistic streak, and I just don't think they would see the nuance in that. This is the reality that pelosi/reid face.

Since all of our Presidential candidates save Biden have endorsed PRECISELY that, Publius must expect a Democratic wipeout in the 2008 Presidential election. Does he? Of course he does not. He is merely making excuses that have no logical basis. Indeed, what Publius might try and figure out is WHY Democrats won the 2006 Election and what might happen in 2008 in Congressional Elections if they do not honor the mandate they were given in that election - to end the Iraq War.

More.

Rudy Giuliani joins his pal Michael Mukasey in declaring that he isn't sure waterboarding is torture. Speaking last night in New York City,

Well, I’m not sure it is either. I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. I think the way it’s been defined in the media, it shouldn’t be done. The way in which they have described it, particularly in the liberal media. So I would say, if that’s the description of it, then I can agree, that it shouldn’t be done. But I have to see what the real description of it is. Because I’ve learned something being in public life as long as I have. And I hate to shock anybody with this, but the newspapers don’t always describe it accurately.”

Rudy also left no doubt where he stands on wiretapping: In bragging about the thousands of people he put in jail, particularly mob guys in the U.S. and in Italy, he said:

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The Colorado Rockies face the Boston Red Sox in Boston tonight at 8:20 pm ET. The game is being aired on Fox.

Updates at the Colorado Rockies website and MLB.com

Go Rockies!

Update: Sen Chris Dodd has issued a similar statment.

*****

Governor Bill Richardson makes the connecton between the California wildfires and the War in Iraq: Because our national guard is there, it isn't here responding to disasters.

George Bush, his Republican friends and the Democrats who continue to allow this war to continue have not only broken our military, they've broken our National Guard.

The news this morning had images of Americans fleeing to a huge sports arena for shelter during a natural disaster that struck a familiar chord. When Katrina struck and the floods hit two years ago, a good portion of the Louisiana National Guard was in Iraq. How many people died in the days it took to get proper personnel on the ground in New Orleans? Today, as the fires rage, California has National Guard men, women, and critical equipment thousands of miles away in Iraq. They need to come home. We need them here.

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Laugh of the day....former FEMA chief "Heckuva Job, Brownie" Michael Brown has sent out a press release announcing he's available for interviews on the California wildfires.

Michael D. Brown, Former FEMA Director and Current Director of Cotton Companies, one of the leading disaster preparedness and restoration organizations in the nation, is available for comment regarding the wild fires that are devastating Southern California.

.... Mr. Brown can speak to the turmoil being caused by the California wild fires as well as to some of the new processes in disaster relief efforts that will help to restore California communities. He can offer advice to residents and businesses on proper relief and recovery efforts and provide suggestions for future disaster preparedness.

Even the Wall St. Journal was surprised.

Related: Check out the You Tube videos on the fires at Voices of San Diego.

With votes like these, it's difficult to believe the Democrats are the majority party in Congress. The Senate vote to advance the Dream Act failed today.

Supporters needed to get 60 votes to advance the DREAM Act, which would have allowed illegal immigrants who plan to attend college or join the military, and who came to the United States with their families before they turned 16, to move toward legality. The final vote was 52-44.

Despite efforts of Sen. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, the Republican opposition framing the bill as one of amnesty prevailed.

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Human Rights, the magazine of the Individual Rights and Liberties Section of the American Bar Association, devotes its entire spring issue to the death penalty. All articles are available free online. They include:

• A Thirty-Year Retrospective of the Death Penalty
  By Stephen F. Hanlon
• Monitoring Death Sentencing Decisions: The Challenges and Barriers to Equity By Glenn L. Pierce and Michael L. Radelet
• Mental Disability and Capital Punishment: A More Rational Approach to a Disturbing Subject
  By Ronald J. Tabak

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Rudy Giuliani, the arch Yankee fan, is outraging some New Yorkers by his new-found conversion to the Red Sox in the World Series.

Pigs flew, lions slept with lambs - and No. 1 Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani miraculously transformed himself into a Red Sox fan on the eve of the World Series.

"I'm rooting for the Red Sox," the Republican presidential contender Tuesday told a Boston audience, just a few T stops from Fenway Park.

Rudy says he'll tell Colorado fans he's rooting for the Sox on his next visit:

"In Colorado, in the next week or two, you will see, I will have the courage to tell the people of Colorado the same thing, that I am rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series," he said.

Just another political ploy. Do the math.

Colorado has a total of nine Electoral College votes, compared with about 30 in Red Sox Nation - Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and about half of Connecticut.

Also calling Rudy out for his transparent switch of allegiance: The New York Post.