The New York Daily News reports that Rudy Giuliani pal Bernie Kerik, already disgraced from his failed nomination for Homeland Security Secretary and guilty pleas for state tax violations, is sending his lawyers to Washington for a last-chance meeting with the Justice Department to avoid indictment on federal tax charges:

Kerik's lawyers recently agreed to waive the statute of limitations on the tax charges until Nov. 17, which will allow them to make one last plea to try to ease the pain.

Kerik will go to the Justice Department in Washington in the coming weeks to try to get expected criminal tax charges reduced to civil fines.

Kerik still faces probable charges of bribery and obstruction of justice over a secret meeting with former Giuliani officials in Tribeca in 1999.

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Congratulations to Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today.

He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.

Via Spencer Ackerman, this is just rich:

CIA Director Michael Hayden is going after the agency's independent watchdog, Inspector General John Helgerson. Hayden wonders if Helgerson -- who is not appointed by the CIA director -- hasn't gone too far in investigating how the agency conducts detentions and interrogations. . . . Helgerson has for years been perceived as overly aggressive in reviewing CIA techniques in the war on terrorism.

. . . [T]he investigation, headed by Hayden confidante Robert L. Deitz, is now a full-fledged exploration of how Helgerson conducts his work. It comes as Helgerson is "nearing completion" on several reports into interrogations, renditions, and detentions, reports The New York Times.

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The first results of the Death in Custody Reporting Act are in: 2,002 people died while being arrested in the U.S. between 2003 and 2005.

At least 2,002 people died during their arrests by state and local law enforcement officers from 2003 through 2005, the Justice Department reported yesterday. Of those suspects, officers themselves killed more than half, 80 percent of whom, the officers reported, had threatened or assaulted them with a weapon.

Drug and alcohol intoxication was the second-leading cause of death, accounting for 13 percent of the total, followed by suicide, accidental injuries, and illnesses or other natural causes.

While the number is a small percentage of those arrested, the number of those arrested is a shocker: 40 million people.

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As the Supreme Court considers whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, Florida, whose procedures have also come under state challenge (background here, here and here) has also been holding hearings.

Florida's leading death penalty case, Lightbourne, didn't focus on the lethal cocktail he'll likely be shot up with but the records and abilities of the lethal-injectors themselves -- an issue that came to the fore with the Department of Corrections' botched execution of Miami killer Angel Diaz, who took 34 minutes to die on Dec. 13.

Florida's Department of Corrections made some changes after the Diaz execution. Check out the "Shake and Shout" procedure the states' attorney is defending:

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I wrote about the new GAO report (pdf)on juvenile boot camp deaths, but this Times (London) article is really a must read.

Selected quotes:

The Government Accountability Office, the US Congress investigative arm, identified 1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005. It selected ten deaths since 1990 for special investigation in boot camps and “wilderness programmes”.

What they found:

Examples of abuse include youths being forced to eat their own vomit, denied adequate food, being forced to lie in urine or faeces, being kicked, beaten and thrown to the ground,” Gregory Kutz, a GAO investigator, told a congressional committee.

One teenager, Mr Kutz said, was “forced to use a toothbrush to clean a toilet, then forced to use that toothbrush on their own teeth”. The abuse that preceded the deaths of the ten teenagers was particularly shocking. “If you walked in partway through my presentation you might have assumed I was talking about human rights violations in a Third World country,” Mr Kutz said.

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Jena Six defendant Mychal Bell was sentenced to 18 months in jail today on a prior juvenile charge. His parents were ordered to pay court costs and witness fees. The prior case involved two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property.

Bell was on probation and had incurred new charges prior to the December 4 incident which resulted in six defendants being charged with felonies.

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I praised Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in my last post, now I'm criticizing him.

The California courts are weighing challenges to residency restrictions imposed by Jessica's Law and have blocked state parole officers from arresting sex offenders for residency violations.

The Governor doesn't care. He's started a new crackdown of arresting sex offenders.

On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court agreed to block state parole agents from revoking the parole of four sex offenders who are illegally living too close to schools or parks. In a one-paragraph order, the court said it will consider whether Jessica's Law violates the parolees' constitutional rights. The law approved by voters last November prohibits offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children gather. The law pertains to sex offender parolees released from prison on or after November 8, 2006.

The ruling applies only to the four offenders who filed suit. So Arnie says he'll continue to pursue the rest:

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I'm going to praise Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in this post, but take it away in the next.

The praise is due for his signing into law a bill that prohibits local governments from requiring landlords to check on and report the immigration status of tenants.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed landmark legislation Thursday prohibiting local governments from requiring landlords to inquire or report on the immigration status of tenants.

...."Landlords are not deputies of the federal immigration program, it's not our job," said Nancy Ahlswede, CEO of the nonprofit Apartment Association of California Southern Cities. "We can't and shouldn't get in the middle of immigration issues."

Laws requiring landlords to act as immigration cops regarding their tenants were tried but struck down by the courts in Irving, TX and Hazleton, PA.

The Illinois House today joined the Senate and overrode Gov. Rod Blagojevich's veto of the mandated moment of silence at the start of the school day.

Students from kindergarten through high school will be allowed to silently pray in whatever faith they practice or simply sit and reflect quietly. Illinois teachers and students have had the option of doing so since 2002, but it wasn't mandated.

The Illinois House voted to override Gov. Rod Blagojevich's late August veto of the silent-moment measure. The governor cited concerns about the separation of church and state.

This is ridiculous. Let the kids pray at home if it's so important to their parents. Prayer does not belong in our schools. These bills are succeeding, even in the courts, because of the "forced silence" alternative. They're not fooling anyone though, they are prayer bills designed to instill religion.

Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), who is often at odds with the governor, said he supported Blagojevich's veto because the legislation is really about prayer in schools. "Why we must mandate this is way beyond me," Lang said. "It's wrong from so many points of view."

Cuba is no longer a safe haven for those on the lam from the U.S., particularly if they are wanted for fraud or drugs.

Now that Raul Castro is in charge, and in what is viewed as a new indicator of cooperation with U.S. law enforcement, Cuba has been handing over wanted Americans.

The most recent is John Bradley Egan who was wanted in Utah for fraud. Egan is the third American turned over this year. Cuba also sent an accused Columbian drug lord back to Bogota.

According to the U.S., there are 60 Americans in Cuba who are wanted here on criminal charges.

Not all fugitives are being turned over though.

The highest profile fugitive that Cuba has refused to hand over is former Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur -- also known as Joanne Chesimard -- who was convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper.

Cuba has also refused to turn over fugitive financier Robert Vesco, who evaded U.S. authorities during decades on the run from charges he defrauded mutual fund investors of more than $200 million.

Looks like it's time for a trip to the courthouse tomorrow. The Judge in the insider trading trial of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio has unsealed documents related to his classified information defense which he was not allowed to present at trial. This is coming up now because yesterday Joe Nacchio filed his appeal brief and one of the grounds alleges the Judge erred in refusing him to raise his classfied secrets defense.

The Rocky Mountain News reports:

The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest.

The documents indicate that likely would have been at the heart of former CEO Joe Nacchio's so-called "classified information" defense at his insider trading trial, had he been allowed to present it.

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