Los Angeles may finally have ended its war against the homeless. LA's police officers were routinely arresting the homeless for sleeping on sidewalks, despite the lack of sufficient shelters and the city's closure of parks at night, leaving the homeless with no choice but to forgo sleep. A federal court concluded that the practice violated the Constitution by punishing people for being homeless.

The city reached a settlement yesterday with the ACLU of Southern California, resolving a lawsuit filed on behalf of homeless people who were illegally arrested.

[T]he city will allow sleeping on sidewalks from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. People will not be able to bed down within 10 feet of the entrance of a building, parking lot or loading dock. The policy will remain in effect until Los Angeles builds 1,250 units of low-cost housing with services for homeless people, with half of the units in and around the downtown area.

The settlement won't solve the problem of homelessness in LA, and the city's belief that the units will be completed in three years, with half the cost to come from nonprofit organizations and developers, will likely prove to be unduly optimistic. It is at least a productive step, particularly if the police honor the settlement's promise to stop harassing homeless people who just want to get a few hours of sleep.

Similar unwarranted arrests of the homeless in New York City are discussed here and here.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has sued Blackwater on behalf of an injured survivor and three families of men killed when Blackwater contractors allegedly opened fire on innocent Iraqis in Nisoor Square in Baghdad on Sept. 16. The case is Estate of Himoud Saed Atban, et al. v. Blackwater USA, et al. (C.A. No. 07-1831.) A copy of the complaint is here(pdf).

Filed in Washington, D.C. federal court by Talib Mutlaq Deewan and the estates of the deceased men – Himoud Saed Atban, Usama Fadhil Abbass, and Oday Ismail Ibraheem – the lawsuit alleges that Blackwater and its affiliated companies violated U.S. law and “created and fostered a culture of lawlessness amongst its employees, encouraging them to act in the company’s financial interests at the expense of innocent human life.”

The complaint alleges that Blackwater violated the federal Alien Tort Statute in committing extrajudicial killing and war crimes, and that Blackwater should be liable for claims of assault and battery, wrongful death, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, training and supervision.

Both compensatory and punitive damages are being sought.

As always, I speak only for me.

"We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow," Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting activists for their "passion," Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders."

It captures virtually no attention from the Left blogs. Instead we get this:

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lawyered up. His lawyer is George Terwilliger, one of the top contenders named as a replacement for Gonzales. Terwilliger provided legal advice to Bush in the 2000 election recount case and served as Deputy AG under Bush I.

Newsweek reports Gonzales' chief concern is DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine's investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings, the Ashcroft hospital visit over the NSA warrantless wiretapping program and whether Gonzales lied to Congress in his testimony about either or both.

One former administration official close to Gonzales’s team (who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity in talking about an ongoing probe) said the former attorney general is concerned that Fine may end up making a criminal referral to the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department—or even seek the appointment of a special counsel to determine if Gonzales made false statements to Congress.

More...

The House Judiciary Committee today passed the RESTORE Act, the Democrats' answer to August's FISA rewrite. There were three amendments that passed as well.

• Jackson-Lee (TX): An amendment to clarify the bill's language and prevent "reverse targeting" by requiring the Administration to obtain a regular FISA warrant whenever a “significant purpose of an acquisition is to acquire the communications of a specific person reasonably believed to be located in the United States” rather than waiting until said person formally becomes a target.

• Nadler (NY): An amendment to improve court oversight over the government’s compliance with the FISA Court’s orders by requiring the court to assess compliance with its orders as opposed to merely authorizing it to do so and by removing limitations on its review.

More....

Twenty Texas lawyers have filed a formal judicial complaint against Presiding Judge Sharon Keller for closing the courthouse at 5:00 pm the day of a scheduled execution. (Background here.)

The complaint to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct says Keller improperly cut off appeals that led to the execution of Michael Richard on Sept. 25 despite the fact the U.S. Supreme Court earlier in the day had accepted a case on the propriety of lethal injection, which had direct implications for Richard's execution.

"Judge Keller's actions denied Michael Richard two constitutional rights, access to the courts and due process, which led to his execution," the complaint states. "Her actions also brought the integrity of the Texas judiciary and of her court into disrepute and was a source of scandal to the citizens of the state."

Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project which is representing the lawyers, says:

Keller's actions were "morally callous, shocking and unconscionable for an appellate judge."

I've missed a few big stories making the rounds of the blogosphere today, so here's a place for you to discuss them, or anything else that's on your mind.

• The S-Chip debate and blogospheric dust-up over the Frost Family. If you're new to the story, check out this New York Times and this Baltimore Sun article. Then read Ezra Klein here and here.

• Christy at Firedoglake on FISA News and Obfuscations

And stories not making the rounds:

• Qwest former CEO Joe Nacchio filed his appeal brief today in his bid to overturn his insider trading conviction. I've uploaded it here (pdf) and am about to read it before heading to Boulder for the rest of the day.

• Real Lawyers Have Blogs has an interview with me on lawyering and blogging and the future direction of TalkLeft should a Democrat be elected in 2008.

Update: TPM has the transcript.

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Kevin Drum is angry over Hillary's comments on torture. I'm not. Hillary was very clear she opposed torture last year.

From her comments then:

The rule of law cannot be compromised. We must stand for the rule of law before the world, especially when we are under stress and under threat. We must show that we uphold our most profound values.

The bill before us allows the admission into evidence of statements derived through cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation. That sets a dangerous precedent that will endanger our own men and women in uniform overseas. Will our enemies be less likely to surrender? Will informants be less likely to come forward? Will our soldiers be more likely to face torture if captured? Will the information we obtain be less reliable? These are the questions we should be asking. And based on what we know about warfare from listening to those who have fought for our country, the answers do not support this bill. As Lieutenant John F. Kimmons, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence said, "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive interrogation practices."

More...

Update: The GAO report is here (pdf). Committee Chairman Miller's opening statement at today's hearing is here.

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The GAO has completed its report on abuse at teen "boot camps." It's not a pretty picture.

The first federal inquiry into boot camps and wilderness programs for troubled teens cataloged 1,619 incidents of abuse in 33 states in 2005, a congressional investigation out today reveals.

The study, by the Government Accountability Office, also looked at a sample of 10 deaths since 1990 and found untrained staff, inadequate food or reckless operations were factors. In half of those cases, the teens died of dehydration or heat exhaustion, the GAO says.

A few of the problems: A lack of regulations for the programs and no central clearinghouse for reporting abuse complaints. A Congressional hearing on "Cases of Child Neglect and Abuse at Private Residential Treatment Facilities" is being held this morning by the House Committee on Education and Labor.

More...

I think this lawsuit is over the top.

A one year old falls in the family pool. The family calls 911.

The child, Joey Cosmillo, fell into the family pool in January. He was resuscitated but suffered brain damage and can't walk, talk or swallow. He lives in a nursing home and eats and breathes through tubes.

A cop responds to the 911 call and slips and falls due to a puddle of water inside the home.

Police Sgt. Andrea Eichhorn alleges the boy's family left a puddle of water on the floor, causing her fall during the rescue effort. She broke her knee and missed two months of work.

Eichhorn's attorney, David Heil, said she now has persistent knee pain and will likely develop arthritis. He said city benefits paid by workers' compensation and some disability checks helped with medical bills, but it wasn't enough.

More...

Actor Kiefer Sutherland has pleaded "no contest" to his latest D.U.I. arrest and will likely serve 48 days in jail. It's his 4th alcohol-related driving offense.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office, as part of a plea deal with Sutherland, recommended that he be sentenced to 48 days in jail. The sentence would reflect 30 days for the misdemeanor charge and 18 days for violating probation on a separate 2004 DUI case.

But Sutherland could be sentenced to as much as a year if the judge who took over the case Tuesday, Stuart M. Rice, rejects the plea deal.....Under the plea deal, a related misdemeanor charge, driving under the influence, was dropped.

The story of his latest arrest is here.

The problem with liberal pundits is that they are capable of being overtaken by herd mentalities just like their conservative colleagues. On Iraq, the majority of liberal pundits have bought into the the patently false notion that the Congress has done "everything it can" to end the war while at the same time deciding Hillary Clinton is not pure on Iraq, notwithstanding the facts. Take Harold Meyerson for instance:

. . . Congressional Democrats have honorably tried and failed to scale back the war; the Senate's requirement of a 60-vote supermajority to alter policy requires supermajority support from the public for an altered Senate.

This is simply false. Meyerson can not be ignorant of the fact that no bill need be passed to end the war. That in fact, FUNDING the war requires passage of a bill and not funding does not. Meyerson gives the Congress a free pass while taking shots at Hillary Clinton: