As Judge Walton decides whether his order placing Scooter Libby on supervised release can stand in face of the commutation, I thought a primer on supervised release and on the specific conditions Judge Walton imposed on Libby (court order here, pdf) might be useful.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

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A warning for doctors:

“Be afraid.”

No matter what you have learned in medical school, if you are prescribing opioids in doses that seems high to narcotics agents and prosecutors, you are at risk of a trial. And once you enter the courtroom, anything can happen.

Federal prosecutors who aren't licensed to practice medicine are increasingly substituting their own judgment for that of doctors who, in the opinion of the Justice Department, are prescribing too many pain pills to their patients. John Tierney explains why physicians who take an aggressive approach to pain management should not

... feel safe until doctors’ prescribing practices are judged by state medical boards, as they were until the D.E.A. and federal prosecutors started using criminal courts to regulate medicine. The members of those state medical boards don’t always make the right judgment, but at least they know that there is more to their job than counting pills.

Here's Rudy Giuliani in 2001 on the pardon of Marc Rich:

MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI, New York: Well, I'm shocked that the President of the United States would pardon him. After all, he never paid a price. He got on an airplane, took all his records, and ran off to Zug, Switzerland, where he's remained a fugitive, and has made untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced, including many, many overtures and entreaties based on the use of influence.

Here's Giuliani now on the commutation of Scooter Libby:

"After evaluating the facts, the president came to a reasonable decision, and I believe the decision was correct," Giuliani said in a written statement Monday evening.

Did he forget that Scooter Libby hasn't paid a price yet? At least Marc Rich proceeded within the system and "made untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced." He even had Scooter Libby representing him in those endeavors.

It should be noted that Giuliani indicted Rich in 1983. Benji Sarlin at TPM's Election Central has more.

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So, Fred Thompson may have been a mole for the Nixon Whitehouse.

Howie Klein at Down With Tryanny has the details.

The Sundance Channel is airing Gimme Shelter tonight. In the clip above, Jagger is dressed up as Uncle Sam.

In December of 1969, four months after Woodstock, the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane gave a free concert in Northern California, east of Oakland at Altamont Speedway. About 300,000 people came, and the organizers put Hell's Angels in charge of security around the stage. Armed with pool cues and knifes, Angels spent the concert beating up spectators, killing at least one. The film intercuts performances, violence, Grace Slick and Mick Jagger's attempts to cool things down, close-ups of young listeners (dancing, drugged, or suffering Angel shock), and a look at the Stones later as they watch concert footage and reflect on what happened.

War, Children, is just a shot away.

Al Gore III, the son of Al and Tipper Gore, was busted in L.A. today for driving 100 miles per hour and drug possession.

He was taken into custody at 2:15 a.m. following a traffic stop:

A subsequent search yielded a small amount of marijuana, along with prescription drugs including Valium, Xanax, Vicodin and Adderall, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. There were no prescriptions found, he said.

Gore was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and booked into the Inmate Reception Center in Santa Ana, about 34 miles south of Los Angeles, on $20,000 bail, he said.

Gore is not a first-time arrestee:

He was arrested in 2003 for marijuana possession and in 2002 for suspected drunken-driving.

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There's a lot of buzz about Judge Walton's order (pdf) asking for briefs on whether Scooter Libby can be placed on supervised release since supervised release follows the service of a prison sentence and Libby didn't serve a prison sentence. [See,Scotus Blog, Sentencing Law and Policy, Big Tent Democrat and don't miss Christy at Firedoglake]

Howard Kieffer, who runs the excellent BOP Watch List-Serv, to which scores of criminal defense lawyers subscribe, has the response printed below.

Shorter version: The day Libby was booked is counted as a day in custody. He served (got credit) for his one day in prison and therefore can be put on two years of supervised release.

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Even when obligingly regurgitated, the White House can't get its story straight. Compare this:

Pardons are typically reviewed by the Justice Department and sent to the president for a final determination. But a former administration official said that in this case the White House had sent a message of “we’re not going through the usual pardon scrub, we’re going through this one ourselves.”

To this:

Before Mr. Bush spoke at Walter Reed, his press secretary, Tony Snow, fended off an unruly press corps, whose members demanded to know why Mr. Libby had received special treatment. Mr. Snow insisted that he had not, saying the case had been handled in a “routine manner.” “The president does not look upon this as granting a favor to anyone,” Mr. Snow said, “and to do that is to misconstrue the nature of the deliberations.”

There is something ironic in the lying being done to defend releasing a convicted perjurer from his sentence.

Given our President's stunning disregard for the rule of law this week, and that it's the Fourth of July, I'm wondering what thoughts you all have on patriotism and liberty and on how this Administration has driven a stake in the heart of both.

For opposing the war, we're called unpatriotic. Our civil liberties have been disregarded by everything from the NSA warrantless monitoring program to no-fly lists, the Real I.D. Act and federal immigration raids on workplaces.

Scooter Libby, convicted of lying and obstructing justice at a trial conducted openly and with full due process, who was sentenced in accordance with, not outside the law, has been given a get-out-of jail-free card based on cronyism at best and fear that if he talked, he'd sell out others in the corrupt administration, at worst.

So, what are you celebrating today? And if you haven't read it in a while, here's the Declaration of Independence.

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The New York Times reports the Scooter Libby commutation may just set off a debate about sentencing in the country.

I hope so. As outraged as I was Monday afternoon when I first heard the news, my anger just has continued to build.

Tuesday afternoon, I was discussing the commutation on Rachel Maddow's Air America radio show. I could hear my voice, filled with anger, rising in pitch as I spoke.

How did I get here? Just last month, when Libby was sentenced, I, too, thought the lower guideline range of 15 to 21 months would be adopted. I would not have been upset if the Judge had departed from the guidelines and imposed a split sentence of 5 months in prison and 5 months on home detention. I even opined that I thought Libby had met the legal test for an appeal bond.

So where is my outrage coming from? It has little to do with Libby and everything to do with Bush, special treatment and the federal sentencing system that applies to everyone else in America.

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A two minute AP video clip with Bush's statement defending Scooter Libby's prison sentence commutation and Joe Wilson and Hillary's reaction.

[Click on link, not the picture, then click "play".]

Via pontificator, this is priceless:

Section 3583 does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervissd release without first completing a term of incarceration. . . .

[fn 1] If either party believes that it would be helpful to seek clarification from the White House regarding the President's position on the proper interpretation of Section 3583 . . . they are encouraged to do so

Hahahahaha! BushCo, incompetent even in corruption. Hilarious!