In the wake of New York's passing a law last week allowing sex offenders to be held in civil confinement after their prison terms are up, the New York Times examines the dubious wisdom of such laws.

Here's a snippet:

only a small fraction of committed offenders have ever completed treatment to the point where they could be released free and clear. Leroy Hendricks, a convicted child molester in Kansas, finished his prison term 13 years ago, but he remains locked up at a cost to taxpayers in that state of $185,000 a year — more than eight times the cost of keeping someone in prison there.

Mr. Hendricks, who is 72 and unsuccessfully challenged his confinement in the Supreme Court, spends most days in a wheelchair or leaning on a cane, because of diabetes, circulation ailments and the effects of a stroke. He may not live long enough to “graduate” from treatment.

As the Times notes, very few will. This is a six page article that examines the flaws and mistaken assumptions in these laws.

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A few years ago, I frequently wrote about the trial of San Francisco marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal. In 2003, Sherry Colb at Findlaw had a good synopsis of the case.

First, Ed Rosenthal grew marijuana for sick and dying patients. Second, Rosenthal acted as an agent of Oakland, California's program to dispense marijuana to people whose doctors have prescribed it. Third, California's Proposition 215 expressly authorized the program.

At Rosenthal's trial, the defense sought to tell the jury these facts, but the judge ruled them inadmissible. As a result, Rosenthal was convicted by a jury whose members believed he was an ordinary marijuana grower.

The jurors were horrified to learn afterwards that Rosenthal had been a licensed marijuana dispenser.

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The New York Times reports on Colorado's plan to use prison inmates as farm laborers in place of immigrants.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

My objections to the program are over at 5280.com, where among other things I note that the L.A. Times is spot on in calling the proposal evidence that Colorado's strict anti-immigrant laws have backfired.

Beginning in 2010, documents obtained from Whitehall show that Britian plans to fingerprint all kids from age 11 up and store the prints in a secret database for immigration purposes.

The plans are outlined in a series of “restricted” documents circulating among officials in the Identity and Passport Service. They form part of the programme for the introduction of new biometric passports and ID cards.

Opposition politicians and privacy campaigners warn that the plans show ministers are turning Britain into a “surveillance society”.

Think it can't won't happen here?

Why? How about this?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has indicated he is too busy to answer letters from Democratic congressional leaders about his firing seven U.S. attorneys involved in probes of public corruption, though a lower-level Justice Department official rejected their proposals.

Contempt of Congress. Issue a formal subpoena to make it official.

Joe Klein sez:

A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

--believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.

--believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.

--believes that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of America’s fundamental imperialistic nature.

--tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan.

--doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.

--believes American society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).

--believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.

--believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

--believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

--believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.

--is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.

--dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.

--regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives. . .

For the record, I fail, as I do not believe any of that. Go ahead, take the Left Wing Extremist test.

If you enjoy holidays that are celebrated on a bar stool, mark March 9 on your calendar. It's the second annual Get Over It Day.

“Not getting into the college you wanted, losing a job - everybody’s got something to get over,” said [Jeff] Goldblatt, 29, who came up with the concept in 2005 while recovering from a difficult breakup. “Everybody’s got to say, it’s time to move on, get over it.”

It’s a make-your-own holiday in which participants devise their own, sometimes vindictive, traditions. A group of young women in New York last year burned photographs of their ex-boyfriends in a bonfire, inspiring Goldblatt to create an animated fire pit on the [holiday's] Web site. Complaints lodged in the pit range from the trivial (“I lost my favorite red stapler”) to the political (“the government is stupid and nonsensical”) and the tragic (“my father passed away”), with each injustice satisfyingly churned into the flames.

Update 3/4: "Rove 2", Dick Wadhams, was unanimously elected to lead the state's Republican party.

Presidential advisor and Republican strategist Karl Rove was in Colorado yesterday, urging Republians to choose Dick Wadhams as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. Here's what he had to say about the Republican loss in 2006:

During a "repaint the state red dinner," Rove said Republicans suffered a significant defeat in the November elections, but he said he takes a longer view of history and predicted voters will again turn to Republicans for leadership.

"We had a defeat. Can't dress up that pig. We pick ourselves up off the mat, we stand on principle and we get back in the fight," he told a cheering crowd of hundreds of supporters.

Wadhams took some lumps last year when he couldn't save his Virginia senatorial candidate George Allen from self-destruction:

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Denver and I need a break from the computer. If you are stuck inside due to weather, or just feel like being online, here's a space to chat.

You gotta love kids. They are so honest. Andrew Giuliani, now a senior at Duke, spoke to a New York Times reporter the other day who was curious about his and his sister's absence from the campaign trail:

In a telephone interview yesterday, Andrew, a sophomore and member of the golf team at Duke University, acknowledged having had difficulties with Ms. Nathan, and said that he and his father had recently tried to reconcile after not speaking “for a decent amount of time.”

“There’s obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife,” the younger Mr. Giuliani said. “And we’re trying to figure that out. But as of right now it’s not working as well as we would like.”

Does the thrice-married Giuliani think he's the teflon-man and all attacks on him will dissipate in honor of him being the 9/11 mayor? Surely, his 15 minutes of mayoral fame won't stretch that far.

More from Andrew, and then onto Caroline:

I'm still considering the jury note today on reasonable doubt. (You can view it here.)

We would like clarification of the term "reasonable doubt." Specifically, is it necessary for the Government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Where would a juror get the idea that the Government had to produce evidence that it was not humanly possible for Libby to have forgotten about an event?

One place is from this section of Ted Wells' closing argument. (From the transcript -- no link, sorry, but it is official.)

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed the lawsuit by wrongly kidnapped and detained (and allegedly tortured) Khaled El-Masri. The opinion is here.

The ACLU may appeal to the Supreme Court. In a statement today, the ACLU says:

Although El-Masri’s case has been discussed and investigated throughout the world, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that it could not be either discussed or reviewed in an American court because of the government’s invocation of the “state secrets” privilege.

“Regrettably, today’s decision allows CIA officials to disregard the law with impunity by making it virtually impossible to challenge their actions in court,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “With today’s ruling, the state secrets doctrine has become a shield that covers even the most blatant abuses of power.”

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