Law professor Ellen Podgor had a very thoughtful article, Throwing Away the Key, 116 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 279 (2007, about the need to rethink the draconian sentences being meted out to white collar criminals.

These modern changes in sentencing and parole law have caused the debate to shift: the question is no longer whether white-collar offenders should do less time than street offenders, but whether they should really be treated more harshly than international terrorists and violent criminals.

The sentences given to white-collar offenders seem oddly imbalanced when compared to those given to international terrorists and violent criminals. For example, eighty-year-old Adelphia founder John Rigas received a fifteen-year sentence, and his son Timothy Rigas, the CFO of the company, received a twenty-year sentence. The white-collar sentencing figures also seem out of line when compared with many state sentences for murder, rape, robbery, and burglary, crimes that find themselves federalized when serving as predicate acts of RICO.

Podgor uses Skilling, Milliken, Ebbers and others as examples, and concludes:

What a great headline for the Administration. One of the soldiers who raped an Iraqi girl and killed her and her family (background here) is sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Read the fine print. He's eligible for parole in ten years.

The soldier, Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, also was given a dishonorable discharge. Sergeant Cortez will be eligible for parole in 10 years under the terms of his plea agreement.

...In his plea agreement, he said he had conspired with three other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to rape a 14-year-old girl, who was then killed with her parents and a younger sister.

The case made Last Night in Little Rock recall My Lai. TChris said it's an example of why the U.S. will never win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

It's good that the soldier was held accountable. This was an atrocity. And it's not certain he will be paroled in ten years. But a life sentence, it is not. Yet, four people died, including a young girl who was gang-raped.

I'm not feeling sorry for Sgt. Cortez.

Many parents reasonably believe that appropriate methods of parental discipline should ordinarily be decided by parents, not by the government. And while there is widespread agreement that child abuse does not fall within the realm of appropriate discipline and should be criminalized, there is widespread disagreement whether spanking, without more, constitutes abuse.

A California legislator learned that lesson when she introduced a bill to criminalize the spanking of a child who hasn't reached the age of 4.

That proposal would have covered even a swat on the rear and made offenses punishable by up to a year in jail.

The bill found little support among other legislators, who reasonably believe that a quick paddling of an infant shouldn't subject a parent to a jail term.

The legislator's new proposal "would criminalize parental discipline involving a closed fist, belt, electrical cord, shoe or other objects." She denies that the new bill is a face-saving measure, but since California already has a variety of statutes criminalizing child abuse, it isn't clear that this one is really necessary.

Senate Republicans blocked a nonbinding resolution opposing the president's escalation of the war in Iraq. Senate Democrats have turned their attention to legislation that takes a more direct approach:

Key lawmakers, backed by party leaders, are drafting legislation that would effectively revoke the broad authority granted to the president in the days Saddam Hussein was in power, and leave U.S. troops with a limited mission as they prepare to withdraw.

Officials said Thursday the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled. One version would restrict American troops in Iraq to fighting al-Qaeda, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.

The legislation would probably suffer a death by filibuster, and if it passed, would certainly be vetoed. Keeping pressure on Republicans and the White House to change the course of the failed, costly, and unpopular war is nonetheless a worthy end in itself. Senate obstructionists who face reelection in 2008 will have difficulty explaining why they should keep their jobs.

The field of Democrats seeking the presidency in 2008 has been narrowed by one.

Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor, is pulling out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, news to which many American voters will respond “Who?” And that’s precisely the problem. Vilsack was getting very little traction, which means no buzz and not enough money.

Here are the first two notes sent by the jury in the Scooter Libby trial:

• Note 1

• Note 2

Via How Appealing:

From an opinion that a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued today, "The police could not have removed the drugs that Williams stashed near his genitals without making some 'intimate contact,' and we reject Williams's claim that such contact is per se unreasonable." According to the factual background section of the opinion, "The officer, who was wearing a latex glove, opened Williams's pants, reached inside Williams's underwear, and retrieved a large amount of crack and powder cocaine near Williams's genitals."

Via Raw Story, A psychiatrist testified today Jose Padilla has Stockholm Syndrome.

A pre-hearing synopsis is at the Miami Herald.

More than two years ago, the Boston police fired a pepper spray projectile into the eye of a college student during the celebration of a Red Sox victory. The student died. The incident convinced some police agencies to stop using the pellet gun as a crowd control device. Boston suspended its use of the weapon, and a 2005 commission report faulted the city for buying the pellet guns and for failing to train officers to use them safely.

This week, Boston finally found a responsible use for the pellet guns.

The department's 13 pellet guns, bought before the 2004 Democratic National Convention, will be melted down and recycled into sewer caps.

Bad news for the National Guard members who put their lives on hold to fight the president's war in Iraq: 14,000 of them are going back, joining the troop escalation.

National Guard officials told state commanders in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio last month that while a final decision had not been made, units from their states that had done previous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan could be designated to return to Iraq next year between January and June, the officials said.

The unit from Oklahoma, a combat brigade with one battalion currently in Afghanistan, had not been scheduled to go back to Iraq until 2010, and brigades from the other three states not until 2009. Each brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

Whether they'll be properly equipped is an open question.

Capt. Christopher Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said the state’s 39th Brigade Combat Team was 600 rifles short for its 3,500 soldiers and also lacked its full arsenal of mortars and howitzers.

Anti-abortion activists had hoped to use South Dakota's tough new abortion prohibition as a test case -- testing the positions of the Supreme Court's newest members, Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. The plan ran into a snag when South Dakota voters rejected the law.

Proponents of the strategy hoped that the state legislature would ignore the will of the voters and pass another ban, this one containing exceptions for rape, incest and life-threatening conditions. The Senate Affairs Commmittee today rejected the new bill by a vote of 8-1. The Committee deserves a shout out for declining to waste time and money by advancing unconstitutional legislation.

The war against drugs has often been a war against the truth. A lawsuit filed today challenges the federal government's unyielding claim that marijuana has no efficacious medical use.

The lawsuit, filed today in federal court in Oakland, comes a week after the release of a controlled, clinical University of California, San Francisco study showing HIV patients who smoked marijuana found relief from chronic foot pain.

"We are asking the courts to weigh in on the science ... and force the government to stop making false statements about medical cannabis," said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access.

The ASA argues that the administration is ignoring science, a charge that has become depressingly familiar. While the Bush years have been particularly hostile to science, no administration has been willing to authorize serious research into the medical benefits of marijuana.