Death sentences are at their lowest level in decades.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a group based in Washington, reported that the number of death sentences, which had remained at about 300 a year in the 1990s, began to drop steadily in 1999 and has declined almost 60 percent since then.

At the Justice Department, the Bureau of Statistics reported last week that there were 128 death sentences in 2005, down from 138 the year before. While the department study does not include an estimate for 2006, the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes the death penalty and tracks cases closely, says the number for this year will be about 114.

Why the drop?

Update: The accuser is not due until February. Paternity tests have been ordered at the request of the defense. Nifong says he has no reason to believe any of the players are the father.

[Added: The following appears to be incorrect]

The accuser in the Duke Lacrosse alleged rape case gave birth on Thursday.

The 29-year-old gave birth nine months after she alleges she was raped by three Duke University lacrosse players at a March 13 team party.

Added: The following still seems valid:

....A defense attorney tells WRAL that a test taken at the hospital showed that she was not pregnant at the time of the party and that she was given emergency contraception commonly referred to as the morning-after pill.

While no semen from any of those accused as found in her body, male DNA from multiple other sources was.

In other Duke case news, the defense filed a great motion to suppress the accuser's eyewitness identification of the players today. It's 46 pages and available here.

There are more internal inconsistencies in this case than in any other rape case I can remember reading about. A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.

There's a lot of discussion about today's developments going on at the TalkLeft Duke Forums.

Here we go again. Threats of new al-Qaeda attacks are in the air, courtesy of the FBI.

Radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, 68, spat up blood on December 6 and was rushed to a hospital, the FBI notice said. He had a small tear in his esophagus and was treated with a "needed transfusion to replace lost blood," said the FBI bulletin to staffers. Medical personnel then discovered the cleric had a tumor on his liver, the FBI said.

The FBI has put out a bulletin raising fears of terror attacks if the Sheik dies in jail.

Abdel-Rahman, who is serving life in a U.S. prison, has called for attacks if he dies in jail. Law enforcement sources said there is no intelligence to suggest there are any attacks being planned.

The Sheik was returned to jail three days ago.

Of course he's going to die in prison. That's what happens to inmates with life sentences. It's just a question of when. Why is there a terror bulletin going out if there is no intelligence to support it.

According to the bulletin:

Glenn Greenwald and Scott Lemieux, in their analyses of Judge Robertson's decision in Hamdan, seem to me to miss a glaring flaw in the opinion. Robertson's reasoning on why Hamdan does not have a constitutional right to seek the Great Writ is flawed in its focus. It accepts that an allegation by the executive that a detainee is an enemy alien is sufficient to strip a person of his constitutional right to seek habeas relief. Lemieux writes:

Under the circumstances, the decision is actually about as good an outcome for opponents of arbitrary detentions as could be expected. Robertson held that Congress has not suspended the writ of habeas corpus for American citizens--it lacks the power to suspend the writ because there is not an ongoing "rebellion or invasion."

Actually, I think that is not so. Judge Robertson's reasoning actually puts aliens at much greater risk of lacking habeas rights than they would otherwise have been. I'll explain why I think so on the flip.

The 2007 Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning.

I haven't seen Babel or several of the films, but I did like Martin Scorcese's The Departed a lot and am glad to see Leonardo DiCaprio get a best actor's nod for it. How strange that he's running against himself -- he's also up for the best actor award for Blood Diamond, another film I am anxiously awaiting.

The Departed's nomination for best picture seems like a stretch though -- and I would have liked am glad to see Jack Nicholson get a nomination for it.

As for the tv nominations, I hope Grey's Anatomy wins them all. I am seriously addicted to the show and every one of its characters.

I have an op-ed today on Tuesday's immigration raids in the Washington Examiner.

I cannot accept a government that rounds people up on buses and takes them to undisclosed locations. Who is a winner here? With the exception of companies like Halliburton with federal contracts to build detention centers, I can’t think of any.

Update: Pachacutec at Firedoglake writes more about what will happen to the children of those arrested.

Update: the oped is currently #38 of 14,864 articles. I hope you all read it so it gets bumped into the top ten. The Examiner is viewed as a conservative paper, so this is a chance to speak to those not in the choir.

The Drug Law Blog has them and some are doozies. Part 2 is here. One of my favorites:

The United States Gets Tough on Methamphetamine By Locking Up All Its Cold Medicine, Forcing Tweakers To Import Speed From Mexico Instead and Messing Up the Formula For Nyquil

Another:

Scalia Writes Hudson v. Michigan, Breaks Fourth Amendment Supression Doctrine Into Little Tiny Crumbs of Dust.

Criminal defense lawyers aren't thrilled when their clients decide to contact the media on their own. But that's what Miami 7 terror suspect Narseal Batiste has done. In a 25 page letter, he asserts his innocence and laments a frame-up.

"I want you to know that I never had any intentions of doing a terrorist act," Batiste now says in his letter. "My group and I never had reason to harm anyone."

Batiste writes the FBI put drugs in food he and co-defendants Patrick Abraham were served by the FBI informant the night a surveillance tape was shot, on which Batiste talks about blowing up the Sears Tower. He wrote that he’s simply telling the informant what he wanted to hear, just so he could get money from him for their church.

"That's why you see me playing with tissue boxes talking about blowing up the Sears Tower. I made it up right then and there," he wrote.

Background here.

[hat tip SD Florida Blog]

Atrios points out how Lieberman lied again:

In July he said:

So I am confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops, and by the end of the next year more than half of the troops who are there now will be home.

Lieberman, visiting Iraq today with Republicans McCain, Graham and Collins, reportedly said today:

"We need more, not less, troops," Lieberman said.

There really is no less principled person in politics today than Joe Lieberman.

It so happens I am not a big fan of Michael Crowley's work - his dismissiveness of the Netroots in particular - but Michael Crichton's attack is so below the belt that it is jaw dropping.

What a jerk.

More here.

Why did we fight so hard to gain a Democratic Congress in the last election? Why did we stress the importance of the D next to a candidate's name? This is why:

President Bush should expect tougher oversight of the war on terrorism and a closer look at his administration's policies on torture and other human rights issues, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday.

. . . Leahy said he would also deal with what he says are the administration's human rights abuses by creating a new subcommittee focused on legislation on such issues as torture and detainee treatment. Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois will chair the new panel, Leahy said.

. . . Leahy also talked tough about President Bush's ``signing statements,'' in which the president has laid out which parts of laws he has just signed that he will follow and which he might not.

. . . Leahy, who was chairman of the committee in 2001-2002, said the return of Democratic control would mean a period of ``restoration, repair and renewal'' after what he termed years of the Bush administration's virtually unchecked power to hunt for terrorists even within U.S. borders. ``This administration has been less and less willing to let us know what they are doing,'' Leahy said. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program and the government's secretive terrorism risk assessments of Americans traveling abroad merit a closer look by his panel, Leahy said.

The separation of powers. Checks and balances. The Founders were very smart.

Last week, Karl Rove gave a speech on foreign policy at the annual Churchill Dinner sponsored by Hillsdale College at the Mayflower Hotel.

Via Lexis.com (subscription only), which has a copy of his speech, in answer to a question about redistricting, which he criticized, he said:

....I say this as a former political consultant who liked competitive races when I was in the business. I won't be returning to the business.

The Evans and Novak Report says this means Rove is retiring from politics when Bush's term ends.