Thanks to all the TalkLeft readers who voted for us in the opening round of the Koufax Awards for liberal bloggers. We've made it to the finals in the "best single issues blog" category once again. The polls just opened and here is the list of finalists.

TalkLeft has won this award the past three years, but this year will be a lot harder, especially since they've increased the number of finalists from 8 to 10 and there's a professionally sponsored blog in our category.

If you'd like to vote for us, you can vote here by scrolling down to the end of the comments section, or you can e-mail your vote directly to Wampum by clicking here and hitting your send button.

Be sure to check out all the categories. You won't find a group of finer liberal blogs anywhere. Your support in this final round of voting is greatly appreciated.

Via Sentencing Law and Policy, the 277 page final report of the U.S. Sentencing Commission on the impact of the Supreme Court decision in Booker v. U.S. which made the guidelines advisory rather than mandatory is now available free online. (pdf) Every federal criminal defense lawyer will want a copy.

Republicans in Congress have been toying with the idea of making all sentences mandatory minimums to avoid having judges issue sentences below the guidelines. Hopefully, this report will show that's not necessary.

The majority of federal cases continue to be sentenced in conformance with the sentencing guidelines. National data show that when within-range sentences and government-sponsored, below-range sentences are combined, the rate of sentencing in conformance with the sentencing guidelines is 85.9 percent. This conformance rate remained stable throughout the year that followed Booker.

....The severity of sentences imposed has not changed substantially across time. The average sentence length after Booker has increased.

If the cart ain't broke, don't fix it.

Gregory Wallis left a Texas jail Monday after serving 18 years for an attempted rape and burglary he didn't commit.

"You should not be incarcerated - not a moment longer," District Judge John Creuzot said before granting him a personal recognizance bond while his attorneys pursue a legal process that would have him officially declared innocent and pardoned.

"I don't know how to apologize," said Judge Creuzot, who was not involved in the first trial. "I don't know where to start, but I'll start with me and 'I'm sorry.' "

The cause of the conviction: erroneous eyewitness identification.

"I don't know how she picked me," he said. "I was sitting at home, and they came and arrested me. The next thing I know, I'm standing trial."

Prison officials in California are uneasy, as they embark on a program to desegregate the states' prisons to comply with a Supreme Court decision.

California's prison population is combustible, divided roughly evenly among three groups: 38% of inmates are Hispanic, 29% are black and 27% white. Recent race-related prison violence in Southern California has focused concerns about thrusting inmates together in biracial cells. For more than a month now, clashes of black and Latino prisoners have gripped Los Angeles county jails, resulting in two deaths and more than 100 injuries.

Big Media Ezra has an excellent take on Al Gore in the new American Prospect.

The smartest thing Gore may have done is align himself with MoveOn and Howard Dean...he could reap mega-millions from the netroots if he decides to run. Hillary has the big money sewn up, but liberals don't appreciate her born-again centrism or support for war.

Gore has given no indication he wants to run. Part of me hopes he does. He's got more passion than he did six years ago. He seems more liberal. He's loosened up and expresses himself better. I think he can rally the liberal troops and that a lot of people may believe because he got robbed in 2000, it's his due.

And he'd bring his social security lockbox with him to the White House. I miss that lockbox.

FBI Agent Greg Samit turned the tables on the Government at the Moussaoui trial today during his cross-examination by Moussaoui's lawyers.

The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks.

FBI agent Harry Samit of Minneapolis originally testified as a government witness, on March 9, but his daylong cross examination by defense attorney Edward MacMahon was the strongest moment so far for the court-appointed lawyers defending Moussaoui.

Samit testified he believed Moussaoui was a terrorist but no one would allow him to get a search warrant.

Last month Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux, who along with his son Joshua, represents two detainees at Guantanamo, released a ground-breaking report (pdf) that used data supplied by the Defense Department to determine how the DOD decided which detainees should be designated as enemy-combatants. It found:

One third of the detainees were found to be enemy combatants based upon their nexus to an organization allegedly linked to al Qaeda and/or the Taliban. The Department of Defense, for the purpose of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) proceedings, concluded that these organizations were terrorist organizations and concluded that detainees' nexus to those organizations, no matter how slight, was sufficient to hold the detainees indefinitely as "enemy combatants."

Today, Professor Denbaux and Joshua Denbeaux release a second, equally revealing report (pdf), again using the Government's own data, showing major discrepancies between the State Department, Homeland Security and Department of Defense lists of designated terrorist organizations. They say the discrepancies should make us wonder whether these agencies are capable of ensuring our safety.

by TChris

An op-ed in today's NY Times frets about two cases before the Supreme Court that ask whether a 911 call should be admitted into evidence to prove a criminal charge when the caller doesn't testify as a witness. The writers worry that domestic abusers go unpunished when their victims refuse to testify, and argue that 911 calls are the only evidence in those cases that can "bring domestic abusers to justice."

The unstated assumption in the op-ed, of course, is that 911 callers are always victims who call to report an actual crime. This is nonsense. Some 911 calls are pranks. Some 911 calls are made by unharmed but bitter individuals who want to make trouble for spouses or roommates. Some 911 calls are made in anger, and the accusations that are voiced are exaggerated. Some 911 calls are made by people who are drunk or drug-influenced or mentally ill. Assuming, as does the op-ed, that 911 calls are inherently "reliable evidence" is absurd.

Bump and Update: This is big news today. See Time Magazine :

Because the incident is officially under investigation, members of the Marine unit that was in Haditha on Nov. 19 are not allowed to speak with reporters. But the military's own reconstruction of events and the accounts of town residents interviewed by Time--including six whose family members were killed that day--paint a picture of a devastatingly violent response by a group of U.S. troops who had lost one of their own to a deadly insurgent attack and believed they were under fire. Time obtained a videotape that purports to show the aftermath of the Marines' assault and provides graphic documentation of its human toll. What happened in Haditha is a reminder of the horrors faced by civilians caught in the middle of war--and what war can do to the people who fight it.

*****
Original Post 3/16/06

On November 19, 2005, one marine and 15 Iraqis were killed after an explosive device detonated in Haditha, about 140 miles north of Baghdad. Today, defense officials said the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service which has jurisdiction over Marine malfeasance has launched an investigation into the deaths.

Despite the Court's ruling allowing the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui to proceed, minus the witnesses tainted by Carla J. Martin, the prosecutor still has an uphill battle in trying to prove that Zacarias contributed to or caused the death of any of the 9/11 victims. The Washington Post has a great editorial, Another Blown Case, on this and other federal terrorism trials to date. Some snippets:

This case nevertheless joins a line of big terrorism prosecutions marred by government misconduct, overzealousness, hyping of charges or just plain ineffectiveness.

• A conviction in Detroit had to be set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct. The government brought spectacular charges against accused Islamic Jihad activist Sami al-Arian, only to see a jury reject many of them -- and convict on none -- after a lengthy trial.

• Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft announced the arrest of Jose Padilla with great fanfare as the foiling of a plot to detonate a radiological "dirty" bomb; after holding him for years as an enemy combatant, the government indicted him for far lesser matters.

• Mohamed Qahtani, the Guantanamo Bay inmate the government has labeled the 20th hijacker -- when it wasn't busy making the same claim about Mr. Moussaoui -- was subjected to such abusive interrogation that he probably cannot face trial at all.

Knights Ridder is reporting that Iraqi police and eyewitness reports say U.S. soldiers killed 11 Iraqi civilians during a raid, after herding them into a room. Among those allegedly killed were a 75 year old woman and a six month old infant. The raid was the result of information that an al-Qaeda member was at the house.

The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers' animals and blew up the house, the document said.

Neighbors confirmed there was an al-Qaeda member visiting at the house that was raided. The house belonged to a school teacher and family member of the al-Qaeda member. The teacher was among those killed, while the al Qaeda member survived and was arrested.

Testimony resumes in Zacarias Moussaoui's death penalty trial this morning. Late Friday, the Defense filed a motion (pdf) seeking to have TSA attorney Carla J. Martin brought into court for questioning on her actions. She now has counsel, who has advised the court that she does have matters to bring to the attention of the Court. In a cover letter to prosecutors accompanying the motion, the Defense says:

The purpose of this Motion is to attempt to complete the record as Mr. Howard has publicly indicated that Ms. Martin did not act alone and that she is willing to tell the complete story regarding her conduct in this matter.

The Judge could order Martin to testify Monday, or she could delay it to the end of the trial. I suspect she will delay it.

CNN's background here; LA Times is here.