Justice Sam Alito has chosen his five law clerks. The latest pick is not someone just out of law school, but a former Justice Department lawyer who was a close confidant of John Ashcroft:

Adam G. Ciongoli, 37, a senior vice president at Time Warner Inc., served as counselor to Ashcroft from 2001 to 2003. He attended Georgetown University Law Center, clerked for Alito at the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit from 1995 to 1996, and helped prepare the justice for his recent confirmation hearings.

It's a great day to show some appreciation for your favorite bloggers.

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Breaking:

The 78-year-old lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident has some birdshot lodged in his heart and he had a "minor heart attack," a hospital official said Tuesday.

Peter Banko, the hospital administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial, said Harry Whittington had the heart attack early Tuesday while being evaluated.

He said there was an irregularity in the heartbeat caused by a birdshot pellet, and doctors performed a cardiac catheterization. Whittington expressed a desire to leave the hospital, but Banko said he would probably stay for another week.

Scotty better lay off the jokes now.

In responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the National Security Archives and the ACLU, the Justice Department announced to the court that it could begin releasing the internal documents the Bush Administration used to justify its warrantless surveillance program by March 3.

Saddam arrived in court today and announced he and other defendants are on a hunger strike:

Observers say that the fitful proceedings appear to be edging closer to collapse after the judge struggled to maintain order during a raucous session when, for the second consecutive day, key prosecution witnesses refused to testify.

The proceedings lasted three hours and were adjourned. Here's a typical exchange:

The Government has filed its response brief in (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, docket 05-184). Oral Argument is Friday.

The Bush Administration told the Supreme Court on Monday that the Justices could put a stop to a foreign national's challenge to a military war crimes trial without worrying about any constitutional violations, since detainees like him have no rights under the Constitution. In the latest court filing by the Justice Department on the meaning of the new Detainee Treatment Act, the Justice Department argued: "The Constitution does not guarantee aliens held abroad a right to habeas corpus." As a result, it said, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national, "cannot claim the protection of our Constitution."

Shorter version: Detainees have no constitutional rights

Longer Version: The text of the Government's brief (pdf).

The 'Bali Nine' are learning their fate in Bali this week. Two have been sentenced to death. The rest, who were mules, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Renee Lawrence cooperated with authorites and prosecutors asked for her to receive a 20 year sentence. The judges sentenced her to life as well.

Boycott Bali. A country that sentences teens with no prior record to life in prison and young adults to death is a country with an inhumane system of justice that does not deserve to have tourists -- or your dollars.

Paul Hackett has dropped out of the Ohio U.S. Senate Race.

Mr. Hackett said Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada, the same party leaders who he said persuaded him last August to enter the Senate race, had pushed him to step aside so that Representative Sherrod Brown, a longtime member of Congress, could take on Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent.

Markos at Daily Kos explains what happened, and disputes it was a "betrayal."

From today's New York Times editorial on the Cheney-Whittington shooting:

The vice president appears to have behaved like a teenager who thinks that if he keeps quiet about the wreck, no one will notice that the family car is missing its right door. The administration's communications department has proved that its skills at actually communicating are so rusty it can't get a minor police-blotter story straight. And the White House, in trying to cover up the cover-up, has once again demonstrated that it would rather look inept than open.

Maybe there is a simple answer to this, but if so, it escapes me. Why does Kenedy County have a Sheriff and why is it a county?

More than 22 million people live in Texas. According to the Census Bureau, the population of Kenedy County is 407 persons. There are approximately 138 households. There are 4 non-farm privately owned businesses with employees.

But it has received 1,441 federal grants. Here are more statistics.

Did the ranchers buy themselves a county government? It sure looks like it.

Heretik reminds us that abusive torturers in the military continue to be let off the hook. The New York Times today has a four page article on why those responsible for the 2002 deaths of two detainees, Dilawar Mullah Habibullah, at Bagram prison in Afghanistan will not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. (Background here.]

In the modest Fort Bliss courtrooms where the trials have been held, the two Afghan victims have rarely been evoked, except in autopsy photographs. But much testimony focused on hardships faced by the soldiers themselves: the poor training they received, the tough conditions in which they operated, the vague rules with which they had to contend. As in other recent abuse cases, Army judges and jurors also seemed to consider the soldiers' guilt or innocence with an acute sense of the sacrifices they had made in serving overseas.

Let's rewrite that sentence in terms of a typical murder trial in the U.S. We would never see a non-prosecution based on that type of excuse. The biggest concession likely would be a sentence of life without parole instead of a death sentence. Even then, many Americans would be outraged at the "leniency" the defendants were shown:

In the modest courtroom where the trial was held, the two victims have rarely been evoked, except in autopsy photographs. But much testimony focused on hardships faced by the defendants themselves: the poor upbringing they received, their lack of role models, the childhood abuse with which they had to contend. As in other recent murder cases, judges and jurors also seemed to consider the defendants' guilt or innocence with an acute sense of the deprivation the defendants had suffered in their lives.

Why is acceptable to forego prosecuting murder when the killers are in the military but not in their own communities?

There's an update tonight on lawyer Harry Whittington's condition:

Millionaire lawyer Harry Whittington's condition continued to improve Monday after Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot him during a quail hunt, but doctors said he would probably live out his days with pellets inside him.

[Hospital Emergency Chief] Blanchard said that in cases like Whittington's, where the number of pellets lodged in the skin were "more than I can count on the fingers of my hand, but less than 100," it was better to leave them there than to try to extract them. "In all likelihood, he will continue the rest of his long life and his longevity with those pellets remaining in place," Blanchard said.

Another update on the "miscommunication" over the request to interview Cheney on Saturday night: