The Washingtonian reports that the reason Bush didn't nominate Ted Olson for the Supreme Court was his age: at 65, he's considered too old. Olson also is engaged to be married.

Some four years after his wife, author Barbara Olson, was killed on the hijacked American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon, former solicitor general Ted Olson is engaged. He will be married this fall to Lady Evelyn Booth, who has been his social companion since they met at the Kentucky Derby in 2002. A native of Louisville, Lady Booth was named for an aunt.

Olson left the solicitor general’s office last year and was considered a candidate to succeed William Rehnquist as chief justice before the job went to John Roberts.

Judge vetters saw Olson, 65, as too old, although many in his Norwegian family have lived into their nineties. His mother is going strong at 85. Olson still sports a thick shock of sandy Viking hair and zips around Great Falls in a silver Mercedes SL 600.

There was a big conference at Princeton Theological Seminary last week, at which religious leaders from multiple faiths gathered to assail torture.

More than 100 Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders and thinkers met this month at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey to try to take a more public and more vigorous lead in the debate on U.S. use of torture in the war on terrorism.

...The purpose of the January 13-15 Princeton conference was to galvanize religious opposition to U.S. torture policy and launch a national religious campaign against torture. "Nobody is standing up and saying they're for torture, but not many religious people are speaking the truth with love saying this is outrageous," said Father William Byron, research professor at Loyola College in Baltimore, who attended the conference. "We of faith communities all have a fundamental baseline commitment to the preservation and protection of human dignity, and [torture] is an assault on human dignity."

Sen. Bill Frist shows us again how to talk out of both sides of your mouth (via Firedoglake):

Frist, while giving a Senate tour to Republican activists last night:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told Republican Party activists on Friday night that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was the "worst nightmare of liberal Democrats."

Frist's spokesman afterwards:

Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said that Alito "is a thoughtful mainstream conservative jurist who is well respected by his peers, by Democrats and Republicans alike."

Karl Rove has been busy the past few months re-vamping the Republican's message so they can keep their hold on Congress. In a word, the message is fear. Fear, Rove thinks, will make the country believe:

• Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance on Americans is legal
• Bush's judicial picks will keep those terrorist detainees in their place and ensure our safety by curtailling our civil liberties
• The renewal of the Patriot Act will protect us against another terrorist attack

We're no closer to getting Osama. There hasn't been a terrorist attack in more than four years, and there's no evidence the Patriot Act or subway searches are the reason.

The Netherlands has introduced a new kind of high-tech prison that experts predict will spread further, and prisoner advocates are not complaining:

At a high-tech prison opening this week inmates wear electronic wristbands that track their every movement and guards monitor cells using emotion-recognition software. Authorities are convinced the jail in Lelystad -- quickly dubbed "the Big Brother Prison" by the local press -- represents the future of correctional facilities: cheap and efficient, without coddling criminals or violating their fundamental rights.

According to a local prisoners' rights group:

by TChris

If you want to be shocked or outraged, or just want to listen to one of the looniest rants you’ll ever hear on the radio (even if you regularly listen to Rush or O’Reilly) because you need to know that people like this are out there, give a listen to Shirley Phelps-Roper’s interview on Wisconsin Public Radio. Phelps-Roper bills herself as the attorney for the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, whose parishioners protest homosexuality by picketing at the funerals of soldiers who died in service to their country. Phelps-Rogers gets whackier as she goes along, ultimately (at about the 8 minute mark) explaining that she feels sorry for the parents of the fallen because they failed in their duty to their children and raised them for the devil by not smiting homosexuals from the Earth (or something to that effect).

Crazy lawyers who condemn the parents of dead soldiers are a disservice to the profession. She shouldn’t be licensed.

The Government and lawyers for Lewis "Scooter" Libby filed a discovery status report today with the court. Here are the items in contention (from the court filing):

6. It is the position of the defense, based on the government's written and oral responses to our requests, that significant disagreements exist between the parties with respect to the nature and scope of the government's obligations under Rule 16 and Brady. These disagreements include, but are not limited to, the following:

A. Whether information in the government's possession about reporters' knowledge concerning Valerie Wilson's employment by the CIA from sources other than Mr. Libby is material to the preparation of the defense. The defendant has already prepared and expects to file a motion to compel disclosure of such information on or before February 3, 2006.

by TChris

Kenneth Marsh received $756,900 from California’s Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board for the 21 years he spent in prison for a crime that never happened. The record award represents the state’s acknowledgement that Marsh is innocent, and a board member, San Bernardino County DA Michael Ramos, actually apologized to Marsh for the government's error. Unfortunately, the facts haven’t deterred Jay Coulter, the retired prosecutor who obtained the guilty verdict, from continuing to smear Marsh’s name.

Coulter … said Thursday he remains unconvinced that Marsh is innocent. Coulter said the evidence did not fit Marsh's version of what happened.

Marsh was convicted of beating his girlfriend’s child to death. He maintains that the toddler hit his head on a fireplace hearth after falling from a couch. During the trial, prosecution experts testified that the fall could not have killed the child. The compensation board concluded that new evidence supports Marsh’s version.

Here's an open thread to get your weekend rolling.

As for me, I just loved reading Diane Keaton's post on Huffpo about turning 60. I hope I have her attitude when I get there. From Annie Hall, Looking for Mr. Goodbar and Reds through Something's Gotta Give, she has always been one of my very favorite actresses.

And here's John Conyers on the Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance program (received by e-mail.)

Danny Glover has a three part series in the National Journal (available free) on the rise of political blogs and their influence. It really covers the whole spectrum, and I recommend reading all three parts including the interviews with Arianna and Henry Copeland of Blogads.

High-profile Allegheny county coroner Cyril Wecht has been indicted on 84 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and related offenses arising from his alleged use of government resources to benefit his private practice.

FBI agents searched his office, seizing computers and his private files last spring, and three of his employees resigned as the federal investigation proceeded.

Wecht... has said he is careful to not do private work on county time. He also has said he has never been questioned about the private consulting work he has done for the decades he has held a government job.

....Wecht, who is also an attorney, teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University. He did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.

Marty Lederman at Balkanization thinks it may be fruitless to get a special counsel appointed to investigate Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance program. But, he has another possible solution:

My friend David Barron has come up with the simple but ingenious idea that Congress should vote for a statute that would confer statutory standing on certain persons to file a cause of action in federal court seeking declaratory relief that the NSA program is unlawful -- say, for example, persons who have a reasonable basis for claiming that they are chilled by the spying program because their employment regularly requires them to make overseas calls in connection with academic or journalistic work related to the war on terrorism.

That way, the Supreme Court could resolve the question. Of course, the President could veto such a bill. But I think there'd be some chance of an override (see, e.g., the overwhelming majorities for the McCain Amendment); and, in any event, presumably such a veto would be politically dicey.

There's more at David Barron's blog, Law and Culture.