Does anyone feel like blogging today? I need to attend to other things, so I hope readers will take over.

Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty today in Florida.

The plea agreement calls for a maximum sentence of just over seven years, but that sentence could be reduced if Abramoff cooperates fully and would run simultaneously with whatever sentence is imposed in the Washington corruption case. The remaining four counts in the Florida indictment will be dismissed.

Other big Abramoff news today is that the Bush reelection campaign is turning over $6,000 it took from Abramoff to charity.

Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign, earning the honorary title "pioneer" from the campaign. But the campaign is giving up only $6,000 directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes that he worked to win influence for in Washington. The money is being donated to the American Heart Association.

Also giving up money received from Abramoff: Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt:

The new law blog at the Wall St. Journal reported Monday that Ana Marie Cox will be leaving Wonkette and replaced by David Lat, the male prosecutor who authored Underneath Their Robes pretending to be a female named Article Three Groupie. Lat has left his job with the U.S. Attorney's office in Newark to write Wonkette.

As I wrote here, count me as underwhelmed. The few times I read Underneath Their Robes, Lat was praising conservative judges to the hilt. His favorite word was "hottie." I'll try to give him a chance, but if he turns Wonkette into a praise machine for conservatives, I'm done.

Ana Marie confirms the arrangement today in the Washington Post. I'll miss her voice in the blogosphere. Good luck to Ana Marie, I hope your new book Dog Days, is a great seller.

President Bush held a meeting yesterday with prosecutors, complaining that Congress was not getting behind the renewal of the Patriot Act. Prosecutors did their best to rally behind him.

Thankfully, there are Senators like Russ Feingold who are not yielding:

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Bush should spend more time negotiating about the Patriot Act with Democrats and others on Capitol Hill and less on "staged meetings with hand-picked participants" at the White House.

"Contrary to the president's misleading comments, nobody wants to see the Patriot Act expire," Feingold said Tuesday. "We want commonsense changes to the act that would give the government the power to combat terrorism while protecting the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens.

The New York Observer has an article today about white collar prosecutors leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York for the other side. The article, while telling and factual, draws the outline of the real picture, but being a news as opposed to an opinion piece, doesn't explain the dots. I will.

U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S. Attorneys leave the office and get picked up by the other side for one reason: the money. The white-shoe firms that hire them believe, justifiably so, they will be a huge draw to the increasing number of white collar defendants. But, it's a promise without substance. Once they leave the Department of Justice, they have no more clout than a lawyer who has never earned a dollar working there. Yet, that's not the real problem.

The real problem is most of these former high-level prosecutors can't make the mental shift. They don't have it in them. They thought they were doing G-d's work for the prosecution and feel more than a tad sleezy about working for the other side. You can read my rant about who is really doing G-d's work here and here where I take Law & Order chief Dick Wolf to task.

The truth is, most prosecutors can never be true defense lawyers. They don't have it in them to empathize with their clients. In the Observer article, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, being heralded in the media and the blogosphere for objecting to Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance program, gives a quote I couldn't even make up to illustrate the point:

Update: What a travesty. Contrary to media reports that 12 of the 13 trapped miners had been found alive, it now turns out only one miner has been saved.

Grief and anger replaced jubilation early Wednesday as mine officials announced that, despite earlier reports, only one of 13 trapped miners had survived a West Virginia mining accident. ate Tuesday, word spread among family members that 12 miners had been found alive at the Sago Mine. Celebrations erupted as church bells rang out.

Hours later, however, some miners' loved ones -- some angry, others silently dejected -- began leaving the community church that had been their sanctuary since the ordeal began Monday morning. What they had to say was unbelievable in light of the earlier news of a "miracle" in the mine.

The few who would talk to the gathered media said mining officials had told them only one of the miners had survived. Mining company officials then confirmed it at a news conference.

How could this have happened?

CNN reports receiving an email from Jack Abramoff's attorney, Neal Sonnett, stating that Abramoff will plead to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud tomorrow in Miami, while other charges would be dropped as part of the plea deal.

These are five year counts. Assuming he pleads to two counts,as reported here, the maximum he could get is ten years. Because he is cooperating, he will get less. As I analyze here, in D.C., the sentence could be as little as four to five years. The same is probably true of the Florida sentence. With the sentences to run concurrently, Abramoff did very well. Good work by Neal and Abbe Lowell.

The Washington Post recaps the Florida Indictment here.

On a related note, Jane and Digby are very skeptical of Chief of DOJ's Criminal Division Alice Fisher's ability to be impartial in the investigation of congressional wrongdoers that results from Abramoff's cooperation. As I reported here, Bush snuck Fisher in as a recess appointment after Senators had blocked her confirmation. At the time, The Houston Chronicle reported:

Texas DA Ronnie Earle, who is prosecuting Tom DeLay, has subpoenaed a multitude of documents in the Abramoff investigation.

In the Texas case, Earle sought records from Abramoff's former employers, legal firms Greenberg Traurig LLP and Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, LLP. He also subpoenaed records from a lawyer for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, a former Abramoff client, and from a representative for the Barona Band of Mission Indians, a California tribe.

DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin said Earle "goes where the fish bite." "Ronnie Earle is an opportunist," DeGuerin said. "He issues subpoenas to try to make a connection between his case and the latest scandal, whatever it happens to be. The Abramoff thing is the latest he's doing. It has nothing to do with the case in Texas. Nothing. Zip."

Here's what Earle is seeking:

Update: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has refused to hold a private clemency meeting for Allen. Last week he refused to hold a public meeting. Things don't look good.

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Clarence Ray Allen is the next prisoner set for execution in California -- on January 17.

He is still recuperating from a major heart attack in September that [his lawyers] maintain requires surgery. Diabetes has damaged other organs and left him legally blind and confined to a wheelchair. His lawyers also argue that San Quentin's inadequate medical care, the subject of a federal lawsuit, has contributed to his condition.

Allen has received support from former San Quentin warden Daniel Vasquez, who visited the inmate several weeks ago and told Schwarzenegger in a letter that executing him would be ``shameful.'' Former California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin, who wrote a 1986 ruling upholding Allen's death sentence, also urged the governor to grant clemency, saying the execution would ``violate societal standards of decency.''

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will decide whether to rant Allen clemency. Most see it as a longshot. I'll be debating the case tonight and advocating clemency on ABC radio in Los Angeles at 7pm PT, you can listen online here.

It's an issue that is going to rise again and again as death row's population becomes grayer.

by TChris

In April 2004, TalkLeft pointed to evidence that a New York homicide detective used deceit to obtain a confession from a 17-year-old kid, Martin Tankleff, who was convicted of murdering his parents despite the lack of significant evidence against him beyond the confession that Tankleff promptly repudiated. This follow-up story in June 2004 discussed new evidence that implicated another individual in the killing.

In the last year-and-a-half, Tankleff’s lawyers have presented a compelling case that Tankleff is innocent. At the very least, it should now be apparent that there is substantial doubt about Tankleff’s guilt.

Mr. Tankleff's lawyers make these claims: a botched initial investigation produced a false confession, new evidence identifies the real killers, the police detective in the case lied about his ties to one of the killers, the district attorney has connections to the killers, and prosecutors ignored evidence, coerced defense witnesses and shielded the real culprits.

Objective observers recognize that Tankleff doesn’t belong in prison, given the newly-developed evidence.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Medical marijuana was approved in Rhode Island today when the legislature overrode Governor Carcieri's veto, as reported this afternoon on NYTimes.com and the Providence Journal. The bill is here in .pdf format.

Rhode Island becomes the eleventh state to legalize medical marijuana, according to a NORML e-mail:

Rhode Island joins Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington State in protecting sick and dying patients who find relief in medical marijuana.

Only three states have done it through the legislature. The other states have done it by initiative petition.

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr has a new column in Time Magazine on how Bush's warrantless NSA surveillance program damages the U.S.

Let's focus briefly on what the President has done here. Exactly like Nixon before him, Bush has ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct electronic snooping on communications of various people, including U.S. citizens. That action is unequivocally contrary to the express and implied requirements of federal law that such surveillance of U.S. persons inside the U.S. (regardless of whether their communications are going abroad) must be preceded by a court order.