Josh Marshall posits that the retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist bodes well for Dems:

Perhaps another way to put this is that I think it would be much easier for President Bush to push through one hard-right nominee now and another next spring or next summer than it will be for him to push twice at once.

Personally, I think we're going to get two staunch conservatives either way. I think the best we can hope for is that the Dems will will mount a filibuster as to the most objectionable. In other words, one will be horrible and one not as bad. But I think both will be hard right.

It's just another reason why Kerry not winning the election was a disaster for the next generation. The freedoms and rights we have known in this country will not be there for our children. As a parent, I find that truly sad.

Say Hello to the National Journal's Hotline Blogmeter...previously available only by subsription. It's a great daily roundup of blog coverage. It also carries interviews with bloggers. Mine is here (scroll down.)

John Wesley Hall writes on TalkLeft as "Last Night in Little Rock."

A criminal defense lawyer from Little Rock, Arkansas, he has tried hundreds of jury trials, and argued hundreds of appeals, including two before the U.S. Supreme Court. The second of those cases was Wilson v. Arkansas, holding that the Fourth Amendment at common law required police to knock-and-announce before entry.

He is the author of three legal treatises:

• Search and Seizure (3d ed. 2000), which is supplemented daily at Fourth Amendment.com.
  
• Professional Responsibility in Criminal Defense Practice (3d ed. 2005), which includes this virtual appendix and supplement and
• Trial Handbook for Arkansas Lawyers (4th ed. 2004-05)

John is an active member of the Special Court for Sierre Leone, where he is representing a defendant charged with war crimes.

He is President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and listed in Best Lawyers in America for criminal defense. He is actively involved in promoting ethics and professionalism for the criminal defense bar.

E-mail John Wesley Hall.

Saddam's top lawyer has quit, charging that the American lawyers on the team, inluding Ramsey Clark, want to control the defense and "soft-pedal" America's role in the occupation of Iraq. [via Huffington Post.]

Saddam's legal team includes 1,500 volunteers and at least 22 lead lawyers who come from several countries, including the United States, France, Jordan, Iraq and Libya. No date has been set for the trial of Saddam, captured by U.S. troops in December 2003.

David Corn thinks he's figured it out. I think he's only partly right. Here's what I think now, and the steps I take to get there:

1. Fitzgerald said in court the investigation has run its course and only Cooper and Miller can move it forward. (Chicago Tribune, July 7)

Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, has said for months that his investigation has concluded except for the testimony of Miller and Cooper. On Wednesday, he told the court that with Miller's refusal to testify, "we are having this whole thing derailed by one person."

2. After Cooper got his call, the New York Times reports there was a conference between lawyers for Rove and Cooper and Fitzgerald.

Mr. Cooper's decision to drop his refusal to testify followed discussions on Wednesday morning among lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser, according to a person who has been officially briefed on the case. Mr. Fitzgerald was also involved in the discussions, the person said.

I think during the discussions they disclosed what Cooper's testimony would be and Fitzgerald agreed Cooper did not implicate Rove in a crime.

3. The issue is not who Miller and Cooper's sources are, but what Miller's source told her - which she never printed.

4. Floyd Abrams, Miller's attorney, said that he and Miller assume they want her testimony because of what someone else told the grand jury.

Asked why prosecutors sought Miller's testimony when she never wrote a story about Plame, Times attorney Floyd Abrams said, "We don't know, but most likely somebody testified to the grand jury that he or she had spoken to Judy."

5. Lewis Libby gave a waiver for others to speak to the grand jury. Cooper had more than one source. All reporters but Miller and Cooper accepted Libby's waiver.

Just got back from work and there are a bunch of emails from highly reliable organizations who say that Chief Justice Rehnquist will announce his retirement between 10 and 11:00 am Friday morning.

by TChris

As TalkLeft reported yesterday, there is reason to question whether a unit of the California National Guard was created to spy on U.S. citizens who disagree with their government's policies.

Under scrutiny is a California National Guard unit with a tongue-twisting name: the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program. It was established last year, and came to public attention after a recent story in the San Jose Mercury News. The Guard has described the unit as consisting of two members who monitor the military's classified e-mail system and seven others who help gauge terrorist threats to bridges, buildings and other structures.

There's nothing nefarious about monitoring military email or assessing threats, but there's more.

Investigators also are looking into the Guard's monitoring of a Mother's Day anti-war demonstration at the state Capitol that was organized by several peace groups. The activities were documented in e-mails originating in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office and made public by the newspaper. That monitoring was by a second unit, the Guard's Domestic Watch Center.

Engaging in peaceful protest is protected by the Constitution. The government should not chill the exercise of that right by spying on protestors.

Lawrence O'Donnell today says there is a good reason Karl Rove might be indicted over the Valerie Plame leak.

I’ll be surprised if all four of those elements of the crime line up perfectly for a Rove indictment. Surprised, not shocked. There is one very good reason to think they might. It is buried in one of the handful of federal court opinions that have come down in the last year ordering Matt Cooper and Judy Miller to testify or go to jail.

I think O'Donnell is relying on this judicial decision, as I did here. The quotes from the Judge that I found revealing are these:

Editor and Publisher reports that while the New York Times is reporting that it was Karl Rove that called Matthew Cooper and gave him an unconditional waiver to speak to the Grand Jury while the New York Times is reporting it was not.

According to The New York Times today, "Cooper's decision to drop his refusal to testify followed discussions on Wednesday morning among lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser, according to a person who has been officially briefed on the case."

But according to the Washington Post, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, told the newspaper Rove was not the source who called Cooper yesterday morning and personally waived the confidentiality agreement. "Karl has not asked anybody to treat him as a confidential source with regard to this story," Luskin said.

The Wapo quote, as I noted here last night, is contained here.

by TChris

By legislation or court decision, a handful of states have required the police to record interrogations of criminal suspects to improve the administration of the criminal justice system. Among other benefits, the practice prevents police interrogators from placing their own "spin" on a suspect's words (and from deliberately lying about the suspect's statement) while forestalling disputes in court about what the suspect actually said and whether the statement was voluntarily made. Illinois requires interrogations to be recorded in murder investigations when the questioning occurs in a police facility, but there are good reasons to extend the requirement to other cases, as well.

Children, in particular, are easily swayed to make false confessions. Recording police interviews of children is essential to guard against that harm. The Wisconsin Supreme Court today mandated that police interrogations of children must be recorded when feasible, and must always be recorded when they occur in a police facility. According to the court:

Experiences in Minnesota, Alaska, and hundreds of other jurisdictions that now voluntarily record demonstrate that the benefits of such practice greatly outweigh the costs, both real and perceived.

Robert Novak's new column says Chief Justice William Rehnquist will announce his retirement before the end of this week.

Bush is a stubborn man, who sounded like he might really nominate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the face of deep and broad opposition from the president's own political base.

Adding to the tension is word from court sources that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over. That would enable Bush to play this game: Name one justice no less conservative than Rehnquist, and name Gonzales, whose past record suggests he would replicate retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on abortion and possibly other social issues. Thus, the present ideological orientation of the court would be unchanged, which would suit the left just fine.

Michael Chertoff is giving a press conference. While there is no specific credible information indicating a threat in the U.S., the threat level is raised to orange, high, at transit systems in the U.S.

He is not asking people to stay away from transit systems.