The U.S. agreed to waive the death penalty for accused terrorist Babar Ahmad if Britain would extradite him. Today, a British Court agreed he could be extradited, and Ahmad will become the first terror suspect to be extradited under its 2003 terror law, if he does not win an appeal. The law does not allow the suspect to challenge evidence presented by the US government.

Today, senior district judge Timothy Workman, sitting at Bow Street magistrates' court, in central London, said he accepted assurances by the US authorities that they would not seek the death penalty. He said he also accepted assurances that the US would not declare Mr Ahmad an "enemy combatant" - a category applied to prisoners at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where detainees have questionable legal rights.

Ahmad is charged in a Connecticut Indictment with:

by TChris

Kylleen Hargrave-Thomas had a moment of hope. A federal district judge decided that Kylleen was the victim of inadequate representation. The court ordered a new trial that might have saved Kylleen from an unjust sentence of life imprisonment.

U.S. District Judge Paul Gadola, who ordered a new trial for Hargrave-Thomas, called the case a travesty and said she is likely innocent of the murder. Gadola said Hargrave-Thomas' attorney failed to investigate, interview or call witnesses, or present evidence. Nevertheless, she is on her way back to prison because a federal appeals court disagreed with Gadola. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review the case.

A Detroit Free Press editorial calls upon the prosecutor to agree to give Kylleen a new trial. The prosecutor, of course, has opted instead to ask for Kyllen's return to prison.

by TChris

Florida is the place to be if you want your politicians to interfere with personal decisions about life and death, or to prevent citizens with ancient felonies from voting, or to hinder the right to have an abortion. It's not such a good place to be if you need mental health care that you can't afford, and it's a terrible place to be if you're wrongly convicted of a crime. Just ask Wilton Dedge. (TalkLeft background here).

DNA evidence showed that Wilton Dedge spent 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. Even the people who prosecuted him had apologized and said Dedge deserved to be compensated for those lost years. But when the state Legislature ended its session May 6, Dedge walked away with nothing.

Dedge's lawyer, a former president of Florida State University who is acting pro bono, plans to file a lawsuit for Dedge. He shouldn't have to go that far. Florida took Dedge's freedom for 22 years. An apology doesn't correct that injustice. Florida owes it to Dedge to give him fair compensation for his loss.

by TChris

The same Senate Republicans who decry "judicial activism" want to end the ability to filibuster judicial nominations. Writing in Mother Jones, Bradford Plumer makes the interesting point that the filibuster saves courts from judicial activists.

The strongest argument for the judicial filibuster is that it forces presidents to pick moderate judges. Recall that Bill Clinton, faced with a hostile Republican Congress that had already scuttled many of his judicial picks, decided to play it safe with his Supreme Court picks and went with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. ... According to a study by former Solicitor General Seth Waxman, if one defines "judicial activism" as a willingness to strike down state and federal laws, then Ginsburg and Breyer are in fact the two most restrained justices on the court. If you don't like activist judges, the case for the judicial filibuster seems strong.

In fact, Republicans favor judicial activism. They want judges who will actively disregard the Bill of Rights and civil rights laws in favor of the religious right's agenda. Indeed, one of the judicial nominees whose consideration may trigger the nuclear option is an unabashed judicial activist.

Keith Olbermann writes about Scott McClellan's representation yeterday that Newsweek and its unconfirmed report of desecration of the Koran by personnel at Guantanamo was responsible for the recent riots and deaths in Afghanistan.

It was just last Thursday, at a military briefing, that General Richard Myers said the protests and deaths had more to do with the continuing political and reconciliation process in Afganistan than it did to Newsweek's article about the desecration of the Koran.

Q: Do either one of you have anything about the demonstrations in Afghanistan, which were apparently sparked by reports that there was a lack of respect by some interrogators at Guantanamo for the Koran. Do either one of you have anything to say about that?

GEN. MYERS: It's the -- it's a judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General Eikenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran -- and I'll get to that in just a minute -- but more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President Karzai and his Cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan. So that's -- that was his judgment today in an after- action of that violence. He didn't -- he thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine.

Yesterday, McClellan said:

The New York Times has announced it will begin charging online readers to access its opinion writers and other columnists in September.

The paper will charge $49.95 per year for TimesSelect, a service that gives readers online access to the work of a few select writers -- columnists on the Op-Ed page as well as in other sections of the paper, including Business, Sports, and Metro. TimesSelect subscribers will also receive unlimited access to the Times' archives (most of the articles fall into the archives after one week online) and to the paper's NewsTracker service.

TalkLeft joins Daily Kos in response:

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the proprietor of the popular left-wing blog Daily Kos, said that come September, he'll stop linking to the Times Op-Ed pages. "I think this is the best way they can become irrelevant," said Moulitsas. "If my readers can't read it, why would I link to it? The key to blogging is that readers can look at the source material and make up their own minds." Moulitsas is a fan of Krugman's columns, but he said that he would not personally pay for the subscription service. "I don't think it's worth $50," he said. "There's way too much content out there for me to pay for any of it."

This is an issue on which all sides of the blogosphere seem to agree:

Remember the fiasco of the Republican National Convention when hundreds were rounded up and kept in cages on the West Side for days without seeing a Judge? This happens every day in New York, particularly to the poor and people of color.

On May 24, a sorely needed bill will be introduced in New York. It will require police to bring an arrested person before a judge within 24 hours or release the individual. It's called the "Charge or Release" bill and a rally will be held Next Tuesday, May 24, to support it in New York.

During the Republican National Convention, hundreds of demonstrators were detained for 30, 40, or even 50 hours without seeing a judge. Each day in New York City, hundreds of New Yorkers, primarily from communities of color, lose wages or even jobs because they’re held by the police for longer than the 24 hours permitted by law. On May 25, Council Member Bill Perkins will introduce the Charge or Release bill to fix the problem of prolonged detentions by the police.

Democratic Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid said talks have broken down with Republicans over the nuclear option.

Reid said Bill Frist made it clear it was all or nothing with the Republcians. I hope Sen. Reid told Frist "No to Priscilla Owen. No to Janice Rogers Brown."

The Democrats have the public's support. Check this out. The Hip Hop Caucus will be holding a rally in the Captitol to save the filibuster.

You know the filibuster fight has reached the public consciousness when the Hip Hop Caucus gets involved. The group, dedicated to "a comprehensive agenda for the Hip-Hop community," will hold a "Save the Filibuster" event this morning in the Capitol -- one small piece of a mass mobilization by both sides in the Senate's squabble over President Bush's judicial nominees.

Couldn't resist this one, found on Craig's List in the "men seeking women" category and sent in by the Freeway Blogger, who has moved up to the Bay Area -- "If you're boyfriend is a Republican, I want you now."

Richard Convertino, the prosecutor blamed for the failed Detroit terror prosecution, has resigned. He says he is going to become a defense lawyer.

In court filings and interviews, department officials have blamed Mr. Convertino in large part for the dismissal of criminal charges against three Moroccan men suspected of operating a Qaeda terrorist cell in Detroit. The case was dismissed after an internal review found that prosecutors had failed to divulge material casting doubt on the suspects' links to terrorism.

As TChris reported here, Convertino has been under investigation for alleged misconduct in earlier drug cases. He sued Ashcroft and the Justice Department claiming to be a whistleblower, notwithstanding that his lawyer acknowledged that he intentionally withheld evidence from the defense. More dirty details here.

My view: The defense bar is no place for Mr. Convertino.

The DEA has been conducting a war on doctors who prescribe pain medication. Last month, Libertarian Blogger and Cato Policy Analyst Radley Balko wrote a column about it, Bush Should Feel Doctors' Pain. It got picked up by several newspapers, including a small one in York, PA>

DEA Administrator Karen Tandy took the time to write the York, PA paper criticizing Radley's column.

Radley now fisks Tandy's letter, point by point, finding it rife with errors and misrepresentations.

The gloves are off. Over at the Huffington Post Blog, Rep. John Conyers lambasts journalist Bryon York for his column last week referring to Conyers and Rep. Louise Slaughter as "Crazy Aunt Louise and Uncle John ".

Rep. Conyers post is clever. He uses links (although a few don't work quite right.) But most of all, the post shows that Rep. Conyers (or at least someone on his staff) is on top of what's happening in the blogosphere, from Jeff Gannon to the Downing Street Memo.