by TChris

A prison reform group, United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect (U.N.I.O.N.), is using the courts, as well as political activism, to call attention to the dismal conditions in California prisons. The group's director, B. Cayenne Bird, realized how deplorable prison conditions have become after her son was incarcerated.

Bird, a self-proclaimed human rights journalist for 30 years, formed U.N.I.O.N. in 1998. She said part of the goal is to get families of prisoners together in a voting block so that the state's prisons can be reformed. "There's enough there to create a voting group," she said.

Scores of U.N.I.O.N. members join Bird at rallies at the state Capitol, and the organization also frequently pickets at prisons where it feels an inmate has suffered a preventable death.

The group has filed lawsuits in at least three cases on behalf of inmates who died while in a prison's care.

So far, Michael Jackson's attorney has made some serious inroads into derailing the prosecution's witnesses, discrediting them with financial and other motives to lie. None of them are free of heavy baggage.

Today the mother of the 1993 accuser testifies. You can expect the defense to bring out on cross that she knew her son was sleeping in Jackson's bedroom.

On a legal note, the defense has filed a motion (pdf) that I think has an excellent chance on appeal of reversing a conviction, should one occur. The motion objects to the introduction of past conduct evidence because it is not coming in through the accusers, but through third parties.

The Judge in the Martha Stewart case has rejected her request for resentencing.

I'm not surprised, the worst is over for Martha and it's hard to argue that home detention is that onerous --although, it's no walk in the park, either.

Saying he didn't want to turn this 66 year old grandmother into a martyr, a British judge has refused to jail this unrepentant woman who bakes goods with marijuana for her friends and neighbors:

Patricia Tabram, a 66-year-old who has developed recipes for chicken, leek and cannabis pies and cannabis curry since her arrest last summer, said she would continue to take the drug for medicinal reasons, although she would not supply it to others.

"It's far better than any tablets you can get from the doctor," she said as she left Newcastle Crown court for her remote bungalow in the Northumberland countryside. She will also continue negotiations about publishing her biographical cookbook Grandma Eats Cannabis.

[link via Howard Bashman at How Appealing.] The British papers are eating this story up. Howard reports:

I bet the U.S. didn't expect this when it planned the Iraq elections:

Iraq's new president, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said that he opposed the idea of oused dictator Saddam Hussein being sentenced to death... "I am among the lawyers who signed an international petition against the death penalty in the world and it would be a problem for me if Iraqi courts issued death sentences," he told the Asharq Al Awsat newspaper.

Despite attempts by Gov. Arnold to push rehabilitation over punishment, particularly for drug offenders, correction officials have decreed that beginning today, parole violators will return to jail instead of being afforded alternatives such as drug treatment programs.

Beginning Monday, parole violators will no longer be diverted into drug treatment programs, halfway houses and home detention instead of being returned to prison...

Officials say there was no evidence the alternative programs worked. It sounds like what really happened is that crime victims advocates and the all-powerful Prison Guards Union teamed up to cause a ruckus.

Right after the war began, there was an incident at Camp Pennsylvania in Northern Kuwait in which someone threw a grenade into a tent occupied by U.S. soldiers. A fellow soldier, Sgt. Hasan Akbar, was accused and his court-martial begins today.

Sgt. Hasan Akbar's court-martial marks the first time since the Vietnam War that a soldier has been prosecuted for the murder of another soldier during wartime. Proceedings were to begin Monday, and the trial was expected to last four weeks.

Sgt. Akbar will raise a mental impairment defense.

We're having technical problems with Internet Explorer and the home page. The site shows fine in Firefox. We hope to get it fixed soon.

Update: Mike Ditto says the problem is fixed now. He had the same problem on his site and it had to do with Sitemeter's javascript.

Tom Delay is on the hot seat. Republicans have begun to backtrack and withdraw their support for the embattled Texas congressman. Chief among them: Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT):

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), one of Capitol Hill's leading conservatives, warned House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) yesterday that he needs to "lay out what he did and why he did it" if he is going to put an end to questions about his travel and dealings with lobbyists.

Another weekend critic was Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a frequent DeLay antagonist, who said DeLay should step down. Shays told about 50 people at a town hall meeting in Greenwich on Saturday that he considers DeLay "an absolute embarrassment to me and to the Republican Party."

by TChris

A "mountain of evidence" is piling up against lobbyist Jack Abramoff in various investigations of influence-peddling and corruption. Whether the mountain will fall on top of Tom DeLay or other members of Congress remains to be seen.

Although there is no suggestion in public documents that any lawmaker is the target of a federal grand jury that is investigating Mr. Abramoff, disclosures about his lobbying activities have become embarrassing to prominent members of Congress. In recent weeks, Mr. Ney, Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers have gone on the offensive against the suggestion that their actions on Capitol Hill were influenced by foreign travel or other gifts from Mr. Abramoff.

DeLay and Ney aren't the only politicians to benefit from a cozy relationship with Abramoff.

by TChris

An auction of Ku Klux Klan memorabilia, scheduled to take place today in Mason, Michigan, was cancelled after white supermacists distributed KKK recruitment fliers throughout the town.

David Feintuck, owner of the Mason center, said he decided to cancel the auction as soon as he became aware of the fliers. "We don't want to be associated with whatever scum comes into the community," Feintuck said. "Auctioning history and condoning present-day Klan activities is not the same thing, and we don't want the auction used for Klan promotion."

Auctioneer Gary Gray, saying he doesn't want to be "a pawn for the Klan," isn't sure what he'll do with the Klan artifacts. Here's an idea: burn them.

by TChris

Sounding the alarm against right-wing attacks upon an independent judiciary -- attacks disguised as righteous reaction to judicial activism -- is this piece in Salon.

[T]he Schiavo case presents an opportunity to stem what conservatives frequently call an "out-of-control" judiciary. By "out of control," they mean out of their control; in the Schiavo case, after all, we saw two branches of the federal government succumb to the will of this savvy minority, while a third branch remained determinedly out of reach. Now that third branch is under attack. It is far from clear that the judiciary will survive unscathed.

Who are these activist judges?