Georgetown Law Professor, civil liberties expert and Ashcroft critic David Cole compares Ascroft and Gonzales in the new edition of Newsweek. First, his assessment of Ashcroft.

I think his legacy is going to be as one of the worst attorney generals we’ve ever had, not only in terms of the constitutional freedoms this country stands for but also in terms of national security.

Cole is not optimistic about Gonzales. He raises Gonzales' reference to the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and his refusal to apply its protections to Guantanamo Detainees. He adds:

We also know from a New York Times account of the debates that surrounded the development of the military tribunal policy down in Guantanamo that in those debates John Ashcroft was actually the voice of reason and Alberto Gonzales was lined up with the most extreme right-wing voices arguing that there should be virtually no rights to the people who are being tried—in some cases for the death penalty.

Cole doesn't predict how the Senate will vote on Gonzales' confirmation. But he says his record, particularly on the torture issue and the Guantanamo detainees, should give Senators pause.

Update: Joe Conasen has this analysis of Gonzales at Salon. Chris Brauchli adds his thoughts in Re-writing the Geneva Convention.

Bump and Update: If you see 60 Minutes, let us know what you thought of CIA Agent Michael Scheuer's allegations about Osama.

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On 60 Minutes Sunday evening: C.I.A. Agent Michael Scheuer, author of "Imperial Hubris," written under the pseudonym Anonymous,who resigned this week to get around an agency imposed gag order.

Scherer was the head of the CIA unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden. Now he's talking. He says Osama received permission from a sheik to use a nuclear weapon against the U.S.

"[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans," says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans."

Scheuer says bin Laden was criticized by some Muslims for the Sept. 11 attack because he killed so many people without enough warning and before offering to help convert them to Islam. But now, bin Laden has addressed the American people and given fair warning.

"Their intention is to end the war as soon as they can, and to ratchet up the pain for the Americans until we get out of their region," says Scheuer. "If they acquire the weapon, they will use it, whether it's chemical, biological or some sort of nuclear weapon."

On why we haven't caught bin Laden, Scheuer blames former CIA Director George Tenet:

In September, we wrote about a report by the Death Penalty Information Center that found death penalty sentences in the U.S. had fallen for the fourth straight year. (Report here, pdf) Now, the Department of Justice has issued its own statistics, with the same findings. The Justice Department reports finds that death penalty sentences are at the lowest rate in 30 years. The statistics were compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Death penalty opponents say the report shows how wary the public is of executions, heightened by concerns about whether the punishment is administered fairly and publicity about those wrongly convicted.

....Opponents also point to other possible reasons, including continuing fallout from Supreme Court decisions requiring that juries be told that life in prison without parole is an alternative to death.

47 states now offer a lwop (life without parole) option. In 1993 only 3 states provided the option.

Despite the good news of a reduction, there is a long way to go. In 2003, there were 144 persons sentenced to death in 25 states. Currently, there are 3,374 prisoners on death row in the U.S. 65 were executed in 2003. Texas again topped the charts at 24, with Oklahoma and North Carolina on its heels. No other state executed more than three prisoners. 38 states and the federal system still allow the death penalty. When the number gets reduced to zero, that's the time to cheer.

Some more stats from the report:

The Senate reconvenes Tuesday for its lame-duck session. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who is pro-choice, is up for the Chair positon on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senate may decide to give outgoing Chair Orrin Hatch a two-year waiver so he can stay on as Chair.

Right-wing extremists oppose him. What do you think, will he get the job? Will his ghost from the past (the confirmation hearing of Robert Bork) cost him now? What does his defeat mean for Roe v. Wade?

Specter's defeat could mean abortion rights opponents are one seat away from victory on the Supreme Court. The Boston Globe takes a look at what would happen if Roe v. Wade was overturned.

With Roe in the judicial dustbin, arguments against abortion could no longer be couched in the language of state's rights and judicial activism that Bush used on the campaign trail. In all likelihood, the party would have to make good on the commitment, enshrined in its platform, to outlaw abortion.

by TChris

Life has not been good for Kevin Baruxes.

Baruxes was three weeks past his 18th birthday when he was arrested. Now he's 26 and he's got two scars from a prison knife attack that almost killed him and a seven-year gap in his life story that's impossible to replace and almost as hard to explain.

Baruxes was charged with sexually assaulting Cortni Mahaffy, and because a hate crime enhancer was added, the jury was allowed to hear about Baruxes' obnoxiously racist opinions. The jury didn't believe Baruxes' mother, who testified that he was at home when the attack allegedly occurred.

Now, it seems, the attack never happened. The first of a two-part story reporting Baruxes' exoneration appears today. It's a story that has become common.

Wrongful convictions in America's courts are no longer surprising. Rarely a month goes by without one surfacing; in California alone, there have been at least 200 in the last 15 years, according to a recent San Francisco magazine report.

In August we wrote of newly exonerated Wilton Dedge, freed from prison after serving 22 years for a rape he didn't commit. The St. Petersburg Times today reports on his case from beginning to end, and on his life since his release. Dedge just turned 43. He tries not to be bitter:

Dedge says he's trying not to focus on how wrong the justice system treated him. Like his parents, he believes it best to live in the moment.

"I don't want to have a bad attitude. It's there in the back of my mind, but I don't want to dwell on it right now. I'm having too much fun with new things. "I'm very, very disappointed. There's anger there. But I can't dwell on anger or I'll mess up my life. I'm trying to enjoy things instead of dwelling on anger."

His lawyers have enough bitterness for both of them. One of them, Milton Hirsch of Miami, calls the prosecutors' actions in Dedge's case, "moronic," "monstrous, shameful" and "Orwellian."

"When Wilton got out, he was pleased and forward-looking and capable of not dwelling on the bitterness of the past. But when it occurs to me that some prosecutors got up the next day and put on their pants and go to work and prosecute the next Wilton Dedge defendant with no consequences and no change in the criminal justice system, I can't get past that."

What is the likeihood that Bush will succeed in packing our courts with right-wing ideologues? Jeffrey Rosen in the New York Times and Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle provide some illumination.

Human rights groups charge that the U.S. soldiers may have committed a war crime this past Thursday by forcing fleeing civilians to return to Fallujah:

Citing several articles of the Geneva Conventions, the experts said recognized laws of war require military forces to protect civilians as refugees and forbid returning them to a combat zone.

"This is highly problematical conduct in terms of exposing people to grave danger by returning them to an area where fighting is going on," said Jordan Paust, a law professor at the University of Houston and a former Army prosecutor. James Ross, senior legal adviser to Human Rights Watch, said, "If that's what happened, it would be a war crime."

Here's what happened:

A stream of refugees, about 300 men, women and children, were detained by American soldiers as they left southern Falluja by car and on foot. The women and children were allowed to proceed. The men were tested for any residues left by the handling of explosives. All tested negative, but they were sent back.

Via Uggabugger, found at Atrios:

Now that Alberto "The Geneva Convention is obsolete" Gonzales is slated to become the head of the Department of Justice, we can look forward to a new attitude - and a new seal:

Translation: The ends justify the means (Other Latin expression pages are here and here.)

We warned months ago that the "Laci and Connor Law" was a ploy by abortion foes. They are coming out of the shadows now. The American Life League has issued a press release on the Scott Peterson murder conviction:

The verdict makes it crystal clear that he, and all those who reside in the womb, are indeed human persons; not possessions. This is a landmark conviction because of its recognition of the preborn child as a human being who deserves equal protection under the law.

"This is the first high-profile case to be decided since the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. The UVVA correctly recognizes the preborn child as a human being deserving justice under the law when he or she is killed due to a violent act perpetrated against his mother that results in the preborn child's death.

Here's some gall for you--they are still not satisfied. They want more:

The UVVA is flawed; it perpetuates the lie that some preborn babies' rights are worth defending and others are not. If, for example, Laci Peterson had aborted Connor, the abortion would not have been defined as a crime.

So what do they want now? Abortion to be outlawed.

Our Creator endows every innocent human being with the same inalienable rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and that guarantee should apply equally to each and every preborn individual.

..."American Life League will continue to educate the American people and our legislators to the simple truth that all preborn babies' civil right to life must be defended from all acts of murder, no matter what the method."

Did you catch the slick jargon, the "pre-born child?" Hypocrites, all of them. If they are so pro-life, why don't they come out against capital punishment? Where's their press release asking that prosecutors in the Peterson case drop the request for the death penalty?

Update: James Dobson's Focus on the Family joins the chorus. It lauds the media for referring to the unborn Peterson baby as an "unborn child." Ok, thanks for the heads-up, Mr. Dobson. We're done with that. We're going back to "fetus" whenever we talk about the case.

The Pentagon has announced the U.S. has competed its takeover of Fallujah. Should we cheer? Here are the stats:

• 24 U.S. troops killed
• More than 1,000 Iraqi "insurgents" killed.
• More than 400 U.S. troops injured and flown to Germany hospitals (two planeful loads arrived today.)

Iraqi officials announced that the two most sought-after terrorists, Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, escaped.

On to Mosul Taji?

Good read on the history of Fallujah. [link via What Really Happened.]

Update: Cheney has left the hospital. He feels great, says his wife Lynn.

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Bump and Update: What happens if Dick Cheney resigns due to health reasons? According to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1967:

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Nixon was the first to use the Amendment when Spiro Agnew resigned. He appointed Gerald Ford, who later became President when Nixon resigned.

Wouldn't this be quite the November surprise?

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Vice President Dick Cheney has checked himself into a hospital after experiencing shortness of breath.