by TChris

Are detainees being held in secret, depriving them of their right to challenge their detentions?

On Tuesday, Antonella Notari, spokeswoman for the Switzerland-based [International Committee of the Red Cross], said terrorism suspects reported by the FBI as captured have never turned up in detention centers known to the Red Cross, and the United States has failed to reply to Red Cross demands for a list of all detainees.

The Pentagon denies that it's hiding detainees, but won't comment on whether other agencies might be doing so. The CIA won't comment either.

by TChris

The shooting of Paul Childs, a disabled 15-year-old, is probably the most controversial of the five deaths caused by the Denver police this year.

Nine days ago, on a Saturday afternoon, Childs was standing in the living room of his mother's house holding a kitchen knife. His 16-year-old sister called 911 and told the dispatcher, "He's trying to stab my mother with it." (The family has since denied they felt threatened.)

Police responded. According to a family account, four officers pulled their guns. One of them, James Turney, shot and killed the youth after Childs failed to respond to repeated orders to drop the knife. It was the second time Mr. Turney has killed a citizen in the line of duty in the past 18 months.

A 2001 study ranked Denver "among the top 10 in fatal shootings per capita." Do some Denver officers have a tendency to "shoot first and ask questions later," as charged by Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado?

"The Denver Police Department historically has a disturbingly high number of these kinds of shootings of people without guns," says US Rep. Diana Degette (D) of Colorado, who is keeping an eye on the case. "It's cause for concern."

Critics of the Denver police are calling for a change in state law, which gives police "considerable discretion in using deadly force when they feel threatened."

by TChris

A one page summary of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, apparently failed to note the dissenting views contained in the full report. Notes taken by Senate staffers who reviewed the report indicate that the summary presented only one point of view, but the White House refuses to release the summary.

According to Richard Durbin, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee:

"We have requested, through the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the White House produce this document and they have refused. I think that's wrong."

by TChris

Innocent people are convicted of crimes for many reasons. One is the failure of state governments to provide adequate funding for lawyers who defend indigent clients. The newly-formed National Committee on the Right to Counsel hopes to call attention to the problem.

"Even though state and local governments are responsible for ensuring adequate counsel for defendants who cannot afford to hire their own lawyers, many people … are nonetheless still convicted and imprisoned each year without any legal representation" or with an inadequate one, the Washington-based group said.

In some states, an accused with a minimum wage job doesn't qualify for a public defender. Public defenders are often swamped with crushing caseloads, and appointed lawyers are frequently denied the funding they need to hire experts and investigators needed to mount a defense.

"The balance is tipped too heavily in favor of the government when it comes to prosecution of persons without means who can't afford private counsel," said [Timothy] Lewis [who served a decade on the federal appeals court in Philadelphia]. "We really need to take a look at that. Who are we as a people if we not giving adequate and equal representation to those who can't afford a lawyer?"

The Sixth Circuit today ruled that the Supreme Court's Blakely Decision. invalidates the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Law Prof Doug Berman reports:

,,,,and now in US v. Montgomery, 03-5256 (6th Cir. July 14, 2004), the Sixth Circuit becomes the second federal circuit court to hold that Blakely invalidates invalidates the federal guidelines. The Court found:

In order to comply with Blakely and the Sixth Amendment, the mandatory system of fixed rules calibrating sentences automatically to facts found by judges must be displaced by an indeterminate system in which the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in fact become "guidelines" in the dictionary-definition sense ("an indication or outline of future policy," Webster's International Dictionary (3d ed. 1963)). The "guidelines" will become simply recommendations that the judge should seriously consider but may disregard when she believes that a different sentence is called for....

Here's another line from the opinion:

In light of Blakely, and the language of the enabling act itself, a district judge should no longer view herself as operating a mandatory or determinate sentencing system, but rather should view the guidelines in general as recommendations to be considered and then applied only if the judge believes they are appropriate and in the interests of justice in the particular case.

The Bush-endorsed same-sex marriage amendment is officially dead. The senate voted today, 48 to 50 to defeat it. The vote was 12 short of the needed 60.

Both Kerry and Edwards opposed the amendment. Kerry has released this statement (via email from his campaign):

The Kerry campaign has announced that Barack Obama, Illinois state senator and the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, will deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, July 27.

Here's an interesting statistic we received from the campaign by e-mail:

According to statistics compiled by the Democratic National Committee, 39.1 percent of the 4,341 delegates to this month’s Convention in Boston are minorities. More African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, and Hispanics will attend the Convention than ever before.

Update: Some are upset that Hillary wasn't invited to speak.

We doubt John Kerry or John Edwards has time to go online. But Elizabeth Edwards does, and she reads blogs. Here's a comment she left on Ed Cone's blog a few days ago:

Hello, Ed. Not much time for blogging -- or much else in the last days. Even when I get to a computer, it is for just a minute -- usually too short to check mail. (I am going to start using my daughter's old laptop -- I am a diehard old-fogey desktop girl -- when I hit the trail next, so that mught improve.) This week has been incredible. The energy seems like October levels, not early July levels. I feel a change a-comin'. Elizabeth Edwards • 7/10/04; 10:24:13 PM

Here's one she left a while back on Jack O'Toole's blog. O'Toole designed a website for the Edwards campaign:

Thanks, Jack. The beta looks terrific. And I can't tell you how great it is to come across efforts like this on the web. John and I really appreciate your support. Posted by: Elizabeth Edwards on November 18, 2003 10:07 PM

Here's another flattering profile of Elizabeth Edwards--from the Christian Science Monitor--"The Modest, Impassioned 'Anti-Barbie.'

by TChris

Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, was arrested in 1912 for violating the Mann Act, a federal law that criminalizes the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes. Johnson served ten months in jail. Documentary maker Ken Burns is convinced that Johnson was punished for having a consensual relationship with a white woman.

Johnson ... defeated challenger Jim Jeffries, who had come out of retirement as the "Great White Hope" to try to beat the black man. Johnson's victory, in an era when Jim Crow laws and segregation ruled, sparked race riots in parts of the country.

Burns is joined by Sens. John McCain and Orrin Hatch, as well as civil rights leaders, in a bid to obtain a presidential pardon for Johnson, who died in 1946.

by TChris

Keith Emerich told the doctor who was treating him for an irregular heartbeat that he drinks a six-pack a day. The doctor, apparently complying with a Pennsylvania law that "requires doctors to report any physical or mental impairments in patients that could compromise their ability to drive safely," told the Department of Transportation that Emerich has a substance abuse problem. The DOT responded by yanking Emerich's driver's license until Emerich can prove he's competent to drive.

Emerich has had a clean driving record for 23 years. He denies that he ever drinks and drives.

"What I do in the privacy of my own home is none of PennDOT's business," he said. ... "They want me to go to counseling to prove that I'm OK," Emerich said. "I tried to go to a place ... and they wanted $250 for a three-month program."

The physician-patient privilege is meant to encourage open communication between patients and their doctors. Requiring a doctor to breach that privilege by reporting a drinking problem to DOT can only discourage patients from being honest with their doctors.

Mehdi Ghezali, age 25, spent 2 1/2 years at Guantanamo after being arrested in Pakistan after 9/11. Ghezali, a Swede, alleges he was subjected to torture after he stopped answering questions during interrogations:

"They put me in the interrogation room and used it as a refrigerator. They set the temperature to minus degrees so it was terribly cold and one had to freeze there for many hours -- 12 to 14 hours one had to sit there, chained," he said, adding that he had partially lost the feeling in one foot since then.
Ghezali said he was also deprived of sleep, chained for long periods in painful positions, and exposed to bright flashes of light in a darkened room and loud music and noise.

"They forced me down with chained feet. Then they took away the chains from the hands, pulled the arms under the legs and chained them hard again. I could not move," he said. After several hours his feet were swollen and his whole body was aching. "The worst was in the back and the legs," he said.

What offense did he commit to warrant his prolonged detention? Apparently, none:

by TChris

This is an interesting approach to witness tampering.

Real estate developer Charles Kushner hired a New York City call girl to have sex with a cooperating witness in a grand jury investigation, had the sex act videotaped and sent photos and a copy of the tape to the witness' wife, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said.

Kushner was retaliating against the witness, a former employee, for cooperating in a criminal investigation of Kushner for possible tax fraud and illegal campaign contributions, and was trying to discourage him from cooperating further, Christie said.

Kushner's attorney, Benjamin Brafman, says the charges "are entirely baseless." More on the story here.