Well, that didn't take long. In fact, the ban on the death penalty hasn't officially been lifted yet. But that didn't stop an Iraqi judge yesterday from sentencing 3 Shiites to death--and praising his own decision:

Judge Saleh Shaibani said the sentences were the first to be handed down by an Iraqi court since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime 15 months ago, after which the US-led occupation administration suspended the death penalty. The caretaker Government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has said the ban will soon be reversed.

The judge, praising his own decision, said the extreme nature of the crimes for which the three men were convicted led him to pronounce the death sentences.

It's true the crimes were particularly gruesome. That's not as important to us as the message the sentences send--that Judges under the new regime see no reason to comply with the "rule of law" and instead feel free to impose their own brand of judicial activism on their subjects. There's a lesson in here somewhere, and it's not just applicable to Iraq.

Florida has officially thrown out its flawed felon voter list . Had this been done in time for the 2000 election, many, TalkLeft included, believe George Bush would not have won Florida - or the Presidency.

Florida elections officials said Saturday they would not use a disputed list of people believed to be convicted felons to purge voter rolls, acknowledging a flaw that kept some Hispanic felons off the list and could have allowed them to vote. The glitch in a state that President Bush won by a margin of just 537 votes could have been significant - Hispanics in Florida have tended to vote Republican more than Hispanics nationally. The list had about 28,000 Democrats and around 9,500 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated.

Now Florida needs to go the final mile. It is one of only a small number of states that refuses to automatically restore voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences.

Predictable, but sickening:

President Bush says legalizing gay marriage would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect it. A few activist judges and local officials have taken it on themselves to change the meaning of marriage, Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

Leading the chorus of support for an amendment, Bush said, "If courts create their own arbitrary definition of marriage as a mere legal contract, and cut marriage off from its cultural, religious and natural roots, then the meaning of marriage is lost and the institution is weakened." His remarks follow the opening of Senate debate Friday on a constitutional amendment effectively banning gay marriage.

Hey, Mr. President, the Constitution is not a rough draft. It has served us well for 200 years. Leave it alone.

Say hello to Ghost in the Snow. He's 17, from Texas and pretty savvy. [link via Blah3.com]:

Look! There's Iraq! Tons of oil and we can pretend to be tough on terrorism by bringing down a whole country! It was an obvious choice. And, with the stupidity of the general American public, which dictates that an Arab is an Arab is an Arab, the invasion began. Backed by the Republican-owned media, the idea that it was a war for freedom and all that is right began to permeate the minds of otherwise intelligent people.

So now you have a huge bias against people such as myself, who read between the lines and realize that this war is a political ploy. I'm the one who will get persecuted for choosing jail over the draft.

U.S. News has obtained all classified annexes to the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib prison:

The most comprehensive view yet of what went wrong at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, based on a review of all 106 classified annexes to the report of Major General Antonio Taguba, shows abuses were facilitated--and likely encouraged--by a chaotic and dangerous environment made worse by constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees.

Daily life at Abu Ghraib, the documents show, included riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, filthy conditions, sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents. Troubles inside the prison were made worse still by a military command structure that was hopelessly broken.

Col. Henry Nelson, an Air Force psychiatrist who prepared a report for Taguba on Abu Ghraib, described it as a "new psychological battlefield," and detailed the nature of the challenge faced by the Americans working in the overcrowded prison. "These detainees are male and female, young and old," Nelson wrote; "they may be innocent, may have high intelligence value, or may be terrorists or criminals. No matter who they are, if they are at Abu Ghraib, they are remanded in deplorable, dangerous living conditions, as are soldiers."

[link via Buzzflash.]

Martha Stewart's lawyers have filed a motion in the wake of the Blakely decision arguing that the Judge is not bound by the Guidelines and can give her probation. Martha's sentencing is set for July 16.

Stewart's lawyers say the Supreme Court's ruling in Blakely prevents Cedarbaum from considering any facts not heard by the jury when weighing Stewart's prison sentence. Without the guidelines, Stewart would face a sentence ranging from five years to probation.

Drug War Chronicle explains the chaos caused by the Supreme Court's Blakely decision. Here are some snippets:

This is the closest thing to legal anarchy I've seen in my lifetime," said Douglas Berman, professor of law at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law and publisher of the Sentencing Law and Policy web log (blog). "This represents a fundamental shift in power, at least for now. Before this, all the levers of power were disproportionately in the hands of prosecutors. That's all been scrambled by Blakely, but who gets the bigger clubs now remains to be seen," he told DRCNet.

"Blakely was a blockbuster, concurred Jack King, communications director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Things are really in a state of flux. Some people are pushing at the extremes declaring the whole system unconstitutional, but that contradicts Congress' intent. Congress wanted to limit judicial discretion. This is the best thing that could have happened because the system had fossilized. Maybe now we can start over, but if in the meantime defendants are getting lesser sentences, who is to say that's a bad thing?"

Law Prof Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy reports that William Mercer, US Attorney from Montana, will serve as the DOJ witness at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Blakely.

Mercer, a contributor to the Federal Sentencing Reporter is somewhat noted (some might say notorious) for his complaints about judicial abuse of downward departure authority. Prior to passage of the PROTECT Act and its Feeney Amendment, Mercer testified before the US Sentencing Commission about cases where judges "evaded" lawful guidelines by using their departure authority.

Prof. Berman also has links to the text of two letters addressed to the US Sentencing Commission, one from the Practitioners' Advisory Group and the other from the Federal Defenders, concerning Tuesday's hearing and recommendations to Congress.

You can read the 65 page Ken Lay Superseding Indictment here (pdf). Why would you want to? Well, if you're a defense lawyer, page 64 has the sentencing allegations, which gives you a nice preview of how the Government thinks it will get around Blakely. We've read the DOJ memos on what they intend to do, but this shows it in application.

Way to go, TChris. TChris is the first defense lawyer in the country to have a federal court of appeals declare the U.S. Sentencing guidelines unconstitutional as applied following the Supreme Court's Blakely decision.

Since the Blakely decision came down, TChris has been working night and day on his case. He did the oral argument last week.

We are so proud of our contributing blogger, and feel extra lucky to have him blogging on TalkLeft.

Update: The Chicago Tribune examines the decision in TChris's case and the impact of Blakely across the country.

by TChris

The Seventh Circuit this afternoon declared the federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional as applied to a sentence that was enhanced on the basis of facts that were not determined by a jury. This appears to be the first appellate decision to find that the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely requires facts that determine a guideline sentence to be found by a jury. In the interest of full disclosure, TChris (speaking here in the third person) was the defense attorney who argued the case: USA v. Booker (pdf).

The court did not decide whether the guidelines are unconstitutional in their entirety. It did not decide whether the guideline requirement that judges find sentencing facts can be severed from the other guideline requirements, leaving that for the district court to consider on remand.

The 7th Circuit has spoken on Blakely. Per Judge Posner, with Judge Easterbrook dissenting, here is the opinion in US v. Booker. [link via Sentencing Law and Policy]

Via How Appealing:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit holds that Blakely v. Washington does not apply retroactively in a federal habeas corpus proceeding to cases on collateral review: You can access today's ruling at this link. This, to my knowledge, is the first federal appellate ruling to directly address Blakely's applicability, although word is that more such decisions will be arriving quite soon.

Two more opinions, from Utah and one from Judge Cassell of Croxford fame.

FPC Lynndie England can't catch a break. The military just added more charges against her, relating to indecent conduct. Apparently, these are charges relating to her personal conduct, not her mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib:

The Washington Post reported it had obtained images of England undressed and in sexual poses with a male soldier. Photos released earlier in the abuse scandal showed pointing at Iraqi prisoners' genitals and holding a leash attached to a prisoner. ...Defense lawyer Richard Hernandez told The Post that the new photos were personal and had nothing to do with the prisoner abuse charges.