Via Sentencing Law and Policy: Check out this new law review article by Law Professor Shima Baradaran. It debunks the link between drug crimes and violence.

[This article] demonstrates that a connection between drugs and violence is not supported by historical arrest data, current research, or independent empirical evidence. That there is little evidence to support the assumption that drugs cause violence is an important insight, because the assumed causal link between drugs and violence forms the foundation of a significant amount of case law, statutes, and commentary.

In particular, the presumed connection between drugs and violence has reduced constitutional protections, misled government resources, and resulted in the unnecessary incarceration of a large proportion of non-violent Americans. In short, if drugs do not cause violence — and the empirical evidence discussed in this Article suggests they do not — then America needs to rethink its entire approach to drug policy.

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Remember the lawsuit filed by a group of contract translators for the DEA who translated Spanish wiretaps over polygraph examinations?

The DEA has settled with the translators, and agreed to pay 14 contractors $500,000. [More...]

The Department of Justice is seeking approval for a change in the federal rule applicable to issuance of search warrants. DOJ wants U.S. Magistrate judges to be able, under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, to authorize computer searches even when they don't know the location of the computer or whether it's in that Magistrate's district. If the DOJ can access the computer remotely to search it, it doesn't want to be hamstrung by "technicalities" like which district the computer is in, or just as importantly, having to leave a physical notice at the site of the search.

The rule change has already passed its first hurdle and will come up again at a meeting of the committee later this month.

Here is the proposed new rule. Here are 5 pages from the 1100 page report describing the change and DOJ's justification for it (begins at bottom of first page). [More...]

I have a lot of news to catch up on. Yesterday I gave a Continuing Legal Eduction lecture on the federal response to Colorado's marijuana laws. With all the new developments the past two weeks, (the new banking law and the new Spice and warehouse indictments) there was a lot to review.

I've also been following the kidnap and murder of 23 year old Yuriana Castillo-Torres, the former girlfriend or wife of "El Chino" Antrax (and mother of one of his children). El Chino is Jose Rodrigo Áriechaga Gamboa, the alleged sicario for Zambada-Garcia and Sinaloa, arrested in Amsterdam in January at the request of the U.S., which wants to extradite him to San Diego where he was indicted in December on drug charges.(More...)

Uruguay is the first country to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana. It released the new rules today. A copy in Spanish is here.

The government will control every facet -- including setting the price. Pot will initially cost around $1.00 per gram, in an effort to freeze out the black market. The government agency calling the shots is called the Institute for Regulation and Control.

Today we know that trying to eliminate marijuana has not been an effective measure and has only caused more problems. The marijuana market already exists and is controlled by drug trafficking. [More...]

Human Rights Watch has a new report, A Nation Behind Bars, with facts on the current state of our prison nation and recommendations to reduce our over-reliance on incarceration.

Some facts:[More...]

In what reads like a reality-based version of Mundo Fox's El Capo 3, the Mexican newspaper El Spectador has obtained a 109 page document submitted to Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos through his chief campaign strategist, J.J. Rendon, proposing to end the cartels and world drug trafficking. (Google translated version here.) The 2011 document is called "Agenda for solving the problem of drug trafficking and the violence it generates." The document begins:

"Celebrating its first 10 months of the new government, Colombian society has high expectations for their future, and one of his most repeated yearnings for decades is that it can definitively eradicate the drug problem and violence it generates. National and international conditions are suitable to develop an agenda for tackling the problem of drug trafficking, with ranges not only in the country but in the region and throughout the Western Hemisphere. "

With elections in Colombia just weeks away, J.J. Rendon has just resigned over accusations by trafficker Javier Calle Serna that Rendon was paid $12 million to submit the plan to the President. [More...]

Reading through the twitter feeds of 6 journalists I follow who tweet the court proceedings in real time (rather than the media articles published after which selectively summarize the testimony, mostly in favor of the prosecution), here's what happened at the latest court session:

The defense called two more neighbors who live closer to Oscar than the state's witnesses. They heard bangs followed by a man howling in a high pitched voice. None heard a woman crying or screaming. One is a female psychologist for the Department of Labor who lives right next door or right behind him. She replicated the howling. The state's cross-examination of these witnesses was so short the defense ran out of witnesses and the trial recessed early.

There are now four neighbors who support Oscar's version of events. These witnesses were on the prosecution's witness list but were not called by rhe state. Instead the state called witnesses who lived much further away whose testimony was remarkably different but fit their theory. If the job of the prosecutor is not to convict but to see that justice is done, the state's failure to call these witnesses speaks volumes. [More...]

Monica Lewinsky is back in the news, this time of her own making. She's decided to tell her story after 20 years of silence in the new Vanity Fair.

She wants to set the record straight and take back control of her life. Her goal, she says:

Her current goal, she says, “is to get involved with efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment and to start speaking on this topic in public forums.”

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I'm just getting home from work and haven't yet seen the news. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome

Oscar Pistorius is back in court after a two week recess. His first witness is the estate manager Johan Stander. Stander was the first person Oscar called after the shooting. He arrived at the scene almost immediately. Oscar told him immediately he mistook Reeva for an intruder.

Stander was on the state's witness list but was not called to testify. Oscar's co-counsel, Kenny Oldwage, is questioning Stander. [More...]

President Obama is about to speak.

Watching on TV, it seemed like a very lackluster affair tonight. Very little glamour and everyone looked tired, with the exception of Arianna Huffington, who looked terrific and was very animated.

Maybe it's because we're getting towards the end of Obama's "reign." During the dinner, he kept shaking his head "no" when the server wanted to give him food. He rubbed his eyes. He perked up and started smiling just before he was about to speak, when a flock of males all came up to greet him like groupies. Interesting that no females were fawning over him.

Is anyone else watching? I doubt I'll make it through Joel McHale. (Update: I watched him, comments below):[More...]