Gov. Schwarzenegger is to be commended for the change in policy his adminstration has made in the granting of parole--an area in which Gray Davis' record was simply abysmal.

Convicted in 1991 of a murder he insists he didn't commit, the former real estate agent maintained his innocence despite offers of a plea deal and urgings to express remorse. Then in 2002, relatives told the state parole board they'd heard Riojas' estranged father, a drug dealer and smuggler, confess to the killing shortly before his own death. The board, without any objection from the prosecutors who sent Riojas to prison, granted him parole.

Their recommendation then was sent to Gov. Gray Davis who, having publicly vowed to keep convicted murderers in prison for life, rejected it. But a year later, after an unexpected change in state leadership, Riojas is free, one of the 31 convicted murderers and kidnappers paroled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first seven months in office. That's nearly four times the eight life-term inmates who were granted parole during Davis' 4 1/2 years as governor.

Score one for Gov. Arnold.

Schwarzenegger's legal secretary, Peter Siggins, credits the change to a difference in philosophy. "He is a governor who believes people can reform and be reformed."

Now we want to see the Governor go a little further and not reverse as many favorable parole board recommendations as he has to date--he's nowhere near as bad as Gray Davis was, but we think he can do better than this:

The Supreme Court today ruled death row inmate David Larry Nelson can appeal this death sentence on the ground that lethal injection is cruel and unusal punishment, even though he waited until just three days before his scheduled excectuion to make the claim in a civil rights lawsuit, after his habeas petition had been denied:

On Oct. 6, 2003, three days before his scheduled execution, David Nelson filed the civil rights lawsuit. He claimed his veins have been damaged by years of drug use and challenged as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment the proposed "cut down" procedure that may be used to access his veins. If access to a suitable vein cannot be achieved, prison authorities proposed to have a doctor perform the procedure involving use of a local anesthetic and a two-inch incision to insert the intravenous line that carries the lethal drugs.

TalkLeft's prior coverage of the case and issue is here, here and here. Here's some AP coverage of the oral argument in the Supreme Court. From today's syllabus:

President Bush's approval ratings continue to fall, according to a new CBS poll:

Mr. Bush's overall job approval rating has continued to decline. Forty-one percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 52 percent disapprove — the lowest overall job rating of his presidency. Two weeks ago, 44 percent approved. A year ago, two-thirds did.

Sixty-one percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Mr. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while just 34 percent approve. As concern about the situation in Iraq grows, 65 percent now say the country is on the wrong track — matching the highest number ever recorded in CBS News Polls, which began asking this question in the mid-1980's. Only 30 percent currently say things in this country are headed in the right direction. One year ago, in April 2003, 56 percent of Americans said the country was headed in the right direction.

As to the import of the new numbers, remember 1994 and Newt Gingrich and his infamous Contract on America?

The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was back in November 1994. Then, Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades.

This is one time we hope history repeats itself.

FPC Lynndie England, the now-pregnant soldier shown in the ubiquitous photo leading an Iraqi prisoner around on a leash, is asking the military court to throw out her statement to investigators because she was questioned after she asked for a lawyer.

"She had invoked her right to counsel, and those statements are illegal. In a civilian court, those would be immediately suppressed," [England lawyer] Zapor told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. Defendants in military courts have the same rights to lawyers that criminal defendants have in civilian courts.

The Judge in the OKC bombing trial of Terry Nichols ruled today that the jury may consider the death penalty as to the 160 non-federal employees killed in the bombing, but not as to the fetus that died with it's mother. Although in 2002 an Oklahoma appellate court upheld a law stating that fetuses are viable at 24 weeks and that their unnatural deaths can be charged as first-degree murder, the Court today found that the state did not give adequate notice to Nichols of its intent to seek the death penalty on the fetus.

Nichols was acquitted on first degree murder charges at his federal trial in 1997, but found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy to murder the 8 federal officers and given a life sentence. There is no parole in the federal system. In the state case, the jury will not be allowed to consider lesser charges. It's either first degree murder or innocent.

On Friday, Taylor ruled that Nichols' jury will not consider less serious charges when they decide Nichols' guilt or innocence in the bombing case. The ruling limited jurors to two possible verdicts: guilty of first-degree murder or innocent.

Nichols' lawyers have argued in the state trial that:

McVeigh had set up Nichols to take the blame for other, unidentified coconspirators heavily involved in the plot.

Closing arguments are scheduled for today.

What's the difference between the old Democratic Leadership Council and the New Democratic Network? Plenty, says Daily Kos, who argues it's time for the DLC to be put out to pasture. The NDN is the new kid in town, and Kos says, rightfully so.

TalkLeft has written many times about the abuse juveniles have suffered while in the custody of the California Youth Authority. In an op-ed in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, one mother describes her fear at visiting her son and the horror of watching him lose himself and become another person due to the abuse heaped upon him, by both guards and other prisoners. She also offers some constructive suggestions for change. First, her story:

I have not been able to be a mother ever since my son went to the California Youth Authority, the state's system of youth prisons. I have spent the last four years watching him appear in the CYA visiting room with cuts, choke marks and bruises. He has been attacked by other youth or staff more than 40 times. I have seen him lose confidence in himself, become cold and depressed and fearful for his life. And the whole time, I have not been able to do one thing about it. Except lose sleep.

What the CYA calls rehabilitation, the rest of us call tortuous abuse. The CYA is every parent's worst nightmare, and our state's leaders should act now to make sure that no more young people are abused and neglected while under its "care."

The U.S.has been investigating the deaths of two prisoners at Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan in 2002. It turns out that there are links between military intelligence officers at the Bagram detention facility and Abu Graib.

For both of the Afghan prisoners, who died in a center known as the Bagram Collection Point, the cause of death listed on certificates signed by American pathologists included blunt force injuries to their legs. Interrogations at the center were supervised by Company A, 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, which moved on early in 2003 to Iraq, where some of its members were assigned to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib. Its service in Afghanistan was known, but its work at Bagram at the time of the deaths has now emerged in interviews with former prisoners, military officials and from documents.

....In Iraq, at least three members of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion who had been assigned to the joint interrogation center at Abu Ghraib have been quietly disciplined for conduct involving the abuse of a female Iraqi prisoner there, an Army spokesman said....At least one officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, served in supervisory positions at the interrogation units both at the Bagram Collection Point from July 2002 to December 2003 and then again at the joint center at Abu Ghraib, according to Army officials.

Two other prisoners, who survived Bagram and were sent to Guantanamo, and were later released after the U.S. determined they had done nothing wrong (and provided them with letters to that effect) described their treatment at Bagram:

Saturday the U.S. said there was no wedding in Iraq at which celebrants were killed:

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

Now we learn there was a wedding, and it was videotaped.

A videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert, escorting a bridal car decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.

The videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck. ...video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.... An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video - which runs for several hours.

Is there another explanation for this man's death?

by TChris

Two thousand pages are missing from the congressional copy of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's classified report of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon referred to the missing pages, about a third of the total report, as "an oversight."

by TChris

TalkLeft has been wondering for some time why the Bush administration has been in bed with Ahmad Chalabi (see, for instance, this and this and this). Despite Chalabi's denials, evidence is growing that Chalabi passed highly classified information to Iran. Now the question is: how did Chalabi get his hands on highly classified information?

Federal investigators now suspect that Mr. Chalabi funneled a wide array of Pentagon and C.I.A. secrets to Iran — much more material than they believe he might have obtained through his political contacts with Americans, they said. "This was not the kind of stuff that he would have gotten by accident," one official said.

Investigators are looking a "handful" of officials, primarily in the Pentagon, who could have passed the information along to Chalabi.

A jail cell in Jordan has already been reserved for Chalabi, but Jordan might have to wait for Chalabi to serve a term in a U.S. prison for espionage.

by TChris

The NY Times recaps the murky status of homicide investigations regarding prisoners who died in the Bagram Detention Center in Afghanistan, and links members of a military intelligent unit responsible for interrogations at both Bagram and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. The LA Times reports that two military intelligence soldiers who appear in pictures taken at Abu Ghraib, Spcs. Armin J. Cruz and Israel Rivera, have been ordered to remain in Bahgdad as the investigation of prisoner abuse continues.

In an interview, Houston defense attorney Guy L. Womack, who represents Army Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., said that he expected a wave of charges in coming weeks against military intelligence officers, who he said he believed were directing the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

A defense lawyer representing another guard being court-martialed said Cruz and Rivera were present on the tier during the torture because they wanted to make sure the abuse was carried out.

The military claims that its homicide investigations have been slowed by the difficulty of locating witnesses or participants who have transferred out of Iraq. Now that the scandal has been publicized, the military seems to be doing a better job of keeping track of its soldiers. While Rivera and Cruz will remain in Iraq, neither has been charged, and it is unclear whether they are regarded as witnesses or targets of the investigation.