James Kilgore, the last fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the group responsible for kidnapping and then converting Patty Hearst in the 19790's, has been sentenced to jail for his participation in some of the group's activities:

The last fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army to be brought to justice was sentenced Monday to 4 1/2 years in prison for passport fraud and possession of a pipe bomb. James Kilgore, 56, belonged to the 1970s radical group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. He was on the lam for more than two decades before he was captured in 2002 in South Africa, where he was working as a professor under an assumed name.

Kilgore is expected to be sentenced next month to an additional six years in prison after pleading guilty last year to murder charges in the shotgun slaying of a bank customer during a 1975 SLA holdup. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel sent Kilgore to prison for possession of a bomb found in his apartment in 1975, and for using the birth certificate of a dead baby to obtain a passport.

Kilgore apologized for his acts and said the SLA's violent protests against the Vietnam War were "misguided and misdirected."

More background here and here.

by TChris

The government's terrorism prosecution of Saudi graduate student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen (TalkLeft background here and here) has run into a snag. The government accuses Hussayen of supporting terrorism by maintaining websites. Judge Edward Lodge ruled today, however, that the government can't show the web pages to the jury unless it first introduces evidence that Hussayen either created the pages or embraced their content -- something the government wasn't prepared to do at this stage of the trial.

Although the government promised to prove later in the trial that Hussayen created the pages and endorsed their content, the judge wisely ruled that it would be impossible to unring the bell after the jury saw the web pages. He gave the government until Tuesday to reshuffle its witnesses so that any proof of Hussayen's involvement in the content of the pages -- if any such proof exists -- can be presented before the jury sees the web pages.

The defense contends that Hussayen helped maintain the sites but wasn't responsible for their content. Not only does the government want to hold Hussayen responsible for providing "expert assistance" to terrorists, it contends that his alleged role as a moderator of an email discussion group should land him in prison.

by TChris

The Supreme Court has elected not to review a lower court decision holding unconstitutional the reading of a prayer before supper to cadets attending the Virginia Military Institute. The decision cements the lower court's ruling as the final disposition in the case.

While the chief counsel for The American Center for Law and Justice mischaracterizes the ruling as banning voluntary prayer before dinner, the First Amendment protects the right of cadets to pray or not to pray, as they choose, prior to eating. The ruling does not ban prayer. Rather, it prohibits the reading to cadets of a daily prayer written by the school's chaplain. When a government employee imposes his or her own version of religion upon students at a school (even a military school), the government endorses religion in general or particular religious beliefs, a practice that violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The Washington Post reports that the Democrats are about to launch an attack on Vice President Dick Cheney. Eric Alterman, writing for the Nation, and Kevin Drum of Political Animal have already begun. (Kevin is the blogger formerly known as Calpundit who wrote this profile of Cheney last November.)

Life on the Outside
by Jennifer Gonnerman

Elaine Cassell reviews Life on the Outside, A Reporter's Account of an Ex-Con's Struggle to Reenter Society:

In 2004, an estimated 600,000 people will be released from state and federal prisons. And in the near future, this number will increase exponentially -- as persons who began serving long prison terms in the late 1980's (for mostly drug offenses) return to their communities. Criminologists are poised to study the challenges and problems facing those who attempt "reentry" into society outside prison. Meanwhile, Village Voice staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman has put a human face on the data with her compelling book, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett.

Bartlett served a draconian prison sentence for a first-time offense -- and is now trying to put her life back together. She, and others like her, deserve our compassion and support -- and Gonnerman's book beautifully illustrates why.

TChris wrote about the book here.

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Actors Cybill Shepherd , left, Whoopi Goldberg , center, Ashley Judd , and Christine Lahti , back right, march in Washington, Sunday, April 25, 2004, during an abortion-rights rally. Shepherd and Goldberg wave coat hangers. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Looks like Caroline Kennedy next to Christine Lahti, no?

Estimates vary, but between 750,000 people and upwards of a million marched in the March for Women's Lives in Washington today.

Shades of 1969....

The biggest demonstration was an anti-Vietnam War rally in 1969, which drew 600,000.

What a great sight.

Here are quotes from the rally. Lots of pictures here.

Update: The numbers are now at 1,150,000.

Michael Jackson is changing lawyers. Mark Geragos and Ben Brafman say they are stepping down. Because of the gag order, and we're sure, attorney-client privileged matters, they can't say why.

Word is that Thomas Mesereau, Jr, also of LA, who previously represented Robert Blake until the two had a falling out, will be taking their place.

by TChris

The Bush administration is hostile to traditional notions of oversight and accountability. TalkLeft has called attention -- most recently, here, here and here -- to the administration's efforts to persuade the Supreme Court that it should be able to detain both citizens and non-citizens indefinitely, without access to courts or lawyers and without judicial oversight, so long as the President thinks it is in the interest of national security to do so.

On Tuesday, the administration will again appear before the Supreme Court to argue against oversight -- this time, against both Congressional and judicial oversight of its duty to disclose the identities of persons outside the government who advised Dick Cheney's energy task force in 2001. The administration claims the Federal Advisory Committee Act that requires such discloslures doesn't apply to Cheney's task force, but argues that even if the law applies, it unconstitutionally intereferes with the President's ability to formulate proposed legislation.

So much for checks and balances. As those arguing against the administration point out, requiring an administration to disclose its outside advisors promotes open government -- a goal that might interfere with a desire for secrecy, but that doesn't inhibit the President's ability to craft legislative proposals.

Over at Mere Dicta (Boalt School of Law, Berkeley), Michael W. Anderson is discussing Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla in the context of the Constitution's Treason Clause. The basic issue:

I've heard little discussion about the relevance of the Treason Clause to the Hamdi and Padilla cases before the Court this week. Yet it seems to me to be very pertinent. The basic position of the Bush Administration and the Department of Justice goes something like this:

Bush & DoJ: "Enemy combatants" like Hamdi and Padilla are engaged in acts of war against the United States. The Executive Branch has the power to detain combatants in a war, and the Bill of Rights do not apply to those detained in the course of a war. This seems to make sense at first glance, since soldiers engaged in combat obviously need to be able to deal with enemy fighters unencumbered by warrants, courts, bail hearings and so on. So if you accept that the War on Terror falls under the rubric of a traditional war (a debatable point for several reasons, but a premise that I'll grant arguendo), this argument holds water from an intuitive standpoint.

But the issue is a very different one when the government is detaining American citizens for an extended period of time. Then, the notion that the Constitution gives no role to the judiciary in adjudicating acts of war runs flat into the text of the Treason Clause, Article III, Section 3, Clause 1:

Anderson's prediction is that Supreme Court may rule that Padilla's detention is illegal, while Hamdi's is not, and he explains why.

by TChris

An often overlooked casualty of our country's misguided war on drugs is prominently reported in today's New York Times: domestic asparagus farmers. Since the early 1990's, the United States has been subsidizing the asparagus industry in Peru, purportedly to encourage Peruvian farmers to grow asparagus instead of cocaine. The result has been disastrous for American asparagus growers, as companies like Del Monte move their asparagus processing plants from the United States to Peru, where they can buy cheaper asparagus and process it with less expensive workers.

Since 1991, this outsourcing of asparagus production has resulted in a 55 percent decline in Washington farmland devoted to asparagus growing, while asparagus imports from Peru have increased from 4 million pounds to 110 million pounds. The value of the asparagus processing industry in the United States has dropped by about 30 percent.

Can a program that hurts American farmers by subsidizing Peruvian farmers be justified by its reduction of cocaine production?

"The irony is that they didn't plow under the coke to plant asparagus in Peru," said John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board. "If you look at that industry in Peru and where it's growing, it has nothing to do with coca leaf growers becoming normal farmers. Coca leaf is grown in the highlands. The asparagus is near sea level."

For those of you interested in the religion debate that's sweeping the blogosphere, we'll lay out the sides so everyone can weigh in. Atrios, of the most popular liberal blog, Eschaton, started if off with this post.

Following up with support or explanations of what he said is Tristero, who weighs in with Politics is One Thing, Religion Another and Patriot Boy.

Taking another point of view is Kevin Drum at Political Animal. Kevin also has an addendum with links to other bloggers weighing in on the issue. Also see, Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Electrolite. Jeanne of Body and Soul weighs in via letter to Atrios.

Those critical of Atrios' view include Melanie at Bump in the Beltway , Amy Sullivan , Magpie at Pacific Views , and Chuck Corrie.

We'll wrap up with Atrios's clarification and response here.