Delbert Meeks, 52, had lived on the streets for the past year. He has AIDS. His last felony, for a robbery, was in 1991. In 2000, he failed to register as a sex offender. This week, the California Supreme Court upheld his 27 year to life sentence on the failure to register charge, because it was his third strike.

Dissenting Justice Richard Sims was outraged. "What has become of our society?'' he asked in his dissent. "Why has 'compassion' become a dirty word in the law? I think that some years from now, law professors and law students will read this case and will ask, 'What on earth were they thinking?' "

Meeks' lawyer, Robert Wayne Gehring, said Friday he planned to appeal. "This offense did not involve any violence, damage or theft of property'' and would not have been charged as a third strike in some counties, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, he said.

California's three-strikes law is the toughest in the nation:

More than half the 7,200 inmates now serving 25 to life under the law were convicted of nonviolent crimes, including burglary, drug offenses and shoplifting, as their third strike. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that a 50-to-life sentence for a Southern California man convicted of two thefts of videotapes, after a long series of nonviolent offenses, did not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

California voters likely will have a chance to change the law this November. The proposed Amendment would require that the triggering offense for a three-strikes sentence to be a serious or violent felony.

As TChris wrote here:

One quarter of California prisoners are serving life terms under the three-strikes law, at a cost so far of about $8.1 billion. More than half that amount was spent to warehouse offenders whose third strike was not a violent crime. So the law is expensive, it wastes prison resources on people who don't deserve life sentences, and it seems to be implemented in a racially discriminatory manner. California, is that what you intended?

For more on three-strikes abuses, visit FACTS.

We'll start this open thread on The March for Women's Lives with the words of Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul:

....I also know that hardcore opposition to abortion (especially when combined with opposition to contraception) and a belief in the "rights" of fetuses kills women. And I'm tired of the word "pro-life" being hijacked by people with women's blood on their hands.

If you can spare some money, we recommend a donation to Planned Parenthood.

Britain is becoming a dangerous place for those concerned about civil liberties. First off, national ID card trials go into effect this week. The proposed penalty for a violation in ten years in jail. Here's more on that.

The Muslim community is concerned about profiling. The Government has agreed to exempt thousands of Muslim women from the photograph requirement.

The cards will cost £35 or between £70 and £80 for one combined with a driving licence or passport. They will contain name, age and date and will be linked to a national database which will contain information on criminal records, health details and social security information.

Civil liberties groups are set to condemn the proposals, which they say will put more power in the hands of the state and are likely to be technically unworkable. 'The public have serious and understandable concerns that the Government will simply not be able to handle the data they will be attempting to collect,' said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty.

The Earl of Selborne, chairman of the Royal Society's influential science in society committee, said that the public should be aware of the dangers of ID cards. 'There has been a lack of public debate and there is a very real danger that we are sleepwalking into our technological future,' he said. 'But what if the cards also held data about our genetic disposition to specific diseases, or revealed information about our lifestyles that affect health, such as how much we are overweight or how much alcohol we are drinking, updated daily. 'These are technically possible in the future, so we should be discussing whether they are desirable.'

And then, check out these stories.....Britain is institituting a program under which gamblers will face addiction checks. And one town in Britain has decided to interrogate asylum seekers so as to prevent them from settling there.

We'll play this meme:

"Flashlights, in particular, piqued his curiosity, which sometimes landed him in trouble."

--American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, Regan Books, 2001.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

SK Bubba has a good post up on the unreliability of electronic voting. He adds:

Look, I'm a professional software developer with over 25 years experience. I work with the same technology used in these voting machines. I have seen some of the source code and database design. I have reviewed the Johns Hopkins study of the systems. There are problems. If an aeronautics engineer or experienced pilot told you there were problems with a particular aircraft's design and that they wouldn't fly on it, would you? It's the same thing. And you don't have to be an expert to know that a paper receipt and audit trail are just plain common sense. Anyway, if you vote in a precinct that uses these machines I once again strongly encourage you to request a paper ballot. That's what Mr. Michael Manning did according to the article above. Smart guy.

Skippy has a wrap-up of newspaper editorials praising the publication of the Dover photos.

American citizen Jose Padilla has been held as an "enemy combatant" in a military brig in South Carolina since June, 2002--almost two years. In that time, he has been allowed to write his mother once:

"In the name of God the merciful the mercy giver," Mr. Padilla wrote, "I have been allowed to write you a card and just letting you know I'm doing fine and in good health. Do not believe what is being said about me in the news it is untrue and I pray that we can have a reunion. Love your son Pucho." Pucho was Mr. Padilla's childhood nickname.

That card was the sum and substance of Mr. Padilla's communication with the outside world for about 21 months.

In a ten page (internet length) article, the New York Times examines Padilla's life (Brooklyn born, Chicago raised) and his case, and for the first time, is able to interview his family, friends, ex-wife and second wife:

Say hello to Mullah Bob, aka New York criminal defense lawyer (and our good pal) Bob Fogelnest, who is blogging from Kabul, where he is spending two months,

.. mentoring and supervising a staff of six Afghan criminal defense lawyers and participating in training programs designed to help improve the quality of justice and bring the Rule of Law to this war torn country.

He has two entries up so far. The first is about the murder trial of Fareed, here's the opening snippet:

by TChris

Two rockets struck a military base at Taji, north of Baghdad, killing five U.S. soldiers and wounding six more. Two more soldiers were killed near Basra. Violence has been escalating since Thursday.

Insurgents used suicide speed boats to attack an oil terminal. Other attacks killed police officers and civilians.

It was another bloody day elsewhere, with at least 40 killed and many more wounded. In one of the worst attacks, rocks and mortars killed at least 13 civilians in a crowded chicken market in the Shia slum of Sadr City in Baghdad.

April has been the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers; more than 100 have died so far.

Atrios has a post on religion. In a nutshell, Atrios says:

I'm a bit fed up with people hand-wringing about anti-religious sentiment from "the Left." First of all, "the Left" which has any clout or power in this country is explicitly "pro-religion" to a degree which disturbs me.

We're also disturbed by the increased import of religion into today's culture and politics. Specifically, here's what we're pondering. The Hamtramck, Michigan City Council has given preliminary approval to a resolution that would allow mosques to broadcast muslim calls to prayers over loudspeakers five times a day--so long as none were broadcast before 6am or after 10pm.

The controversy centered on noise pollution and religious freedom and tolerance. Those opposed to the measure said they didn't want Islamic beliefs imposed upon them. The prayer, which is in Arabic, occurs five times a day between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Supporters said the issue is an Islamic tradition. They cited the city's church bells, which ring at least every hour, as comparable.

The the Al-Islah Islamic Center says Michigan is just the first--and certainly won't be the last city to adopt their request.

This got us to thinking. Why do we have to listen any religious messages, whether it be "Allah is Great" or a Christian message when we are outdoors? What gives these groups the right to intrude on our listening space? What ever happened to honoring peace and quiet and having the oppportunity to be lost in one's own thoughts?

Think of how many times you've wanted to strangle the person next to you on the bus or train or plane who was talking loudly about nothing into their cell phone while you wanted to read your book in quiet. Or at a restaurant. Or on a mountain hike. Or on a chairlift.

To us, the issue isn't religion at all. It's freedom in our own airspace. Airspace is public. Why should anyone have the right to repeatedly make a sound so loud it can be heard by everyone within 1,000 yards? What if everyone decides to do it?

But, since the topic is religious noises--bells and calls to Allah, all of a sudden we have to be more polite and tread more carefully so as not to step on any one religion's freedom of choice. We're not happy about it. We think the answer is that no religion should be broadcasting through speakers into the public domain in a way that forces others to hear about their religion.

by TChris

The state attorney general's office in New York will join the investigation of repeated acts of vandalism at the contruction site of a mosque.

Vandals drew swastikas on the partly finished building, which is to be the new home of the Islamic Center of Ocean County; punched holes in the walls and left graffiti, including the words "Hail Hitler."

The site has been vandalized seven times since construction began in 2000.

by TChris

The days may be gone when kids call a store and ask if they have Prince Albert in a can, but the practice of making prank calls lives on, as evidenced by Bart Simpson and Comedy Central's Crank Yankers. These days, you have to be careful who you prank, lest you incur the wrath of the FCC.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $4,000 fine for a Miami radio station that got through by phone to Cuban President Fidel Castro in a crank call and broadcast the communist leader before rudely letting him in on the joke.

No word on whether the FCC intends to fine Castro, who undoubtedly violated broadcasting decency rules by "denouncing the callers with a stream of vulgarities."