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Writer Dave Cullen has the article to read today in Slate on the 5th anniversay of Columbine. He has a fascinating portrait of Klebold and Harris, and says, "At last we know why the Columbine killers did it." You can read more over at Dave's blog, Conclusive Evidence. Dave emailed us earlier he had been "talking to the fbi well into the night."

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Bump and Update:

You can listen to the oral arguments here.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases today involving so-called "enemy combatants" held at Guantanamo Bay. The core question:

Can these foreign-born prisoners, held outside U.S. borders, use U.S. courts to try win their freedom?

Georgetown Law Prof and civil liberties expert David Cole, writing in the New York Times, says:

These suggestions that noncitizens have less right to be free than citizens are ill advised. Some provisions of the Constitution do explicitly limit their protections to United States citizens — the right to vote and the right to run for Congress or president, for example. The Bill of Rights, however, does not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens. It extends its protections in universal language, to "persons," "people" or "the accused." The framers considered these rights to be God-given natural rights, and God didn't give them only to persons holding American passports.

When one considers the specific right at issue in the enemy combatant cases — the right not to be locked up without a fair process — there is also no good reason to differentiate between citizens and foreigners. From the prisoner's standpoint, every human being has the same interest in not being locked up erroneously or arbitrarily. And from the government's perspective, the security interest in detaining terrorists is the same whether they are citizens or not.

A hearing is ongoing in Terry Nichols' state trial on murder charges over the defense's Motion to Dismiss for withholding of evidence by the prosecution.

Monday, government witnesses testified that the video tape referred to in Secret Service Logs depicting two persons exiting the Ryder truck at the federal building just before the explosion did not exist.

The Judge is expected to rule late today. Background is here and here.

David Neiwert of Orcinus writes today on the Apocalyptic Asymmetry of April 19.

Update: Michael Fortier testified today in Nichols' trial.

A New York federal judge Monday refused to throw out revised charges against lawyer Lynne Stewart, who will stand trial in May on charges of improperly aiding her former client, blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. The defense had argued the charges were brought vindictively after the Judge had dismissed terrrorism charges against her. Michael Tigar, Stewart's lawyer, remains upbeat:

Stewart's lawyer, Michael Tigar, said he was pleased that the judge in his ruling noted that the government might have a more difficult task proving its case than it did with charges he tossed out last year. Koeltl said prosecutors must prove that Stewart knew about or intended to support a conspiracy to kill or kidnap people in a foreign country. "He laid out the path that the government is going to have to try to take," Tigar said. "Now, we look forward to getting a jury and talking about these things."

Our prior coverage of the case can be accessed here.

by TChris

Freedom of association is great for the Elks or the Knights of Columbus, but when young men want to hang out together in suburban Chicago, they'd better not give themselves a group name like "Satan Disciples."

A DuPage County judge on Monday banned more than a dozen members of a west suburban gang from hanging out with each other in a landmark Illinois decision that law enforcement officials said gives them a powerful weapon to combat gangs.

Telling people they can't associate with each other publicly is indeed a "powerful weapon," but its destructive force does more damage to the Constitution than to undesirable gang behavior.

The latest former politician to blast the Victims' Rights Amendment is none other than former Congressman Bob Barr:

The circus is back in town. Every two years, as we roll around to another grand Olympics of federal, state and local elections, the hopper in Congress begins to fill up with dangerous and unnecessary amendments to our U.S. Constitution.

...In the American political system, the Constitution was meant to operate like people who freeze their credit cards in a block of ice. That is, when faced with supremely important and emotional decisions involving things like the censorship of unpopular ideas or the seizure of firearms, the Constitution makes us walk to the corner and take a time out.

As to the Victims' Rights Amendment, Barr correctly notes:

Should Congress be allowed to overrule Supreme Court decisions it doesn't like? Congressman Ron Lewis (R-KY) has introduced such a bill, "The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act." Today, the Las Vegas Review Journal calls it a "very bad idea."

Under this law, the Constitution would essentially be interpreted to reflect popular opinion -- a scary thought, given that many Americans confronted with an unlabeled copy of the Bill of Rights would likely consider many of the scribblings dangerous and subversive. Our system is designed to insulate federal judges from the transitory whims of the mob. Rep. Lewis' proposal would obliterate that important safeguard and leave our rights and freedoms at the mercy of public sentiment.

In fact, Congress already has many options when it comes to reining in activist judges. It has the power to impeach federal judges who egregiously overextend their authority. It has the power to pass legislation -- or, along with state legislatures, amend the Constitution -- to addresses the concerns of the judiciary. And finally, Congress can simply refuse to confirm judicial candidates deemed objectionable. Of course, Rep. Lewis' bill is itself inherently unconstitutional -- and would certainly be found so by any federal court.

[link via How Appealing].

Cheers for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for throwing out a 25 year to life sentence for a man whose third strike was a shoplifting offense. The Court said the sentence was cruel and unusual punishment.

Ruling 2-1, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 25-year term handed to a California man convicted of stealing a $199 VCR violated the Eighth Amendment constitutional ban on cruel-and-unusual punishment. The appellate court said the punishment did not fit the crime even though the Supreme Court last year upheld the same sentences for two California shoplifters. The appeals court said the life sentence was unjust and more severe than a sentence for "murder, manslaughter or rape." The San Francisco-based appeals court said the Supreme Court's precedent did not apply to every third-strike defendant convicted of a felony.

Ralph Nader today called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within six months. He has a three part plan:

He said he would create an international peacekeeping force under United Nations auspices, promote Iraqi self-rule through independent elections and provide humanitarian aid to stabilize the country....."The key is this," Nader told reporters: "How do you separate the mainstream Iraqis from the insurgents when the mainstream Iraqis now are increasingly opposed to our presence there and increasingly, quietly or otherwise, supporting the insurgents? "The way you do it is you declare you are getting out."

The longtime consumer advocate said that the international peacekeeping force he advocated would be drawn from neutral nations and from Islamic countries. Nader said the election process should be carried out at the same time as the six-month withdrawal and done under international supervision.

In other Iraq news, the BBC is reporting Honduras has announced it will withdraw its troops from Iraq. Reuters report on Honduras is here. And two U.S. soldiers have left their units and are seeking asylum in Canada.

EditorandPublisher.com has announced that an important memo on Iraq will be released Tuesday:

In an unusual move for the organization, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) will release what it promises will be a bombshell article related to the Iraq conflict at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday. ....The 3,000-word story, embargoed until Tuesday but obtained by E&P today, is based on a "closely held" memo purportedly written by a U.S. government official detailed to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It was provided to writer Jason Vest by "a Western intelligence official." The memo offers a candid assessment of Iraq's bleak future -- as a country trapped in corruption and dysfunction -- and portrays a CPA cut off from the Iraqi people after a "year's worth of serious errors." The article is titled, "Fables of Reconstruction," with a subhed, "A Coalition memo reveals that even true believers see the seeds of civil war in the occupation of Iraq."

This is very big news. For background, go here.

Secret Service reports in 1995 state the agency had a video showing the Ryder truck pulling up to the federal building in OKC minutes before the bomb exploded --and that it depicts the "suspects" exiting the vehicle. Up until now, the Government has always claimed McVeigh was alone in the truck. Federal prosecutors and agents say they didn't know about the video.

The article has much more on evidence the Secret Service didn't disclose. If this is true, we hope the Judge in the Terry Nichols trial follows through with his promise to dismiss the case against Nichols, with prejudice.

Today is the 9th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Update: You can view the OKC documents obtained by the AP here (pdf.)