Attorney General Eric Holder testified today at a hearing of the U.S. Sentencing Commission on proposed amendments to the sentencing guidelines, one of which is to lower drug sentencing guidelines by two levels. He supports the change. Once approved by the Commission, unless Congress rejects the proposed amendments, it will go into effect Nov. 1. In a press release today, DOJ says:

Until then, the Justice Department will direct prosecutors not to object if defendants in court seek to have the newly proposed guidelines applied to them during sentencing.

There are 216,000 federal inmates. The Bureau of Prisons says it is housing 173,661 of them. Of the 158,000, 98,554 are serving time for drug offenses. (The next biggest category is immigration offenders -- 20,862 inmates.)

Time for an open thread. All topics welcome.

It was a dramatic day 8 at the Oscar Pistorius trial. The investigator who took over the case from the Hilton Botha, Colonel Vermulon, testified about the physical evidence. There are some serious problems.

Both sides now agree Oscar was on his stumps when he shot through the door, and after that, he used a cricket bat to bash in the door. Here's the rub: The state, which claimed at the bail hearing Oscar had his prostheses on when he shot at the door, now says he didn't have them on at either time: when he shot through the door or used the cricket bat. The defense says Oscar put them after shooting at the door and had them on when he used the bat.

In Oscar's bail affidavit, he says he shot through the door while on his stumps, then "I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open."[More...]

Here is the transcript of Sen. Diane Feinstein's remarks accusing the CIA of removing documents from the Intelligence Committee's computer network. The documents related to the Committee's investigation of the CIA's secret detention and interrogation program.

The resulting staff report was chilling. The interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detentions sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us.

As to the removed documents, Feinstein explained the process of her committee's access to them. She said the CIA had not wanted the documents being reviewed at the Senate, so then CIA Chief Leon Panetta set up an alternate plan for them to be reviewed offsite.[More...]

Last week, Oscar Pistorius' defense team spent a lot of time trying to get witnesses to acknowledge that they might have confused the sound of gunshots with the sound of Oscar bashing in the door to to the toilet with a cricket bat. Here's an interesting You Tube video of an experiment comparing the two sounds. Conclusion: If you weren't able to listen to both sounds for comparison purposes, you could easily mistake the sound of the cricket bat for the sound of a gunshot.

Here's a recap of yesterday's testimony. In a nutshell, Reeva was shot three times, in the hip, the arm and the head. She would have died within a few breaths of the gunshot to the head.

The Colorado Department of Revenue released the January, 2014 sales tax figures for marijuana today.

The state took in $2.9 million in sales and excise taxes and another $600,000 in licensing fees, for a total of $3.5 million.

The state distributed $2.1 million of the sales tax to county and local governments. Denver received the lion's share. The actual numbers are here. [More...]

The New Yorker has an in-depth interview with Peter Lanza, the father of Newtown shooter Adam Lanza. It's remarkably candid.

Lanza, who hadn't seen Adam in two years because Adam refused to see him, says Adam was pure evil and he wishes he had never been born. He says he has no doubt that had Adam had the chance, he would have killed him too.

“It was crystal clear something was wrong,” Peter said. “The social awkwardness, the uncomfortable anxiety, unable to sleep, stress, unable to concentrate, having a hard time learning, the awkward walk, reduced eye contact. You could see the changes occurring.”

[More...]

On Feb. 26, Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez announced in court he would plead guilty without a plea agreement in the Chicago case in which Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla are co-defendants. In court yesterday, his lawyer announced he had changed his mind and wants to go to trial in May after all.

Why? A local ABC News affiliate reporter named Chuck Goudie had erroneously reported on TV that Vasquez-Hernandez had turned against Chapo. The inmates at the jail saw it and word spread to Mexico, where VH's wife and children live. Vasquez Herandez would rather go to trial than potentially put their lives in jeopardy.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Shakeshaft called Goudie’s error, “an unfortunate piece of journalism.”

[More...]

Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead one hour.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Alfredo Vasquez Hernandez is scheduled to plead guilty in Chicago late today in the Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla case. His lawyer says he is not cooperating and the plea has nothing to do with Guzman's arrest. (El Chapo is also named as a defendant in the case.)

The Oscar Pistorius trial has ended for the week with several questions unanswered. The Last witness on the stand was the security guard who testified that at 3:24 am he spoke with Oscar on the phone who said "Everything is fine." The defense says there was a first call by Oscar to the guard at 3:21 a.m. The security guard will return Monday. Also, Oscar's ex-girlfriend testified about one of the gun charges. She said Oscar cheated on her with Reeva, but Oscar's lawyer says he will provide e-mails showing they had already broken up. The earlier witness testimony about sounds of cricket bats vs gunshots remains conflicting.

[More...]

Latest example of our rapidly changing times when it comes to marijuana: Comcast accepted and has begun airing an ad for medical marijuana. The ad is by MarijuanaDoctors and will be seen on a variety of channels between 10 pm and 5 am.

The commercial draws a parallel between a “shady” street dealer attempting to push “unsafe” sushi to unsuspecting buyers, and medical marijuana patients being forced to obtain their medication in a similar fashion. MarijuanaDoctors.com draws this parallel in an attempt to prove the severity of consulting physicians in order to obtain medical marijuana for terminal & debilitating medical conditions where the doctor may recommend that the benefits of medical marijuana outweigh the risks of in order to improve a patients overall health.

You can view the ad below: [More...]

A woman named Nicole Peterson Speelman in Capetown, South Africa recorded this two minute video clip yesterday and posted it to her Facebook page. A man is pulled out of his car, stripped naked, and then for no apparent reason, kicked and beaten by police, before being put in a van. Truly disgraceful police conduct. (Click on the "full screen" button for a much better view.)

At the end of the video you can hear Ms. Speelman, who apparently took the video from her office nearby, screaming at the cops, asking why they were beating the man. One cop starts to walk in the direction of her voice, and the video ends. A FB friend asked her whether the officer came after her. Her reply:

Yes he came upstairs banged on our door he came to arrest me for sreaming out the window but all of us asked him why did he do that to the man so he said he was just trying to get him in the van and he arrested my collogue for police interference and the charges was later dropped. [More...]