A new fifty-minute documentary, Life on the Outside, explores problems facing those who leave prison or jail to return home and re-integrate back to their communities. It offers strategies for meeting those challenges. You can view a video clip here.

Findlaw columnist Mark Allenbaugh calculates Martha's federal sentencing guidelines at 30 to 37 months, and predicts she will serve 32 months. We disagree. Our calculations are here. Note: If you're not a lawyer, your eyes may glaze over at this.

We predict her guidelines will come out at either 10 to 16 months or 18 to 24 months--depending on whether the Judge enhances her guidelines based on a finding that her obstruction significantly interfered with the administration of justice.

Substantial interference with the administration of justice" includes a premature or improper termination of a felony investigation; an indictment, verdict, or any judicial determination based upon perjury, false testimony, or other false evidence; or the unnecessary expenditure of substantial governmental or court resources.

Also, the obstruction enhancement generally doesn't apply to convictions for obstruction. While it might apply to the false statements charge, the grouping rules provide for use of the obstruction guideline so we don't think that will come into play.

2. Nonapplicability of Chapter Three, Part C.—For offenses covered under this section, Chapter Three, Part C (Obstruction) does not apply, unless the defendant obstructed the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the obstruction of justice count.

The base guideline for obstruction is now 14, but we believe it was 12 at the time of the crime. The guideline to be used is that in effect at the time of sentencing, unless it was less at the time of the crime. [fn1]

We'd like to see appellate lawyer Peter Goldberger (and any other federal sentencing guideline pros) weigh in on this.

Jury selection continues in the Terry Nichols trial. A potential juror yesterday told the Judge she heard 4 or 5 other potential jurors saying they intended to lie to get on the jury and convict Nichols. The Judge refused a defense motion for a mistrial. None of those jurors made it through the initial phase.

Still, if there were 4 or 5 who said it aloud, how many more were thinking the same thing? How many others were swayed by the remarks?

More details are here.

A potential juror revealed Tuesday that she overheard three or four others talk about lying to get on the jury so they could convict Terry Nichols. "I had to tell them right offhand that's not what we're here for," she told the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys. "We took an oath to be fair and impartial, and this whole time they're lying. That's wrong."

Judge Steven Taylor refused a defense request for a mistrial because of the revelation but promised to "deal with this."

John Kerry, a fairly staunch opponent of capital punishment, reiterates his stand today: Only for terrorists. While we'd prefer the death penalty be abolished and a moratorium put in place until then, Kerry is light years ahead of Bush on this issue.

Of course, most executions are done by the states, not the feds, so many will say his stand isn't likely to have a huge impact. Still, it's important to us that the leader of the free world oppose the death penalty, and we think it will be a position that foreign governments, most of whom have abolished the death penalty, will champion.

Kerry has some more good news this week in the polling department:

Kerry's momentum toward the Democratic nomination, meanwhile, has fueled increased belief among Democratic voters in Illinois that he can defeat Bush in November, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows.

The poll, conducted March 3-6 among 602 likely Democratic primary voters, found that 76 percent believe Kerry has a good-to-excellent chance of beating Bush in the general election, up 5 percentage points from a similar poll three weeks ago

TomPaine.com today has an interesting article by political psychologist Martha Burk about how important the "Sex and the City" crowd vote will be this fall--single women voters.

Sorry, NASCAR dads, your 15 minutes are up. Single women are the new flavor of the month for the political punditocracy. Inspired by a survey conducted by Democratic pollsters Stan Greenberg and Celinda Lake showing an untapped gold mine of votes among women sans men, the buzz is all about how these babes can swing the election. With 16 million unmarried women now unregistered and 22 million unmarried women who are registered but didn't vote in the last election, this could be a formidable bloc.

According to Burk, 65% of the single women in this country think we are headed in the wrong direction.

Bush will be a tough sell this go-round for moderate women who believed him when he said he was a compassionate conservative. Women know he gave them a bait and switch. He tried to bench those soccer-daughters with an initiative to weaken Title IX. He has dismantled international family planning, even in countries with AIDS epidemics, closed the White House Office on Women's Issues and opened one on faith-based initiatives. That translates into federal dollars going to churches that work against women's rights, most notably in the fundamental right to control their own bodies. The War President is widely expected to tout advances for women in Afghanistan and Iraq as evidence that women should help him get re-elected. Putting aside the debate over whether women in those countries really are better off, the last time I looked, neither group could vote in the USA.

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Here's our final surgery update--about our wrist, not Ashcroft. We got the stitches out this morning. It was a success. Dr. In Sok Yi is our hero. We don't need any more therapy. We can resume all activities, using common sense. The area is still tender, and will be for a while, but the pain is gone. Thanks to all of you for your good wishes, they really felt good to read.

The hand-selected newsfeed on the left side of TalkLeft will resume next week. We're using common sense which tells us to wait until then.

Harvey Silverglate and Carl Takai, writing for the Boston Phoenix, say:

While we’re all fretting over the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft’s Justice Department is after much bigger game

First, let's take a look at the Patriot Act:

Personally shepherded through Congress by Attorney General John Ashcroft, it authorizes the kinds of things that send shivers down civil libertarians’ spines: invasions of personal privacy, restrictions on financial transactions, racial and ethnic profiling, blurring the line between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement, and punitive registration requirements for immigrants and visitors. And that’s just a partial list.

Silverglate says our focus on the Patriot Act has distracted us from Bush's parallel move--taking away our "threshold rights" --

fair elections, open and publicly accountable government, judicial review of executive action, the right of the accused to a public jury trial, separation of powers among the three branches of government, and the rights to free expression and free association —

Silverglate argues that the Patriot Act provisions can be repealed or sunsetted. Threshold rights are more permanent.

The Guardian writes now the piece it intends to write after Bush announces that Osama bin Laden has been captured:

The capture of Osama bin Laden, while warmly welcomed around the world, raises several questions about the interface between the war on terror and the US election cycle. The most worrying of these is the suspicion that Mr Bin Laden had already been in custody for a considerable period. George Bush's official spokesman has vehemently denied charges that the al-Qaida leader was actually apprehended in December 2001. But there is more than a hint of a "non-denial denial" about the White House's rejection of claims that news of Mr Bin Laden's capture was timed to coincide with the climax of the Democratic party convention. It is not just die-hard cynics who found the White House spokesman Scott McClellan's "Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?" less than frank.

Further, it is hard to be convinced by the explanation that Mr Bin Laden's tanned and robust appearance was because "he worked out a lot", given that Mr Bin Laden is said to have been living in caves for almost three years. Similarly, Mr McClellan's description of the site of Mr Bin Laden's capture as "Pakistan, Afghanistan ... around there" was dangerously vague and left the White House vulnerable to troubling suspicions.

Soon to open Off-Broadway is The Marijuana-Logues:

Ideal Entertainment Group and Magic Arts & Entertainment are stoked to present THE MARIJUANA-LOGUES, written and performed by Arj Barker, Doug Benson and Tony Camin, directed by Jim Millan. THE MARIJUANA-LOGUES is set for an open ended Off-Broadway run at The Actors Playhouse (100 Seventh Avenue South between Christopher and Bleecker). Previews begin Thursday, March 18th. Official Opening Night: Tuesday, March 30th at 7:00 PM.

Fact: 10.725 million Americans used marijuana in the past month. (U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration/SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse).

Fact: 10.95 million tickets to Broadway shows were sold in the entire 2001-2002 season. (2001-2002 League of American Theatres and Producers, Who Goes to Broadway, The Demographics of the Audience).

Put that in a pipe and smoke it! Seems it's high time for Mary-Jane's long overdue theatrical debut?....THE MARIJUANA-LOGUES is a "hit" unlike anything New York has seen. Catch the buzz as Barker, Benson and Camin riff on the rites and rituals of pot and regale the crowd with the highs and lows of marijuana. (Disclaimer: This production does not glorify drug use. It merely illustrates that cannibus culture can be a thing of substance, humor and creativity).

[link via Last One Speaks]

News to cheer about! Colorado Governor Bill Owens will not run for U.S. Senate. Congressman Mark Udall will.

Rep. Udall is one of my favorite elected officials. He is accessible, interested and responsive to constituents. He's liberal. He's personally against the death penalty. He was a champion for civil asset forfeiture reform. The only bad news is I always end up contributing more than I can afford to his campaigns. Nonetheless, he is the best Colorado has to offer and he's electable.

The Repubs can kiss this seat goodbye.

Does this sound like a suicide to you?

His family was horrified at the face staring up from the open casket. Kenneth Trentadue's forehead was blackened and bruised. His eyes were blood-marked, his left eye swollen shut. His cheeks were puffed and scraped and cut. His jaw was rubbed red. The family ordered the Orange County undertaker to strip the body and wipe away the makeup. Then they saw the rest — his battered head, his gouged throat, his arms and legs, hands and wrists, even the bottoms of his feet, all covered in deep, ugly wounds.

Kent Trentadue died in 1995. He was a small-time offender, a drug user in jail on a parole violation for a burglary charge. Authorities claimed he hanged himself. He had been arrested in San Diego and pleaded guilty to a drunk driving offense. Because he was on federal parole for a burglary, he was transferred back to the federal receiving center in Oklahoma pending a parole revocation hearing. If he lost, he was only looking at 16 months. He got to Oklahoma on Friday, and was found dead on Monday.

A new report finds that Louisiana fails to reach 9 out of 10 indigent defense standards:

If you’re poor in Louisiana, you have no real access to justice. This is the inevitable conclusion of In Defense of Public Access to Justice: An Assessment of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services in Louisiana 40 Years After Gideon, a report released today by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and researched by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA). Rather than constructing a “uniform system for securing and compensating qualified counsel for indigents” at “each stage of the proceeding” as required by the Louisiana Constitution, In Defense of Public Access to Justice documents “the significant extent to which Louisiana has failed to protect the rights of people of insufficient means faced with the potential loss of liberty in criminal proceedings.” (Report at p. 19).

Forty-one years ago, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court concluded in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright that the right to counsel in criminal proceedings is a fundamental part of due process and that state governments are responsible for providing a public defense system that ensures this basic right. In Defense of Public Access to Justice documents that Louisiana fails to meet nine of the American Bar Association’s well-respected 10 Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System – principles designed to provide guidance to policymakers as they seek to ensure compliance with the Gideon mandate. “The substantial failing of the system to meet these standards can only mean that the indigent defense system devised by the legislature in Louisiana delivers ineffective, inefficient, poor quality, unethical, conflict-ridden representation to the poor.” (Report at p. 56)