We've got a busy morning surrendering an out of state client to the federal court. Meetings with pre-trial services who then recommends a bond amount; then meeting the FBI agent who will walk our client across the street to the U.S Marshals' office where he will be fingerprinted and mugshots taken, and then he stays in the nice, warm lockup until 2 or 3 when the duty judge can hear his case and set bail. We won't have much time to blog, so here's an open thread for you to talk about the news of the day that you find interesnting.

Terry Nichols, Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant are all in court. The Tuesday primaries are a day away. Haiti is on the brink of disaster with U.S. Marines flying in to restore order. A lot to talk about. Have fun.

We thought there was more to the story of Bush's pardon of his dying, convicted pal a few weeks ago, and now there is new information . This week there is even more information at LA Weekly .

George Bush does almost no pardons. They’re labor-intensive, entail considerable political risk and provide little political or pecuniary gain. At 12, he’s about to set a record for the modern presidency. That’s only nine more than the number of turkeys he’s pardoned in the annual pre-Thanksgiving ritual.

Remember the S&L collapse. You’re still paying for it. No one knows the final tab, $300 billion to $500 billion in taxpayer-funded bonds to be retired in the future. More than half that was a transfer payment out of the pockets of taxpayers in the other 49 states and into insolvent S&Ls and bloated real estate deals in the Great State. Texas led the nation in failed S&Ls with 237,

We are so tired of Lord of the Rings. It tied with Titanic and Ben Hur for winnng the most awards in one year.

The best moment to us was when Sean Penn won for best actor for Mystic River. The rest was a yawn.

Drug courts have been around state courts for years, but now, federal judges in North Dakota are thinking of bringing them to federal court:

The saddest day in the world is when we lock people up for the rest of their lives because they have drug problems," said U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson, of Fargo. Erickson and other federal judges are working on a drug court plan under which minor federal drug offenders could face strict supervision and treatment rather than long jail sentences.

The proposal also could include people on their way out of the prison system, said Rich Crawford, North Dakota's chief federal probation officer.....Crawford said bringing such a program to the federal court system in North Dakota would be a welcome change. "I really wish Congress would see the benefit of this type of program as opposed to just harsh sentencing guidelines," he said.

Even the U.S. Attorney in Fargo is open to the plan:

While federal prosecutors typically focus on large trafficking operations, the system could be used for people who plead guilty to lesser charges and testify in drug investigations, U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said. "I'm intrigued by it and open to it," he said.

Our view: From their mouths, to Ashcroft's ears. More information on drug courts is available here.

More from Dave Neiwart of Orcinus, this time on the recent revelations in the Oklahoma City bombing case. Neiwert outlines the conspiracists' theory that white supremacist bank robbers and others were involved in the OKC bombing.

Most notably, it was the entire subject of Mark S. Hamm's book In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground, published in 2002. According to Hamm, four cells of the ARA were involved. In Hamm's report, the first cell comprised "the bomb builders" -- Steven Colbern, Dennis Malzac, and a third "phantom bomb builder" -- while McVeigh, Nichols, and Michael Fortier constituted the second cell, whose role was "to plan and develop a strategy for the bombing." A third cell for "information, training, weapons, and logistical support" was led by Andreas Strassmier. It also included Denis Mahon and a Elohim City resident, Michael Brescia, whom some have fingered as John Doe No. 2. The fourth and final cell was in charge of financing, which, like The Order in 1984, was largely the product of bank robberies. This was the public ARA, led by Peter Langan, and included Brescia, as well as four others: Richard Guthrie, Kevin McCarthy, Scott Stedeford, and a Posse Comitatus leader, Mark Thomas. All of these ARA participants are either dead (Guthrie committed suicide) or behind bars, except Brescia and Thomas, who both served time and are free now.

Like David, we find the theory wanting in several respects. Nonetheless, it's good that the investigation is being re-opened--provided it's a real one and not just a "going through the motions" type one.

Journalist, author and blogger David Neiwert of Orcinus says Ralph Nader is an extremist:

Anyone who votes for Nader isn't just voting for Bush. They're voting for a right-wing tool and a wacko in his own right.

Jury selection is set to begin in two state trials this week--Scott Peterson, accused of killing his pregnant wife Laci and their unborn son, and Terry Nichols, accused of conspiring to kill approximately 160 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. Nichols was previously convicted in federal court of conspiring to kill federal officers. The state trial is focusing on the other victims.

Jurors in death cases must be death-qualified. How does that work? Here's an inside look.

We think jurors should be life-qualified, rather than death-qualified. The test should be whether they could impose a life sentence even if they find the defendant guilty. But, that's not the law. Nonetheless, skilled capital defense lawyers push the envelope during jury selection to try to do just that -- find the jurors who could give life, no matter how heinous the crime. They want jurors who will listen to their mitigation evidence and reach within themselves to a find a reason to save their client's life.

Death penalty training for defense lawyers is intense. They call it "death camp" -- for good reason. We non-capital defense lawyers call it "G-d's work." We will focus more on this as these and other death life trials progress.

In the meantime, a cool and insightful blog to read to get into the mindset of the defense lawyer is Public Defender Dude.

Peter Goldberger, the appellate lawyer guru from Ardmore, PA, points out that the news is mischaracterizing the Judge's dismissal of the securities fraud count against Martha Stewart. He writes,

Judge Cedarbaum did not "toss" or "dismiss" or "throw out" the securities fraud charge against Martha Stewart, as all the news stories have been saying. She found Stewart Not Guilty on that charge, that is, she acquitted her.

Peter is correct. Martha was acquitted on that count. You can read the opinion here(pdf).

Update: Here is some of the relevant language from the Judge's opinion:

Amnesty International representatives paid a visit to Kenny Richey, the Scottish citizen who has been on Ohio's death row for the past 17 years. They say he is "treated like a rabid animal."

Richey is living in “inhuman, barbaric, macabre and degrading” conditions in Mansfield Correctional Institute, according to Scottish LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael and the head of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen, both of whom visited him on Thursday.

Richey, 39, was cuffed, with the manacles locked to a waist-chain, during the visit. His ankles were shackled and he was tethered to the floor. Allen said Richey was “treated like a rabid animal”. He receives little or no medical or dental care and, according to Carmichael, had been forced to improvise a false tooth using part of a plastic fork.

“Death row is horrific,” said Carmichael. “The brutality is inescapable. As a student I worked on a pig farm. Kenny was tethered like the sows we kept locked in sheds. We abolished that as it was inhuman. I saw him and thought that they do to him what we don’t let farmers do to animals.

Then they met "Death Row Barb."

“The most surreal moment was when we walked on to death row and a warden introduced us to the death row secretary – a woman in her 60s. He said ‘this is death row Barb’. The staff are totally desensitised.’’

Amnesty describes Richey’s case as “one of the most compelling cases of apparent innocence that human rights campaigners have ever seen”.

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TalkLeft is now restored. It took almost 24 hours. We caused the meltdown late last night when we tried to back up all the files. We exceeded our site limit (500 mg.) and it corrupted the MT database.

Thank goodness for our hosting company, Hosting Matters. Starting early this morning, they began restoring the files--they had to create an entirely new database and then import each of our 5,000 plus entries --everytime there was a hyphen in an entry or a comment, they had to do it manually. They just finished. We can't thank them, and Stacy in particular, enough. If you are considering hosting companies, we can't recommend them highly enough.

There may be 20 or so entries of the 5,000 that didn't make the cross-over. If you come across a post that doesn't open, please let us know which one so we can restore it.

We'll resume in the morning. What a long day!

Update: Comments should be working now.

What's the real deal with the U.S. Government and Haiti? We've met Ira Kurzman and he is beyond well-regarded as just about the most knowledgeable lawyer out there on immigration issues. Cursor reports,

Ira Kurzman, a U.S. lawyer for the Haitian government, tells "Democracy Now!" that anti-government paramilitary forces in Haiti are "armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence services of the United States," and that "some kind of theater of the absurd" is being played out involving "opposition" leaders such as Andy Apaid (a U.S. citizen) and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Kurzman also rejects bribery accusations aimed at Aristide by "one of Haiti's most flamboyant drug traffickers," as "just another piece of the effort to politically assassinate President Aristide before the U.S.-directed military coup physically eliminates him."

Update: Haiti descends into anarchy.

Update: Jeanne at Body and Soul has a list of recommended reads on Haiti.

From a Department of Justice press release today:

Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard of the District of Columbia announced today that Narissa Smalls, a legal technician in FBI Headquarters, was sentenced to 12 months in prison today on charges stemming from her unlawful access of the FBI’s Automated Case Support (ACS) computer system.

Smalls, sentenced this afternoon by U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler of the District of Columbia, pleaded guilty to the felony charges in December 2003 and resigned from the FBI as part of her plea agreement.

Smalls was assigned to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Unit in FBI Headquarters, and her duties included searching ACS for information in response to FOIA requests and for other administrative purposes. Smalls admitted that between September 2002 and November 2002, she conducted several searches in ACS for information regarding individuals who were subjects of ongoing drug investigations in the FBI’s Washington Field Office. In one instance, she printed out the information and took it to her residence. Smalls admitted she then shared the results of her ACS searches with individuals who were associated with the subjects of the FBI’s drug investigations.