Hank Skinner is on death row in Texas. His supporters say his is a terrible case of wrongful conviction. Now, you can read about his case in English or French and learn how you can help in his quest to overturn his conviction and sentence.

The Pentagon has agreed to relax some of the arduous rules imposed upon private defense lawyers representing defendants in Guantanamo military tribunal proceedings. Among the most significant change is that defense lawyers will not have to sign an affidavit acknowledging that their conversations with their clients may be recorded.

The Pentagon has not dropped its insistence that agents can listen in, but the reworked rules are much more explicit about how the government chooses which suspects, if any, it will monitor, and which government agency will do the monitoring. A defense lawyer would be notified about planned electronic monitoring and could object to it at trial, [Miami Attorney Neal] Sonnett said.

Another big change: The Pentagon will remove the ban on private lawyers receiving help from their home offices or outside counsel in their representation of detainees at military tribunals, even if such lawyers are not on a Pentagon-approved list.

The new rules are not finalized yet, but here is the Pentagon's site on military commissions. You can read what's wrong with the current rules here.

Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean says he will quit the race if he does not win Wisconsin:

``We must win Wisconsin,'' the former Vermont governor said in a memo to supporters. ``A win there will carry us to the big states on March 2 -- and narrow the field to two candidates. Anything else will put us out of the race.''

Can he win Wisconsin?

Roderick Johnson is doing something about the indignities he suffered in a Texas prison. A gay, black man, Johnson was raped by more than one hundred men--nearly every day for 18 months. He's suing the Texas Department of Corrections and developing a program to "aid the re-integration of troubled young adults into mainstream society as productive, responsible citizens."

Hearing him speak, however, it seems the lawsuit embodies not an attempt at payback, but a demand for justice. "What's done is done," said 35-year-old Johnson. "I have harsh feelings, but I'm not vengeful."

....he was placed in Allred Prison, a maximum-security facility outside Wichita Falls, Texas. For Johnson, it was like being thrown into a viper's nest, he said. "I was in prison with people serving two life sentences," Johnson said. "They don't care about anything. Their lives are over."

At first he tried to survive as an independent - someone unaffiliated with any of the various gangs that Johnson said controlled the atmosphere inside. Soon, Johnson took another role, one forced upon him by inmates because of his sexuality, he said. "I became a 'she'," Johnson says. "In their eyes, I'm a woman."

Some of the inmates made him clean their cells and cook their food, he said. Then the rapes began. According to Johnson's lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, he was raped nearly every day for 18 months. He attempted seven times to convince a prison committee to move him into the safekeeping wing of the prison, where vulnerable prisoners such as known homosexuals and ex-police officers remain segregated from the general population. Each time, the committee refused his appeal.

Just two weeks prior to jury selection in his murder trial, actor Robert Blake has lost his lawyer. The Judge allowed his lawyer to quit the case today after a hearing at which she found there were "irreconcilable differences" between the two. The trial is postponed indefinitely.

This is the third lawyer to leave the case. Not a good sign.

Hesiod at Counterspin reports that President Bush will be interviewed Sunday on Meet the Press by Tim Russert. Check out Hesiod's sample questions he wants Russert to ask-- and send an email to Russert at MTP@NBC.com demanding he ask tough questions.

Richard Sale, an intelligence correspondent for UPI, is reporting that Federal law enforcement officials say there is "hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct" by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office relating to the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice
Department official said. According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were the two Cheney employees.

"We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law
enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned. Hannah and Libby did not return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time," as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law enforcement official said.

The Pentagon has pulled the plug on LifeLog, its "stunningly ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence." Defense Tech has the details.

Run by Darpa, the Defense Department's research arm, LifeLog aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone calls made, the TV shows watched, the magazines read, the plane tickets bought, the e-mail sent and received. Out of this seemingly endless ocean of information, computer scientists would plot distinctive routes in the data, mapping relationships, memories, events and experiences.

LifeLog's backers said the all-encompassing diary could have turned into a near-perfect digital memory, giving its users computerized assistants with an almost flawless recall of what they had done in the past. But civil libertarians immediately pounced on the project when it debuted last spring, arguing that LifeLog could become the ultimate tool for profiling potential enemies of the state.

Maximillian Potter, writing in Denver's excellent monthly magazine, 5280 details the first Air Force Academy prosecution resulting from the rape scandal, and says the families of both the accused and the alleged victim think it's more about politics than justice.

The cadet on trial is 20 year old Douglas Meester. His preliminary hearing is set for March, and trial is set for May. He is the first cadet to face a court-martial for cadet-on-cadet rape. Possible penalty: Life in prison.

A chilling article, read the whole thing.

Eric Boehlert writes in Salon of Bush's lost year in 1972 when he dropped out of the National Guard and "later lied about it." Boehlert asks, "With the media finally paying attention, will he now come clean?"

In 1972, George W. Bush simply walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas Air National Guard. He skipped required weekend drill sessions for many months, probably for more than a year, and did not take a mandatory annual physical exam, which resulted in his being grounded. Nonetheless, Bush, the son of a well-connected Texas congressman, received an honorable discharge.

If an Air National guardsman today vanished for a year, military attorneys say that guardsman would be transferred to active duty or, more likely, kicked out of the service, probably with a less-than-honorable discharge. They suggest the penalty would be especially swift if the absent-without-leave guardsman were a fully trained pilot, as Bush was.

It seems like the story is finally going to get some legs. Of course, bloggers like Skippy have been on top of it for more than a year. David Neiwert of Orcinus and Daily Howler, too.

The Government's star witness in the Martha Stewart trial, Douglas Faneuil, finished his direct testimony and faced cross-examination today.

Faneuil originally supported Stewart and Bacanovic's version, but struck a deal with the government in June 2002 to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and cooperate with prosecutors. Asked Wednesday to explain why he changed his story, Faneuil said: "There came a point in time where I just couldn't continue to lie. I felt that the coverup was part of my daily existence, and I just couldn't take it anymore."

As cross-examination began, Faneuil admitted he has used cocaine, marijuana and the party drugs Ecstasy and ketamine, sometimes called Special K. But he described the cocaine and ketamine uses as extremely limited, and said he had never been under the influence of any drugs during the workday at Merrill Lynch.

He also acknowledged that Bacanovic never "explicitly" directed him to lie.

Apparently, Faneuil smoked dope after signing his cooperation agreement with the Government. His agreement has a clause that says he can't break any laws. But the jury won't get to hear about it:

A routine clause in Faneuil's 2002 cooperation agreement requires him not to break the law. Stewart's attorney, Robert Morvillo, claims Faneuil broke that clause when he smoked marijuana on an April 2003 trip to Jamaica, and said the government should have "torn up" its agreement with Faneuil. But the judge did not allow defense lawyers to ask Faneuil about the trip, saying such a line of questioning amounted to "an attack on the motive of the government in presenting this case."

Faneuil faces more cross examination tomorrow.

Rolling Stone has released its list of the top 500 albums ever. We found the link over at Sideshow, and we agree with Avedon that Let it Bleed is better than Exile on Main Street. We're also amazed that we have about 40 of the top 50 on LPs in our basement.