Kobe Bryant: The Game of His Life
by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

It was bound to happen. A former tabloid journalist was bound to write a book claiming inside details of the Kobe Bryant case. The book is by former Globe reporter Jeff Shapiro, who also wrote about the JonBenet Ramsey case.

Shapiro will be giving away his book Monday to journalists at the courthouse in Eagle, the next scheduled hearing date.

The book boasts interviews with the accuser. If she did speak with the Shapiro, we think the defense will have more support for their argument that she waived her privilege of confidentiality in her medical records.

Other purported book revelations:

• Whose DNA was detected in the woman's underwear the day she had her rape exam. Court testimony has revealed it was from someone other than Bryant.

• The story behind the implication by Bryant attorney Pamela Mackey that the accuser had had sex with three men in three days.

• What Bryant, 25, said in his first police interview the night after the alleged rape, when officers spoke with him for 75 minutes but didn't tell him they were tape-recording the conversation. The defense wants Bryant's statements thrown out, but they're said to be crucial to the prosecution's case.

Shapiro is now a law student in Florida. He says that after graduating, "he hopes to establish a foundation to help people fight back when they feel they've been victimized by tabloid tactics."

Need we say more?

The question, according to this article in the Lincoln Journal Star, is "Where do tobacco pipes end and marijuana bongs begin?"

The U.S. attorney for Nebraska, Mike Heavican, announced the indictments Wednesday of four people from two shops on federal drug paraphernalia charges. If convicted, they could face up to three years in prison for each charge and fines of up to $250,000 each.

They also face federal inspection of their business bookkeeping, authorities said, efforts that could lead to the forfeiture of money made selling illicit items.

Compare the state and federal penalties:

Federal drug paraphernalia charges are felonies; Nebraska law treats paraphernalia possession and sales as low-grade misdemeanors.

This is part of Attorney General John Ashcroft's zero tolerance policy. The Government thinks it is attacking the drug policy from the demand side by busting head shops:

Heavican called the effort part of the United States’ push for narcotics “demand reduction.” When U.S. officials ask countries such as Mexico and Colombia to fight drug supplies, he said, officials there ask Americans to fight demand..... Many drug dealers, addicts and users would not seek “the carrot of treatment” without “the stick of prosecution.”

We agree with Eric Sterling, director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, who says of the busts:

“The goods are out there in the public eye, so it requires absolutely zilch investigation. It’s easy, cheap and headline-grabbing.”

[comments now closed]

In response to the PROTECT Act in which Congress placed more limitations on judicial discretion at sentencing proceedings, one federal judge has begun videotaping sentencing proceedings:

The move comes amid a backlash over a new law intended to make it more difficult for judges to depart from federal sentencing guidelines, and to make it easier for the government to appeal light sentences. Weinstein claimed that the law effectively gives the Second U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals the power to re-sentence defendants when it finds that a so-called "downward departure" was unjustified.

"It would be very hard to do that without seeing the defendant," said Weinstein, adding he would make all tapes available to the appeals court.

Weinstein, who has a reputation as an activist jurist, is among several federal judges who have openly accused Congress of trying to bully them into imposing harsher sentences.

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez writes in a poignant column:

Maria Suarez called me from a jail in San Pedro and said Tuesday she could see harbor boats through the window. After roughly two-thirds of her life in captivity, freedom was close enough to raise her hopes and break her heart at the same time.

Suarez, now 43, legally entered the United States from Mexico at the age of 16, only to be raped and beaten as the teenage sex slave of a man 55 years her elder. She was convicted of killing the monster, despite her claims of innocence, and finally won her parole last month after battling for years.

Now she sits in another prison, awaiting a deportation hearing scheduled for today. Suarez is a permanent legal resident, but not a U.S. citizen, and immigration law says that, with an aggravated felony on her record, she is to be deported.

"Justice," Suarez said, "is so hard to understand."

The Denver Post interviewed people who remember Howard Dean's year as an Aspen ski bum. He washed dishes at the Golden Horn restaurant. His former employer disses him, but most of those interviewed are either mildly favorable or say he didn't stand out.

Dean spent the 1971-1972 ski season in Aspen. That's the year we moved to Denver. Aspen was so, so fun back then. We liked Sheriff Bob Braudis's comments--he is the coolest sheriff we know.

Update: Katha Pollitt bashes the press over their treatment of Judith Dean :

I don't think Dr. Judy is weird at all. She's leading a normal, modern, middle-class-professional life. She has been married forever. She has two children. She likes camping and bike riding and picnics. She volunteers. She has work she loves...I have no idea why Judith Steinberg hasn't slogged through the snow for her husband. Maybe she's busy. ('It's not something I can say, 'Oh, you take over for a month,' she explained to Diane Sawyer. Imagine that, Tina, Diane, Maureen-a job where if you don't show up, it matters!)."

Cheers for Gov. Olene Walker of Utah, who opted out of the federal government's crime database today after being advised by the ACLU that the database is a threat to privacy.

Gov. Olene Walker promised to set up an oversight group after the ACLU on Wednesday said the program poses a more powerful threat to privacy than its organizers acknowledge. Utah's decision leaves six states still in the program.

The U.S. military says it is "sure" it will catch Osama bin Laden this year.

Any bets it will be a month or so before election day?

Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in Afganistan today.

Thursday also was one of the deadliest days for American forces in Afghanistan: Seven soldiers were killed when a weapons cache exploded southwest of the capital. Three other American soldiers were wounded and another was missing after the blast, the U.S. Central Command said.

Update: Hesiod at Counterspin also ties the news to Bush's re-election

Maher Arar was interviewed on WNYC --Randy at Beautiful Horizens has the details.

Bump and Update: Senator Richard Durbin responds to Ashcroft--we received his press release by e-mail:

DURBIN RESPONDS TO VETO THREAT AGAINST THE SAFE ACT

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) today issued the statement below following the Bush Administration’s veto threat against legislation that would amend parts of the PATRIOT Act. Bipartisan legislation which I, along with Larry Craig (R-ID) and a group of other senators, introduced last October has today come under fire from Attorney General John Ashcroft and members of the Bush Administration. The legislation, known as the Security and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act, is a bill designed to impose reasonable limits on law enforcement’s authority without hampering their ability to investigate and prevent terrorism.

Our bill does not propose a repeal of the PATRIOT Act – far from it. I voted for that bill, as did the vast majority of my colleagues in Congress. I believed then, and I still believe, that the PATRIOT Act made many reasonable and necessary changes in the law. But in some cases the new law goes too far, and we should amend those provisions to reflect every American citizen’s right to be both safe and free. Under the SAFE Act, the FBI would still have broad authority to combat terrorism; at the same time the bill would protect innocent Americans from unchecked government surveillance.

Attorney General Ashcroft’s response today is an unfortunate over-reaction to a reasoned and measured effort to mend the PATRIOT Act. Three months ago I asked senior officials at the Department of Justice to work with me and my staff on changes to the PATRIOT Act that reflect the very real concerns of many Americans. After 90 days of silence, today they issued a veto threat. This extraordinary reaction to a bill that hasn’t even had a hearing in the Senate demonstrates that the Administration fears that this reasonable bipartisan approach is likely to succeed.

I am eager to work with the President to meet the challenges posed by the post-September 11th world, but we must do so in a way that protects the freedoms of all Americans

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Three teenagers held for more than a year at Guantanamo Bay have been freed. Details of their conditions of confinement are here. [Hat tip to Kitt, thanks.]

Update: The AP reports on the release. The three were younger than 16.

"The detention of children as 'enemy combatants' and their interrogation without even the basic safeguards to which they were entitled was a significant violation of human rights," William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A., said in a statement. "The release of these children is long overdue, but does not let the U.S. off the hook for continued violations of the rights of hundreds of other detainees."

Don't miss this--Thanks for the Memories.

Minnesota's new Republican governor is continuing his efforts to reinstate the death penalty in the state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty first floated the idea about a month ago and faced widespread criticism. At the time, the Legislature, comprised of a Republican House and Democratic Senate, made it clear that legislation renewing the death penalty did not have the votes to pass either chamber. It seemed that the issue would be dropped, but it now appears the Governor is looking for a way to bypass the Legislature.

Minnesota voters should decide via a constitutional amendment referendum whether to reinstate a state death penalty after nearly a century for the "worst of the worst" criminals, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Tuesday.

As about 50 protesters outside his State Capitol office chanted "Execute justice, not people," the governor proposed the outlines of a Minnesota system of capital punishment that he said would be "the most modern and cautious" in the nation.

To drum up support for his plan, the Governor brought out the father of a murdered rape victim who said he believed in "an eye for an eye." There was no mention of Mahatma Ghandi, who sagely said, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Sen. John Hottinger, DFL-St. Peter, denounced the plan as "a cowardly approach designed to allow elected officials to avoid responsibility for taking us down this dark alley of criminal justice." He also described Pawlenty's proposal as an attempt to divert voters' attention from the effects of the administration's budget cuts and its release of [Dru] Sjodin's accused kidnaper.

Added Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minneapolis: "This is playing with fire. It's political cynicism at its worst. The death penalty serves no legitimate purpose. It's applied unfairly, falling disproportionately on the poor, people of color and, in too many cases, on the innocent. It's also a budget buster, sapping resources from education, health care and public safety."

Hopefully, the good people of Minnesota won't kowtow to their new governor's ill-advised agenda.