Sometimes the most satisfaction comes from reading something we agree with when it comes from someone with a usually opposite viewpoint. That's the case today with Joe Kelley of For the Sake of Argument. Today he writes about the child molester killed in his prison cell this week in Virginia. Yes, the guy was guilty. But his death in prison is unjust. Joe says:

I know it’s not popular to argue this, but Ausley was NOT given a judicial death sentence. Yet, due to the incompetence of the Virginia Department of Corrections, he got one anyway.

Understandably, few wish to vocally advocate the rights of convicted criminals. But, when you’re an inmate in a state correctional facility, the state becomes your custodian. They’re charged with feeding, clothing, rehabilitating (yeah, right), and protecting your health and safety.

Inept correctional officers marginalized the entire Constitutionally established United States judicial process. What’s the point of a state paying to prosecute (and defend in many cases), taking the time from peers to establish a jury, and paying to incarcerate if it could all so quickly be made worthless?

Via Cursor we learn that Reporters Without Borders has issued a report accusing the U.S. Army of "criminal negligence" in the April deaths of two journalists. They were killed when an M1 Abrams tank opened fire on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel. The report also charges that U.S. officials initially "lied about what happened." You can read the full report here (pdf).

Several groups are calling upon the Justice Department to initiate a criminal probe into John Ashcroft's 2000 campaign finance activities. The groups charge that Ashcroft may have committed acts of tax evasion:

Several groups Thursday urged the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Attorney General John Ashcroft's use of a political action committee mailing list during his 2000 Senate race.

The National Voting Rights Institute, Public Citizen and other groups contended in a letter that Ashcroft evaded campaign finance laws through his Senate campaign's use of a mailing list developed by his Spirit of America PAC at a cost of $1.7 million.

They also say that while Ashcroft told the Federal Election Commission he personally owned the mailing list at one point, he failed to include it on a required report to the Senate outlining his financial holdings. He may have broken tax laws by failing to report income earned from the list on his Internal Revenue Service income tax filings, they say.

You can read the groups' joint letter to to the Justice Department here. Lots more information is available at StepAsideAshcroft.

Here we go....the federal government is overhauling the way it drug tests employees. It is moving from urine tests to saliva, hair testing and sweat tests. Major corporations are expected to follow suit. Here's what's planned:

Saliva testing, done using a swab that looks much like a toothbrush but with a pad instead of bristles, is best at detecting drug use within the past one or two days.

Hair testing, in which a sample about the thickness of a shoelace is clipped at the root from the back of the head, allows detection of many drugs used as far back as 3 months.

Sweat testing, in which workers are fitted with a patch that is worn for two weeks, is used to screen people who have returned to work after drug treatment.

For more on why you should oppose invasive drug testing in the workplace, go here.

Salim Gherebi is a detainee at Guantanamo. Last month, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case involving his brother that courts can consider petitions filed by detainees because the United States ''possesses and exercises all the attributes of sovereignty'' on the base. Salim has now brought his own lawsuit against President Bush and other federal officials, seeking $1.1 billion in damages for violating his consitutional rights. He is represented by Stephen Yagman of Los Angeles.

Since the 9th Circuit decision conflicts with a D.C. appeals court decision ruling the opposite way, the issue may well hit the Supreme Court. If it turns out Guantanamo detainees can sue, perhaps Mr. Gherebi has a case.

For those of you going through withdrawal since the Texas Department of Criminal Justice pulled its list of death row inmates' last meal requests from its website, you'll soon be in luck. Coming soon to a bookstore near you, is Meals to Die For, by the former prison chef at Huntsville (LA Times, free subscription required):

Before it was discontinued, the Texas list of last meals provided fascinating if macabre reading. In fact, Brian Price, who prepared 220 final meals in the Huntsville, Texas, prison kitchen while an inmate himself before he was paroled last year, has written a book featuring recipes for some of those last bites before oblivion. "Meals to Die For," scheduled for publication next month, will have 42 recipes, including those with such jarring names as "post-mortem potato soup," "Uh-oh I'm dead meat loaf" and "rice rigor mortis."

"Meals to Die For" will be published by Paige Corp. of San Antonio, whose president, Frank Wesch, is Price's nephew. The 504-page book will contain Price's personal recollections of the execution day for each of the 220 killers whose last meals he cooked, as well as his accounts of the cases that led to 42 of the executions.

Carol Mosely Braun will drop out of the presidential race and back Howard Dean. Kind of a non-event in our minds, since Braun's campaign never registered with the public --but some may find it newsworthy.

The Toronto Star justly takes new Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to task for his kow-towing to Bush in the wake of the Maher Arar affair:

When he became prime minister, he vowed, a Maher Arar scenario — where a Canadian citizen changing planes in New York was arrested, detained by U.S. authorities and deported to Syria to be tortured for a year — would never happen again.

"It's very, very important that the Canadian passport be respected and that effectively, Canadian citizens when they find themselves in this kind of difficulty, that if they're going to be sent home, they should be sent home to Canada," Martin said six weeks ago.

He called it "simply unacceptable" that the U.S. would deport a Canadian citizen to a third country and hinted broadly that if the Americans didn't come around, the Canadian government might have to rethink the practice of sharing security information with Washington.

Martin and Bush met yesterday in Mexico. Martin came away with far less than an agreement. He got bupkis-- a letter containing zero assurances:

A Pentagon official says there have been 21 suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq. 18 were in the army and the other three were in the navy and marine corps.

A total of 496 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the war began last March, 343 of them in combat and 153 in non-hostile incidents ranging from accidents to suicide, according to the Pentagon.

The 21 suicides represent nearly 14 percent of non-hostile deaths reported by the military, an increase over the proportion of 11 percent as of three months ago when the suicide number totaled 13....nearly 400 troops had been evacuated from Iraq for stress-related problems. The United States has about 123,000 troops in Iraq.

Assistant Defense Secretary for Health Affairs Dr. William Winkenwerder told the media that the military is taking steps to prevent suicides, including establishing a toll free hotline and increasing the availability of military psychiatric specialists in Iraq.

We can't help but remember one soldier who didn't receive help when he complained about being over-stressed--instead he was sent home and charged with a military crime:

Georg-Andreas Pogany is the special forces soldier who was sent home from Iraq and charged with cowardice after asking to speak a counselor when images of a body blown apart kept resurfacing in his mind to the point where he thought he was having a nervous breakdown. The charge has been reduced to derelection of duty.

Read Pogany's recollection of events, as reported in the Denver Post:

John Kerry just rose quite a few notches in our estimation--he supports a mortorium on the federal death penalty.

Sen. John Kerry: "I oppose the death penalty other than in cases of real international and domestic terrorism. We know we have put innocent people to death; 111 innocent people have already been released from death row. As president, I'll enforce the law but I'll also have a national moratorium on federal executions until we use DNA evidence to make sure those on death row are guilty."

All of the Democratic candidates responded to a question by the Associated Press, "Do you support the death penalty."

Former CFO of Enron, Andrew Fastow, pleaded guilty today and agreed to a ten year sentence and the forfeiture of over $20 million. He also agreed to cooperate with the Government in its continuing investigation of others, presumably Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay.

Those close to the case expect Skilling will be charged soon and that Lay will be under great scrutiny.

Lea Fastow is set to plead guilty this afternoon. Andrew will to stay free on bail and not begin his sentence until after he he has finished his cooperation--probably months from now. Amazing what benefits you can get when you agree to cooperate.

Only one Enron exec is now in jail--Ben Glisan Jr. is doing five years after pleading guilty without a plea bargain and refusing to cooperate.

Update: Andrew Fastow's plea agreement is here (pdf).

Update: We have read the plea agreement and it is one of the toughest ones we've ever seen. There is no right of appeal provided he gets no more than ten years; He can't ask for a sentence less than ten years; He can't collaterally attack the sentence; The Government will not ask for a (rule 35) sentence reconsideration based on Enron-related cooperation; the conditions of cooperation are onerous. If either he or his wife don't fulfill their ends of the bargain, both deals are off. We can only imagine what Mr. Fastow's guidelines would have been had he been convicted at trial in order for him to accept this plea--as one of our commenters point out, it had to be life or close to it. The only concession (other than time) he got appears to be the guarantee that he doesn't begin his sentence until his wife finishes her's.

The brief of the Guantanamo detainees in the Supreme Court case Rasul v. Bush is available online here. (pdf) The question presented is "Whether United States courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba?" [link via How Appealing]

Update: From UPI:

The 30-page brief pulls no punches in its criticism of the legal issues surrounding the more than 600 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, ostensibly outside the reach of civilian courts. "If there is no right to civilian review, the government is free to conduct sham trials and condemn to death those who do nothing more than pray to Allah," the brief states.

If the Bush administration's treatment of the prisoners is not challenged by the Supreme Court "the government is free to label virtually any person on the globe an enemy alien and deprive recourse to the civilian court."