5,000 panhandlers in Chicago filed a class-action lawsuit alleging they were unfairly ticketed or arrested while politely requesting money on the streets of Chicago. A federal judge has ordered a settlement in which each may receive up to $400.00.

The case, filed in federal court in 2001, focused on a local disorderly conduct law that let police arrest people on public streets for drunkenness, lewdness — and panhandling. If arrested, the person could face a fine of as much as $500.

"Having a blanket prohibition like that isn't legal," said Mark Weinberg, one of the attorneys who represents the panhandlers. "You can ask me for help to cross the street. You can ask me for the time. But if you asked me for a dollar, the city could throw you in jail."

....On Friday, federal Magistrate Nan R. Nolan approved a settlement that calls for Chicago to pay $99,000 in damages. The city, which admits no wrongdoing, also will pay an additional $375,000 to cover the prosecution's legal fees and the cost of distributing the money.

About 5,000 people are estimated to qualify to share in the settlement proceeds. The offending law has since been repealed.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger already has shown more compassion than his predecessor Gray Davis in parole decisions. But he's about to face a bigger test:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.... is about to face his first decision on whether a notorious killer should be executed or granted clemency.With a Feb. 10 execution date set this week for Kevin Cooper, on death row since the 1983 hatchet slayings of two adults and two children inside a house in Chino Hills, Schwarzenegger must first decide whether to take up Cooper's request for clemency.

If he does agree to consider Cooper's plea to avoid death by lethal injection, the state Board of Prison Terms will hold a public hearing in Sacramento, take a secret vote and make its confidential recommendation to Schwarzenegger.

Cooper's crime was a heinous one, and it is unlikely Gov. Arnie, a death penalty supporter, will show him mercy. Unlike parole decisions, clemency decisions are mostly about mercy. Here's the contrast to date between Gray Davis, who had a blanket policy of rejecting parole for murderers, and Arnie, who has no such policy:

On parole recommendations from the Board of Prison Terms, Schwarzenegger has already upheld four and reversed six. Davis, in contrast, reversed the board's grant of parole for all but eight convicted murderers out of nearly 300 referred to him by the Board of Prison Terms. He was also under increasing fire by judges and others who said he appeared to have a blanket policy against paroling murderers.

We'll go out on a limb here and make a bold prediciton: At least one convicted murderer sentenced to death will have his sentence commuted to life without parole by Gov. Arnie during his term as Governor. We don't think it will be Cooper--but we do expect he will weigh each case individually and find one such prisoner who deserves mercy.

The right to vote took a step forward Friday for ex-felons in Florida:

A federal appeals court Friday ordered a trial in a lawsuit that claims Florida's law barring felons from voting is unconstitutional because it discriminates against blacks. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, reversing a lower court ruling dismissing the case, decided there are enough relevant facts for the case to go to trial.

...Roughly 600,000 Floridians are banned from voting because of felony convictions, according to the Florida Equal Rights Voting Project. A disproportionate number of them more than a third are black, according to American Civil Liberties Union estimates.

Update: Here's the latest on the court decision.

If you're concerned about the Administration's treatment of detainees and curtailment of civil rights as a result of its war on terror, we recommend you check in often with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights . They have the latest on the Jose Padilla decision, the 9th Circuit decision on the Administration's improper prolonged detention of the Guantanamo detainees, the Yaser Hamdi case, and the report on the prison guards' abuse of detainees in Brooklyn.

Via Drug War Rant:

Yesterday's Larry King show, included this exchange with Bill Maher and a caller:

KING: Oakville, Ontario, hello.
CHAMNEY: Hi, Mr. Maher, I'm absolutely thrilled to be speaking with you.
MAHER: Well, I'm thrilled to be talking to you, too.
CHAMNEY: My question for you is, do you plan on staying behind the marijuana mission? I don't know if you've realized...
MAHER: I do.
CHAMNEY: But you've saved peoples' lives up here in Canada and the United States. It was because of you discussing it on TV and a Web site called The Marijuana Mission that made my family understand what marijuana does for people. And it actually stopped my grandma's seizures. So, I'm no longer considered an epileptic just because I smoke it every day. And I appreciate you so much. And we talk about you up here all the time. You should run for Congress, sir.
MAHER: Thank you.
CHAMNEY: You remind me so much of my lawyer Alan Young, and he is the greatest one up here speaking about marijuana and you keep on talking down there, buddy.
MAHER: You keep puffing as the president said, let's roll. It's a good opportunity for me to bring up Tommy Chong. Tommy of "Cheech and Chong," you know he's in jail right now. He was...

Kobe Bryant wasted no time --as soon as his court hearing in Eagle was over, he was off to LA where he opened the second quarter of the Lakers game against the Denver Nuggets:

Kobe Bryant didn't arrive back from a court hearing in Colorado in time for tipoff against the Denver Nuggets, but he started the second quarter. Bryant spent the day in Eagle, Colo., for a motions hearing involving his sexual assault case.

About 35 minutes after tipoff, he walked to the bench wearing his warmups, bounced on his toes and stretched his legs. Fans shouted his name and cheered. Bryant bumped fists with the scoring crew and walked on the court to start the second quarter.

No big news in the case today as the Judge put evidentiary issues off until January--except for the embarassing announcement by the DA that his office got two of the anti-Kobe t-shirts that made the news last month.

Defense attorney Pamela Mackey called the shirts inflammatory and derogatory and said they've been characterized as racist and "evocative of (a Ku Klux) Klan lynching."

....In an embarrassing admission, Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said someone in his office ordered the shirts and that he and chief deputy prosecutor Greg Crittenden were each given one by "an unknown source."

Hurlbert said he immediately destroyed his shirt, but Crittenden held on to his until Thursday. Neither wore the shirts, he said. Even Hurlbert supporters said his office goofed up.

Update: Our view of the t-shirt issue, as reported by the press November 6:

Ralph Nader wants another shot at the Presidency. Members of the Green Party in Denver say "no."

Videotapes confirm the findings of the Inspector General's report that detainees held as part of a post-9/11 terrorism roundup at a federal prison in Brooklyn were abused:

The Justice Department's inspector general announced yesterday that investigators had found hundreds of prison videotapes that confirm reports of serious physical and verbal abuse of immigrants detained after the Sept. 11 attacks. Inspector General Glenn Fine found that "some officers slammed and bounced detainees against the wall, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg-restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time," according to a report released yesterday.

The report also found that jail personnel improperly taped meetings between detainees and lawyers and overused strip searches. Fine's office concluded that as many as 20 guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, N.Y., were involved in the abuse and recommended discipline or counseling for 12 of those who remain employed there. Four guards no longer work at the prison, but the report said their new employers should be told of the Justice Department findings. The inspector general could not identify the others involved.

The Inspector General's report is available here. The Justice Department is considering action against the guards:

Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the agency's civil rights division and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York will review the report and the videotapes to see if anyone should be prosecuted. "We agree with the inspector general that even the intense emotional atmosphere surrounding the attacks, particularly in New York City where smoke was still rising from the rubble of Ground Zero, is no excuse for abhorrent behavior by Bureau of Prisons personnel," Corallo said.

Two Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Jerrold Nadler of New York, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to punish the guards and to take steps to prevent a repeat of the abuse. "Actions such as these not only constitute a disservice to the department but seriously undermine our war against terror," they said in a letter.

Update: Patriot Watch reminds us of Ashcroft's arrogant and dismissive response to the original DOJ IG report:

"our actions are fully within the law and necessary" and "under these unprecedented and extraordinary circumstances, the law was scrupulously followed and respected"

For the fourth year in a row, juries around the country have delivered fewer death sentences:

In its year-end report, the Death Penalty Information Center projects approximately 138 death sentences for 2003, 20 below last year and less than half the number recorded annually during much of the 1990s.

"The public is more cautious about the death penalty, and that is showing," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the anti-capital punishment information clearinghouse. "The revelations of people who were wrongly convicted and now set free, cases of sloppy legal representation, crime labs that were not doing their job -- there were so many dimensions spreading doubt about what is happening here."

Texas, of course, is an anomaly. Of the 65 lethal injections last year, 24 were texecutions.

The Legislature rejected a proposal to add life without parole as a possible sentence in capital murder cases, an option for juries in 35 of the 38 death penalty states. Opponents argued it would result in fewer death sentences.

Only 11 states have carried out executions so far in 2003. The great majority of those -- 68 percent -- belonged to Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina. All but a handful occurred in the South.

Still...four years in a row of declining death sentences is progress. More people are realizing the system is broken and deciding they don't want to be a part of it.

From a press release on the website of the Department of Defense:

"The Department of Defense announced today that Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen has been assigned a military defense counsel. Although he has not been charged, Hamdan is one of six detainees President Bush determined to be subject to his military order of November 13, 2001. Military commission rules require that a detailed defense counsel be available to an accused sufficiently in advance of trial to prepare a defense. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was detailed to represent Hamdan by the acting Chief Defense Counsel, Air Force Col. William Gunn. Swift intends to meet with Hamdan in the near future."

Looks like the tribunals are getting closer.....

[Link via Patriot Watch]

Mental health and medical records of the accuser in the Kobe Bryant case are likely to be the focus of today's hearing :

In their boldest move to cast doubt upon the credibility of the woman, the defense attorneys have asked District Court Judge Terry Ruckriegle to admit into evidence the woman's Feb. 23 and May 30 suicide attempts and prescribed anti-psychotic drug treatment. "The purported suicide attempts are highly relevant to establish the accuser's motive, scheme, plan and modus operandi of creating drama in her life in order to get attention," Mackey wrote.

Mackey also wrote that the accusations against Bryant were a continuation of woman's "pattern of engaging in extreme, dangerous, attention-seeking behavior without regard to its effects on those around her. Her behavior and treatment with an anti-psychotic drug also make it more probable that she is not to be believed."

Victims advocacy groups are upset by the motions. We're not:

Veteran Denver criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt backed Mackey and Haddon's strategy.

"They are not abusing the process but using creative and solid lawyering," Merritt said. "Her credibility is relevant. They are using the facts to explain why this woman might have made up this story. They are doing everything they can for their client."

Although, a lot of today's hearing may take place behind closed doors due to the sensitive nature of much of the evidence being fought over, the media will be out in force and reports should be plentiful.

Update: The Judge denied the Prosecution's motion for an investigation into media leaks.

We just caught this over at Roger Ailes: What would the legal commentary be like for a televised trial of Saddam?

-- Nancy Grace bragging about how she never lost a war crimes trial in her career as a prosecutor, and pronouncing Saddam guilty by virtue of the fact he grew a beard.

-- Gloria Allred signing up Saddam's second wife as a client.

-- Rita Cosby petitioning Saddam for an exclusive interview, citing the support voiced for her by Uday and Qusay, and expressing her "deep concern about this possible violation of [his] freedom of speech" and her desire make public his "many valuable insights."