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."

There is so much news the last two days but we've been in court and drafting complex motions that are due tomorrow in one of our cases. So between that and our wrist issues, we've been down to short bursts of posts without much analysis. We hope to get back on top of it (and read the 300 plus daily comments posted to this site, and your emails) over the weekend. Thanks to those of you emailing us stuff we'd otherwise miss, and extra special thanks for those hitting our tip jar--it's much appreciated at this time of year.

Back soon.....

As anticipated, the Santa Barbara District Attorney's Office filed criminal charges of child molestation today against Michael Jackson. Jackson's lawyer, Michael Jackson, said he will fight these charges "with every fiber of his being." We believe it. We hope he prevails.

nine-count felony complaint charged Jackson with seven counts alleging lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent. The molestation charges each carry between three and eight years in prison.

No specific details of the alleged acts were included in the complaint, which repeatedly stated they were committed "with the intent of arousing, appealing to, and gratifying the lust, passions, and sexual desires" of Jackson and the child. The complaint further alleged that Jackson had "substantial sexual conduct" with the child in February and March.

Malvo Found Guilty of Capital Murder....the jury will now have to decide life or death.

Update: If Malvo is sentenced to death, he will be the youngest death row inmate in the country.

Inspector General Glenn Fine released a 43 page report today on the mistreatment of prisoners arrested after 9/11 and held at a federal jail in Brooklyn. He recommended disciplinary action be taken against ten prison employees:

Foreigners held at a federal prison in Brooklyn after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks suffered verbal and physical abuse, with officers slamming them against the wall and twisting their arms and hands, the U.S. Justice Department's inspector general said on Thursday. Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a 47-page report that officers also stepped on the leg-restraint chains of the detainees and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time.

Videotapes showed that prison staff members slammed and pressed detainees against the wall by their heads or necks. The officers denied that it ever occurred, the report said. Videotapes also confirmed that officers placed detainees against an American flag T-shirt with the phrase "These colors don't run" on it, which was taped to the wall in the area where detainees first arrived, according to the report.

The Bush Administration took it on the chin in two rulings today--the Jose Padilla case described in the post below, and in the 9th Circuit where the Court ruled terror suspects must be provided lawyers:

The San Francisco appeals court, ruling Thursday on a petition from a relative of a Libyan the U.S. military captured in Afghanistan, said the Bush administration's indefinite detention of the men runs contrary to American ideals.

"Even in times of national emergency - indeed, particularly in such times - it is the obligation of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the majority.

"We cannot simply accept the government's position," Reinhardt continued, "that the Executive Branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement."

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stunning decision in the case of so-called "Dirty Bomb Suspect" Jose Padilla, who, although an American citizen, has been held by the Bush Administration (Department of Defense) for two years without charges and without access to counsel. The Court ordered Padilla to be released within 30 days:

President Bush does not have power to detain American citizen Jose Padilla, the former gang member seized on U.S. soil, as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The decision, which ordered that Padilla be released from military custody within 30 days, could force the government to try the "dirty bomb" plot suspect in civilian courts. The White House said the government would seek a stay.

In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Padilla's detention was not authorized by Congress and that Bush could not designate him as an enemy combatant without the authorization.

The former Chicago gang member who converted to Islam was arrested in May 2002 Chicago's O'Hare airport as he returned from Pakistan. Within days, he was moved to a naval brig in Charleston, S.C.

The Court said that Padilla could be moved to a civilian court if criminal charges are brought against him--and that he could be held as a material witness in a grand jury proceeding. But not as an enemy combatent:

As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat al-Qaida poses to our country and of the responsibilities the president and law enforcement officials bear for protecting the nation," the court said.

"But presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum, and this case involves not whether those responsibilities should be aggressively pursued, but whether the president is obligated, in the circumstances presented here, to share them with Congress," it added.

We share the reaction of these civil libertaries experts:

We reported Tuesday that Attorney General John Ashcroft was rebuked by a federal judge in Detroit for violating a gag order in a terrorism case. The LA Times reports that Ashcroft apologized to the Court.

In a Nov. 26 letter to the court that [Judge] Rosen unsealed Tuesday, Ashcroft said his remarks were "entirely inadvertent," and said he didn't intend to disregard the order or to disrupt the court proceedings.

"I regret making these statements," the attorney general wrote. "I made a mistake in making statements that could have been considered by the court to be a breach of the court's order. And for that I apologize to the court and counsel."

Legal ethics specialists said they could not recall a time when a sitting attorney general was the recipient of professional discipline by a court. "It is extremely unusual for an attorney general to breach an order, and extremely unusual to apologize for it," said Deborah Rhode, a professor of law at Stanford Law School. "It is unusual for this attorney general to apologize for anything connected with national security."

You can read the Judge's Order here (pdf file).

Next Tuesday on Bravo:

[Via VodkaPundit]