In a major blow to the Justice Department, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that the federal drug crime statute does not apply to those simply using medical marijuana with a doctor's recommendation:

A federal appeals court ruled today that a law outlawing marijuana may not apply to sick people with a doctor's recommendation in states that have approved medical marijuana laws.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling 2-1 in a rare late-afternoon filing, said prosecuting these medical marijuana users under a 1970 federal law is unconstitutional if the marijuana isn't sold, transported across state lines or used for non-medicinal purposes.

``The intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician is, in fact, different in kind from drug trafficking,'' Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the majority.
The court added that ``this limited use is clearly distinct from the broader illicit drug market, as well as any broader commercial market for medical marijuana, insofar as the medical marijuana at issue in this case is not intended for, nor does it enter, the stream of commerce.''

The case is Raich v. Ashcroft, 03-15481, the decision is here.

Update: Randy Barnett, a blogger over at Volokh, argued the case. Here's his description of the ruling....warning, it's in legalese:

Detained U.S. citizen Jose Padilla will not be allowed to meet with his lawyer any time soon. Unlike Yaser Hamdi, whom the Adminstration finally allowed to meet with counsel last week, senior Government officials say Padilla is talking and providing valuable information and they're not about to let a lawyer interefere with that.

The Vatican weighs in on the arrest of Saddam and its opposition to the death penalty:

A top Vatican cardinal said Tuesday he felt compassion for Saddam Hussein after seeing video pictures in which, the prelate claimed, American forces treated the captured Iraqi leader "like a beast."

In the first Vatican comment on Saddam's capture, Cardinal Renato Martino said Saddam should face trial, but he stressed the Church's opposition to the death penalty. He told reporters the Vatican hoped Saddam's arrest would "contribute to the pacification and the democratization of Iraq."

Martino said he felt "compassion" for Saddam, even if he was a dictator, after seeing images of "this destroyed man" being "treated like a beast, having his teeth checked" by an American military medic.

As we opined here, the playing and replaying of the medic's exam of Saddam was over the top- and downright offensive.

Alberto Ramos was wrongfully convicted of rape. He served seven years in jail, and was released eleven years ago. Today it will be announced that New York will pay him $5 million the largest such award in New York's history. The cause of the wrongful conviction was prosecutorial misconduct - the withholding of documents by the district attorney:

City child abuse investigators said that they had referred the Ramos case to the Bronx district attorney's office for prosecution even though they believed that Mr. Ramos was innocent and that the child's story was false.

Day care center officials said the child had a history of sexual behavior in the classroom. They testified that they not only told the trial prosecutor about evidence favoring Mr. Ramos but had also informed other prosecutors before Mr. Ramos was arrested. No prosecutor disclosed the information to the defense.

The settlement ends 18 years of litigation.

Alberto Ramos, 40, said that while in prison he endured beatings, was sodomized and tried to commit suicide several times. His conviction was overturned in 1992 when a judge found that the prosecutor had withheld evidence that could have resulted in an acquittal.

Mr. Ramos was one of five men convicted of sexually abusing children at three city-run day care centers in the Bronx during the mid-1980's. All of the convictions have since been reversed.

President Bush announced yesterday there will be no blanket amnesty for immigrants. Instead he supports a system that matches willing employers with willing employees. This represents no change from his previous positions.

The president's comments come a week after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge expressed support for giving legal status to immigrants. In Miami, Mr. Ridge said: "The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it."

The last time blanket amnesty was granted was 1986. Republicans view that program as a failure. Here are the current major Republican proposals:

Our congratulations to Wynona Ryder for earning the Judge's praise for her conduct on probation resulting from her shoplifting conviction:

Actress Winona Ryder was commended by a judge Monday for abiding by the rules of her probation in a shoplifting case. Ryder's lawyer, Shepard Kopp, said outside court that the judge plans to review the case later and consider reducing her felony convictions to misdemeanors.

"I want to compliment you on your behavior on probation," Superior Court Judge Elden Fox told the actress, who did not speak during the hearing. He said her probation report had been very positive. " And there's an indication that things are going well," he said. Fox ordered Ryder to return to court May 26 for a six-month review and said he would decide then if she needs continued probation supervision.

Ms. Ryder has completed 480 hours of community service at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte.

[comments now closed]

We've deleted a few comments that were overly long or insulting to other commenters. We also saved some of them on our computer. So, if your comment was deleted, and you'd like it back, send us an email and we'll send it right back to you.

Britain will not participate in a trial of Saddam if the death penalty is an option:

Washington's closest Iraq war ally Britain said Monday it would play no part in any trial of Saddam Hussein that might lead to his execution. But London -- which abolished capital punishment 40 years ago -- also made clear it would reluctantly accept death for the captured ex-dictator if that was what an Iraqi tribunal ruled.

"The United Kingdom is against the death penalty," Britain's senior envoy to Iraq Jeremy Greenstock said. "So we would have no part of a tribunal or a process that had the death penalty as one of its penalties."

Texas Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee stands firm in her opposition to the war despite Saddam's capture.

"I believe we should have had a congressional vote before declaring war, and we should have allowed U.N. inspectors time to finish their work," Jackson Lee said during a news conference at Bush Intercontinental Airport. "As to WMDs (weapons of mass destruction), the fact they have not been found I believe shows I was right."

In other Saddam news, he remains sarcastic and defiant during interrogation attempts.

As to his trial before the Iraqi Governing Council, the likelihood of international acceptance seems slim:

General Kofi Annan expressed hope Monday that Saddam Hussein's capture will accelerate reconciliation among Iraqis, but he said the United Nations could not support bringing Saddam Hussein before a tribunal that might sentence him to death.

....Annan stressed that any trial for Saddam must meet international norms and standards and he reiterated the United Nations' longstanding opposition to the death penalty in any U.N.-sanctioned tribunal. ''As secretary-general, as the U.N., as an organization, we are not going to now turn around and support the death penalty,'' he said.

The police pull you over for a traffic stop. Drugs are found in the car. No one claims them. The Supreme Court decided today that the cops can then arrest all occupants of the vehicle.

Some criminal justice experts say the court's ruling, a short, unanimous opinion penned by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, gives the nod to police dragnets that could snare innocent people with the guilty.

"People get into cars all the time and have no idea what the driver or someone else may have put in the vehicle," said Tracey Maclin, a Boston University law professor who wrote a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in the case. "This will apply to people like the coed who's at a party late at night and accepts a ride home from a group of friends. If that car is stopped and police find drugs, 10 out of 10 police officers will now arrest everyone to find out whose they are."

John Wesley Hall of FourthAmendment.com has the details. The case is Maryland v. Pringle and you can read the decision here.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh filed a court petition today seeking to keep his medical records private:

The conservative radio host cannot be treated for his medical conditions because the state seized his charts and files last month and intimidated his doctors, the court petition said.

"No citizen would want these highly personal details to be held by minions of the state to finger through at their leisure. Nor would any sane person wish his medical diagnosis and medical prescriptions to be widely published on television shows, tabloid newspapers, Web sites and the like," the petition says.

Limbaugh's attorney, Roy Black, has accused the State Attorney's Office of having political motives for its investigation.

Mr. Limbaugh is being investigated for illegally purchasing prescription pain medication and possibly for money laundering.

Kevin at Calpundit went to a blogger meet last night and they discussed all kinds of things, including lefty bloggers:

Most lefty bloggers are actually pretty moderate liberals: me, Josh Marshall, Atrios, Matt Yglesias, Jeralyn Merritt, Brad DeLong, etc. (Atrios is a hardnosed partisan, but his politics are actually fairly centrist liberal. Surprise!) Most righty bloggers are actually libertarians, not conservatives.

Wampum is still accepting nominations for the 2003 Lefty Blog Awards, called the Koufax Awards. We won the award last year for best single issue blog. We hope to get nominated again this year. Lots of worthy competition, go over and check out the multitude of submissions and plug some of your own favorites.

Walter in Denver has the first Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup today. Nice.

Say hello to A Burst of Light. We found him in our comments section and like his style.

In recognition of Saddam's capture, Buzzflash is re-running it's March editorial on the real reasons Bush went to war.

New article at the Independent Institute: Uncle Sam's Guantanamo Prison: Outside the Rule of Law by Brigid O'Neil.

Howard Dean's blog has the full text of his foreign policy speech. Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence has thoughts on speculation that Dean is "toast." (He's not.) Skippy too has some thoughts on the demise of Dean (not) subject.

Also say hello to Battlegrounds Ballotboxes, internet political activist Kevin Thurman's new blog.