A major roundup is beginning. The feds have a new program in place to detain immigrants facing deportation proceedings.

The nationwide expansion would help security officials hold as many as 8,000 more suspected illegal immigrants a day. The current population of about 22,000 detainees represents the fastest-growing segment of America's federal prison population.

More space is needed, security officials say, for an accelerated effort to round up 400,000 of the estimated 8 million to 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

The 400,000 are immigrants who have been ordered out of the country by judges but may have failed to comply....The government's goal is to catch and deport all of them within five years.

Three of the defendants cleared in the Central Park Jogger case will file suit Monday seeking $50 million in damages.

In addition to New York City, the men will sue the New York Police Department, current and former police officers and the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Jonathan Moore, who is representing the three men, said the charges will be "malicious prosecution" and "conspiracy to cover up the truth."

Is Ashcroft overstating the success of his terror war? A new study of post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions, Criminal Enforcement Against Terrorists and Spies in the Year After the 9/11 Attacks shows that the cases often fizzle:

About 6,400 people were referred by investigators for criminal charges involving terror in the two years after the attacks, but fewer than one-third actually were charged and only 879 were convicted, according to government records reviewed by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

The median prison sentence was just 14 days, according to a study by clearinghouse co-directors David Burnham and Susan P. Long. Only five people were sentenced to 20 years or more.

Critics seized on the numbers to question whether Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top law enforcement officials have been overstating the success of their anti-terrorism efforts.

We've lobbied against the Victims Rights Amendment for several years. The Washington Times has an article on it today, one for which we were interviewed on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) a few months ago.

The D.C.-based National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also opposes an amendment. The group, which represents more than 38,000 lawyers, claims an amendment would give "undue power" to influence and impede the decisions of judges and prosecutors in courts nationwide, said Jeralyn Merritt, a spokeswoman for the association. "At great financial cost, it would leave us with a judicial system no longer dedicated to determining guilt or innocence, but preoccupied with airing rage and seeking retribution," Ms. Merritt said.

Here's why we oppose it: (from our 1997 article):

• Its package of government-guaranteed entitlements for crime "victims" for an opportunity to fully participate and object to bail and plea bargains at the accusatory stage of the proceedings, before a defendant has been found to be the perpetrator of the crime, effectively undermines the presumption of innocence which lies at the very core of our criminal justice system.

• It greatly adds to the powers of accusation against which the unpopular citizen accused must defend -- governmental and private -- and substantially increases the risk of injustice.

• It is so ambiguous that it fails to provide a workable definition of the key terms "victim" and "crime of violence." This will result in substantially unnecessary, and costly, litigation over rudimentary standing issues -- further clogging already over-burdened courts.

• It thrusts the ventilation of victims' hurt and anger to the center of all public criminal proceedings, threatening to overwhelm the courts' ability to fairly and effectively perform important administrative and judicial functions on behalf of not only the citizen accused, but all users of the publically financed justice system -- including victims of crime.

• It constitutionally and inflexibly forbids judicial deployment of the ancient rule of witness sequestration. Of course, this rule is a crucial protection measure against the tailoring of witness testimony to statements heard from a previous witness, and is a crucial aid in detection of testimony that is less than candid. Wigmore himself refers to sequestration in his famous treatise on evidence as ". . . one of the greatest engines that the skill of man has ever invented for the detection of liars in a court of justice."

NACDL is not "anti-victim." In fact, the organization has consistently urged that victims of crime be treated with dignity, fairness and respect. However, NACDL submitted testimony to Congress opposing the amendment as unnecessary, unwise, and dangerous.

NACDL past President Robert Fogelnest best articluated the position:

No one is counting Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez out of the San Francisco mayor's race. Two good articles in the weekend news on the candidates: San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times.

Gavin Newsom, businessman and candidate for mayor, lives in a large house in the city's fashionable Pacific Heights neighborhood. He is the son of a retired state appeals court judge and owns a wine shop and several other businesses, many of them with the financial backing of a family friend, Gordon P. Getty.

Matt Gonzalez, lawyer and candidate for mayor, shares a rented apartment with a roommate in the city's offbeat Western Addition neighborhood. He boasts in his campaign literature that he was twice jailed for contempt of court when working as a public defender. His father, who sold dental equipment in Texas, never went to college.

Could the coverage sink any lower than this?

A recent article in The San Francisco Chronicle characterized the race as a "babe competition" and described both men as "major hotties." The newspaper whittled the choice to this: Dapper Dan vs. the Socialist Stud.

We asked a couple of male S.F.'s 60's lefties this weekend who they were voting for: They were unenthusiastic but probably going for Newsom. Then we asked a couple of 30-somethings: Definitely Matt Gonzalez.

How different are they?

"It is amazing," Mr. Newsom said. "Only in San Francisco you can be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-death penalty, pro-gun control, pro-rent control and be considered a conservative or moderate. I would be left on any national scale."

Though the mayor's election is nonpartisan, the Democratic Party has pumped money and big-name resources into the race. The state party expects to spend at least $120,000 on Mr. Newsom's behalf, even though he has spent $4 million so far, compared with about $400,000 by Mr. Gonzalez.

If the underdog voters come out, Gonzalez stands a real chance. The election is Tuesday, stay tuned.

Utah U.S. District Court Judge David Sam in tossing the charges in the Olympics bribery trial:

"Several times during the history of this case I have heard counsel for the United States represent themselves as the protectors of our moral values here in the state of Utah and protectors of the sacred standards of the Olympic charter. How commendable and noteworthy. But when considered in the light of the government's evidence in this case, how misplaced," he said from the bench.

In what is being reported as an unprecedented action by a presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry used the "f" word in attacking Bush's war policy in an interview with Rolling Stone:

"I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything'? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to f - - - it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did," Kerry told the youth-oriented magazine.

Brookings Institution presidential scholar Stephen Hess said he can't recall another candidate attacking a president with X-rated language in a public interview.

Kerry was accurately quoted in Rolling Stone, said spokesman David Wade, adding the X-rated language reflects the fact that Bush's Iraq policy "makes John Kerry's blood boil."

Good for Kerry. Better late than never. [link via Instapundit.]

Update: Bush's chief of staff says Kerry was out of line.

Turn it on if you're by a tv. Sharpton rocks!

We thought this was a joke. It isn't. On Friday, the Bush brothers, Jeb and GW, along with Attorney General John Ashcroft, announced plans for the first faith-based prison. It will be at Lawtey Correctional Institution in rural Northern Florida and all inmates will be required to participate in the faith-based programs.

Update: Link fixed.

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We've been gone a day and a half and over 400 comments have been posted on TalkLeft. It will take us hours to read them all, and we won't get to most of them while we're still in Key West. So this is just a thanks to those of you who take the time to post your thoughts.

Again, we're on light posting duty until Monday....between the dialup connection and wanting to experience and enjoy Key West, we're going to take a break.

The Fulton County Daily Report has named Stephen Bright as 2003 Newsmaker of the Year. Stephen heads up the Southern Center for Human Rights and is a legend among capital defenders. This is a well-deserved honor. From the article (subscription only):

Stephen B. Bright - Angry Man of Indigent Defense
By Trisha Renaud

While powerful State Bar leaders and politicians worked the Capitol this spring to help pass a historic indigent defense bill, activist Stephen B. Bright worked the courthouses. As committees debated the details of a bill that would establish a statewide public defender system, Bright filed another suit-the sixth in which he and other prominent defense attorneys have demanded sweeping
changes in how counties provide legal representation for the poor.

This latest litigation targeted the four-county Cordele Judicial Circuit. The message was hard for legislators to ignore. Bright had spelled it out for them time and again: If the system doesn't change, he warned, he would keep filing such suits around the state. Or, as he said about indigent defense litigation at a symposium in 2002, "Coming to a courthouse near you."

....For his unrelenting efforts over the years to expose Georgia's shortfalls in indigent defense, Bright is the Daily Report's 2003Newsmaker of the Year.... At first, Bright may seem an odd choice for our Newsmaker of the Year. Others played equal, if not more prominent, roles in passing the legislation this year. ....But Bright's prodding over the years-some would say unrelenting agitation -was critical in bringing the issue to the fore. Sometimes with lectures, other times with pleas, threats or impassioned speeches, Bright was the most implacable and visible crusader for better legal defense for the poor. He brought a sense of urgency to the fight for reform, railing in speeches, letters and reports against inaction. To Bright, it was a battle to fulfill a promise made 40 years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), that the right to counsel is fundamental to a just system. And he has fought to ensure that right over the years, with little tolerance for compromise. As he put it in a recent interview, "So many people talk about the minimum. Shoot for the stars, not the floor."

A new poll shows support for the death penalty in America is at it's lowest since 1978.

According to the latest Gallup Poll in October 2003, support for the death penalty has dropped to 64%, its lowest level since 1978. The 32% of Americans opposed to the death penalty represented the most opposition since 1972. (2003 poll: CNN.com, November 25, 2003; Fox News, November 26, 2003) This finding is particularly noteworthy given the extensive media coverage leading to the trials of John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo in Virginia. Two other polls this year also recorded a drop in death penalty support to 64%: ABC News poll and Pew Research Center Poll.

According to Magnus Ranstorp, head of St. Andrews University's Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, America's death penalty is hindering the war on terror. From America's Eager Executioners:

Europe has been described as the jumping-off place for Islamic terrorists bent on infiltrating and harming the United States. European cities are ringed by Muslim slums where clerics preach violence to the impressionable. Many of the 9/11 bombers spent time in Europe before they entered the United States. Americans badly need Europe's full cooperation in helping to foil terrorists and bring them to justice. But the death penalty stands in the way.

I asked Magnus Ranstorp, head of St. Andrews University's Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, if he thought capital punishment was hurting America's war on terror. "Without question," he said. The argument that the death penalty deters crime doesn't apply to terrorists who seek death. "As a matter of fact, it does the opposite," he said. "It creates martyrs."

"You have to measure justice with effectiveness," he continued, "and justice is served by life in prison without parole."

If capital punishment is actually hurting the United States in the war on terror, it ought to be abandoned for no other reason than enlightened self-interest. But try telling that to John Ashcroft.