Gone fishin'...
We're out of here until Sunday.... Key West beckons...we're speaking at the 20th annual NORML continuing legal education seminar. We'll have our computer and will update as time permits once we get there late tonight, --till then, here's an open thread--please be nice.

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Amnesty International has released a new report titled The Pain Merchants:

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is violating the spirit of its own export policy by approving the sale of tools to countries known to use them to torture detainees, according to new report released here Tuesday by Amnesty International.

In 2002, U.S. exports of electro-shock weapons and restraints that can be used for torture amounted to some US$14.7 dollars and $4.4 million, respectively, according to the report....

Along with the sales of such equipment, Washington is also reported to have handed over suspects in the ''war on terror'' to the same countries, the 85-page report said.

From the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty:

Eight executions are scheduled to take place in the next 16 days, including the executions of at least three people with severe mental illness and three people whose lawyers performed abysmally at trial. Five are scheduled during a nine-day period in Texas, and two are set for Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day.

"The scheduled executions in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia follow a disturbing but familiar pattern," said Brian Roberts, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "At a time when Americans are beginning to take a hard look at who is sentenced to death, these states are failing to meet even the lowest constitutional bar in carrying out executions.

Simply put, people with severe mental illness or ineffective lawyers should not be eligible for execution in any humane and civilized society."

Attorney General John Ashcroft may be crowing about the sentencing of the Buffalo Six (Lackawanna) defendants this week, but perhaps not for long. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today dealt a serious blow to the darling of the Justice Department's terrorism nursery--the law prohibiting providing material support to a terrorist organization. It's an issue we think is likely to reach the Supreme Court.

In an opinion written by Judge Harry Pregerson, the 9th Circuit ruled unconstitutional a portion of the "providing material support to terrorist organization" provision of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”). The law was enacted under Clinton following the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing.

Under the Act, [8 U.S.C. § 1189 and 18 U.S.C. § 2339B], the Secretary of State may designate an organization as a “foreign terrorist organization.” One who provides material support or services to such an organization commits a crime that is punishable by up to life in prison.

The issue in the case:

...whether a criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 2339B requires the government to prove as an element of the offense that the defendant knew the organization had been designated by the Secretary as a foreign terrorist organization, or at least knew of the organization’s unlawful activities leading to its designation.

The ruling:

...we construe 18 U.S.C. § 2339B to require proof that a person charged with violating the statute had knowledge of the organization’s designation or knowledge of the unlawful activities that caused it to be so designated. In addition, we reaffirm our decision in Humanitarian Law Project II that the prohibition on providing “training” and “personnel” in § 2339B is impermissibly
overbroad, and thus void for vagueness under the First and Fifth Amendments.

...The language of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B does not in any way suggest that Congress intended to impose strict liability on individuals who donate “material support” to designated organizations.

....we believe that when Congress included the term “knowingly” in §2339B, it meant that proof that a defendant knew of the organization’s designation as a terrorist organization or proof that a defendant knew of the unlawful activities that caused it to be so designated was required to convict a defendant under the statute.

Talk about prejudicial 404(b) evidence coming in at trial--this has to be very damaging to Bill Janklow in his manslaughter trial:

Eight months before Rep. William J. Janklow (R-S.D.) allegedly sped through a stop sign at a rural crossing and killed a passing motorcyclist, Janklow's white Cadillac evidently ran the stop sign at the same intersection at more than 70 mph and came within "a few feet" of hitting another driver, the jury in his felony manslaughter trial was told Wednesday.

We're surprised the Judge let it in. We think the prejudice outweighs the probative value by a mile. Great grounds for appeal.

The New York Times picks up on the arguments we and other defense lawyers have been making the past two weeks about the Michael Jackson case, even suggesting the case may be too weak to support a filing.

Some hard news: The police spokesman says despite the prosecutor's call for additional victims to come forward, "no one has come forward to tell of separate acts of molesting by Mr. Jackson."

So maybe the defense has been right all along:

Mr. Jackson's defenders and relatives contend that the case is groundless, the confluence of a frustrated prosecutor and a greedy mother exploiting her son's onetime friendship with a rich entertainer.

What brings it home for us is that the mother sought out the services of Larry Feldman, the lawyer who represented and obtained a multi-million dollar settlement for the 1993 accuser, before her son changed his story from "Michael is great" to "Michael took advantage of me." The change in the story occurred after the kid met with a therapist per Feldman's recommendation.

McMartin pre-school, anyone? How about the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials?

In both sets of trials, people urged others to "believe the children." In practice, that generally meant, "believe the children when they are making remotely plausible accusations, but ignore the inconsistencies in their stories."

Ten years. That's tbe sentence imposed on the first of the "Buffalo Six" defendants today. For what?

Mukhtar al-Bakri went to Afganistan and attended a training camp. He heard Osama bin Laden speak there. Then he got married. The day after his wedding, while in Bahrain, he got arrested. Then charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization.

The Government acknowledged it had no evidence that al-Bakri or his confederates planned a terrorist act. What it had was a theory dependent upon guilt by association and perceived thought.

"It's the first time in American history where people are going to prison for going to a training camp," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor ..... "It's wrong. . . . It's unconstitutional." Cole said he believes that the section of law used to convict the six men is unconstitutional and will be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court within the next couple of years.

Elaine Cassel, a Virginia lawyer and civil rights advocate, calls the Lackawanna case "one of the worst examples of the vengeful Bush and Ashcroft battle against terrorism." "It's like the movie "Minority Report,' " Cassel said. "The idea is, "Let's go out and arrest people before they actually commit a crime, or even think of a crime.' "

A hollow and ominous victory for Ashcroft.

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A Colorado judge has struck down the state's school voucher law. Denver District Court Judge Joseph Meyer said the idea behind the law was "laudable" but it violated the Colorado Constitution because it "run[s] afoul fo the principle of local control."

Colorado's law was the first enacted in the country following the Supreme Court's ruling approving vouchers last year.

Opponents object to giving state support to religious schools and contend the plan will undermine public education by siphoning off students and the tax dollars they bring.

That's our position.

The death of the 350 pound African American man beaten by Ohio cops earlier this week was not caused by the drugs he ingested. The coroner has ruled the death a homicide--saying it was caused by the struggle with the cops.

The coroner stopped short of saying the police used excessive force. We watched the video on tv and it looked excessive to us--particularly the repeated blows with the officers' clubs which lasted several minutes. Black activists in Cincinnati feel the same way.

Capping a two year investigation, the feds raided Hells Angels motorcycle clubs across the country today, arresting 55.

Those raided were in California, Arizona, Washington state, Nevada and Alaska. Sounds like ATF was the lead agency. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department also participated.

Bump and Update: The Judge ruled for Geragos and ordered the DA's to return Peterson's truck and $15,000 that had been seized from him. The gag order stays in place. Trial date has been set for January 26. A change of venue motion is in the works.

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12/2 9:40 pm

Cable news networks will head back to Modesto Wednesday for the latest in the saga of Scott Peterson, accused of killing his pregnant wife, Laci. Peterson will plead not guilty to the charges, and several motions will be heard.

The most salacious of the motions promises to be the state's argument as to why Scott Peterson's pickup truck should not be returned to him. The DA will argue that Scott's blood is inside it. From this, and some cement-like material found in the bed of the truck, they deduce that Scott killed Laci in the house, cut his hand during the killing, put her body in the truck, drove it to his warehouse where he weighed the body down with cement anchors, then drove the body to and dumped it in the bay.

If it were Laci's blood in the truck, we might be more impressed. Combined with the paucity of physical evidence adduced so far, and the state's failure to produce a murder weapon, crime scene or cause of death, we say this adds up to zip.

In other case news, Amber Frey is pregnant and Scott is not the father. The lucky guy is Amber's former boss - a 43 year old chiropractor.

Attorney Mark Geragos made news on his own today when a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled in his favor and against the S.E.C. in a fee dispute involving one of Geragos' clients. The S.E.C. had tried to have Geragos held in contempt of court for violating a freeze order because he accepted fees in the form of a credit card advance.

Judicial Watch has sued Howard Dean.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it filed a lawsuit in Vermont to gain access to hundreds of thousands of documents concerning the administration of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. In addition to Dean, the lawsuit names the State of Vermont, the Vermont Secretary of State, and Vermont’s State Archivist as defendants. Judicial Watch had sought and was repeatedly denied access to Governor Dean’s records from his tenure as governor.