Reuters interviews the doctors who treated Jessica Lynch in Iraq. They are unanimous in their assertions that she was not raped. Lynch does not recall being raped. Yet author Rick Bragg's publisher is standing by the charge in his book that she was sodomized.

Dr Jamal Kadhim Shwail was the first doctor to examine Lynch when she was brought to Nassiriya's military hospital by Iraqi special police. Shwail said Lynch was lying in the crowded reception of the hospital, unconscious and in shock from blood loss.

She was wearing her uniform including a flak jacket, military trousers and boots, none of her clothes had been unbuttoned or removed, as the book claims, he said. .... He said her flak jacket was removed and her clothes were cut away to expose the injured sites. The anesthetist cut away an area around her groin to insert a catheter to drain urine....Her clothes were not torn, her boots had not been removed. There is no way (she could have been raped)."

So could it have happened at the next hospital?

Bump and Update: Lawyers for the Guantanamo prisoners have set up this website to keep the public informed about the legal case. The Washington Post has this later article on the case and the Supreme Court decision to hear it.

**********************
Original post: 11/10/03 at 8:23 a.m.

The Supreme Court today said it will hear the case of detainees being held at Guantanamo :

The justices agreed to review a ruling that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to consider claims by a group of detainees held without access to their families or to lawyers, and held without any charges brought against them.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case next year, with a decision due by the end of June. It marked the first time the nation's highest court agreed to decide a case stemming from the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.

The appeals were filed in the Supreme Court by British, Australian and Kuwaiti citizens after lower courts ruled they did not have authority to hear the men's complaints.

More details of the case are available here.

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights is calling for an investigation into the Maher Arar case:

It is a clear violation of international law and of United States policy not only to commit torture, but also to send someone to a country where they would face torture.

Article 3 of the Convention on Torture, to which the United States is a party, states:

No State Party shall expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.... For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

In this interview in Columbia Journalism Review, Mark Silverman, editor and publisher of the Detroit News, tells why his paper filed suit against Ashcroft in 2002 to obtain access to the secret deportation hearings. Here's the background:

In January 2002, the Detroit News filed a lawsuit in federal court in Michigan to obtain access to the Rabih Haddad deportation proceedings. Haddad, a Lebanese citizen, was arrested in 2001 for violating his tourist visa. He was also suspected of funneling money to al Qaeda through an Islamic charity he had helped to found. As a prominent member of the Detroit-area Arab community, Haddad's story was of great interest to the Detroit News. But the Creppy Memorandum issued four months previously barred the newspaper-and all newspapers-from attending Haddad's deportation hearing (see "The I.N.S. Test") . Mark Silverman, editor and publisher of the Detroit News, talks about why his paper filed suit to be there.

Thanks to Agonist for the link.

The Patriot Act is not just for terrorists anymore. Who should be investigated? Play cartoonist's Mark Fiore's Patriot Act Game and find out if you're a Patriot. You might just get a junior prosecutor badge. We won't be getting one. Our score was so low we almost didn't have one.

Good news on the death penalty front....from the Criminal Justice Reform Education Fund:

The DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics published its annual Capital Punishment
report for 2002. The report can be found here.

Although there was an increase in the number of executions last in 2002, the number of death sentences continued to decline. This demonstrates the increasing skepticism with capital punishement, as highlighted on page 8:

"The 159 admissions to death row in 2002 marked a further decline from the 163 admissions recorded in 2001, and represented the smallest number received in a year since 44 persons were admitted in 1973. Between 1994 and 2000, in contrast, an average of 297 inmates per year were admitted."

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments today in Crawford v. Washington. The issue is whether there are exceptions to the defendant's right under the Sixth Amendment to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him. This article traces the origin of the right --back to the Walter Raleigh treason trial in England in 1603.

The defense brief argues:

"The right to confrontation is a categorical requirement that the government prove its case through live testimony that is subject to cross-examination."

We agree. Cross-examination has been said to be the greatest legal invention for ferreting out untruths in the Courtroom (We think Wigmore said that.)

The specific issue before the Court:

Is a pretrial recorded statement by the defendant's wife admissible as hearsay evidence on the grounds that it is virtually identical with the defendant's own pretrial statement?

Findlaw columnist and Human Rights Watch official Joanne Mariner today examines the plight of those "enemy combatants" being detained outside of Guantanamo Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees:

The most important aspect of Zacarias Moussaoui's prosecution may have little to do with Moussaoui himself.....The larger significance of Moussaoui's case lies elsewhere. It is, at present, the only legal peephole by which to glimpse the circumstances of a much more important group of terrorist suspects: those, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, who are held by the U.S. military for interrogation in "undisclosed locations."

....Right now, the detainees are missing, "disappeared," vanished with hardly a trace. No one knows where they are, and little is known about how they have been treated, although disturbing reports are occasionally leaked. These hidden detainees are in a frightening legal limbo. It is time for the judiciary -- and the Supreme Court, eventually -- to step in.

The murder trial of sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo begins Monday, Nov. 10, in Chesapeake, Va. His lawyers have indicated that they will pursue an insanity defense, arguing that the teenager was brainwashed by John Allen Muhammad.

Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt said in an interview with the Washington Post that jury selection in this case is absolutely critical for three reasons: the heinousness of the crimes, the fact that Malvo was a juvenile when they were committed and that the death penalty looms as a verdict.

Merritt will be online Monday, Nov. 10 at 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss the process of jury selection.

Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

Update: You can read about the defense strategy here. Malvo's mother pleads from Jamaica to save her son's life here.

From the Washington Post:

"It's been a little overwhelming. We're getting phone calls from all over the state, ringing off the hook. Everyone is telling me that I'm the only moderate, electable candidate."

-- First-term Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), telling the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel why she is "seriously" considering a run for the Senate next year.

If she's moderate, the conservatives are neanderthal. Not a chance.

Former Vice President Al Gore spoke in Washington today at an event sponsored by Moveon.org. He accused Bush of invoking "Big Brother" policies and urged repeal of the Patriot Act. The upshot:

In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden. In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.

.... I believe the Patriot Act has turned out to be, on balance, a terrible mistake, and that it became a kind of Tonkin Gulf Resolution conferring Congress’ blessing for this President’s assault on civil liberties. Therefore, I believe strongly that the few good features of this law should be passed again in a new, smaller law – but that the Patriot Act must be repealed.

TalkLeft reader Kellol writes in:

It was a beautiful speech, delivered with eloquence and passion. Where was this Al Gore in 2000? Here's the text of the speech as prepared but the website also has streaming video. I think this is a very important speech and, let's hope, a turning point.

We hope Howard Dean is listening. Anyway, here are some parts we liked, but it's a very long speech so go over and read the whole thing. It's well worth the time.

Lisa English of Ruminate This has a very thoughtful piece on why another run for President by Ralph Nader would be both vain and vindictive.

We agree with her, but the more we think about it, the less likely we think Nader will try another run. He was a novelty item last time around. That support is gone. This time around he'd be just another loser. His legacy will be reduced to one word: Spoiler.