Two federal judges yesterday expressed their criticism of Congress and the Justice Department's interference with their ability to exercise independent discretion in sentencing decisions. See here and here. We hope more Judges follow suit. The independence of our judiciary is at stake. Ashcroft must be stopped from hijacking it.

A court ruling over competing claims to convicted rapist Andrew Luster's forfeited $1 million bail yesterday divided the funds among Luster, his victims and the county. None went to Duane "Dog" Chapman, the bounty hunter who capture him.

Unfair. The Judge awarded $165,000 in costs related to Luster's capture to those who failed to capture him. Dog did the dirty work. He should have had his costs reimbursed as well.

Brodie reissued what he had awarded county agencies in August -- about $165,000 for costs accrued trying to capture Luster. The Ventura County Sheriff's Department collected about $86,200 for time spent by five detectives and costs for monitoring cell phones and towing Luster's abandoned car.

The county Probation Agency was given about $9,400 for labor costs and an electric ankle monitoring device attached to Luster that was never returned. The District Attorney's Office will get just over $65,500 for investigative costs.

The victims and the state owe a debt of gratitude to Dog. We think they should chip in and reimburse Dog for the costs he expended from his own funds.

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A court ruling over competing claims to convicted rapist Andrew Luster's forfeited $1 million bail yesterday divided the funds among Luster, his victims and the county. None went to Duane "Dog" Chapman, the bounty hunter who capture him.

Unfair. The Judge awarded $165,000 in costs related to Luster's capture to those who failed to capture him. Dog did the dirty work. He should have had his costs reimbursed as well.

Brodie reissued what he had awarded county agencies in August -- about $165,000 for costs accrued trying to capture Luster. The Ventura County Sheriff's Department collected about $86,200 for time spent by five detectives and costs for monitoring cell phones and towing Luster's abandoned car.

The county Probation Agency was given about $9,400 for labor costs and an electric ankle monitoring device attached to Luster that was never returned. The District Attorney's Office will get just over $65,500 for investigative costs.

The victims and the state owe a debt of gratitude to Dog. We think they should chip in and reimburse Dog for the costs he expended from his own funds.

[comments now closed]

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing today on the nomination of controversial Bush judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown. The San Francisco Chronicle explains why Brown's nomination is a political lightning rod that has civil liberties groups rising in opposition.

Here's our prior coverage.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing today on the nomination of controversial Bush judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown. The San Francisco Chronicle explains why Brown's nomination is a political lightning rod that has civil liberties groups rising in opposition.

Here's our prior coverage.

The U.S. confirmed today that it is building a hard-walled prison at Guantamo, designed for long-term use.

Col. Jerry Cannon, who is in charge of the prison facility, said in a recent interview here that he was revising some of the security procedures at the camp with the expectation that it would continue to hold prisoners for some years.

The hard-walled prison will be ready next spring, said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, the public affairs officer for the Joint Task Force that administers the detention camp and supervises prisoner interrogations. "This will be a permanent structure and will be able to house approximately 100 prisoners," Colonel Hart said.

Col. Hart says there's no plan for a death row in the new facility. So what's behind this?

None of the detainees sentenced to prison terms or execution could be taken into the United States to serve their sentences because upon arrival, they would immediately gain new rights and avenues to challenge their detentions. Officials chose Guantánamo as a location where United States constitutional protections would not apply, and two federal courts have agreed that the naval base here is not legally part of the United States.

A new study shows Hundreds of Thousands of Inmates Mentally Ill prisoners in the U.S. One in five of the 2.1 million people in America's jails and prisons are seriously mentally ill.

The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have become the nation's default mental health system, as more state hospitals have closed and as the country's prison system has quadrupled over the past 30 years. There are now fewer than 80,000 people in mental hospitals, and the number is continuing to fall.

There are many more mentally ill female than male prisoners.

Governor Jeb Bush has signed an order directing feeding tubes to be reinserted into brain-damaged Terri Schiavo.

Invoking a law rushed through the Legislature earlier in the day, Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday ordered a feeding tube reinserted into a brain-damaged woman at the center of one of the nation's longest and most bitter right-to-die battles. The Senate voted 23-15 for the legislation, and the House passed the final version 73-24 only minutes later. Bush signed it into law and issued the order just more than an hour later.

....The bill sent to Bush was designed to be as narrow as possible. It is limited to cases in which the patient left no living will, is in a persistent vegetative state, has had nutrition and hydration tubes removed and where a family member has challenged the removal.

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We had given up hope. But today, the Federal Prison Policy Project informs us that Rep. Bobby Scott (D-) will introduce LERA, the Literacy, Education, and Rehabilitation Act of 2003. The bill will allow up to 180 days a year good time, a big increase from the paltry 54 days a year now allowed.

To amend title 18, United States Code §3624 to require the Federal Bureau of Prisons to calculate good time earnings per the amended schedule to demonstrate to taxpayers that money spent by the federal government on incarceration is rehabilitating the federal prisoners in its custody by providing remedial and vocational opportunities and other rehabilitative opportunities to better prepare prisoners for a successful return to society and for other purposes.

The stated purpose of the bill is:

Purpose:

The purpose of the proposed bill is to promote public safety by offering constructive incentives for exemplary institutional adjustment while at the same time increasing educational standards and decreasing the overall cost of corrections.

We've been off-line all day. Our hosting company had another attack--they also host Instapundit, Calpundit, Ruminate This and many other sites, all of which were down. We're restored now, but depending on your ISP, it may take longer for the address changes the hosting company had to put in effect to show up for some people than others. So, please be patient.

Meanwhile, we were not silent today-- Here's a transcript of the web chat we did on the Sniper Trial for the Washington Post.

A big thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing for blogging about our upcoming chat and, as we later found out, for logging on and submitting a question...which we answered--can you figure out which one it was?

In the Nov. 6 issue of the New York Review of Books, Ronald Dworkin makes a compelling case for demanding that the Bush Administration adhere to civil liberities protections for the Guantanamo detainees. Here's part:

The Guantánamo detainees are also being held indefinitely and in secret, with no access to lawyers, under circumstances that would be intolerable even if they were convicted criminals. But they have not been charged with crimes or given the benefit of legal advice or process. If the detainees are prisoners of war, they must be treated as such. If they are suspected criminals, they must be treated as such. The government must choose, once again, not because it is required to do so by treaties but because its failure to do so treats the lives of the detainees with impermissible contempt.

Rights would be worthless--and the idea of a right incomprehensible--unless respecting rights meant taking some risk. We can and must try to limit those risks, but some risk will remain. It may be that we would be marginally more secure if we decided to care nothing for the human rights of anyone else. That is true in domestic policy as well. We run a marginally increased risk of violent death at the hands of murderers every day by insisting on rights for accused criminals in order to keep faith with our own humanity. For the same reason we must run a marginally increased risk of terrorism as well. Of course we must sharpen our vigilance, but we must also discipline our fear. The government says that only our own safety matters. That is a counsel of shame: we are braver than that, and have more self-respect

Newsday has an excellent editorial today, U.S. Should Let Doctors Advise the Use of Marijuana. Read the whole thing, but here's a snippet:

Washington should not thwart the will of the people where they've approved the use of marijuana to relieve the nausea and wasting of chronic illness. The war on drugs should not target the sick and dying.