We've been reporting for some time (here and here ) on the mounting criticism of pancuronium bromide (also known as pavulon), one of three drugs used to execute prisoners in the U.S. Now you can read about it Tuesday in the New York Times:

...a growing number of legal and medical experts are warning that the apparent tranquillity of a lethal injection may be deceptive. They say the standard method of executing people in most states could lead to paralysis that masks intense distress, leaving a wide-awake inmate unable to speak or cry out as he slowly suffocates.

Pancuronium bromide paralyzes the skeletal muscles but does not affect the brain or nerves. A person injected with it remains conscious but cannot move or speak.

The drug has been banned in Tennessee--for use by vetinarians performing euthanasia on animals. Yet Tennesse and 30 other states use it to kill inmates.

We hope you remember the sad case of Canadian Maher Arar. If not, please go here and refresh your memories.

We're very happy to learn that after a year in custody, Syria has released Arar and sent him back to Canada.

Maher was minding his own business, changing planes at JFK, when U.S. authorities seized him and deported him, not to Canada, where he had lived since 1988, but to Syria, where he had not been since he was a teenager.

The 32-year-old Ottawa engineer was returning, via Zurich, from a family vacation to Tunisia, when he was detained during a stopover at Kennedy airport in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. U.S. officials then deported him to Syria.

It's official. Bob Graham has dropped out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Good move. Now he can throw whatever support he had to one of the other candidates. We think it will be Wesley Clark, but stay tuned.

Who's it gonna be? Tomorrow's the day. Arnie's in good spirits and Maria is standing by her man. Gray Davis is hoping for a miracle. Whatever happened to Bustamante? We haven't heard a peep out of him for days.

Our view: Vote no on recall. Vote no on Prop. 54. We take no position on who should win if the recall succeeds.

Here are the most likely choices - let the voters decide.

Update: Arnold is pulling out the big guns. He's got Eunice Shriver in California making the round of tv interviews. Smart move.

Our prediction: Davis will lose big, Arnold will win handily.

Voter registration for the recall election is at an all time high:

Wesley Clark is sticking to his guns with respect to his criticism of the death penalty. We continue to be very impressed with him. He'll be in Iowa tomorrow, and we will continue to follow his remarks and report here.

Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark said Sunday he has serious concerns about the way the death penalty is applied and would support a mandatory review of all death penalty sentences.... I’ll tell you, I’m uneasy about the death penalty,” Clark said answering a question ...

“A government like the United States has the right to, in extraordinary cases, take the life of a criminal, but I I don’t like the way the death penalty has been applied in America,” Clark said. “ I think its been applied in an unfair and discriminatory fashion and I think we need to go back and use modern technology and unpack all those cases on death row.”

Clark spoke his mind on other issues as well. He will study legalizing marijuana for medical use, although he opposes decriminalizing marijuana for all purposes.

When asked about marijuana laws, he said he opposes the use of the illegal drug. However, he added that he has talked with people who use it to ease their chronic pain. “They said smoking marijuana helps,” he said. “We need to look at that and make some allowances one way or another.”

On Bush and the War in Iraq:

Martha Stewart's lawyers today filed motions to dismiss the charges against her.

"These motions by Martha Stewart seek to dismiss... the so-called "securities fraud" charge, to dismiss... the "obstruction of justice" charge, to strike inflammatory and irrelevant language in the indictment, and to request various discovery before trial," her lawyers said in a release posted on her Web site.

From the release:

Count Nine, the "securities fraud" charge, seeks to criminalize Ms. Stewart's public declarations that she had not engaged in insider trading in making a personal stock sale. This charge is unprecedented in the seventy-year history of the federal securities laws. It violates the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the securities statute itself.

Count Eight, called "obstruction of justice" by the prosecution (even though it is not based on the obstruction of justice statute), must be dismissed because none of Ms. Stewart’s statements could have hindered the SEC investigation and the Indictment does not adequately allege that she was even aware of the SEC investigation when the statements were made.

You can read her lawyers's brief in support of their motin to dismiss here. We hope Martha wins. As we've said before, Fight, Martha, Fight. All of our coverage of Martha's case is available here.

The Supreme Court ruled today that Roberto Miranda, a former death row inmate later determined to be innocent of the crime may sue the public defender's office for its alleged mishandling of the case. The case is Clark County v. Miranda, 02-1629.

Central to the case are the policies of this defender office:

Miranda's lawyers claim that the office routinely gave lie detector tests to new clients, and then used the results to decide how vigorous the client's defense would be. Miranda, a black native Spanish speaker from Cuba, also claims whites and members of the Mormon church got better legal help than minorities and non-Mormons.

Miranda claims he was given a county-paid lawyer, Thomas Rigsby, who had been on the job barely a year and had never tried a capital case. Miranda claims Rigsby asked him to take a lie detector test, which was administered by an English-speaking examiner. The examiner concluded that Miranda failed the test.

"Thereafter, Rigsby did virtually nothing to prepare for Mr. Miranda's trial," Miranda's lawyers said in papers filed with the Supreme Court.

We wrote a long analysis of the case back in February, available here.

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The High Court today rejected the case of Regina Knight, a drug addict who was convicted and sent to prison due to delivering a still-born baby.

Regina McKnight is serving 12 to 20 years in South Carolina for killing her daughter. McKnight tested positive for cocaine in the hospital and acknowledged that she had used crack cocaine while pregnant. The dead child had drugs in her system.

McKnight's lawyers say she is the only woman convicted of homicide after suffering a stillbirth. She challenged her treatment as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, and her case also raised questions about the legal and constitutional rights of pregnant women and the fetuses they carry.

Ms. McKnight had the support of a large segment of the medical community, inlcuding the American Public Health Association, American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Social Workers. Here's a letter signed by numerous groups, detailing why she should not have been convicted.

McKnight's supporters say her case represents a dangerous trend toward holding pregnant women legally liable for all manner of questionable behavior or potentially harmful decisions. "It is quite disturbing in terms of women's autonomy over their bodies while pregnant," said Wyndi Anderson, director of South Carolina Advocates for Pregnant Women.

Ramzi Yousef, convicted of being the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, lost his bid to have the Supreme Court throw out his conviction.

Justices refused to consider whether the government overstepped its reach in prosecuting Ramzi Yousef in the bombing and for plotting to blow up a dozen U.S. jumbo jets over the Far East. "The opportunity for this court to review the extent of extra-territoriality that the U.S. and its courts can exercise to punish 'terrorist' acts must not be passed by as the issue becomes of ever more immediate importance in the world of the 21st Century," Bernard V. Kleinman, one of his attorneys, wrote in the appeal.

Today was the first day of the Supreme Court's new term. Here's a recap of developments in the various cases the court reviewed. The Court disposed of 2,000 cases that had accumulated over the summer.

Two rulings of note that are not discussed in our other Supreme Court posts today: The high court refused to overturn the death sentence of an inmate who is forced to take drugs to make him sane enough to be executed. Some see the decision as an expansion of states' rights. Here's more on the case.

The Court also tossed the $79.5 million verdict against tobacco giant Phillip Morris. It sent the case back to the lower court to determine if the verdict was consitutionally excessive.

The Supreme Court will hear 48 cases this term.

The court will soon decide, for example, whether to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a lower court decision barring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public school classrooms because of the phrase "under God." Another administration appeal seeks review of a ruling that doctors have a right to discuss with their patients the medical uses of marijuana.

In addition, cases challenging aspects of the detention policies the federal government adopted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have recently been filed or will shortly reach the court.

Of the cases already accepted for decision, three in addition to the campaign finance case stand out as raising questions of intensely practical as well as theoretical significance. They address issues of church and state, state versus federal power, and partisan politics.

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, begins at sundown today.

It is a time for repentance and forgiveness, a day to wipe clean the moral slate for a new year....It is regarded as the holiest day in the Jewish year, and is the day that Jews repent for offenses against God and neighbor.

Observant Jews will fast from food, drink and pleasures for the 24 hours of Yom Kippur. No work is permitted.

We'll be back Monday night .