A new law enforcement study in Minnesota makes two important findings: Racial profiling exists--and it is ineffective at ferreting out crime.

Blacks, Latinos and American Indians are more likely than whites to be stopped by police and searched but much less likely to be found with anything illegal, a study of alleged racial profiling by Minnesota law enforcers showed Wednesday.

Analyzing more than 200,000 traffic stops, the report finds racial minorities (black, latino, American Indian) are stopped and searched more often than whites in almost every jurisdiction studied. Even though whites are stopped least often, once stopped they are found to have committed crimes at a much higher rate than racial minorities.

Bill Gillespie, executive director of the 7,000-member Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, said the study proves that white and minority suspects are handled differently but doesn't show why. He called the search findings the most disturbing. "That tells me some of those stops of minorities are fishing expeditions," he said. "That needs to be further explored."

So, not only is racial profiling found to exist, it is exposed as a patently ineffective policing tool.

The ACLU is filing a lawsuit today in federal court in Ohio to force prisons to make public the entire exeuction process. First off, they're not talking about live television coverage of executions, although that will likely be the subject of future suits brought by the media.

At issue today is the process of inserting the IV needles into the condemned person's arm. The ACLU says the prisons are doing this in private--when the inmate is brought into the execution chamber to be killed in the presence of media and witnesses, the needles have already been inserted. The ACLU says the public doesn't get to see how painful the needle insertion procedure is to the inmate:

"What they've done is taken the process of judicially taking a man's life and reduced it to a minor surgical procedure," he said.

Getting killed is painful, even when it's by lethal injection. First there's the needle insertion process. Then there's the sharp burning of some of the chemicals. It's not just peacefully dozing off into a sleep from which you don't awake. The ACLU wants people to know this. Courts in California and Oregon, for example, have already agreed with them.

We have mixed feelings on this. We think if the inmate objects on privacy grounds to having his pain and discomfort made public, his wishes should be accorded respect. On the other hand, executions are open to the media so that the public can be accurately informed about the killing. Bottom line for us: the need for accuracy in reporting on executions favors the ACLU's position.

News analyst Danny Schecter has a new column up on Media Channel about how the networks intend to cover the 2004 elections. He begins,

Network television thrives on wars and elections. With the last war over for now, politics is becoming THE BIG STORY once again as the 2004 presidential election draws near. Special election programming is being planned, graphics are being commissioned, and reporting teams are being embedded within campaigns. And just as war coverage was enhanced with news gizmos and state of the art technology, election journalism is being retrofitted with NGT -- the next groovy thing....

Yet, Schecter says, the more techno the networks go, the more people tune out. Fewer people are watching election coverage. He has some ideas to improve the situation--like getting rid of the "endless panels of mostly white men in suits, sitting around tables prognosticating" who are usually wrong.

In a footnote, Media Channel says that it has been signing up correspondents from overseas in its effort to provide "political coverage that does not claim for promotional effect to be "fair and balanced." Just accurate and informative."

Amina Lawal's sentence to death by stoning for adultery has been vacated by the Islanic appeals court . The Court determined there were errors in her original trial. Four of the five judges voted to throw out her sentence.

The Islamic appeals panel ruled the conviction couldn't stand because Lawal wasn't given enough time to understand the charges against her; only one judge, instead of the required three, presided at her trial; and she was not caught in the act of sex out of wedlock.

In the sole dissenting opinion, Judge Sule Sada said Lawal had confessed to the crime and the conviction should stand. But the defense had argued that the court should reject Lawal's confession because no lawyers were present when she made it.

The Christian Science Monitor reports today on the move to provide ex-felons with the right to vote. 37 states now allow ex-felons to vote. That leaves 13 more we need to work on. The Sentencing Project i s leading the charge:

A recent study by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit criminal-justice advocacy organization, found that as a result of the changes since 1996, 471,000 ex-cons have had voting rights restored. But the study also estimates that 3.9 million Americans - 1 in 50 adults - can't vote. And because of the racial imbalance in the criminal justice system, a large percentage of them are minority. Indeed, 1.4 million black men are disenfranchised. That's 13 percent of the African-American male population, a figure seven times the national average.

"The irony is that 50 years after Brown v. the Board of Education ... we actually see increasing numbers of people of color losing their voting rights," says Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.

....The American public has a fairly clear stance. In a poll commissioned .... last year, 80 percent favored giving all ex-cons the right to vote. But only 31 percent favored extending voting rights to those currently serving their time.

As we point out here, quoting from an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, restoring the vote to ex-felons should be a priority of the Democratic party:

Watching the California recall debate, we heard Cruz Bustamante give his ideas for balancing the budget: Increase cigarette and alcohol taxes and raise income taxes on the state's wealthiest 4%.

A smoker's tax hurts the poor. Cruz should come up with a new plan.

Arianna's attacks on Arnold's treatment of women were in poor taste and in our view, backfired.

Bustamante was good on health care for children of undocumented residents, but his delivery lacked passion.

For more on the recall debate: Live: The Arnold and Arianna Show

Based on this debate, we have to say we think if the recall succeeds, Arnold will win the Governor's race. We like Arnold, but our opinion remains the same: Vote no on recall.

A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows that Bush's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level ever--49%.

From the Marijuana Policy Project:

Two of the leading candidates -- former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and
U.S. Sen. John Kerry (MA) -- markedly improved their respective positions on medical marijuana. Dean agreed to impose a moratorium on the DEA's raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states that have reduced or eliminated criminal penalties for the medical use of marijuana. And Kerry said he would stop the raids entirely.

...U.S. Sen. John Edwards from North Carolina has been the primary target of our protests. He seems almost proud to have adopted the position that seriously ill people should be put in prison for following the advice of their physicians.

All of our hard work paid a huge dividend at a town hall meeting in Henniker on Saturday, September 20. MPP's New Hampshire project, Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana (GSMM), asked John Kerry, "Would you stop the raids, as president?" Kerry responded by saying simply, "Yes." This came one day after Howard Dean, in response to a GSMM question, pledged, "Will I do what Attorney General] Ashcroft is doing? No, absolutely not." GSMM then specifically asked, "You would stop the raids?" and Dean responded, "Yeah, I'm not going to do that, anyway." To read about these encounters in greater detail, please see our press release.

Good for Dean and Kerry....Edwards needs to catch up.

Our Altercation column is up. A big thanks to Eric for asking us to fill in for him today.

It's official. There's no Patriot Act in the NBA:

NBA Commissioner David Stern said Monday that Kobe Bryant should continue to play for the Lakers this season, even as Bryant faces a potential trial for a sexual assault charge in Colorado.

"Absolutely," Stern said. "We don't have a Patriot Act in the NBA. That means that you're innocent until proven guilty. If every time someone was accused and there were allegations, they were required to stop their life, that wouldn't be a good thing. That could be their choice, but they shouldn't be forced to [stop]."

[thanks to Steve Smith for the heads up yesterday on this, we're just a little late getting to it.]

Confirmation hearings for Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering are on deck in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Pickering is up for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The reaction was immediate from liberal groups.

"Judge Pickering's disturbing record exemplifies this administration's efforts to appoint judges who are far out of the mainstream to lifetime seats on the federal bench," said Ralph Neas, president of People For the American Way. "We are aware of nothing that has altered Judge Pickering's record since the committee's vote to reject his confirmation to the Fifth Circuit."

Pickering, a U.S. District judge in Hattiesburg, Miss., was defeated 10-9 in March 2001 when Democrats were in control of the committee. This came after civil rights groups said he supported segregation as a young man in Mississippi. Pickering's opponents also pointed to his conservative voting record as a Mississippi state lawmaker and decisions as a judge.

If Pickering makes it out of the committee, Democrats have promised a filibuster. Hold them to it. You can read all of our Pickering coverage here.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has issued a press release applauding the Judicial Conference statement on the need for judicial discretion in sentencing. We wrote about this for Altercation today, so head over there this afternoon for more details.