We just got a hold of a copy of Attorney General John Ashcroft's Memo to Proseuctors on "Department Policy Concerning Charging Criminal Offenses, Disposition of Charges, and Sentencing. We've put it up on CrimeLynx, for all to read. You can find it here.

The text of Ashcroft's "Department Principles for
Implementing an Expedited Disposition or “Fast- Track” Prosecution Program in a District" is here.

Update: In case you don't have time to read the whole thing, or don't want to deal with the legalese, here are the AP's description of the exceptions to the no-plea bargain policy:

Bump and Update: Ashcroft's memo went out today to all 94 U.S. Attorneys Offices today as we reported last night it would. See the original post below:

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First update, 9/22
Update: The Wall Street Journal is carrying this article about Ashcroft's new memo to federal prosecutors:

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a move that would further centralize prosecutorial power to Justice Department headquarters, is considering an order to U.S. attorneys to cut back significantly on plea bargaining with criminal defendants. The order, which could be issued as early as today, would require federal prosecutors to "charge and pursue the facts" of the cases they file, and notes that charges shouldn't be filed simply to exert leverage to induce a plea.

The development represents the latest in a series of recent policy changes that Justice Department officials say will bring more consistency to departmental decision making, but which effectively have shifted responsibility to headquarters or placed it in the hands of fewer prosecutors. Mr. Ashcroft has overridden several prosecutors on seeking the death penalty in federal capital cases. In July, he ordered prosecutors to begin appealing all cases in which judges handed down sentences against the wishes of prosecutors when they are more lenient than federal guidelines support.

Joel Steinberg. Hedda Nessbaum. Six year old Lisa Steinberg. Do you remember them? If not, go here.

Steinberg, a prominent New York attorney, is soon to be paroled after serving 17 years in prison for killing Lisa. And, according to his attorney, he has a job waiting upon his release. He will be a television producer for "New York Confidential." It's a local cable interview show. What are Steinberg's credentials for the job?

"He has contacts in prison," [his lawyer] said, explaining that Steinberg, a disbarred lawyer, knows some of the state's most notorious criminals. "He knows how to go into a prison and get a story."

[comments now closed]

The Chicago Jewish News calls upon its readers to urge the Chicago city council to pass a resolution opposing the Patriot Act.

Since its passage, the act has severely curtailed the constitutional rights of American citizens and non- citizens alike. Several members of the Chicago City Council have introduced a resolution supporting Chicago's immigrant population and condemning the excesses of the act. Jews, as people who throughout history have understood the need to protect those who are not yet citizens, should vigorously support this resolution by urging their aldermen to vote for the resolution when it comes up for a vote on Oct. 1.

The article details the most objectionable provisions of the act, and continues with:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer denounced mandatory minimum sentences yesterday during a talk in Boston.

Mandatory minimum sentences passed by Congress are "bad policy" because they are unfair in some cases, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Sunday. Breyer, who was a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in the 1980s, said there must be flexibility in sentencing to make room for exceptional cases.

In a speech to about 550 people at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Breyer said Congress had passed statutes with "no room for flexibility on the downside." "That is not a helpful thing to do," he said. "It's not going to advance the cause of law enforcement in my opinion, and it's going to set back the cause of fairness in sentencing."

Justice Kennedy criticized mandatory minimums at the ABA meeting in August. Breyer says Chief Justice Rehnquist "and others" shares his view.

Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff and others have banded together to bring you the Blogburst index:

Today a group of progressive Texas bloggers are all posting on the subject "What Texas Democrats Should Do Next". [The link above] is a link to everyone's post for today's blogburst, which will be updated through the day as they come in. Please take the time to visit these links and see what a diverse group of people think needs to be done to make the Democrats more effective in Texas.

Good people, good thoughts. Go give them a read.

The Associated Press reports that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has been spilling his guts to U.S. interrogators from his overseas place of detention.

According to the article,

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has told U.S. investigators that he first began plotting the 2001 attacks with terrorist leader Usama bin Laden back in 1996. After examining interregation reports, The Associated Press learned that Mohammed said the original scheme involved the hijacking of five commercial airliners on both U.S. coasts. He said the plan was changed several times in the five years between its conception and execution. Mohammed also divulged that, in its final stages, the hijacking plot called for as many as 22 terrorists and four planes in a first wave, followed by a second wave of suicide hijackings that were to be aided possibly by Al Qaeda (search) allies in southeast Asia, according to the reports.

....Mohammed said al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were among the four original operatives bin Laden assigned to him for the plot, a significant revelation because those were the only two hijackers whom U.S. authorities were frantically seeking for terrorist ties in the final days before Sept. 11.

What we want to know is if Mohammed supports Moussaoui's claim that Moussaoui was not involved in 9/11. While the article gives the details of Mohammed's statements of everyone else's involvement, as to Moussoui, it only reports:

In doing some research on Wesley Clark's position on criminal justice issues, we came across this heartening quote:

I'm concerned about the lock-up policy, the 3-strikes policy, putting people in jails and the way we've treated people in prison. We've got to look seriously at the American penal system and what it does when it returns people.to the streets." Source: WBUR Public Radio interview Jun 19, 2003

The Sacramento Bee begins an important series today on the terror war's effect on civil liberties. Arthur at Light of Reason has a full analysis of today's article. This is definitely a series to follow this week.

Former '60s-era activist Angela Davis, now a California professor, spoke to a crowd of 1,000 Friday at a Florida university. Another 1,000 were turned away due to space limitations. She called for an end to the American prison system, saying it is a vestige of slavery. Davis says reform isn't enough, abolition of the system is the only answer.

''Slavery has not yet been completely abolished,'' she said. Prisons, she said, are ``one of the institutions in whose structure racism has learned to hide.'' Davis said that capital punishment and imprisonment were practices of the slave era that endured even after slavery itself was abolished.

''Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America,'' she said. ``Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.'' She pointed out that in Virginia, before the end of slavery, there was only one crime for which a white person could be executed. But there were 66 crimes for which a slave could be executed.

What should take the place of the prison system? Davis says the answer is education.

Davis said the path into prisons begins for many black and Latino youths in the violence that still permeates many inner-city schools, and she said that's where reform needs to begin. ''Education can be seen as the most compelling alternative to imprisonment. Unless current structures of violence are eliminated from poor schools, these schools will remain the major conduits to youth prison and then to adult prison,'' she said.

Davis is a tenured professor and chair of the Women's Studies Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. For those of you too young to remember her history, read on:

There can be no question that President Bush said Iraq's involvement with the 9/11 attacks justified our going to war. Here is Bush's Presidential Letter to Congress, dated March 18, 2003, available on the White House Web site, detailing why war against Iraq is justified. In case it is removed from the website, here's what it says:

Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

[link via What Really Happened]

New York prosecutors are seeking fewer executions--recognizing that enthusiasm for the death penalty is waning.

Among the reasons, according to one D.A.:

...prosecutors had come to understand that the suffering of murder victims' relatives is often prolonged in death-penalty cases because of the years of legal warfare. He said prosecutors were also keenly aware of the drain on their time and energy and the cost to the state.

"Particularly at a time of fiscal crisis," Mr. Brown said, "it is very difficult to justify taking experienced prosecutors away from handling other violent felonies."

The trend in New York is being mirrored around the country.

Across the country, other state prosecutors appear to be seeking the death penalty less often than they did in the 1990's, said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that says it is critical of the way the death penalty is carried out but takes no position on whether capital punishment should be permitted. Mr. Dieter said that evidence in Ohio, California, North Carolina and other states showed that state prosecutors have been seeking death less often.

"There is definitely a trend in other states, and the time line is very much the same" as it is in New York, with state prosecutors filing sharply fewer death penalty cases than they did in the late 1990's, Mr. Dieter said.

On the other side, behind the curve as always, is Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has directed his federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty more often--even when they recommended against it.

Update: From Saturday's Boston Globe article on death penalty opponents blasting Ashcroft for trying to nationalize the death penalty: