Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, has granted pardons to 35 defendants caught up in the bogus Tulia, Texas drug sting. Perry said discredited undercover cop Tom Coleman was a big factor in his decision.

Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer in Amarillo who represents many of the people pardoned yesterday, said indiscriminate spending in the war on drugs was to blame for the debacle in Tulia. He was especially critical of the Texas Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force, a federally financed consortium of 26 Texas counties based in Amarillo.

"The government agency that caused the Tulia fiasco was the task force," Mr. Blackburn said. "They were the group that hired Coleman. They were that group that allegedly supervised Coleman. We believe it was this group that encouraged him to make the largest number of cases using whatever methods he chose. The more productive he appeared to be, the more funding money they could get."

The pardons will allow those receiving them to sue for damages. Most have settled with local officials for $250,000, but they remain free to sue the task force that employed Coleman.

Coleman is white. 39 of the 46 defendants were black. Here are some details about Coleman and his conduct:

Canada has arrested 19 people, mostly Pakistani students and refugees, in a terror probe.

It sounds like Canada is taking a cue from the U.S. While a few of the 19 are being held for immigration violations, most have been detained without any charges.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the federal government can detain without charges any landed immigrant or foreign national who is considered to be a threat to national security.

A defense lawyer for two of the men had this to say:

All 19 of them, not just my two clients, are being held on such flimsy evidence that if it was presented in a court of law it would be found as a joke," lawyer Mohammed Syed said last night. "

Damm Foreigner has a lot more of the case details, as well as these thoughts:

Fox News was denied a preliminary injunction today that would have required Franken to remove the words "fair and balanced" from his book title.

State Supreme Court judge Denny Chin ruled that the title was a parody with little likelihood of confusing consumers. "This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally," Chin said. A spokesman for Fox said the network is considering its legal options. Floyd Abrams, who represented defendants Franken and Penguin Books, said he may file a motion to dismiss. "This is a complaint that never should have been filed," Abrams said.

Here's more.

A judicial ethics panel has suspended Chief Justice Roy Moore due to his refusal to comply with a court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument.

Moore was automatically suspended with pay when the nine-member Judicial Inquiry Commission referred the ethics complaint against Moore to the Court of the Judiciary, which holds trial-like proceedings and can discipline and remove judges.

The Court of the Judiciary, currently made up of four judges, three lawyers and two non-lawyers, has handled numerous judicial ethics cases. The ethics complaint was filed by Stephen Glassroth, the Birmingham lawyer who filed the initial suit. His reaction to the suspension:

"I respect whatever it is that they do," he said.

Glassroth is a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL.)

There's a growing list of Hollywood celebrities who are vocalizing their opposition to Arnold:

Cybil Shepherd, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Warren Beatty, Susan Sarandon, Al Franken, Ed Asner, Carrie Fisher, Mike Farrell and Rob Reiner are among them.

In other recall news, Sen. Diane Feinstein says she is so opposed to the recall that she will not vote for a replacement candidate if the recall passes.

Sky News reports that two U.S. soldiers have been captured by Islamic forces:

The Pentagon is looking into claims that two US troops - one a woman - have been captured by Islamic forces in Iraq. A Lebanese TV station reported that the group, calling itself Fukat al-Madina al-Munawara, or Medina Faction, had captured the pair during a shootout. LBCI showed what it said was photocopies of the soldiers' military identity cards.

Developing....link via Atrios.

Update: The Pentagon says the male soldier has been accounted for and the report is untrue. No news yet on the female soldier.

Yesterday the feds decided not to bring charges against the cops and prosecutors in Chicago's infamous Ford Heights case. An exhaustive state report by Cooks County was released that clears them of deliberate wrongdoing. While this may wrap up the Ford Heights case, it is apparent that reviews must be made in every case of wrongful conviction. Only by knowing what went wrong inside the system, can we figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

Dennis Williams, Verneal Jimerson, Kenneth Adams and Willie Raines were all in their 20s when they were wrongfully convicted of the gang rape and double murder of Carol Schmal and Lawrence Lionberg.

Their freedom came with the aid of a Northwestern University journalism professor and his class who uncovered new evidence. The evidence included written confessions from two of the three other men who were charged with the murders in July 1996.

The four wrongfully convicted men won a $36 million settlement in 1999--the largest of its kind in U.S. history. The 348 page Cook County report says there was insufficient evidence to prove the cops or prosecutors intentionally lied to convict the men.

Asked today what were the biggest flaws in the prosecutors' case agains the original defendants, Appellate Court Justice Gino DiVito, who conducted the 4-year study, cited the "tunnel vision" of investigators.

Say hello to Capital Defense Weekly. Now in blog format, the site has been covering death penalty legal decisions since 1997.

From an editorial in today's New York Times, Injustice in Guantánamo:

The Bush administration has already denied each of the Guantánamo detainees one basic right guaranteed in the civilian justice system: a speedy trial. Now it appears determined to deny many more. Before these prosecutions go any further, the administration should overhaul its procedures until it has a system capable of exonerating the innocent, and of showing a skeptical world that those who are convicted are in fact guilty.

On August 2, 2003, the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) passed a resolution regarding lawyers' participation in the tribunals. We just received the full text today:

WHEREBY a Military Order of November 13, 2001, “Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism,” 66 F.R. 57833 (Nov. 16, 2001), and its implementing instructions issued April 30, 2003, defined the proceedings for representing the accused in Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay;

WHEREBY the Military Commission Instructions impose severe limitations on defense counsel and deny due process and attorney-client confidentiality and privilege;

WHEREBY such limitations make it impossible for counsel to provide adequate or ethical representation, and representation before such a commission would make it necessary for a criminal defense attorney to contract away his or her client’s rights, including the right to zealous advocacy;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that NACDL deems it unethical for a criminal defense lawyer to represent a person accused before these military commissions;

Is Attorney General John Ashcroft stepping over the line? In a memo to the 93 U.S. Attorneys in the country, Guy A. Lewis, director of the executive office for United States Attorneys, urges them to lobby Congress to keep funding "sneak and peek" searches.

The federal Anti-Lobbying Act generally prohibits government employees from lobbying for or against legislation. Ashcroft's spokesman says the 93 U.S. Attorneys are exempt because they are political appointees.

In addition to meeting with local House members, the memo instructs the 93 chief federal prosecutors to hold community meetings to press the virtues of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism legislation that passed overwhelmingly weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and gave the government significant new powers to conduct searches and surveillance in terrorism investigations.

Congressman John Conyers (D-Mi) has already fired off a letter to Ashcroft:

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told Mr. Ashcroft in a letter that he should either "desist from further speaking engagements" or explain why they do not violate restrictions on political activities by government officials.

Mr. Conyers said that the speeches in defense of the USA Patriot Act, as the antiterrorism law is known, appeared to conflict with Congressional restrictions preventing the use of Justice Department money for "publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by Congress." He said they might also violate the Anti-Lobbying Act and its restrictions on grass-roots lobbying on legislative matters.

'Flood the Zone' Friday is here. Do your part. Anyone But Bush in 2004.

Natasha of Pacific Views attended a public panel sponsored by Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA) in Shoreline, WA, on the subject of the possible mishandling of the intelligence information that was used to lead America to war. Great quotes, and great reporting.

Eric at Hamster has Arianna's reply to Susan Estrich:

I assumed we were long past the argument over whether you could be a woman, a leader and a mother without having the powers that be shaking their heads and pulling out the slime. This kind of dirty politics is one reason more than 13 million Californians didn't vote in the last election. People are sick and tired of campaigns as demolition derbies, with candidates -- and their designated hatchet men and women -- attacking each other until there is only one candidate left standing.

Philadelphia bloggers make the Inquirer.

Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review takes off on Ashcroft, and his dog and pony show to garner support for the Patriot Act.

Jesse of Pandagon has the latest on Bush's continued ratings slide, as measured by this new Zogby poll.

Matt Yglesias sends us over to the Clark Sphere for the daily meme.

Skippy details the unfair treatment accorded protesters at the Bush appearance in Portland.

Oliver Willis quotes the Constitution on the Alabama Ten Commandments Case....we agree, it seems simple to us, too. We're just not suprised the "homegrown fundamentalists" don't accept it. It's because they don't want to.