Jeb Bush must be getting nervous already about getting re-elected. Today he criticized the White House for returning 12 Cubans to Cuba after their boat washed ashore in the U.S. The 600,000 members of the Cuban-American community in Miami are not pleased with President Bush, to say the least. The Cuban-American vote for Bush-Gore in the 2000 election is credited by many with being a determinative factor in that election.

Some months earlier, three men who had hijacked a ferry boat were executed in Cuba. A little background. Since Clinton, the U.S. has had a "wet foot, dry foot" policy with respect to Cubans, and only Cubans. If they make it to land, they get to stay in the U.S. If they get caught in the water, they are returned to Cuba. [Compare this to Haitian policy, where all Haitians are returned, whether they make it ashore or not.]

Several Democratic presidential contenders have sided with the exile groups, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who said the decision was "an abandonment of American values" during a visit to South Florida this week that included a stop in Little Havana here.

In his remarks to The Herald, Governor Bush said: "Despite the good intentions of the administration to negotiate the safety of these folks, that is an oppressive regime and given the environment in Cuba, it's just not right" to send them back. He also hinted that the White House would modify its Cuban policy before the presidential election.

Jill Bratina, a spokeswoman for Governor Bush, reiterated his statement today. She said the governor had not discussed the decision with his brother, but had asked high-ranking officials in the administration to review it. "The governor agrees with the president's policies on Cuba and feels that the president has been a strong advocate for the people of Cuba," she said, but added that "unfortunately, in this instance it was not an appropriate decision."

Update: According to this article appearing July 31 in a Cuban newspaper, the three who were executed were the hijackers of a ferry carrying the asylum-seekers.

Does this remind you of anyone today?

Those who failed to oppose me, who readily agreed with me, accepted all my views, and yielded easily to my opinions, were those who did me the most injury, and were my worst enemies, because, by surrendering to me so easily, they encouraged me to go too far... I was then too powerful for any man, except myself, to injure me. --Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, (1769-1821)

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative and Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana on September 17th (S.F., 8 am). The cases will be heard together. At issue will be the constitutionality of the Controlled Substances Act with regards to non-interstate use of medical marijuana in California. The panel will consist of Justices Reinhardt, Schroeder and Silverman.

Later the same day, a different panel will hear the appeal of the Hemp Industry Association vs. the DEA.

[thanks to Allen St. Pierre of NORML for the heads-up]

Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart was the featured lunchtime speaker Friday at the annual meeting of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL) in Denver. He was introduced by his former campaign manager, criminal defense lawyer Hal Haddon (currently most widely known as Kobe Bryant's defense attorney.) We had the pleasure of sitting next to them during lunch.

When it came time to speak to the assembled group of 450 lawyers, among other things, Sen. Hart spoke about the terrorist threat. As he has said before, he believes the question of the next attack is not one of "if" but "when." He believes it is likely to be one involving biological or chemical weapons, most likely something like smallpox, in a place like Denver, Kansas City or Dallas--in other words, in the heartland and not necessarily in a major city. He also spoke of the need to to balance security and the threat to civil liberties. He said that under Bush, we have placed all decison making authority in the civil liberties arena in the hands of the one man who most shouldn't have it--Attorney General John Ashcroft. As you can imagine, his comment was met by thunderous applause.

As regular readers of this site know, we were an early Hart supporter when he considered running for President earlier this year. We hope still that if the Democrats win in 2004, Hart will be appointed Secretary of State. We asked him some questions during lunch, prior to his speech, such as whether he had a preference for any one of the current candidates. He does not.

While we will support Howard Dean if he gets the nomination, some of Dean's positions on criminal justice issues, particularly the death penalty, concern us. While we now know Dean and some of the other candidates' positions on the death penalty, today we realized we had never asked Sen. Hart directly for his position on the death penalty. So we asked him while sitting at lunch today, again, prior to his speech. His response was: "I'm against it. I've always been against it. I voted against it."

That makes us even sorrier he's not running.

From the Kansas City Star:

One of the year's best country albums celebrates one of country music's longest and darkest traditions: the murder ballad. The album also is tied to one of the most potent political issues in the country -- capital punishment -- so you know it wasn't made in Nashville by commercial country stars. In fact, the album was made by a small label in Chicago and produced by a Welshman, and neither is the least bit worried about a backlash.

"It's all really a cheap one-liner," said Jon Langford, who produced "The Executioner's Last Songs: Vol. 2 and 3" for Bloodshot Records. "You know, death songs against death." A native of Wales and now a resident of Chicago, he began publicly associating himself with the anti-capital punishment issue last year, when Bloodshot released Vol. 1 of "The Executioner's Song," which raised $40,000 for the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project.

In the liner notes to that album, Langford wrote blithely: "Here's a little historical trawling and purging to aid and support the long, civilizing march against the death penalty in this earth's richest land."

....He succeeded in making a great album. Robert Moore has played several "Executioner's" songs on his weekly "Sonic Spectrum" show, broadcast from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturdays on KCUR-FM (89.3).

"It's easily one of the best country albums of the year," Moore said. "It revives a lot of great tunes, and not just the traditional country murder ballads but also some songs like `Gallows Pole,' a ballad that Led Zeppelin covered (on `Led Zeppelin III')."

Attorney General John Ashcroft was denied the ability to seek the death penalty in a trial in Puerto Rico Thursday when the jury acquitted the defendants of all murder charges.

How fitting! Ashcroft picks a case in which he thinks the crime is so bad and the defendants so awful that his intervention is warranted. So while the Puerto Rico Consitution does not allow for the death penalty, Ashcroft says tough, the feds will step in and make you have one. The case is tried to a jury the past few weeks, and after three days of deliberations, the jury finds both defendants not guilty. No conviction, no penalty....no death penalty.

Jurors in a closely watched federal death penalty case in Puerto Rico acquitted the two defendants yesterday, elating many Puerto Ricans who had bitterly opposed the trial and accused the Justice Department of callously betraying their culture and constitution, which outlaws capital punishment.

The jury of seven men and five women cleared the men, Joel Rivera Alejandro and Héctor Óscar Acosta Martínez, of all charges after three days of deliberation. Mr. Alejandro and Mr. Acosta Martínez had been accused of shooting to death and dismembering a grocery store owner in February 1998 after kidnapping him and not receiving the $1 million ransom they demanded. The two men were released from federal custody after the acquittal, while several dozen of the men's relatives wept in the courtroom after the verdicts were read.

This gives us serious concern about Ashcroft and his capital team's ability to assess cases.

The U.S. apparently isn't doing much to protect its Iraqi informers these days. Read this chilling story. Consider that the Administration has just agreed to pay $30 million in reward money to the man who informed on Saddam's two sons. Will he be alive long enough to benefit from it? We wonder how the POW's feel knowing that not only did Bush successfully oppose their receiving any funds at all for their ordeal in Iraq, but the very next day, he gives $30 mil to one Iraqi. There's a moral in here somewhere, we just haven't figured it out yet.

PATRIOTWATCH says it's been a good month for civil liberties and the Administration is on the run.

A survey of recent civil liberties victories includes PATRIOT II receiving body blows as a source tells the L.A. Times that the "original Patriot II proposal is now "dead." Meanwhile, the House voted by an significant majority against a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that permits secret searches known as "Sneak and Peek" searches (Section 213). (309 House members recently voted in favor of the amendment) And the House continues to hit DOJ...Congressional Quarterly reports that the House is calling on Attorney General John Ashcroft to have a senior Justice Department official "assume responsibility for developing appropriate civil rights safeguards specifically related to the war on terrorism."

There's also setbacks to CAPPS II, TIA and finally, John Poindexter. Patriot Watch has all the details.

We've been busy all day with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers--the annual meeting is in Denver this year and it began last night. It's been fun, informative and hectic so far. We'll save our Kobe comments for tv tonight, but here's what else we've noticed going on:

John Poindexter is resigning from the Pentagon over the terrorism futures fiasco:

The Pentagon official who oversaw the development of a plan for the military to operate a terrorist futures-trading market is resigning under pressure, a senior defense official said today.

John M. Poindexter, a retired rear admiral who was President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, is stepping down "in the next few weeks," the official said, following disclosure of a proposal that outraged lawmakers and embarrassed senior Pentagon officials. The plan was to create in essence an online betting parlor that would have rewarded investors who forecast terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.

Still no decision by Arnold as to whether he's running or not running for Governor of California.

Our go-get-'em Attorney General John Ashcroft arrested 240 people today in an alleged Mexican-U.S. drug ring. The code name for the effort: Operation Trifecta.

Joe Lieberman is the latest democratic contender to oppose gay marriage.

The best news of the day: Atrios is back!

The ACLU has announced it will file lawsuits challenging the Patriot Act in Portland, Oregon and Detroit, Michigan. The suit will, among other things, seek to overturn Section 215 of the Patriot Act which grants the FBI greater access to personal and business records under FISA.

Oregon was chosen because Ashcroft has a multi-defendant case pending there that he thinks is solid. One of the defendants is Mike Hawash. Detroit is an area in which the FBI has concentrated its terror war by assigning 50 agents to work with state and local law enforcement agents. The U.S. Attorney has called the war against terror his top priority and has six AUSA's assigned to an anti-terrorism task force.

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Greg at Begging to Differ quotes reports that Carlton Dotson suggested in a jailhouse interview that he shot Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy in self-defense. Greg explains why, under Texas law, Dotson may have a valid defense. The source for the jailhouse interview reference is this Dallas Morning News article.

Former Baylor basketball player Carlton Dotson, charged with murder in the shooting death of teammate Patrick Dennehy, said Wednesday that he felt his friend had betrayed him and suggested that he acted in self defense during a confrontation.

“I thought he was my friend but he betrayed me,’’ Mr. Dotson said in a jailhouse interview with The Dallas Morning News. “If someone points a gun at you and shoots and it doesn’t go off, what would you do? If someone is pointing a gun at you and they start putting more bullets into the gun, what would you do?’’

Greg points out that Dotson may also have an insanity defense:

In a different vein, the article also mentions that Dotson claimed to have been "hearing voices" and may have been anticipating "a spiritual war," so it's possible Dotson may have an insanity defense as well.

Like us, Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, is going to keep his eye on the prison rape legislation, to see if anything substantive comes on it. His MSNBC weblog today contains all the details.