In Chicago, "two former Cook County Jail guards have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Sheriff Michael Sheahan and 12 current or former correctional officers, alleging that a pattern of harassment and threats forced them to resign because they refused to cover up beatings of prisoners at the jail."

At issue will be whether there was a "code of silence" at the jail that mandated the officers not report on other officers who beat the inmates, and whether violation of that code led to "harassment, humiliation and death threats."

Be prepared....this is one of the ugliest, most graphic articles we've seen on inmate beatings.

Seniors with dementia have become a growing problem in the criminal justice system. The Washington Post examines the struggle between recognizing that seniors with dementia and other brain disease need treatment, not prison, and the need of society to be protected from those who cause harm.

People with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of mental deterioration are increasingly getting entangled with law enforcement. That has police, prosecutors, judges, psychiatric workers and caregivers struggling to balance the humane treatment of a vulnerable but volatile segment of the populace against the need to protect the public.

"It's a problem, and a problem that's only going to grow," said Max B. Rothman, executive director of the Center on Aging at Florida International University in Miami. "As the baby boomers age, it's going to become an even bigger problem."

Echoing a long-running debate over the mentally ill and disabled, the matter also is raising thorny issues about how to determine when people in the throes of slow mental decline are no longer culpable for their actions.

...."When they get into the legal system, the system often doesn't know how to handle it," said Donna Cohen, a professor in the Department of Aging and Mental Health at the University of South Florida. "Yes, older people with dementia may do something that's hurtful. But throwing them into a cell . . . is not the way to handle it. It's inhumane."

This is a sad article to read, but please do, because it is an issue we will be hearing far more about as the aging population expands.

According to a new Justice Department report, the prison and jail population has increased to over 2 million people. One of every 143 people in this country are incarcerated.

These are shocking numbers, and the effect is sure to cause even more havoc with state budgets.

Among the findings for the year 2002:

• 2,033,331 people are being held in U.S. prisons and jails, a 3.7% increase over 2001.

• 700 inmates were added every week.

• Black males from 20 to 39 years old accounted for about a third of all sentenced prison inmates.

• More than 10 percent of the country's black male population between the ages of 25 to 29 were in prison, compared to 2.4 percent of Hispanic males and 1.2 percent of white males in the same age group.

• Since 1995, the number of female prisoners has grown 42 percent while the number of male prisoners has increased 27 percent.

• Only half of all state prisoners were serving time for violent crimes.

• Growth in the federal prison system since 1995 mainly reflected more incarcerated drug offenders, accounting for nearly half of the total increase, and immigration offenders, accounting for more than 20 percent of the rise.

When are our elected officials going to realize that the U.S. cannot jail itself out of its criminal justice problems. They need to adopt alternatives to incarceration for non-violent and drug offenders now.

The Justice Policy Institute, which promotes alternatives to prison, said the nation's use of incarceration is rising again at a time when states can least afford it because of budget shortfalls.

"The prison population and budget figures -- taken together -- should be setting off alarm bells in state capitols,'' Jason Ziedenberg, the institute's director of policy and research, said.

"As legislators are struggling to fund education, health care and stave off spending cuts, many are continuing to choose to pay for an expensive justice system that damages communities and does not produce safe, healthy neighborhoods,'' he said in a statement on the government's latest prisoner survey.

Could it get any worse for the kids of Neil and Sharon Bush, brother and sister-in-law of President Bush? Neil and Sharon should be ashamed . Their sniping about each other and parading the dirty details of their divorce in the press is worse than a made- for- tv movie. Get a grip, guys and zip it. We don't care what happened in your lonely mansion. Your tawdry behavior is demeaning to you both. If you don't care about yourselves, give a thought to your three kids, who certainly deserve better.

The New York Times sums up the Zacarias Moussaoui situation perfectly in its Monday editorial:

Allowing the government to deny access to Mr. bin al-Shibh with impunity would set the dangerous precedent that important constitutional rights can be taken away in terrorism cases. It is not at all clear that allowing Mr. Moussaoui to question Mr. bin al-Shibh in carefully monitored circumstances would threaten national security. If the Justice Department is convinced it would, it can adjust the charges against Mr. Moussaoui so Mr. bin al-Shibh's testimony is no longer necessary.

The government has put Judge Brinkema in a bind by suggesting that if it does not like her rulings it will simply transfer Mr. Moussaoui's case to a military tribunal. Tribunals must not become an end run around two centuries of constitutional law. And in any case, it is far from certain that the Supreme Court would allow tribunals to convict people without according them the rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. The war on terrorism has not repealed the Constitution, and Judge Brinkema must ensure that it applies fully in Mr. Moussaoui's case.

Update: Elaine Cassel has more on why the Government is putting up such a ruckus about Moussaoui while not (as yet) transferring him to military custody, including this thought:

The government is counting on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, the very-right leaning review court that is likely to agree with the government, to overrule Brinkema, forcing her to throw out the Constitution as her guidebook whenever the government says it is irrelevant.

Bump and update: Authorities have confirmed that body found is that of missing Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy.

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Waco authorities are confirming that a body has been found southeast of Waco and it may be that of missing Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy:

"We can confirm that there has been a body found, but we have no further information about that at this time," sheriff's Capt. Paul Wash said. "It was in the same general vicinity that other searches have been conducted this week."

Dennehy's parents say that Carlton Dotson, who has been arrested for Dennehy's murder, provided police with three locations where Dennehy's body might be found. Dotson insists he did not confess to killing Dennehy.

We have to admit, other than Hunter Thompson writing for ESPN, who we read religously, we've haven't had much exposure to sports writers. In fact, we've read more of them in the past two weeks than we have in our entire career. Many of them are really, really good.

Our favorite column this week, for reasons that will become clear in a minute, is Hammer Time, by ESPN's Ralph Wiley. His subject is the three women holding the hammer of God over Kobe Bryant: Kobe's wife Vanessa, his lawyer Pam Mackey and, of course, the accuser.

It's Vanessa's world now, God has seen to it, and has given her His Hammer, and that must be some kind of justice. She must've been sincere in her decisions all along. Now her in-laws not only have to back up off her, they have to respect her more than they ever did. This may not lead to a demeanor change on her part, but it could. Just as a joke, to lighten the mood, at one of Kobe's household requests, she could whirl around and say, "What? What did you just say? I know you didn't say that to me. Did you?" Kobe is riding in the whipped cur car, no doubt.

....Hammer No. 2 belongs to Pamela Mackey, Kobe's Colorado lawyer. This is real justice on your ass, you see. At the press conference at the Staples Center, Mackey was already putting on the full-court press, and she didn't look like she was lacking for things to say. She said she doubted there was enough there to even file charges, implying that there was some ulterior motive, no doubt relying on that missing chunk in the timeline between the act itself, and the reporting of the act to authorities. ....

You think what I'm saying is bad? Wait till you hear Pamela Mackey's dulcet tones. This woman is quite persuasive. She is going to make Johnnie Cochran seem like Stuttering John. I wouldn't want to be in her way if I were the Sheriff or the D.A., Woody Harrelson Hurlbert.

Then, he adds a comment from his friend "Superfine:"

My lawyer friend Superfine in L.A. said to me, "I have a very close girlfriend who is a gorgeous black woman kick-ass lawyer in Denver who is killing herself that she did not get the case. She has won tons of sexual assault cases, many in Eagle County; it would have been totally hot if she and I could've handled the case together." But even she said that Mackey was an outstanding lawyer. Hal Haddon, HST's old mouthpiece, may be lead counsel, but it will be Mackey's rep that gets blown up. She's the one on the legal team with the Hammer; she evens all cards. (emphasis supplied)

Superfine is right. She's talking about Lisa Monet Wayne....Lisa and I have practiced in the same office since shortly after she left the Public Defender's Office four years ago. Lisa spent a total of 13 years at the PD's office in Denver, and when she left she was their chief trial deputy. No one can pick a jury or scrutinize forensic evidence like Lisa. Her forte is sexual assault cases. And, she's black, gorgeous and kick-ass. Not to mention, good friends with Pamela Mackey and totally supportive of Pam. As are we all here in the Denver defense community.

It's official. Four U.S. soldiers have been charged with abusing POW's in May at a prison camp in Southeastern Iraq.

No, this isn't an article from 1972, but a new revelation. Ex- Nixon aide Jeb Magruder, who went to prison for his part in the Watergate scandal, is breaking his silence after 30 years.

In a new PBS documentary to be broadcast this coming Wednesday, Magruder says Nixon directed former Attorney General John Mitchell to proceed with the break-in.

Mr. Magruder, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and perjury charges stemming from the break-in and spent seven months in prison, explained his three decades of silence about Nixon's culpability by saying, "Nobody ever asked me a question about that."

John Dean, former White House aide and co-conspirator in the plan, says that while he is surprised by the revelation,

"I have no reason to doubt that it happened as he describes it, but I have never seen a scintilla of evidence that Nixon knew about the plans for the Watergate break-in."

Here's a factoid for you: In all, 25 people served jail terms for the break-in and its cover-up.

New information has come to light about Al Qaeda and its capabilities since the congressional committee finished its 800 page report on intelligence failures and whether 9/11 could have been prevented. As a result, another probe is expected to begin shortly--this time focusing on the Government's responses to the terrorism threats. It will cover both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The bipartisan commission appointed by Congress and President Bush is conducting what participants believe is the most ambitious government investigation in history, looking not only into intelligence failures, as the congressional committee did, but much more broadly at how the U.S. government responded to the terrorist threat.

"There is new information that has come to us, both classified and unclassified, since Congress finished its work," said commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey. The new information, he said, may provide new facts and lead to some recommendations that are different from those of the joint committee, but he declined to reveal specifics.

In addition to looking at the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the commission is examining anti-terrorism policies across the board, including in immigration, border control and aviation.

The commission will also examine the actions of Congress, both in terms of its responses to agency funding requests and in fulfillment of its oversight responsibilities.

How does the Government know when a lawyer defending a terrorist has crossed the line and become a terrorist herself? The short answer is, it doesn't.

Ashcroft's prosecutor thought he had an answer for the Judge in the Lynne Stewart case.

Where,[the Judge] asked at a hearing in June, is the line between constitutionally protected political activity and criminal conduct?

"You know it when you see it, your honor," the prosecutor, Christopher J. Morvillo, replied.

That struck Judge Koeltl as dangerously inadequate. Last week, he threw out two terrorism counts against the lawyer, Lynne Stewart, holding that Justice Potter Stewart's famous remark about pornography — "I know it when I see it" — cannot be the standard for imprisoning people.

With the war on terror, the new darling of the prosecutor's nursery has become the law that prohibits providing material support to terrorists. Ashcroft has brought the charge in just about every case Justice has filed. Think, John Walker Lindh, the Buffalo Six, James Ujaama, the Oregon Six (now seven, with Mike Hawash added a few months ago,) the shoe bomber, Zacarias Moussaoui, the Detroit four, Florida professor Sami Al-Arian....and more.

Judge Koetel is not the first Judge to rule the statute unconsitutionally vague for failing to give notice of what is prohibited. In 2000, 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski wrote that the 1996 version of the law was impermissibly vague, criminalizing political advocacy, in Humanitarian Law Project v Reno .

As Georgetown Law Professor and civil liberties expert David Cole points out in today's New York Times article:

"There is a reason that this statute has been a linchpin in the post-9/11 war on terror. "It does not require the government to prove any actual connection to terrorist conduct but instead allows it to rely on guilty by association."

Eric Freedman, another law professor and expert, says:

"The government's position that one can be locked up for decades for expressions of political positions on the telephone amounts to simple thought control."

The Lynne Stewart decision is a big blow to Ashcroft and the Administration. Professor Cole calls it a "milestone."

"It's the first decision throwing out a criminal indictment," Professor Cole said, "and it's the first case after 9/11 to criticize it."

Our full coverage of the Lynne Stewart case is here. Our protests against the whosale use of the material support statute are here.

Despite rumors to the contrary this past week, Jack Kemp says he will not be candidate for Governor in California if the recall election succeeds. He says he is too old, and while it might have been nice at another point in his life, it would not be right now.