There is an excellent article today by Declan McCullach on recent Congressional actions to stem the privacy invasion caused by the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 legislation. Here are three examples, taken directly from the article.

• By a 309 to 118 vote last Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that would essentially block part of the USA Patriot Act that permitted police to seek a court order that let them surreptitiously enter a home or business. The amendment to the Commerce, Justice and State spending bill would not repeal the "secret search" law but instead would deny federal agencies any funds that could be used in order to take advantage of it.

Bump and Update: The inquest was conducted today and the family now agrees the death was likely a suicide: Relatives recognized the bedsheet as one coming from inside Mr. Golden's house. A video showed Golden's hands were untied and hanging down his sides.

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On May 28, 2003, Ray Golden, a 32 year old black man who was dating the daughter of a white policeman, was found hanging from a tree. Police initially ruled it a suicide. But the man's family and many in the small community of Belle Glade, Floriday say no way. They say Golden's hands were tied behind his back when he was found. The police say otherwise.

After much pressure from the NAACP, the state has agreed to hold an inquest today. However, the NAACP notes that it is not taking a position on the cause of death, only that it wants an investigation,

The case has drawn the attention of state and national NAACP officials, who will monitor the inquest. Immediately after the hearing, Circuit Judge Harold Cohen will rule whether it was a suicide or a suspicious death. He could direct a law enforcement agency to act on his findings.

There has been no documented lynching case in the U.S. for more than 20 years.

An article buried in today's New York Times, Red Ink in States Beginning to Hurt Economic Recovery, contains this gem:

Minnesota even came up with a new one: public defenders are no longer furnished free; defendants now pay $50 or more.

We haven't heard of this before. It is very troubling. Thoughts?

Update: NLADA has more:

Under this new law every public defender client in Minnesota -- normally allowed counsel free of charge -- will be saddled with a "copay" to be assessed from a rigid schedule. In district court, clients will incur debts of $200 for a felony, $100 for a gross misdemeanor and $50 for a misdemeanor. In juvenile court, clients will incur debts of $100 for a juvenile adjudication and $200 for a child protection adjudication. The law imposes this obligation at the time a public defender is appointed, and there is no provision for its waiver in the case of undue financial hardship.

The problem with the law lies in its flat-rate schedule and the removal of the judge's discretion to determine whether the copay would work a manifest financial hardship upon the defendant. Absent a fair, means-tested rate schedule, the public defender copays will really become application fees that many will be unable to pay. These copays will lead some truly indigent people to choose to forgo counsel.

There was already a law on the books that assessed a reasonable $28 copay for public defender clients, and allowed the judge to waive that fee based on indigency or hardship. There is also a current means-tested recoupment statute, allowing for a portion of a person's net income to be repaid. Those statutes are constitutional, and fair. But imposing a flat fee upon a desperate applicant, whether or not he can afford it, degrades that which is fundamental and essential to fair trials in our nation -- the right to counsel.

Does this sound familiar? Here's some advice from Instapundit: break the work into small chunks. Another tack: Turn off the computer or disable the internet connection for an hour, use it to return phone calls and get focused on work. Often the hour will turn into three or four hours, and you'll get caught up. Blogging and surfing are tremendously addictive activities...among our favorite descriptions of blogging are it's like the internet on speed or the difference between skiing and snowboarding. Everyone should take time to crash now and then. If only we would follow our own advice more often.

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.