Britain has announced that it has convinced the Bush Administration to suspend the military trials of 2 British subjects.

White House statement issued from President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, said Washington had suspended proceedings against the two Britons and that no proceedings would be started against any Australian nationals before consultations with Canberra.

Campaigners urged Britain's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to take a firm line.

"No lawyer can possibly concede that the military tribunal can be a solution when the Commander in Chief has prejudiced the tribunal by his remarks in front of mass television," said Stephen Jakobi of Fair Trials Abroad.

Bush said at a news conference on Sunday: "The only thing that I know for certain is that these are bad people."

In other detainee related news, 37 prisoners at Guantanamo have been released.

Yes, we know we've written a lot on the Kobe Bryant case. But we think it is a prime example of how politics gets mixed up in the criminal justice system, which is what TalkLeft is all about. You've got a rural county with limited resources, top flight defense attorneys, a prominent defendant with virtually unlimited resources.

The DA is going to announce his decision at 5pm EST. Here are the possible options as we see them. For those who are interested, we'll be discussing it tonight on the O'Reilly Factor at 8 pm EST (6pm MT); Saturday night at 10 pm EST on Geraldo Rivera At Large, Sunday on Fox News Live at 2:35 pm EST. For those of you in Colorado, tune in Saturday at 1:00 pm MT to KNRC Talk Radio where we'll be discussing the case for the full hour in the context of how justice differs for the rich and poor.

We've written about many other substantive issues today for those of you who aren't interested in the Kobe Bryant case. We're gone for the rest of the day as our best friend is getting married tonight. Politics, crime and weblogs will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Instpundit and Law Professor Glenn Reyolds has some advice for the Democrats. Some of his suggestions are well-taken. The Democrats need a message other than Bush-bashing, and a platform. Glenn suggests, among other things, lowering the drinking age to 18 to catch the younger voters.

We have another suggestion. Once they've paid their debt to society, allow those with felony convictions to vote. Consider this from an op-ed today in the Los Angeles Times by Christopher Uggen, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, and Jeff Manza, an associate professor of sociology and political science at Northwestern University:

Some form of felon disenfranchisement exists in 48 of the 50 states. Only two — Maine and Vermont — allow all people convicted of a felony to vote, including those in prison. At the other extreme, 11 states disenfranchise some or all felons indefinitely.

In many states, these laws were the product of explicit efforts to disenfranchise black voters after the Civil War. And even today, states with higher proportions of African Americans in their prison systems are far more likely to have strict laws disenfranchising felons.

The net effect — intentional or unintentional — is to dilute African American voting strength. And because African Americans vote disproportionately for Democrats, an issue that affects African Americans is an issue that affects the Democratic Party.

Here's more on why civilian lawyers are reluctant to participate in the Administration's planned military tribunals.

The military is detaining nearly 700 people with alleged ties to the Taliban, al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, primarily at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Some lawyers are concluding that it may not be practical–or even ethical–for them to represent defendants before the military commissions because of the limitations imposed by the rules. "These restrictions in essence eviscerate the right of defendants to civilian counsel," says David P. Sheldon, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has been practicing military law for more than a decade.

Having only limited participation by civilian defense lawyers could be bad for the overall process, as well as specific defendants, says Neal R. Sonnett of Miami, who chairs the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants. "The inclusion of competent civilian defense counsel would go a long way to helping add credibility to these courts," he says.

Instapundit reports that Sen. Joe Biden is backing off his own legislation, the ill-conceived Rave Act. Smart move, if he intends to run for President (or secure the VP spot.)

Editor and Publisher charges the media is underplaying the death of American troops in Iraq.

According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States. Nevertheless, the media continues to report the much lower figure of 33 as if those are the only deaths that count.

Check the numbers at Iraq Civilian Casualty Count.

Attorney General John Ashcroft is pushing the federal death penalty on Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico law doesn't allow for the death penalty and the people there are justifiably angry. Elaine Cassell of Civil Liberties Watch has more.

It seems as if Attorney General John Ashcroft never met a constitution he liked. His contempt for the US Constitution is the main theme of this website. But the AG does not favor one constitution over another with his contempt, if Puerto Rico is an example.

The Puerto Rican constitution bans the death penalty. Yet, Ashcroft and his prosecutors are seeking the ultimate punishment against men accused of kidnapping and murder and Puerto Ricans are not happy.

Our coverage of the Puerto Rico case is here and here.

How many Richard Danzigers or Gary Lamars will it take before Congress gets the message? DNA testing protects the innocent and identifies the guilty.

Hearings were held yesterday on the Innocence Protection Act. Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School (co-founded by Neufeld and Barry Scheck) testified, pointing out:

• Passage of the Innocence Protection Act will double the number of prisoners cleared each year by DNA evidence.

• DNA testing varies widely state-to-state, and some prosecutors actively resist efforts to reopen old cases to new science.

• At least 132 Americans, twelve of them on death row, have been exonerated since DNA testing began. Last year, 20 people were exonerated based on DNA.

The Justice Department is resisting the Innocence Protection Act, apparently fearful of a deluge of testing requests. Nonsense. As Neufeld points out,

"...most of the people in prison are guilty ... they know they're guilty and they don't want to go near the DNA test."

For more on the Innocence Protection Act, what it provides, its history and why it's needed, go here. Read this letter from cops and prosecutors supporting the Act. We hope you will contact your elected officials in Congress and tell them to pass the IPA--no innocent person should be kept in jail when available evidence could prove their innocence.

Update: Ed Still of the excellent VoteLaw has more, concluding:

My hypothesis is that Bill Pryor was close-mouthed about his fundraising for [Republican Attorney General's Association] RAGA because it violated state law and his own office's interpretation of that law. Documents I have not seen and skillful cross-examination of Pryor and others may prove the hypothesis.

**************

The Senate was scheduled to vote Thursday on the confirmation of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It has been delayed again, this time due to Democrats' concerns about his answers to fundraising questions:

Mr. Pryor's nomination was set for a vote today but was postponed after the Democrats raised a new issue that has little to do with his conservative views. They say Mr. Pryor may have been untruthful in answers to the committee about his role in soliciting political donations from tobacco, drug, energy and banking corporations that are often investigated by states and their attorneys general.

Attorneys for a group of Hispanic special agents are accusing U.S. Customs officials of destroying evidence to bolster the government’s position in a pending class-action discrimination lawsuit.

The charges are raised in recent pleadings in the case, which is pending in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The class-action litigation alleges that the government has engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination against its Hispanic Customs agents nationwide.

Westword has a very interesting article about the abuses resulting from the Air Force Academy's Honor Code. If you're short on time, journalist Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence provides this summary.

Illinois Governor Rod Blajnovich will sign legislation calling for the mandatory taping of police interrogations. However, he doubts that reforms alone can fix Illinois's broken death penalty system. We welcome his remarks:

Even though he plans to sign the legislation, and while he reviews a more comprehensive death-penalty overhaul, Blagojevich said he was "not so sure" that a series of reforms "will make me feel comfortable that the death penalty can be implemented in Illinois without being prone to a mistake."

"As someone who supports the death penalty and as someone who would like to see the death penalty back in place in the right kind of cases, putting that aside, under no circumstances could I ever think about [an execution] unless I felt that we had reformed the system in such a way where we're not prone to making the kind of mistakes that were made in the past," Blagojevich said. "And I just don't sense we're anywhere near being at a point where that would be the case."

Blagojevich has previously said he would maintain the moratorium on capital punishment imposed by his predecessor, George Ryan, in 2000. In one of his final acts as governor in January, Ryan commuted the death sentences of 164 people on Death Row, meaning Blagojevich would be unlikely to face a decision on executions anytime soon.

Blagojevich is also concerned about racial profiling. also will sign a law

[he] also said he will sign a measure mandating law-enforcement training on racial profiling and requiring local police to record data in traffic stops so that it can be collected and analyzed to determine whether people are being pulled over based solely on their race....His signature would add Illinois to a list of more than 30 states that have adopted laws or have been ordered by the courts through consent decrees to require special training for police and monitoring of traffic stops.

Also to his credit, Blagojevich intends to sign into law a bill that "would require expunging of arrest records of people later found to be innocent."

The measure also creates a program to provide information to individuals who may be eligible to have their records cleared or sealed. It also provides for the automatic sealing of arrest and misdemeanor conviction records of people who have not had a subsequent conviction within three years.

We hope some other Governors take note and follow Blagojevich's lead.