Washington may be trying to ignore Westar, but it's still news in Kansas, as the public watchdog group Public Citizen, founded by Ralph Nader, seeks the release of more internal documents pertaining to the company's campaign contributions to determine if they were made with the intent of seeking to influence federal legislation.

On an unrelated note, check out Garrison Keller's new song, Where are All the Democrats, sung to the tune of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone."

Lyrics include

- Where are all the journalists? (are they having too much fun, embedded down in Washington?)

- Where are all the weapons of -- mass destruction?

- Where are the Republicans? (We're happy in the GOP, where the food and drinks are free.)

[link via Conclusive Evidence]

"Informants are often key in federal cases --but beware. 'You hold on to a source the way you hold on to a snake,' one FBI agent says."

The LA Times examines what happens when sources go bad.

The Judge presiding over the case of accused sniper suspect John Lee Malvo has granted a defense request for change of venue. The trial will be held in Chesapeake , 200 miles to the south.

The Judge found that the paramount issue was the victimization of the community in Fairfax County and the Washington, DC area--not the prejudicial publicity.

Update: Here's the opinion.

The mainstream media continues to assess the effect of Howard Dean's successful second quarter fundraising effort. The Washington Post reports on what advisors to the other candidates have to say:

Advisers to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) long have assumed those two candidates would face each other in the showdown for the nomination, in part because Gephardt is favored to win the Iowa caucuses and Kerry is favored in the New Hampshire primary. Not surprisingly, those Kerry and Gephardt advisers now see Dean as a bigger threat to the other.

Gephardt adviser Steve Elmendorf said Dean is now a threat to finish ahead of Kerry in Iowa and defeat him in New Hampshire. "There's a greater likelihood of that happening now than there was two weeks ago," he said.
Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan disagreed, arguing that Dean's rise has come at Gephardt's expense. "The race is turning into essentially a Kerry-Dean race," he said. "We're very comfortable with that prospect."

Three other Democrats may face an even larger problem because of Dean's success. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) leads the Democrats in many national polls, but has not developed a significant following in Iowa or New Hampshire and now trails Dean in fundraising. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) raised $7.4 million in the first quarter but raised about $5 million in the second quarter, and has yet to show the kind of grass-roots support Dean has demonstrated. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) got a late start and will find the field even more crowded with Dean in the top tier.

We think Lieberman and Gephardt can kiss the race goodbye. We put Graham in the same place as Kuchinich, which is only one step above Mosley-Braun and Sharpton.

We think its down to Kerry, Dean and Edwards for the top spot. Any one of them would be a giant step forward for the country and vast improvement over Bush. We think each of them would be smart to woo Wesley Clark as a VP candidate, and begin to be seen conferring with Gary Hart so as to create speculation that Hart would join the team as Secretary of State. We'd like to see Kucinich be appointed Drug Czar because he would advocate for the legalization of medical marijuana and end the War on Drugs fiasco. That leaves Attorney General....any suggestions?

The Bush Administration has decided to take all its marbles and go home. It has suspended military aid to 35 countries who won't agree to give U.S.citizens immunity before the International Criminal Court.

When India and the U.S. signed a non-extradition pact last year, promising each other not to turn over citizens to any third party or international tribunal, we had this to say:

This sounds like a purely manipulative gesture to try and defeat the power of the International Criminal Court--had we signed on to the Rome Statute, we'd be in there with the other 139 countries right now, making up the rules. Instead we're left out. The Court will go on without us or our input. We were ambivalent about the ICC in the beginning, but last year we had a chance to review the draft guidelines under consideration, and heard a panel of military and international law professors and experts dissect and debate it, and we changed our mind. Here is the list of countries that are part of the Court.

Some historical information on the ICC:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on 17 July 1998, when 120 States participating in the "United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court" adopted the Statute. This is the first ever permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to promote the rule of law and ensure that the gravest international crimes do not go unpunished.

Even though the U.S. is not a party to the court, American criminal defense lawyers have been volunteering their time and paying their own expenses to defend those accused in the court. The International Criminal Bar was formed in July, 2002 in Montreal. In attendance were 350 lawyers from 48 countries and 68 international, regional, and national bars and numerous non-governmental organizations from around the world. Here are some reasons we should be a party to the International Criminal Court.

Bush should remember that what goes around comes around.

[Ed. Corrected after reviewing reader comment below.]

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court's ruling ordering the removal of a monument to the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building. The monument was the size of a washing machine, made of granite and weighs 2 1/2 tons.

Both courts found that the monument violated the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state.

Update: The opinion is here. For commentary, visit Sam Heldman and People for the Amercian Way.

Cornell's Legal Information Institute has created a page with highlights of the Supreme Court's 2002-2003 term. The site contains rich background and links to access briefs, oral argument, commentary, decisions of the lower courts, and more on twenty-four key opinions.

Public Citizen is all over the Westar Energy Bribery Scandal . They have asked for an investigation and filed complaints with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and with the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. You can read both on their website.

Yesterday, Public Citizen sent this letter to the Westar Board of Directors seeking "all internal communications relating to the company’s efforts to win an exemption from the Investment Company Act in exchange for more than $50,000 in campaign contributions between May and October 2002."

Hope I die before I get old ...(the Who):

This excellent article in today's Tennessean highlights the growing problems facing states due to aging inmate populations and the cost of caring for them.

With all the double-digit and life sentences being handed out since the 1990's as a result of harsher sentencing laws, the question had to arise: What do we do with these prisoners once they turn 70, are no longer violent, and need increased medical care:

Every year, more inmates need treatment for hypertension, arthritis, Alzheimer's and emphysema and require physical therapy and hospice care. Many old or feeble inmates also must be housed separately because they can become targets for younger, tougher prisoners. The 50-plus set is considered ''senior'' by prison standards because hard lifestyles before prison often cause inmates to age about 10 years faster, experts say.

Kudos to Tennessee, which is "looking to lead the nation in elder-care corrections."

Officials are tracking details of the 50-plus inmates and working on plans to handle physical disabilities, life skill issues, elderly support groups and hospice care....

Tennessee is one of 16 states with facilities for frail and aging inmates, and it was among the first to establish them. Many of the state's healthier senior inmates are at the Wayne County Boot Camp. The DeBerry Special Needs Facility oversees the sickest prisoners, many of them seniors. DeBerry has 800 beds to house prisoners whose medical problems range from amputation to dementia to cancer.

Court rulings recognize that inmates deserve all the health-care opportunities of anyone else in the community.

Former Congressman J.C. Watt's older brother has been charged with first degree murder as a result of a shooting outside his restaurant.

He was released on $30,000.00 bail. Question: Who gets a $30k bond on a first degree murder charge? Answer: The politically connected.

Ridiculous law-enforcement news of the day: Police in Wausau, Wisconsin claim they can tell a drugged driver by whether his or her tongue has a green tint to it. This would be funny except that the citizens of Wausau have spent good money on a five week course to train two officers on the test. The officers,

...Bliven and Barnes were selected to train in the five-week course where they learned how a person's appearance, behavior, performance in psychophysical tests, eye exams and vital signs can tell them if they used drugs other than alcohol, such as marijuana, inhalants, stimulants and sedatives.

For example, Bliven and Barnes perform the typical field sobriety tests but also check muscle tone, pupil size, pulse and body temperature to detect any drugs in a person's system. A person using a stimulant will have very tense muscles, while a narcotics user's muscles will be relaxed, they said.

They also inspect a person's mouth and nose for signs of drugs, such as heat bumps or a green tinge on the tongue.

We predict this pseudo-science will never make it into a courtroom.

The Judge in the case of accused sniper suspect John Muhammad has ruled the Virginia terrorism law is constitutional . This is significant because the law provides for the death penalty even if Muhammad was not the "triggerman."

Muhammad's lawyers argued the law was overly vague. The Judge disagreed. We side with the defense, particularly because we don't see how Virginia can seat a jury in the case if everyone in the jury pool is a victim of the crime:

The applicable portion of the terrorism law applies to violent crimes committed with the intent to intimidate the civilian population at large. We think that makes everyone in the civilian population of Virginia a victim, and therefore ineligible to sit on the jury. If Virginia can't seat a jury, they can't try the case and they can't convict.

For reference, § 18.2-31, the Virginia death penalty statute lists thirteen death-penalty eligible offenses. Number 13 is "The willful, deliberate and premeditated killing of any person by another in the commission of or attempted commission of an act of terrorism as defined in § 18.2-46.4."

§ 18.2-46.4. defines an act of terrorism as "an act of violence ... committed with the intent to (i) intimidate the civilian population at large; or (ii) influence the conduct or activities of the government of the United States, a state or locality through intimidation."

In other news from yesterday's hearing, prosecutors said they would likely agree to a request by Muhammad to waive the jury and have the case tried by the Judge, but the defense said it wasn't sure it wanted to waive the jury and has withdrawn the motion. The defense again is pressing its change of venue motion.

The Judge is considering a change of venue--more because of the argument that everyone in the community was victimized than because of prejudicial pre-trial publicity. He said he will likely postpone a ruling until the Judge in the Malvo case has ruled upon a similar request.

Muhammad's lawyers are not happy with lawyers for John Lee Malvo, the other sniper suspect. Malvo's lawyers have gone public with their claim that Malvo was brainwashed by Muhammad.